Ben Westhoff
Latest Stories
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4 years ago | Film and TVEverything you know about Tupac is likely wrong. Casual fans think of him as a loyal left coast soldier in hip-hop’s East Coast/West Coast war, but he actually had tremendous love and admiration for New York, where he was born and largely raised. ...
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5 years ago | Hip-Hop
Editor's note: Twenty years ago today, influential hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur died in Las Vegas after being shot six days earlier. In his new book, Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth...
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6 years ago | Longform
Back in September, on the set of the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, cameras rolled in the parking lot of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium as actors playing prudish protesters hoisted signs ("Crap Rap N.W.A") and ran over a pile of the group...
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6 years ago | Music Festivals
According to organizers, some 45,000 people converged in Michigan this past weekend for the jam-bands-meets-ravers annual festival known as Electric Forest. The weather was perfect, the denizens were impossibly friendly, but the logistics and othe...
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6 years ago | Music Festivals
Since its founding in 2008, Electric Forest has split the difference between jam bands and EDM. On Friday night Skrillex, playing a guitar, joined String Cheese for a medley of Doors' songs “Break on Through (To the Other Side)” and “L.A. Woman.” ...
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6 years ago | Music Festivals
At big music festivals like Electric Forest, totems are critical for meeting up with your friends — just stick 'em in the sky and your people will stop wandering in circles. These decorated placards-on-sticks have become tremendously popular in re...
