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matthew gasteier

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Skill ride

All it took was a Godzilla sample and a simple, forceful “Simon says get the fuck up” for Pharoahe Monch to leave his mark on hip-hop history.
Pharoahe Monch’s timely return
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  July 17, 2007
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The hate-love-hate cycle

The field is already packed with newcomers and veterans alike, all aiming to knock down my standards of good taste and respectability . . .
Inescapable seasonal charttoppers
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  June 18, 2007
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Past perfect

Just five years ago, James Murphy jump-started the dance-punk movement with his DFA label.
LCD Soundsytem mine the best of the ’80s
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  April 09, 2007
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Keepin' it real

As I was walking up to Avalon a week ago Tuesday to see the Roots, a group of college kids crossed the street in front of me sporting backwards hats and puffy vests.
The Roots, Avalon, March 13, 2007
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  March 19, 2007
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Slingin' it

They at once cemented their status as hip-hop rhyme pushers.
Clipse, The Middle East, February 26, 2007
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  March 06, 2007
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Noise in the ’hood

Listening to Dälek (pronounced DIE-a-leck) is a visceral experience for even the most prepared listener.
The experimental hip-hop of Dälek
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  February 21, 2007
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Bay Area beats

Although Oakland’s hyphy movement got its name from a bastardization of the word “hyper,” at this point that could just as easily stand for “hype.”
Is hyphy hip-hop’s next big thing?
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  February 19, 2007
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Nu Rave extravaganza

So the New York Times told me the other day that British kids are learning to dance and love again, and I couldn’t be happier.
If you're into light sticks
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  February 13, 2007
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Dead, or immortal?

When Chuck D challenges the status quo, a bunch of fortysomethings nod their heads, but Nas can put the young rappers on the defensive.
Nas’s album title challenges a generation
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  January 24, 2007
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Arcade Fire is overrated

Now that the Best of 2006 lists are all finished and everyone has stopped arguing over whether TV on the Radio are overrated, we can get back to discussing whether the Arcade Fire are overrated?
The new year brings new hype
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  January 16, 2007
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Guest lists

What small, private lists like this remind us is that big, honking institutional lists are largely fictions, mirages of a consensus that no longer exists, if it ever really did in the first place.
 What 30 of the Phoenix 's music critics liked this year
By PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF  |  January 02, 2007
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Diversified incoming

It’s a testament to the strength of hip-hop, as the medium enters its third decade, that 2006 would see such a wide range of sounds so well represented, from commercial anthems to abstract beat tapes.
A year in hip-hop
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  December 19, 2006
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Larger than life

Although predictions that Jay-Z, in his comeback, would pull in the biggest sales numbers of the year were proved wrong (at 680,000, his Def Jam release Kingdom Come ranks third behind Rascal Flatts and Justin Timberlake in 2006), that’s hardly the story
Two kinds of triumph from Jay-Z and the Game
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  December 06, 2006
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Lloyd Banks

Lloyd Banks has officially followed G-Unit leader 50 Cent into sophomore mediocrity.
Rotten Apple | G-Unit
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  October 24, 2006
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The Atlantic Divide

Bloc Party, the Arctic Monkeys, and even Dizzee Rascal often make it seem that British music is our music too.
Bridged by the Internet
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  October 24, 2006
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Laying down tracks

Compartmentalized hip-hop is dead — at least that’s what a backpacker I met at the Jeezy concert told me.
Hip-hop gets all mixed up
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  October 02, 2006
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MSTRKRFT

Most dance punk is just a shower and a missing guitar away from straight dance music, so it’s not such a surprise that aggro-electronicist Jesse F. Keeler of Death from Above 1979 and his group’s producer, Al-P, would go house.
The Looks | Last Gang
By MATTHEW GASTEIER  |  July 18, 2006

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