Sam Chennault

On the surface, 2005 was another banner year for hip-hop. There were at least a couple of classic albums (Beanie Sigel's The B. Coming and Kanye West's Late Registration) and a slew of great ones (Madlib's The Further Adventures of Lord Quas, Young Jeezy's Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101,...

The Backstreet Boys! Yeah, we know. You're supposed to tell the joke before you get to the punchline. In 2005, though, the Backstreet Boys are both. The mere mention of Orlando's most popular export conjures up images of a pop juggernaut crashing under the weight of its own excess, leaving...

Four Tet's Everything Ecstatic is the latest entry in the annals of kitchen-sink electronica, an ever-expanding genre that cuts and pastes together bits of '60s psych, jazz fusion, hip-hop, folk and all points in between. Devoid of normal song structure or the usual sonic reference points, Ecstatic recalls the cluttered...

Burrowed inside a community center in South Central Los Angeles, a thick crowd of sweat-drenched men vied for space as police in riot gear hovered outside. Spurred by the local media, who had homed in on this particular spot on Leimert Boulevard and perpetuated rumors that it was a mecca...

For hip-hop purists, Common and Kanye West's collaboration on Be is akin to the genre's prodigal son meeting King Midas on his road to redemption. A succession of mid-'90s classics -- 1994's Resurrection and 1997's One Day It'll All Make Sense -- established Common as one of the most talented...