Hempstead, Long Island-born MC Roc Marciano has frequently referenced his stage name with his project titles: Marcberg, Marci Beaucoup, Marcielago, to name a few. His new release is Marciology, which dropped with a mystery comic-derived album cover that ominously mentions “a cult…..”
Of course, more than a decade and 11 projects removed from his early days in Busta Rhymes’ orbit, Marciano already has plenty of supporters sipping the Kool-Aid. Since setting his career on a new path with 2011’s Marcberg, he’s spawned a cult fanbase that reveres him for reviving the rap underground with his minimalist production and assonant, sordid rhymes. One can overly pontificate on his impact, or state it like this: Marciology dropped on the same night of a Beyonce album, and many rap fans chose to listen to him first.
That loyalty was nicely rewarded, as Marciology again demonstrates why Roc is one of rap’s most unique voices — no matter how many artists try to ride the wave. Whether they know it or not, any indie rapper scribing crime epics on drumless loops and selling them direct-to-consumer is indebted to Roc. He opts to remind people on the Marciology single “Crossbow,” where he rhymes, “Shit isn’t new, we need a reboot / They took what we do and repeat the loop / It’s gettin’ easier to sleep through / I’m just speakin’ truth.”
The couplets exemplify his greatest strengths in tandem: his slick diction and knack for stacking multi-syllabic rhymes together. The Roc Marciano experience feels like observing a grisled boxer go at it with a heavy bag, with a fashion reference as a jab, then flurries of multis coming at different speeds and angles. On “True Love” he rhymes, “The Cartis with the Marni slippers/How I slid out the party with gaudy bitches/Hard to resist, my body different like the Karma Fisker/Y’all all washed, it’s a laundry list of you sorry niggas.” And on “Tapeworm” he raps, “I was in Saks fifth purchasing a jacket, the nerve of these jackasses/My savage got murders on his jacket/I’m too high class to work with purse snatchers,” packing a brag, a threat, and a hilarious affirmation into just several bars. Sometimes, Roc delivers concise knockout blows like a line on “Larry Bird”: “I’ll go in your mouth without payment from Al Haymon.”
Those multi-sprees serve different functions. On some junctures of Marciology, he’s using just 6-8 bars to paint the kind of visual most writers fail to capture in an entire verse. On the Larry June-featured “Bad Juju,” one of two Alchemist productions on the album (along with “Higher Self”), Roc writes about an obsessive woman, telling her “you can feel the bad juju in you, and your flat is, a one bedroom apartment in manhattan/With just a stool and a mattress, a shrine with a flick of me and a Gucci jacket.” And it’s worth noting how he takes an intentional pause between saying “in you” and “and your” to keep his flow, an expert example of mastering the rules to break them.
And though Roc mostly depicts himself as an elite rapper-slash-crimelord with first-world problems (“I can only fuck so many Braziilian buttlifts,” he laments on “Went Diamond”), there are sprinkles of real-life wisdom throughout the project. He rhymes, “a man’s worst enemy is his pride and ego” on “Went Diamond,” then “don’t get caught in the trickbag/Can’t have one foot in rap and one in quicksand/That shit don’t make no sense fam” on “LeFlair.” Those moments add a dynamism to his approach, and based on the harrowing story he told Rolling Stone about his winding career in 2021, he has had enough life experience to offer a slightly heavier dose of game on this album. Historically, the most transcendent street-oriented projects are the ones that interlace gloating and gunplay with lessons from experience. Considering Roc’s summative ability, Marciology would have been even stronger with a few more of those lines worked in.
Nevertheless, Marciology is another excellent collection of one-of-one rhymes over a variety of beats. Roc takes on 10 of the 14 of them, giving himself a varied canvas (producer Animoss crafted “Goyard God” and “Tapeworm”). The eponymous album opener sounds like he’s creeping through a horror movie hoping Jason doesn’t spot the gleam off his Patek. “Went Diamond” is quintessential Roc, meshing a lush string chop and shimmering cymbals, while “True Love” gives the album a West Indian vibe. “On The Run” is reliant on a beguiling vocal chop, and album closer “Floxx” plays fluttering horns against a bass riff that gives the jazzy composition just the right dash of sinistry.
Roc also explores a rock vibe on “Killin Spree,” where Crimeapple dishes one of the most memorable lines on the album, rhyming, “I’ll stomp you wearin’ silk like Tupac Shakur.” The features here mostly do a strong job of keeping up with Roc, especially recent PIMPIRE signee GREA8GAWD on “Larry Bird,” who decrees “I’ve been nice since Iceberg made history“ during a fiery verse. Roc Marciano has been too, and now he has one more album to stake his claim.
Ken Casey stuck around after the show in San Diego, California, talking to members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Some of the challenge-coin haul.
The band started as a bet. “My band has a show in three weeks,” Casey’s coworker told him in 1996. “I dare you to open for us.”John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Dropkick Murphys (from left): Casey, DaRosa, Webster, Kelly, Rheault, Brennan, and Lynch John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Casey is largely the voice of the band, but the other members back him up. “We’re so lucky he’s the mouthpiece,” says Brennan, left. John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
“Only the Irish can take a song about death and destruction, famine, alcoholism, and raise a glass like it’s an anthem,” says Casey. John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
“Anytime it feels like things are about to plateau for us, something gives us a little bump,” says guitarist Lynch. “It feels exciting. It feels dangerous. It feels like doing something.” John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Jay-Z performing at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis in Paris.
Jay-Z Deserves the Super Bowl Halftime Gig
Where’s the love? Jay-Z asked that question 25 years ago, in the chorus of one of many songs in his catalog that still move audiences today. If he performs “Heart of the City” as part of his Super Bowl halftime show next February, those indignant bars are sure to be a highlight: “First the Fat Boys break up, now every day I wake up, somebody got a problem with Hov…” It would be an appropriate choice, too — because then as now, any time Jay-Z notches a new achievement, people find a way to complain.
The jokes and nonsense started almost as soon as the first rumors trickled out that Jay, whose company Roc Nation has executive-produced the Super Bowl halftime show since 2019, might be choosing himself to headline next year’s show. “Jay-Z just Dick Cheney’d himself for the Super Bowl,” Puck‘s Matthew Belloni quipped on X last week, alluding to the time that the late prince of darkness, who’d been asked to run the vice-presidential search committee for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, put himself on the ticket. (Super hip and current reference, and not at all apples-and-oranges.) Others pointed to TMZ reports that pop stars like Harry Styles and Justin Bieber had been asked first. “How are they the frontrunners, and he end up in the front?” Cam’Ron, who’s delighted in trolling Jay for many years, wondered aloud on his podcast. “Out of all the people on the roster, they couldn’t pick nobody else?” asked Cam’Ron‘s co-host, Ma$e.
These critiques miss the point, which is that Jay-Z is one of the best choices for a high-profile gig like this. He’s a superstar with a comparable level of name recognition to any other A-lister in music. He has a deep stack of classic songs going back decades. And he’s a highly skillful live performer who knows his way around a stadium stage, as he’s spent this year reminding people on his Jay-Z 30 tour. He tore down Yankee Stadium three nights in a row this summer; just last week, he rocked SoFi Stadium, which happens to be the same place where the 2027 Super Bowl is being held. He held the crowd’s attention with ease at all of those shows, and though there were plenty of glittery guests — that’s a given at a Jay show, and it will surely be true at the Super Bowl, too — he did it mostly through the force of his own magnetic energy. Let’s state the obvious here: Jay-Z is really, really good at rapping. We’re talking about one of the slickest, sharpest talkers in the history of words, someone who made it to the top through a sustained act of myth-making, then kept going. Are we seriously asking whether he can handle a 15-minute televised performance?
And yeah, there’s a touch of self-congratulation in the way he appointed himself. So what? Praising his own gifts is arguably Jay-Z’s greatest talent of all. He made a fine art out of self-applause. He told his story again and again, retracing the steps from Marcy Projects to the corner suite, and he made us believe. It would almost be insulting to the audience if he didn’t give himself the gig at some point.
Pop culture observers in recent years surely remember the backlash to Super Bowl headliners like Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny — all of it at least culturally conservative, and much of it frankly just racist. The blowback to Jay’s announcement is mostly coming from other quarters, at least for now (let’s just wait to see what the right-wing swamps make of this one). But it’s disappointing in a different way. Jay-Z has spent his career expounding hip-hop as a mainstream commercial force. He’s not a businessman, he’s a business, man. But he’s also an artist. He’s made huge amounts of money, and gotten himself into the rarefied rooms where he even has the ability to give himself a gig like this, by spinning his experiences into compelling narrative art, one verse at a time. Let’s not lose sight of how impressive his life’s work really is. Jay-Z is not some random C-suite bro, and he’s definitely not Dick Cheney. He’s one of the greatest rappers of all time, by any measure. He’s earned that Super Bowl spot.