Why does everyone keep burying the lede here: The motherfucking RZA is now an Oscar voter.

"Write what you know" is really useless unless immediately followed by, "and, you know, maybe try to learn some more stuff, so you can write about that too."

I once bought a vinyl copy of "Maggot Brain" for a buck at a record swap meet, because I had seen people call it Funkadelic's best album, though I'd never actually listened to it. A day or two later, I put it on at a party in my house, thinking, "hey, it's P-Funk, it's obviously gonna be great party music…" That party…

Well said. It's frustrating to see the narrative devolve into either "Gawker was one of the bravest journalistic outlets we've ever seen — this is a tragedy" or "Gawker was a cruel garbage fire — piss on its grave!" Both of these statements are half-true.

Whatever the merits of this case, at some point someone’s gonna have to really specifically figure out what copyright infringement is and isn’t in music, right? (I know there are specific laws and limitations, but each individual case seems to come down to an “I know it when I hear it” thing.)

My long-disbanded band recorded an album in a professional studio way back when. It wasn't until our guitarist was overdubbing a solo on one of our better songs — one that we'd played live, with minimal variations, dozens and dozens of times — that the engineer pointed out the first few measures were identical to the…

I mean, I certainly stopped relating to any of the themes on that record once I started sophomore year in high school, and I was always put off by "I'm Not a Loser." But compared to, like, a good one-third of the punk songs from that era, it feels pretty damn harmless to me.

I tried with that record. I really did.

Glad to meet a fellow Kelly Rowland truther. We should start the world's least-aggressive fan army: The Rowhive? Kellievers? Rohan?

I saw Destiny's Child play at the Antelope Valley Fair back in 2000. I was staying with my girlfriend's family in Lancaster, CA for the summer, and had gotten free tickets from the local supermarket. There was quite literally nothing else to do in Lancaster, CA, so of course I went. "Independent Women" had just…

"Problematic" has been watered down to the point where it can describe innocently asking someone where they're from. You really have to pull the "horseshit" card here.

But even that doesn't jibe with my experiences. I don't know anyone on a Michael Bay-level of power, but I grew up in LA, knowing various dudes who are hugely good-looking and well-connected and have enviable positions in the entertainment industry which guarantee a pretty healthy supply of women passing through their…

Though I do consider myself a feminist, my baffled reaction to this sort of thing isn’t coming from a place of feminism, but just from a basic-level-heterosexual-dude perspective: Who ARE these guys who look at impossibly attractive women and think, “ugh, boobs slightly too small, cheekbones a few millimeters too low,…

Night Owls is quite good — does a great job deconstructing the tropes of the romantic comedy while still working as a romantic comedy. And she's really what makes that movie work. Big fan.

Was never a big fan of the band, but damned if I don't respect the hell out of someone who genuinely loves making music that much.

Does he have a single verse on Aquemini that doesn't rate either a 9 or a 10 on a 1-10 scale?

I'm not gonna say "Madvillainy" is my favorite album ever, but I'm struggling to think of an album that I've voluntarily listed to more.

That OJ comparison is pretty spot-on.

Mine was Wreckx-n-Effect, "Rumpshaker." In hindsight, I think the only commercially available cassingles in the early 1990s were New Jack Swing jams.

Having certain songs, movies, and TV shows that you adored as a child, and that helped you learn how culture works, how stories are structured, what makes melodies and rhythms infectious, is an extraordinarily valuable thing. In fact, you could even say it's profound. In your own personal aesthetic biography, it…