Growing up in the state of Iowa and a follower of the Iowa football program, never in my wildest imaginations would we be sitting here today having the conversation that has run rampant across the state on this Saturday. The Iowa football program has alleged issues with racial disparities. Maybe that’s me being a naive, 21-year old kid. Maybe it’s because I believed that all faculty of the University of Iowa champion themselves on equality (Which almost all absolutely do so). Maybe it’s because as a child and a teenager, the Iowa football program was seen as the gold standard … Continued
Music Staff Picks: The Best Releases of April
billy woods – Aethiopes On Aethiopes, billy woods reestablishes his strengths as a storyteller, with help from producer Preservation’s experimentally jazzy beats. By now, woods has cemented himself as one of hip hop’s greatest writers, and his brooding yet clever introspection sounds especially powerful over Preservation’s musical backdropping. Samples of pianos will twinkle across some tracks, and pound discordantly on others, while electric guitars ring and horns blow. By the time the harmonica enters the equation, the beats here are unparalleled. It is an enveloping atmosphere completed by excellent percussion, which moves between hand drums, full kits, and shuffling jangles … Continued