Editor’s Note: Continuing our Friday point/counterpoint series, this week two Plan II students take a look at the recent plans to commercialize green spaces in central Austin. To view the opposing...
On March 31, the new City Council Stealth Dorm ordinances went into effect. As a consequence, for the next two years, the occupancy limit of unrelated individuals in newly built single-family homes in...
After 11 years of war, human rights violations and genocide, the conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur persists. A brief cease-fire brought temporary peace to the area, but 2014 has ushered in a flare-up...
On Monday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Gov. Rick Perry’s choice for UT System chancellor, Kyle Janek, was being considered by the UT System Board of Regents. Janek, who is currently...
Last week, UT alumnus Benjamin McPhaul raised roughly $30,000 to get Ishmael Mohammed Jr. — known to many on campus as “The Wendy’s Guy” for the 13 years he spent working at the...
At The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland two weeks ago, Rick Perry spoke in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, stating, “What I can do as the governor of the second largest state in the...
In the wake of the recent outcry surrounding the NSA’s constitutionally questionable surveillance activities, UTPD revealed its own policy of ID surveillance. According to UTPD spokeswoman Rhonda...
Last month, the UT System Board of Regents accepted KUT’s proposed $6 million acquisition of KXBT, a radio station that currently plays oldies music. At first glance, the acquisition seems like a...
Outside of Kanye West and Jay-Z, rap can be a foreign genre to even the most diehard indie fanatics at South By Southwest. The genre has managed to become one of the most multifaceted and diverse in music,...
If music were represented by places, then Neil Petty, a.k.a. Neiliyo’s, latest EP would be the Montauk Yacht Club meets ’80s South Beach. On Aquinnah, Austin’s self-proclaimed electro-funktionaire...
Editor's Note: The Life & Arts senior staff combed through this year's pop culture and selected the artists, albums, books and movements that they think, in one way or another, helped define...
Editor's note: The following tracks contain explicit lyrics
Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa, Mac & Devin Go to High School
Released Dec. 13
Hip-hop veteran Snoop Dogg and rising rap superstar...
Very little music of worth or at least notoriety has come out of Washington since the heyday of Kurt Cobain and grunge music. In the ’90s, Sir Mix-A-Lot managed to move out of the Seattle scene and...
The inherent nature of the novel is to exist in a realm beyond reality. As members of reality ourselves, we often try to escape into the highly idealized realm of fiction. Small Demons offers an interesting...
Ever since Adidas’ contested and innovative sponsorship of Run DMC in 1986, it has been apparent that the company’s brand is explicitly attempting to permeate hip-hop and urban cultures. The...
With piercing poignancy and unparalleled punchline delivery, Childish Gambino doesn’t occupy a conventional place in rap. That’s because he isn’t from traditional rap origins. After a...
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. is fairly unique in that it has managed to create a dreamy pop, alternative sound, vaguely reminiscent of something that’s very west coast, despite it’s Detroit origin.
It...
Tycho’s west coast-inspired electronic music elicits a grainy, almost detailed image of a beach.
Sacramento native Scott Hansen, who writes and performs electronic music under the moniker Tycho,...
Under The Mistletoe, Justin Bieber’s Christmas album, is first and foremost an attempt to create an exceedingly accessible and marketable Christmas album. Justin Bieber’s music already falls...
The words “Das Racist,” devoid of any connotations created by the band, are just perplexing. “Das” is lighthearted slang. The term “racist” is serious. Those things...
Carter Tanton has managed to carve out a unique niche for himself within music. Despite giving off the appearance of a folk, singer-songwriter acoustic type, his music runs the genre gamut. His debut album,...
“Right now, the highest selling rapper in hip-hop is white. The most discussed up-and-coming rapper is white and female. The most important consumer of rap music is white,” said Phillip T....
Andy Bothwell, who raps under the moniker Astronautalis, is perhaps the most eccentric and intriguing rapper you’ve ever heard of. Honing his skills as an MC on the Jacksonville, Fla., freestyle...
Austin-founded group Jamestown Revival is on its way to becoming a big deal in music. Since the release of Knives and Pipes, Jamestown’s rise has occurred within a relatively meteoric time frame,...
After three years, Houston grime-punk rapper, B L A C K I E All Caps, With Spaces is back sporting a fresh hair cut and a fresh album, True Spirit and Not Giving A Fuck. After ditching his signature B...
At age 33, underground rapper Murs possesses both the composure and collectedness of a nearly jaded veteran and the vitality of a kid fresh to the expansive world of hip-hop. He has his plate full with...
In terms of intellectual insight and emotional depth, Tabi Bonney’s latest album, Summer Years, is a wasteland devoid of both of those things. Summer Years, for the most part, is just a compilation...
Of the next generation of heavily associated hip-hop stoner acts, Odd Future’s Domo Genesis definitely sits at the top the field. Domo’s peers in the field, Curren$y and Wiz Khalifa, have either...
Austin is home to many artists, including extremely talented ones, so it only makes sense that Austin should house the largest collection of copper etchings created by one of contemporary art’s greatest...
The dissonant and awkward style characteristic of Soulja Boy has been met by extremely harsh criticism in hip-hop since the rapper’s breakout hit “Crank Dat.” Album after album, and song...
If Odd Future has a competitor for the title of most controversial, angry rap group, it would be Brooklyn-based alternative rap trio Das Racist. Inflammatory to an extreme, in a clever way, Das Racist...
Chillwave front runner Chaz Bundick, who performs under the pseudonym Toro y Moi, has managed to expand the burgeoning genre again. His new EP, Freaking Out, moves in a direction similar to Toro y Moi’s...
This weekend was the 10th annual Austin City Limits Musical Festival in Zilker Park. Thousands of music fans from across the country and around the world descended on the park for three days of grand performances....
The moment the “Star Wars” theme plays this Friday at Zilker Park will mark the 10th anniversary of the Austin City Limits Music Festival.
The festival has come a long way since its inception...
In the brief moment Kevin Drew, founding member of indie rock band Broken Social Scene, and I spoke on the phone for our Austin City Limits Festival preview coverage, I was taken by his manner —...
Theophilus London has been making a name for himself — his brand has almost taken precedence over his music. He managed to collaborate with Gucci, Cole Haan and Tommy Hilfiger, and meet Kanye West,...
Hip-hop has never been associated with hundreds of kids in mob formation chanting a band’s name on the verge of a violent riot in the streets of a major metropolitan area. In contemporary music history,...
Blakroc
2 | Fall TBD
Blakroc is a collaborative effort between The Black Keys and various rappers they enlist on each record. A teaser for the new album popped up in August and featured a tiny portion...
Nantucket Reds, Sperry Top-Siders, Brooks Brothers shirts and knit v-neck tennis sweaters delicately draped over the shoulders have been the traditional garb of the Northeastern elite who spend their weekends...
“I don’t like you,” Matty Dee said, describing his mentality on life. “No, not you personally,” he clarifies with a sly chuckle. “We’re nasty-ass creatures. We...
Austin, in all its diverse glory, isn’t built on the traditional American apple pie and baseball paradigm, but instead on the bike and art one. It is only fitting that this Thursday, Austin’s...
Five years ago when Girl Talk broke into mainstream success, critics labeled his music a novelty act. Detractors said with certainty that Greg Gillis’s mashup was a gimmick and his popularity...
Ogden Payne came out to Fifth and Baylor streets, spotted us and then led us into an alleyway. In his moments as a tour guide, he kept pausing to interject reassurances of the legitimacy of the place we...
COMMENTARY
The growing trend of music for the preteen generation in recent years, and especially in recent months, has increasingly been placed under tremendous scrutiny. Justin Bieber’s...
A-Trak has risen to prominence as one of the world’s premier turntable DJs since he won the DMC World DJ Championship at the age of 15. As the first DJ to win all three major DJ titles, he eventually...
What does a high octane performer, who conducts wild, bacchanalian dance parties every night to masses of drugged out youths, have in common with a chubby, Fat Joe look-a-like called Khaled, who spends...
Complex magazine reported yesterday morning the alleged location of Earl Sweatshirt, the 17-year-old rapper of the phenom hip-hop group Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Sweatshirt, legally known...
Bass Drum of Death sounds like California, 40 years ago, which in contemporary California terms is swag.
The groups newest lo-fi album, GB City, is reminiscent of a band ripping out hard, fast chord...
Turntablism, the manipulation of sounds through turntables and a DJ mixer, has never been a glorified role within the rap scene. DJs are often required to put in a tremendous amount of work centered...
Despite the Austin music scene’s illustrious history, it has been harboring fundamental flaws that stand to compromise the interests of the artists involved, the core of its reputation, and what...
Four years after the release of the critically acclaimed In Rainbows, Radiohead abruptly released The King of Limbs on Friday after announcing the album’s release only days before.
The King...
Adele represents something truly unique within the realm of female singer-songwriters. Her vocal ability is unparalleled and the staying power of the music she creates is unmatched. For every album...
From even before its release, rapper Jay-Z made it apparent that his new memoir, “Decoded” was going to be an ambitious piece of work through its extremely unique marketing campaign. HiphopDX,...
Doomtree alone is a perplexing word. It creates an image of some sort of ominous plant exuding an aura of foreboding darkness.
When applied to the rap group, the word Doomtree becomes even more...
Kid Cudi’s Man On The Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager plays essentially the same as his debut album, Man On The Moon: The End of The Day. Both are like lucid dreams with dark undertones, with...
Blues has generally maintained a reputation for its spontaneity and improvisational characteristics. Since its inception dating back to the days of bands such as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf,...
Zeale’s third mixtape, Disasterkrft, is littered with an assortment of songs that run the gamut of what occurs within the hip-hop world. This time around, he has tightened things and set the bar...
At midnight on a Tuesday in early October at Mi Casa, a bar on Sixth Street, there is a crowd of people packed in, all in anticipation for Austin-based rapper Zeale’s performance. As soon as he...
