The King Of Crenshaw details all that we lost with the death of Nipsey Hussle

The King Of Crenshaw
To Live And Die In LA / Where You From? / Songs In the Key Of Life / Neighborhood Nip

Fans of the late West Coast MC Nipsey Hussle may get all upset again when they listen to this docuseries, produced by ESPN’s 30 For 30 Podcasts and the sports/culture site The Undefeated. In its four parts (along with a bonus ep), Undefeated writer Justin Tinsley tells how the former gangbanger-turned-rapper-turned-entrepreneur was poised to not only become a major hip hop star (Victory Lap, his only studio album, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2018), but a bona fide pillar of the Black community, launching a coworking environment and opening his own clothing store. Sadly, this was all cut short in 2019, when a conversation with another man involving snitching led to that man getting a gun and shooting Hussle dead. Along with chronicling the journey Hussle took before he was slain at the way-too-young age of 33, Tinsley talks with such basketball stars as Isaiah Thomas and DeMarcus Cousins, Hussle’s friends and students of his tireless work ethic. Hussle may be gone, but they’re making sure that the marathon continues. [Craig D. Lindsey]

The Roast Of Your Teenage Self
Amanda Duberman

One of the forgotten horrors of the early-to-mid aughts is the dreadful realization that the emo punk band with sick frosted tips that you’re really into is, in actuality, a Christian emo punk band with sick frosted tips. This and many other ancient scars are reopened on The Roast Of Your Teenage Self, in which host Alise Morales invites guests to reminisce about their hormone- and fear-fueled adolescences. This week, Morales welcomes Amanda Duberman (Betches Sup) to talk about her time as a straight-edge underachiever at the sinister sounding Apex High School. In the span of mere minutes, Duberman claims to not have been a rebellious teenager right before confessing that she got baptized despite the wishes of her Jewish family. Outside of faith-based shenanigans, Duberman mostly liked stalking cute emo bands on Myspace and driving all over North Carolina to see them perform. Duberman’s devotion to pop punk would eventually pay off when she and a friend spent a surprisingly wholesome afternoon on Cute Is What We Aim For’s tour bus. It’s a veritable Van’s Warped Tour of memories filled with scene kids, body shaming, and valuable reminders that any school that grades on a 7-point scale is bullshit. [Anthony D Herrera]

This Had Oscar Buzz
The Good Dinosaur (with Kyle Amato)

The self-proclaimed “good boy” hosts over on Podcast: The Ride largely stay true to their genteel reputations, save for one recurring exception: co-host Jason Sheridan’s outsize disdain for Pixar’s lesser remembered 2015 feature The Good Dinosaur. Pixar stories are about finding identity through one’s job, says Sheridan, “and the job of The Good Dinosaur is to suck shit.” Entertainment writers Joe Reid and Chris Feil (who have both contributed to The A.V. Club) aren’t quite that hard on the film on this week’s stellar This Had Oscar Buzz, but they do use it as an opportunity to talk with animation aficionado and Hawke Cast creator Kyle Amato about the Academy Awards’ complicated relationship and history with animation. The way animated pictures are categorized at the Oscars usually make them a tough squeeze into THOB’s format, so this entertaining and illuminating first-ever animation chat for the podcast serves as a bit of a catch-all about cartoons, including what counts as top-tier vocal casting (Bonnie Hunt, Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks), and the joy of animated character insert shots at award shows versus the horror of those animated characters actually presenting an award. [Dan Jakes]