Tom Breihan

6 days ago | stereogum.com | Tom Breihan

For much of her career the gifted UK rapper Inflo has been working with a single collaborator, producer Inflo. Simz and Inflo met at St. Mary’s Youth Club when they were both kids, and Inflo has been essentially the sole producer of Simz’ last three albums, including the Mercury Prize-winning 2021 breakout Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. That relationship has dissolved dramatically. Last month, we learned that Simz is suing Inflo for refusing to repay a personal loan worth $2.2 million.

6 days ago | stereogum.com | Tom Breihan

Yes, I know, weird, confusing, ha ha ha. We already did all the jokes last time. To recap: It turns out that there’s a Dublin power-pop band called the Number Ones, and they existed before I started writing a Stereogum column called The Number Ones. Up until very recently, those two things didn’t really overlap. The Number Ones, the band, released their most recent record, the 2018 EP Another Side Of The Number Ones, about a week before I ran the first edition of The Number Ones, the column.

6 days ago | stereogum.com | Tom Breihan

Bryan Garris and Isaac Hale are the co-leaders of Knocked Loose, and you’d have to imagine that would keep them plenty busy, especially since Hale also has side projects like Inclination. But every once in a while, Garris and Hale still make time to make some noise with xWeaponx, a straightforwardly brutal metallic hardcore band with a militant straight-edge theme. Hale plays guitar and sometimes screams in xWeaponx, while Bryan Garris plays bass.

6 days ago | stereogum.com | Tom Breihan

Westside Gunn loves pro wrestling. We know this. Before the Buffalo rap fixture got famous, he was sampling wrestling promos and putting old WWF photos on his mixtape covers. WSG and his brother Conway The Machine used to call themselves Hall and Nash. Now that, Westside Gunn is more of an insider, I see him sitting ringside on TV all the time. This is Wrestlemania weekend, so WSG is naturally very busy.

6 days ago | stereogum.com | Tom Breihan

Chuck D is one of the all-time great rap voices, and that comes down entirely to the Golden Age classics that he made with his group Public Enemy. Public Enemy are still going, and they returned to their old label Def Jam to release the album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? in 2020. Outside of the group, Chuck has also taken part in things like the Rage Against The Machine quasi-reunion Prophets Of Rage and the godawful rap metal band Konfrontation Kamp.