We are building a Camden-centric archive of hip-hop music, art, analysis, and storytelling. At this time, our library only exists as an online resource; however, we have plans to open a physical location in the city and increase the scope of content we curate. Our first steps include adding album and artist profiles to this site, a graffiti archive, and more audio/video content. If you’d like to help shape the design of this project or submit content, please contact us.
When able, we pay creators for their submissions to The Muse Collaborative. Funding cycles and needed articles are regularly announced across all our media platforms, and we encourage new and former authors to submit proposals during these periods. Outside of our specific requests, we also encourage authors to submit article/media proposals whenever they’re inspired. While we can’t always guarantee funding, we can always guarantee a publishing platform for the arts.
If you’d like to support the authors and creators who publish on our site, please consider donating.
Album Reviews
When this album was released in 2011, I was only familiar with the cheesy and catchy chorus of Young, Wild & Free, feat. Bruno Mars. While the song was successful as a crossover, Top 40 single, reaching all the way to #7 on the Hot 100 in 2012, it turned me off to all their related endeavors at the time. Photo Source – Billboard Hot 100 I was also uninterested in the album’s companion film because of its heavy focus on weed. Now I’m not completely intolerant to songs focused on getting high: D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar, Rick James’ Mary Jane, and Style P’s Good Times are classics! All these songs share a common thread though, a deep sense of soul. So the expectations set by […]
On a single studio album, two artists split their musical talents to create a sonically pleasing, precise work of art. Two entirely different stories are portrayed in this album by Georgia’s Andre Lauren Benjamin (Andre 3000) and Antwan Andre Patton (Big Boi). Together they make up the South’s one-and-only Outkast. In 2003, after years of success together with five previous studio albums, these musical geniuses released Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below with Arista Records. The album woke its audience and demanded attention; it was an honest, respectful voice from the South—pure hip-hop. According to Big Boi, radio host and Dallas, TX native DJ Greg Street (original article deleted by host site) was the mastermind who proposed Outkast release a double feature, “…actually one album, two CDs basically.” […]
Originally titled Freddy vs. Jason, Friday on Elm Street is a great collaboration between Fabolous and Jadakiss. While I appreciate Jadakiss and Fabolous and knew of this album when on release, it was not on my queue when it dropped because I do not follow either of their careers. Fabolous and Jadakiss have collaborated numerous times before, with tracks like: 2011 – DJ Khaled’s track It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over which also features Mary J. Blige 2012 – Jadakiss’ mixtape Consignment track Respect It with Lloyd Banks 2013 – Fabolous’ The Soul Tape 3 mixtape track The Hope For those unfamiliar with the two artists, Jadakiss and Fabolous were both put on the map by record producers who owned record labels. Jadakiss’ rap career […]
Meta Hop
Black Brilliance and Recognition: Hip Hop, Hurray!
“Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. —Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar œstrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately [sic]; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.” – Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia “…And yet, this is precisely what Gordon argues is the value and insight of Fanon: he fully accepts the definition of himself as pathological as it is imposed by a world that knows itself through that imposition, rather than remaining in a reactive stance that insists […]
Samples are what ignited my interest in the behind-the-scenes world of musical composition. The way vocals and instruments can be arranged to create an evolved sound is so magical. Here’s a list of the producers and soulful samples turned me into a sample aficionado. The Alchemist Picture source – patta.nl (original post deleted as of 11/19/2018) The first song that had me searching for the sampled tune and producer was Jadakiss ft. Style P’s We Gonna Make It. The way the horns build up the strings at the beginning is masterful! I especially love that it samples the bridge of Samuel Jonathan Johnson’s My Music, a riveting climax to an otherwise smooth song. I wouldn’t have come across the original without the sample. Exceptional crate digging! […]