Idolator

One hip-hop album that rarely leaves the top of the pile around here is Organized Konfusion's 1994 classic Stress. Wrapped in an eye-popping Matt "Doo" Reid painting where rappers Prince Po and Pharoahe Monch front like classic Marvel Comics superheroes against a toontown New York skyline that appears to be melting into bubbling lava, Stress rides the skull-cracking jazz and funk samples of early-'90s rap into the menacing (but occasionally playful) sci-fi world on its cover. (As anyone who's lived in Queens knows, portions of it might as well be outer space already.) The title track turns a lowdown two-note acoustic bass sample, eerie piano, and trumpet squeals like dying seals into the darkest funk this side of early Wu-Tang. (Check out the video, beaming in from the era when you could fill up three minutes with guys in puffy jackets mugging for the fish-eye on the corner.) More »

Nah Right has the video for the new Pharaoahe Monch song, "Gun Draws." It's a clip that won't be played on MTV, for any of the following reasons: 1) it features a gun-wielding tyke; 2) it incorporates footage of the JFK assassination, as well as references to last year's Sean Bell shooting in NYC; and 3) it's a music video. More »