Steven Ellison’s legacy far predates his role in Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 landmark album, To Pimp a Butterfly. As Flying Lotus, his glitchy, abstract production has continually pushed hip-hop’s artistic boundaries. In 2006, Los Angeles set a new standard for L.A. beat music, while 2010’s Cosmograma transcended genre boundaries as a nu-jazz space odyssey.…

Kendrick Lamar In addition to ranking music, I am a professional data journalist. I analyze numbers and do math every day for money. So you’d think I could count. But apparently we skipped Feb. 24 for some reason and ran 1974’s column on March 2, which means everything got…

Blood Orange Kyle Kohner’s top 100 list countdown continues with numbers 75 through 51. Catch up with part one first and then dive in. 75. “This Is America” – Childish Gambino Inciting reactionary essays and theorized debates, Childish Gambino creates a piece of music that transcends a contagious chorus.…

Phoebe Bridgers performs at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Nov. 27, 2018. Photo: Chloe Catajan. The end has finally arrived—the end of 2018 that is. That means it’s year-end list time. With great albums comes great songs, and in a year that brought us plenty of great singles,…

It was a long journey, but we’ve made it to the top 10. Before you get upset that I excluded your favorite album, let me first give a shout out to this year’s honorable mentions: The War on Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding, Algiers’ The Underside of Power, Cigarettes After Sex’s self-titled record,…

After a much-ballyhooed delay, Songs of Experience, U2’s 14th studio album, has arrived. And thank the gods of rock and roll: it’s very, very good indeed. I need to sit with an album for a while before ranking it in the pantheon of U2 albums, but some have proclaimed it’s…

President Donald Trump has been hard at work in the past two weeks shouting at world leaders and saving America from Syrian children. As his approval rating sinks, the tension in the country is heating up. We wanted to capture the mood, so we asked some of our staff…

Let’s admit that 2016 was a rough year. But one of the bright spots was great music. Here’s our top 5 music moments of 2016. 1. Hip-hop artists dropped surprise albums The year was full of surprise, especially politically, socially and globally. Music, on the other hand, had some of the best surprises, particularly in…

Wordplay, vulnerably, honest lyrics and aggressive bass lines lace Ab-Soul’s Do What Thou Wilt, creating a record that offers activism and personal reflection. As a member of the Los Angeles supergroup Black Hippy; which features other Top Dawg Entertainment artists like Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q. Ab-Soul has carved…

The year may only be halfway through, but it’s already had a number of quality albums worth a spin. RIFF Magazine‘s Nick DeCicco counts down 10 of his favorite of the year to date: Beyoncé Lemonade April 23 | Columbia 10. The Queen’s sixth studio album stands as her most powerful…