Even in the codeine-drenched, genre-fluid rap world fans live in today, the radio freestyle remains an immutable polygraph test for raw skill and mic presence. If listeners can feel you off the ...

Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music I’ve been fixated on recently. I did not write about it when it happened, but last year there was a bit of a manufactured crisis in rap ...

Two of 2015’s hottest records came from cities that rarely—close to never—get scanned for producing the next big hit. Louisville, Kentucky native Bryson Tiller’s “Don’t” gained him instant pop star ...

A telling bumper occasionally pops up on our No. 1 radio home for hip-hop and R&B here in Baltimore. It identifies the station and then proudly announces that the playlist features “all shades of R&B.

Local hip-hop radio could learn a lot from the shopping mall. In recent months, The Streets at Southpoint, the sprawling 1.3-million-square-foot emporium a dozen miles from downtown Durham, has ...

I’ll never forget how my big brother Dave used to scan the dial on our stereo after WILD 1090 AM stopped broadcasting for the day. WILD or AM109, as people often referred to it, had a tiny transmitter ...

When you don't have to listen to terrestrial radio, it can be hard to get excited about it, especially if you don't live in a big city. Charlottesville, the small Southern college town where I've been ...