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How the Home Counties took over UK rap

  • The Huck Long Read
  • Music
  • Fred Garratt-Stanley
  • 9 min read

Analogue Appreciation: Xmunashe

Make Yourself At Home — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. Today, it’s elusive freeform explorer Xmunashe.

  • Music
  • xmunashe

Analogue Appreciation: Wesley Joseph

Forever Ends Someday — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. Today, visual and sonic shapeshifter Wesley Joseph.

  • Music
  • Wesley Joseph

DJ AG has redefined DJing. Festivals are next.

From small streams, mighty rivers flow — The London streamer has democratised an art traditionally hidden away in clubs and basements with his easy-to-access, spontaneous, open platform street performances. With AG Fest lined up for the summer, Oliver Keens speaks to him about staying humble, the importance of community, and his dream to open a care home.

  • Huck 83: Life Is A Journey Issue
  • Oliver Keens

Wu-Tang Clan forever, and ever

The Final Chamber — RZA, the spiritual leader of one of the most important hip hop groups of all time explains why they won’t rest until their legacy is secured.

  • Huck 83: Life Is A Journey Issue
  • Yoh Phillips
Black and white image showing person sitting on concrete pier with city skyline and bridge in background across water.
© Martha Cooper

I Hear Music in the Streets: How New York emerged as a global beacon of culture

From subways to the sky — Seeing the emergence of disco, hip-hop and much more, the city’s streets, rooftops and blocks were incubators of experimentation and parties in the ’70s and ’80s. A new book brings together the work of over 50 photographers who captured its grassroots, underground heyday.

  • Music
  • Miss Rosen
Asian man with moustache sitting in wooden chair against black background, wearing white waistcoat and shorts, tattoos on legs.

“An Asian rapper? It feels like an impossible reality”: Jianbo on doing it for the family

East x South East — As the pandemic drove a wave of ESEA xenophobia, Jianbo realised that he couldn’t pretend to be anything other than himself. Zing Tsjeng sits down with the South London MC – vanguard of a burgeoning creative movement.

  • Huck 82: The Music Issue
  • Zing Tsjeng
Group of young people dancing at nightclub with raised arms, purple and blue lighting, crowded dance floor.

Tension and togetherness at a rare Syrian hip-hop open mic night

Latakia levels — After half a century under a bloody dictatorship, Syria has endured massacres on an unprecedented scale in recent times, fuelled by sectarian conflict. In the port city of Latakia, Haydar Daoud and his friends spend their days making rap music, an art form mostly misunderstood by Syrians, yet an essential therapy for disenchanted youth.

  • Huck 82: The Music Issue
  • Aubin Eymard
Breakdancer performing freeze move on cardboard mat surrounded by crowd of spectators in park setting with trees in background.
© Cathy Campbell

Classic ’80s NYC hip-hop film Wild Style is being remastered

Bronx breaks — Created by Charlie Ahearn, the part-documentary, part-fiction movie captured the genre’s early style and music, as well as its intertwined relationship with breakdance and graffiti culture.

  • Culture
  • Isaac Muk
A person wearing a red bandana and denim jacket, looking directly at the camera.

A new book explores Tupac’s revolutionary politics and activism

Words For My Comrades — Penned by Dean Van Nguyen, the cultural history encompasses interviews with those who knew the rapper well, while exploring his parents’ anti-capitalist influence.

  • Activism
  • Isaac Muk
A person wearing a black cap and holding a sign that says "What made me"

Tony Njoku: ‘I wanted to see Black artists living my dream’

What Made Me — In this series, we ask artists and rebels about the forces and experiences that shaped who they are. Today, it’s avant-garde electronic and classical music hybridist Tony Njoku.

  • Music
  • Tony Njoku
Quote on green background: "As much as the social contract is lost, there's a freedom"

James Massiah: “As much as the social contract is lost, there’s a freedom with that”

Bounty Law — With the release of his latest album, we sat down with the rapper-poet to chat about his new sonic Western, the boom in alternative poetry events, and whether the social contract is broken.

  • Music
  • Isaac Muk

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