In 2014 we appraise hip-hop on its forthrightness. Take, for example, the two front-runner Grammy-nominated hip-hop albums of 2013: Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid M.A.A.D. City and Macklemore’s The Heist. Both albums, in different ways, present up-front opinions on the word we live in, be it the gangland problems still present in ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American alternative rock group Imagine Dragons and New Zealand singer Lorde were named Billboard Music Award finalists in 12 categories each, followed by singer Justin Timberlake with 11 and pop star Katy Perry with 10, organizers said on Wednesday. Rapper duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis was not far behind with nods in ...

Cole Alexander, guitarist for Atlanta garage-rock mainstays the Black Lips, recently took part in “Hate Song,” an A.V. Club interview series in which various prominent types talk about songs that they can’t stand. As Pitchfork points out, in his interview, Alexander revealed himself to be a hater of Lorde’...

One of the biggest, silliest stories in recent music memory — the apologetic post-Grammys text that Macklemore sent to Kendrick Lamar, and What It Means For Rap — is almost over. Kendrick has already called Macklemore’s Best Rap Album win “well-deserved,” and in a recent Billboard cover story, Ke...

Yesterday, a Rolling Stone profile of Drake went up online, and in that story, he had some not-that-nice things to say about a number of his peers. Macklemore, Kanye West, Jay Z, and Fabolous all probably feel some type of way about the things that Drizzy had to say. And as soon as the article [...]