Music With Michal

                My first exposure to ScHoolboy Q was in 2012, which was my freshman year of high school. There was a song called “Hands on the Wheel” floating around by an upcoming artist that was named ScHoolboy Q. I am always open to new music so I decided to see if this song would be a track that I could add to my playlist. This song was not only added to the playlist, but it also made me listen to   Habits & Contradictions , the whole album which “Hands on the Wheel” was released under. I loved the entire record and it made me very excited to see what ScHoolboy would evolve into.                 ScHoolboy Q’s first official album release came in 2014 and it was called  Oxymoron . This album was absolutely spectacular and it was a true moment in time, both in regards to rap music and popular music. I remember going to school on the Frida...

                I will never forget the day when I first heard the rapper Future. It was the first semester during freshman year of high school, when a friend came up to me and told me to listen to a song called “Tony Montana”. I did not know what to expect, but once I played the song I was both impressed and confused at the same time. It was unlike anything I have ever heard in my life, and I walked away from the song being unsure if I enjoyed the song or not. Not many more listens after that event I was convinced that Future was creating art that was pushing boundaries, but back in 2012 I still would not even know how influential he would go on to become.                 Nayvadius DeMun Wilburn, known by his stage name Future, was born in Atlanta and has risen to be a very high-selling rapper with many first week album debuts under his belt. He grew up...

     Just a couple days ago was the 2-year anniversary of the passing of Mac Miller. Mac Miller had been one of my favorite rap artists since I first heard his mixtape   K.I.D.S.   back in 2010. His albums matured greatly over the years from his first work,   K.I.D.S. , being a very jovial record celebrating teenage years to his last work,   Swimming , being a deep dive into his personal struggle with depression and drug addiction. Yet, right in the middle of his discography is what I believe to be his best album and with another year going by without him, I wanted to analyze the importance of the record and why it resonated so much with his most loyal following.          Mac Miller’s  Faces  was his 6 th  official studio release coming out on May 11 th , 2014. While it only released on mixtape websites and has still not been made available on streaming services, it very much flows like an album and has a runtime...