“On his new album, “Fever,” Black Milk raps, “No satisfaction for my effort is ever enough.” That lyric is shorthand for the Detroit rapper-producer’s hustle. “Never being complacent or satisfied with anything, having a certain type of focus, trying to get to the next level, that’s a part of my personality,” he says. “I’m always pushing the envelope, musically, creatively or with my career.””
“For years, Janelle Monáe played an androgynous android, all suits, saddle shoes and pompadours, tap-dancing across the soul-music spectrum with a heavy dose of Afrofuturism. But no matter how good her music was, the arm’s-length distance between Monáe’s art and her audience sold her short. That was then, and the Monáe that astonished on Friday night at the Anthem is now.”
“It should be Pusha T’s moment. In May, the 41-year-old released the flawless, sculpted “Daytona,” the best of Kanye West’s “Wyoming Sessions” productions and the pinnacle of the rapper’s solo career. Then why did his Friday-night concert at Echostage feel less like a celebration and more like a retrospective?”
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