Thomas Hobbs

Artist Ronald ‘Riskie’ Brent went from airbrushing t-shirts at the Compton Swap Meet to designing the cover for Tupac’s darkest masterpiece…

"By the time the sickly, emotional closure hits, you can almost feel the presence of a studio exec holding up a sign that reads ‘It’s time to cry now!’ This film is so predictable and run-of-the-mill, the only thing you’ll be doing with your eyes is closing them."

From Bohemian Rhapsody to a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Whitney, it seemed this year there were more music movies than ever...

I wrote about Joji's 'Ballads 1', Cardi B's 'Invasion of Privacy' and Pusha T's 'Daytona'

From ‘Inception’ to ‘Holmes & Watson’, David Campbell-Bell tells us about a career spent putting London in the Hollywood lights and managing egos...

I wrote about Travis Scott's 'Sicko Mode', Kanye West's 'Ghost Town' and Cardi B's 'Get Up 10'

"Pusha stands like a titan before triumphantly launching into If You Know You Know, a trap anthem with ticking hi-hats so infectious they have a crowd of British teenagers screaming back niche references about jailed US drug trafficker Big Meech’s penchant for bringing tigers to nightclubs."

"With SKINS, there appears to be a complete lack of awareness that presenting the late XXXTentacion as some kind of angelic mentor to young people only serves to further a damaging narrative where a man’s talent is more important than a woman’s pain."

The 23rd part of my 'London on Screen' series for Time Out and a look at the mansion block from Roman Polanski's feminist masterpiece Repulsion, a building that is eerily frozen in time.

"Sure, Oxnard is not quite as good as his previous efforts and has three or four obvious missteps, but it is still full of greatness and a record capable of doing something that’s vitally important in the bleak to the point of dystopian shit show that is 2018: Oxnard will make you smile."

The 22nd part of my 'London on Screen' series for Time Out and a look at how the Royal Lancaster Hotel has changed since the swinging sixties, a time where it featured in The Italian Job as the scene of an orgy featuring fresh-out-of-jail Michael Caine.

"Even if NOIR feels a little sporadic, it’s filled with potent music — there’s just a sense that this is more a great collection of songs than a great album."

Listening to intelligent dance music producer Qebrus feels a lot like entering another dimension, his music stumbling its way through electronic chaos, leaving the listener unsure over what just happened."

"It would be lazy, offensive even, to label Metro’s production as trap. His beats manage to feel both minimalist and maximalist at the same time, with Metro creating vast compositions out of what feels like fairly traditional rap production techniques."

A Tribe Called Quest legend Q-Tip talks to Thomas Hobbs about his solo masterpiece 'The Renaissance', which has just turned ten, and why he believes young rappers don’t respect their elders in this wide-ranging interview.