Kiana Fitzgerald
Kiana Fitzgerald is a freelance music journalist, cultural critic, and DJ. She writes for the world from deep in the heart of Texas.
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Hip-hop is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and we're looking back at albums that changed the game. Today, it's the group that took a shoestring DIY approach to creating horrorcore: Three 6 Mafia.
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With their 1987 debut album Paid in Full, Eric B. & Rakim introduced internal rhyme schemes to rap, and changed the flow of hip-hop forever. -
Isolated at the bottom of the map, the Bayou City had to build its scene from scratch, and its influence inched ever outward. Today you can hear its pulse everywhere, beating slow and low. -
The rapper known as Gangsta Boo died this week at age 43. Born Lola Mitchell, she was known as one of the South's premier crunk emcees and she got her start in the group Three 6 Mafia.
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When the words in a song hit you in just the right way, they can stay with you. We're asking the folks at NPR Music: What lyrics did you hear in 2022 that you just couldn't shake? -
"Black Parade," a call to action and a salve for a wounded nation, is the latest example of Beyoncé using her pop domination to put Black pride front and center.
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Andre Harrell, a record executive who shepherded the careers of Mary J. Blige and Sean "Diddy" Combs and combined the sounds of R&B and hip-hop with his label, Uptown Records, has died. -
This year's AfroPunk Festival in Brooklyn features artists who are expanding the universe of punk and ideas about who belongs there. -
The Chicago rapper's new mixtape, Coloring Book, walks a line between the secular and the religious, bringing gospel sounds to listeners who may not have darkened the doors of a church in a while.
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Out of nowhere, Kendrick Lamar dropped a new record this week, called untitled unmastered. Reviewer Kiana Fitzgerald says that listening to these demos "feels like we're playing catch-up."
