Well, here we go! The official return of The NY Hip Hop Report with Manny Faces to a weekly schedule!
After the incredible response from our first “Special Edition: New York Hip Hop at SXSW Recap” episode, it was clear that this groundbreaking new platform is highly suited to continue to allow Manny to properly document New York’s vast hip-hop musical and cultural landscape.
In this episode, Manny Faces broke down several items of interest from the previous week or so, including recent updates to lawsuits filed by artists who had their work destroyed by the owners of the 5 Pointz building in Queens. Hip hop pioneers including Ralph McDaniels and DMC were congratulated — Uncle Ralph for his work curating hip hop events for the Queens library system, and DMC for being named Grand Marshall for the upcoming National Alliance on Mental Illness walk.
We mentioned new notable releases, including Homeboy Sandman’s Veins, Raekwon’s The Wild, and OSHUN’s new video for “Sango.” Some discussion was had regarding A$AP Ferg / Remy Ma collaboration, which dovetailed into a longer musing over whether or not Remy’s return to hip hop has been one of the genre’s better comeback stories.
Aside from event reviews and previews, the meat and potatoes of the show focused on recent comments by Brooklyn artist Joey Badass, in a recent interview with Hot 97’s Ebro Darden, Peter Rosenberg and Laura Stylez, where the rapper, who just dropped an acclaimed album All Amerikkkan Bada$$, criticized New York radio — and Hot 97 in particular — of turning their back on the city and the youth, a claim we’ve been discussing on this show, and on our sister outlet, Birthplace Magazine, for years.
After that, Manny broke into his “Words I MannyFest” segment, and implored listeners to not rely solely on the major figures and outlets to base their opinions of New York hip hop, that the overall landscape of the region is much more expansive than most understand, has never “fallen off,” and continues to be the most progressive, diverse, historic and forward-thinking place on the planet for hip hop music and culture.
Manny kicked off his “ESSENTIAL New York Hip Hop” segment series with perfect examples, praising the power of the MC cipher, highlighting the two big players in the game, Supreme FAM and Legendary Cyphers.
