Peace, y'all. I write this now while on tour with Shabazz Palaces. Though by the time you read this I'll likely be in Boise or on my way home, we sit at this moment in a hotel room in St. Louis, watching the news after completing a 19-hour drive from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Shouts go out to STL stalwarts Black Spade and Coultrain (aka the Hawthorne Headhunters), who've helped found an exceedingly chill art/kick-it spot called the Blank Space—a renovated house on the city's south side with a bar and great sound upstairs and in the basement. (Just the sort of place I can't imagine the uptight 206 ever pulling off aboveboard.) Shouts go out to Spade's younger bro, the MC Tef Poe, who's been a source of on-the-ground intel about the scene in Ferguson since the beginning almost, what, two months ago now? Go check Tef's Twitter and his latest LP, Cheer for the Villain.

Speaking of—months ago, NYC's Bobby Shmurda was a total unknown, but now everybody knows his single "Hot Nigga," partly due to the song, but mostly due to the video, featuring Shmurda's "Shmoney Dance," which has become a joyous living meme in itself every time a DJ drops it. But before he was the new flash in Gotham's pan, there was somebody else supposedly Bringing New York Back™, and his name is Troy Ave (appearing at Belltown's Ampersand Friday, September 26). Troy swore that his 2013 New York City album would be a classic—"the best representation of New York City rap in a decade"—that said, it's a well-executed rehash of NYC rap from a decade-plus ago; his similarities to old 50 Cent are hard to miss. His coast-baiting comments late last year about Kendrick Lamar being a "weirdo rapper" (because he "wears shorts above the knees") were probably not meant to incite controversy as much as to dog-whistle to the other cargo-shorted East Coast loyalist rap conservatives who position themselves on the Fox News side of hiphop's culture war. Troy's impeccable logic is on full display in his comments that "everything is getting twisted right now because at what point did we start celebrating the drug user instead of the drug dealer? That shit is backwards... Would you rather your kids be strung out on drugs or dealing drugs?" If you were wondering why we can't have nice things, well, there you go.

You go to this while you're at it—the Central Area Block Party goes down on September 27 with a damn good lineup of local star power: Raz Simone, Porter Ray, Draze, Yirim Seck, and Ye'D holding it down on the rap side, with the Loops for Lovers Collective, Mycle Wastman, Otieno Terry, and Camila Recchio putting it down with their own particular takes on R&B and soul. Speaking of, buy someone you love some Stevie Wonder tickets (performing Songs in the Key of Life at KeyArena on December 3). Love's in need of love today.