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The Streets of Compton, a new A&E miniseries airing on Thursday, June 9th, will offer viewers a gritty glimpse into the Southern California city.  Narrated by The Game and featuring music from his companion soundtrack, the miniseries will explore how the city notorious for its crime transformed into an artistic nexus that produced some of the most important works of music of the last 50 years.

After being jettisoned into the forefront of American consciousness by NWA, the esteemed rap group recently memorialized in the Hollywood blockbuster Straight Outta Compton, the city of Compton went on to produce a number of other hip hop luminaries such as The Game and Kendrick Lamar.  With its unwavering examination of life in Compton, the minise

Today, June 7th, is Prince's birthday. On what should've been The Artist's 58th birthday, we thought we'd take a look back at what made him such a legend.

Prince Rogers Nelson was born on this day in 1958 to a songwriter father and a jazz singer mother. His father had performed under the stage name Prince Rogers, a name he passed onto his son -- yes, Prince's actual real first name is Prince.

Prince got signed at 17, and not long after he released his first album, For You, which Prince produced, arranged, composed, and also played 27 different instruments on. As evidenced by the outpouring of love that followed news of his death, Prince

Jurassic 5 has released its first new song in nearly a decade, a welcome return from the Los Angeles crew. Titled “Customer Service,” the track was produced by DJ Nu-Mark and features samples of Edwin Birdsong’s “The Spirit Of Do..Do” with all four emcees seamlessly swapping verses over a funky bass line. Despite their long hiatus, Cut Chemist, Soup, Marc 7, Chali 2na, Nu-Mark, and Akil sound like they haven’t missed a beat. After reuniting at Coachella in 2013, they hit the road as a collective once again, something Chali 2na said would “never happen.” Thankfully, J5 isn’t going anywhere any time soon—except on a European tour. They kick off the run July 2 in Ireland and wind up in Loveland, Colorado August 5, t

The Roots successfully kicked off the summer concert season this weekend with their 9th annual "Roots Picnic" event in Philadelphia, but the legendary band isn't taking the rest of the summer off. Instead, The Roots have just announced they're hosting another picnic event, this time in New York City.

The Roots Picnic in Philly featured performances by Usher, DMX, Future, Migos, and Swizz Beats, but it seems like the band isn't showing any hometown bias, as the line-up for their New York Picnic is just as packed with guest stars. Besides performances by The Roots themselves, the event will also feature The Wu-Tang Clan, D'Angelo, Swizz Beats, David Byrne of the Talking Heads, Nile Rodgers, and more. The event will be hosted at NYC's Bryant Park and

RAPstation.com is proud to present the brand new official stream for The Art of Rap, which features the work of some of hip hop's most influential and important artists.

Designed to give fans a taste of what to expect from this year's Art of Rap Festival, The Art of Rap Radio stream features music by legendary rap icons Ice T, Public Enemy, EPMD, Naughty by Nature, Kurtis Blow, MC Lyte, Grandmaster Melle Mel and Scorpio, Mobb Deep, and the festival's very own host, Busy Bee.

Fans interested in seeing these acts perform live should check out the official Art of Rap Festival website for tour dates and locations, including a newly

The Tibetan Buddhist master Chogyam Trungpa once told Allen Ginsberg, “Why don’t you do like the great poets do, like Milarepa?  You’re bored with reading the same poems over and over.  Why don’t you make poems up on the stage?  Why do you need a piece of paper?  Don’t you trust your own mind?”  While this occurred before the advent of rap music, Trungpa was essentially telling Ginsberg to go up on stage and freestyle.  One could reasonably argue that no creative medium requires one to trust their own mind more than freestyle rapping.  Even the briefest moment of hesitation or self-judgment can bring the flow state required for freestyling to a crumbling halt.

A study done in 2012 by Siyuan Liu, a neuroscie