The Almanac of Rap

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Type Beats feat Jake One| The Almanac of Rap in the Genre - Conversation Starter Category Official Listing

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Now, for this week's episode:

Before independent rap became a business model, Too $hort was already selling tapes hand-to-hand in Oakland. More than four decades later, Short Dog sits down with Donwill to trace the improbable longevity of a career that helped establish the Bay Area as its own hip-hop universe. He revisits hiding his earliest rhymes from his mother, producing his own records, documenting Oakland when New York and Los Angeles dominated rap's geography, and the run of albums that culminated in Gettin’ It (the record he considers the peak of his original sound) and the moment he got to work with his childhood hero, George Clinton.

Too $hort explains how relationships with The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, UGK, Eric Sermon and Lil Jon expanded his reach without disconnecting him from the Bay and how “Blow the Whistle,” released deep into an already historic career, effectively bought him another 20 years. Along the way, he talks “raunchy rap”, censorship, protecting young artists from the streets and what it means to be 60 in a genre that once wasn't expected to survive long enough to have senior citizens. For Too $hort, the answer has been sitting in the title of his earliest project all along: don't stop rapping. Too $hort breaks down:

How selling tapes independently in Oakland became the foundation for a 40-plus-year career

Why Gettin’ It represents the peak of his original Bay Area sound and what working with George Clinton meant to him

How Biggie, Jay-Z, UGK, Eric Sermon and Lil Jon helped open new chapters without changing who he was

Why “Blow the Whistle” became the late-career anthem that gave him another 20 years

What hip-hop can learn about longevity, protecting the bag and growing old without leaving the culture behind

🤳🏾 Got a question, comment or compliment? Leave a message today at 1-877-DONWILL (366-9455) It might just end up in an episode!🎙️

Follow Donwill for fun hip-hop history, cultural commentary, and more.

Substack: New Music Tuesdays

Archival Episodes of Almanac of Rap: Almanacofrap.com Instagram/Threads: @donwill

Mixcloud: Donwill

Website: Donwill.me

Follow: Too $hort

Instagram: tooshort

Facebook: tooshort

Tik Tok: tooshortofficial ⁠

Created and hosted by award-winning artist and cultural commentator Donwill, The Almanac of Rap is Areya Media’s living archive of hip-hop history, told by the people who made it. Through deeply researched interviews, cultural deep dives and conversations with artists, producers, DJs and architects of the culture, the series connects hip-hop’s past to the ideas shaping its future.

A two-time Webby Award winner and three-time w3 Gold Award winner, The Almanac of Rap approaches hip-hop with the curiosity of music journalism and the intimacy of conversation documenting the stories, sounds and cultural details that deserve a permanent place in the record.

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Before breaking became a global industry, and long before it became an Olympic event, Ken Swift was helping define what the dance could be. A longtime Rock Steady Crew member and one of the form’s most important second-generation B-boys, Swift joins Donwill on The Almanac of Rap to revisit the late-’70s and early-’80s New York scene where DJs, concrete floors, gymnasiums and neighborhood crews turned movement into a new language. He explains why “breakdancing” was always a media invention, how Rock Steady expanded across boroughs, and why early breaking was as much about character, rhythm and community as athleticism.

Swift also looks back on the films that exported breaking to the world (from Wild Style and Beat Street to the now-iconic Flashdance sequence) and weighs what happens when an underground culture becomes a global institution. He talks candidly about breaking’s Olympic debut, why he chose to watch and judge it from home, and why the future of the form depends less on spectacle than on education, tradition and teaching young dancers how to exist inside the culture, not just battle inside it. Ken Swift breaks down:

How Rock Steady Crew’s second generation came together across the Bronx and Manhattan

Why “breakdancing” was never the language the culture used for itself

What Beat Street, Wild Style and Flashdance got right (and wrong) about early hip-hop

How he really felt about breaking becoming an Olympic sport

Why education and cultural memory matter more than ever for breaking’s future

🤳🏾 Got a question, comment or compliment? Leave a message today at 1-877-DONWILL (366-9455) It might just end up in an episode!🎙️

Follow Donwill for fun hip-hop history, cultural commentary, and more.

Substack: New Music Tuesdays

Instagram/Threads: @donwill

Mixcloud: Donwill

Website: Donwill.me

Follow Ken Swift

Instagram: @realkenswift

Website: www.breaklife.com

Created and hosted by award-winning artist and cultural commentator Donwill, The Almanac of Rap is Areya Media’s living archive of hip-hop history, told by the people who made it. Through deeply researched interviews, cultural deep dives and conversations with artists, producers, DJs and architects of the culture, the series connects hip-hop’s past to the ideas shaping its future.

A two-time Webby Award winner and three-time w3 Gold Award winner, The Almanac of Rap approaches hip-hop with the curiosity of music journalism and the intimacy of conversation documenting the stories, sounds and cultural details that deserve a permanent place in the record.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maiya the Don spent three years figuring out what she actually wanted to say. After Hot Commodity introduced a Brooklyn rapper capable of moving between drill, pop and straight-up bars, touring with Flo Milli and building an audience that first knew her as a beauty creator, Maiya found herself confronting a harder question: what does her music sound like when she's no longer trying to prove she can do everything? On this episode of The Almanac of Rap, she talks to Donwill about creating The Fine Print Club, her book club built around reading, community and creating space for Black women; recommends everything from S.A. Cosby to DMX; and hilariously puts her literary knowledge to the test against some of urban fiction's wildest book titles.

Between books and bars, she also makes a case for independence, explains why artists shouldn't run from being content creators and delivers a warning to anyone tempted to underestimate her pen: Precious Cargo (her new album) may be personal, but Maiya the Don still came to rap. Maiya the Don breaks down:

Why Precious Cargo became the coming-of-age album she needed three years to make

Turning a beauty-content following into the foundation for a rap career

Why independence gives her control over both her artistry and narrative

Building The Fine Print Club and creating literary community for Black women

Why “TSA” is her answer to anyone questioning a woman rapper's pen

🤳🏾 Got a question, comment or compliment? Leave a message today at 1-877-DONWILL (366-9455) It might just end up in an episode!🎙️

Follow Donwill for fun hip-hop history, cultural commentary, and more.

Substack: New Music Tuesdays

Instagram/Threads: @donwill

Mixcloud: Donwill

Website: Donwill.me

Follow: Maiya The Don

Instagram: @maiyathedonn

Album: Precious Cargo ⁠

Book Club: @fineprint.collective

Created and hosted by two time Webby Award-winning host Donwill, The Almanac of Rap is produced by Okayplayer, a division of AREYA MEDIA Inc. Originally launched in 1999, Okayplayer is the original progressive music site and maintains its position as the premier digital destination for music and culture connoisseurs worldwide.

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Before Leron Thomas became the left-field rapper Pan Amsterdam, he was a Houston jazz prodigy sharing classrooms with Robert Glasper, touring with Bilal and building a reputation as a trumpeter willing to wander far outside jazz's borders. In this episode of The Almanac of Rap, Thomas traces that journey from Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts to New York's jazz scene, and explains how listening to everyone from the Geto Boys and Busta Rhymes to David Bowie and Frank Zappa eventually made genre feel less like an identity than a suggestion. Leron Thomas breaks down:

How touring with Tanya Morgan helped inspire his Pan Amsterdam alter ego

Going from Robert Glasper's Houston classmate to Bilal's touring band

How Iggy Pop discovered Pan Amsterdam and turned the connection into Free

Why Busta Rhymes, Geto Boys and Southern rap influenced his jazz phrasing

The creative tug-of-war between Leron Thomas, Pan Amsterdam and genre itself

🤳🏾 Got a question, comment or compliment? Leave a message today at 1-877-DONWILL (366-9455) It might just end up in an episode!🎙️

Follow Donwill for fun hip-hop history, cultural commentary, and more.

Substack: New Music Tuesdays

Instagram/Threads: @donwill

Mixcloud: Donwill

Website: Donwill.me

Follow: Leron Thomas

Instagram: @leronthomas98

Spotify: Leron Thomas

Apple Music: ⁠ Pan Amsterdam

Created and hosted by two time Webby Award-winning host Donwill, The Almanac of Rap is produced by Okayplayer, a division of AREYA MEDIA Inc. Originally launched in 1999, Okayplayer is the original progressive music site and maintains its position as the premier digital destination for music and culture connoisseurs worldwide.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of The Almanac of Rap, Donwill heads south to explore the past, present and future of New Orleans hip-hop with rising rapper, producer and 2026 XXL Freshman La Reezy.

La Reezy shares how filming run-and-gun videos around his hometown helped him build an audience outside Louisiana, how a viral streetcar performance caught PJ Morton’s attention, and why he considers himself a “leader of the youth” within a new generation of New Orleans artists. For La Reezy, representing the city isn’t simply an aesthetic, it’s central to his strategy, community and identity.

Fresh off recognition from the National Hip-Hop Museum and an appearance in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl experience, La Reezy also opens up about faith, family, learning from Jon Batiste, studying Kendrick from behind the scenes and his ambitions beyond music. La Reezy breaks down:

Why representing your hometown can be a competitive advantage

The streetcar video that caught PJ Morton’s attention

Performing at Keith Lee’s Family Day

The ideas behind his debut album, Skiddle Bandana

His dream of producing for Lil Wayne and NBA YoungBoy

Check out archived episodes of The Almanac of Rap at: https://almanacofrap.com/ 📚

🤳🏾 Got a question, comment or compliment? Leave a message today at 1-877-DONWILL (366-9455) It might just end up in an episode!🎙️

Follow Donwill for fun hip-hop history, cultural commentary, and more.

Substack: New Music Tuesdays

Instagram/Threads: @donwill

Mixcloud: Donwill

Website: Donwill.me

Follow: La Reezy

Instagram: lareezymusic

Album: Skiddle Bandana

Created and hosted by two time Webby Award-winning host Donwill, The Almanac of Rap is produced by Okayplayer, a division of AREYA MEDIA Inc. Originally launched in 1999, Okayplayer is the original progressive music site and maintains its position as the premier digital destination for music and culture connoisseurs worldwide.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices