The Cipher

Live from Bed Stuy’s Restoration Plaza, we bring you a very special event with Buddha Monk and Mickey Hess, authors of a new biography of the Wu’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Occurring only blocks from Dirty’…

This episode, we have a truly great conversation with Sage Francis. Rising up out of the battle-rap and poetry slam scenes in the late 1990s, Sage first came to many fans’ notice with his incredible …

This episode, we talk to author Brian Coleman. Coleman has written three volumes of what he calls “invisible liner notes” — blow-by-blow accounts of the making of classic hip-hop records from the peo…

Lisa Leone has lived a life for the ages. She began photographing some of the most important figures in the early days of hip-hop culture (who were also her friends) as a teenager. Then she took some…

This episode, we have a wide-ranging convo with Gene “No Malice” Thornton of Clipse. No Malice (formerly just Malice, before a religious epiphany several years back) and his brother Terrance, a.k.a. …

This episode, we have a two-fer. We begin with a really awesome interview with a true West Coast legend, DJ Quik. He has a new album, The Midnight Life, and we talk to him about that, his relationshi…

Welcome to The Cipher! Outside the Lines With Rap Genius has been renamed, rebranded, and improved. We begin the podcast’s new chapter with Strange Music’s favorite “White Rapper,” Rittz. We talked t…

From Broadway stars to legendary DJs to the best of the battle rappers, OTL has hosted a spectrum of voices — each with an individual story to tell. This episode takes us through the very best of OTL…

From Broadway stars to legendary DJs to the best of the battle rappers, OTL has hosted a spectrum of voices — each with an individual story to tell. This episode takes us through the very best of OTL…