Author Archives: June Torbati

The members of the Wu-Tang Clan have gotten really good at giving their fans exactly what they want — nothing more and nothing less. This is true of Raekwon’s “Only Built for Cuban Linx… Pt. II,” released last year; it’s true of the albums Ghostface Killah has released in the past few years, all of »

Sororities are sisterhoods, comprised of strong, leading women supporting each other in a still largely male-controlled world. Sororities are made up of the most catty, shallow girls on campus, who measure their own worth and others’ in number of hook-ups, thinness and the brand of their jeans, and whose most fundamental aim in college is »

AMMAN, Jordan — Every undergraduate who sets her heart on studying abroad tells herself (and her family, and her friends, and her professors, and the guy standing next to her in line) that she’s looking forward to experiencing a new culture, making friends with the locals and learning to say more in the local language »

This article has been corrected. You may view this article’s correction here. Yale students who are looking to shorten their transit time between classes but are not ready to fork over hundreds of dollars to one of New Haven’s traditional bicycle shops may have a new option, thanks to Cris Shirley ’10: trading labor or »

My roommates call it my “Beatlemania” moment: Just before Thanksgiving break, one of about six girls in a throng of adoring fans packed into Toad’s and overcome by powerful renditions of the best from his own and the Wu-Tang Clan’s catalogs, I start uncontrollably shouting, “I love you Ghostface!! Have my babies!” My undignified screams »

On a table next to a laptop and a company-issued, personalized mug in Samantha Tonini ‘07’s sparsely furnished Manhattan apartment is a thick envelope with a Sallie Mae return address. Scrawled in black ink on Tonini’s first student loan bill is a loving post-it note from her father: “Reality Bites.” “This is exhibit A,” Tonini »

Following an announcement from 50 Cent that he would stop creating solo albums if Kanye West’s “Graduation” outsold his latest album “Curtis” (both released Sept. 11), the competition between the two rappers has begun to bear an uncanny resemblance to the increasingly bankrupt American political system — right down to a pointless, over-hyped and morally »

Aesop Rock’s “None Shall Pass” is what I want to be listening to when the apocalypse hits, and not just because it manages to perfectly evoke, like the best of Aes’ work, the paranoia and grimness surrounding speculation about end times. With his new record Aes goes beyond his previous releases stylistically and lyrically, at »

In a world where corporate advertising has left its stamp on almost every aspect of human interaction, including (quite literally) people’s foreheads, it is incredibly refreshing to find an enterprise in which the act of selling is completely forbidden, and from which no one makes or loses a penny. The additional fact that such an »

Yale is the perpetual first-semester freshman, forever undaunted by the obstacles the world presents, sure that through a little more work and effort and a bit of luck even the worst of situations can turn around for the better. It is hard to imagine an institution more sure of itself, more certain of its purpose »

In the world of music, there are some collaborations that are so magical, so perfect from beginning to end, that they bring out the best in each member of the team so well that in an ideal world they would never end: Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, MF Doom and »

When I first heard the title of Nas’ new album, “Hip-Hop is Dead,” I was pretty pissed off. Who was Nas to tell me and the rest of the world that the genre of music best known for its unequaled creativity and regeneration is over, done and on its way to the funeral house? In »