Hip hop culture is a very deserving field of study. Rap lyrics are some of the most powerful popular poetry of the past three decades. Studying rap music in a classroom is kind of a drag compared to studying rap music, say, in a car full of weed smoke, but hey, it's not the worst thing you could do in a classroom.
In Portland, Oregon, one parent's bright idea and several years of planning and government grants had made the REAL Prep Charter Academy—a high school with a recording and arts program based in hip hop culture—a near reality. Do not insert easy joke here! The idea seems good. The execution was... embarrassing.
With the coming of Diddy's Labor Day White Party, the ancient druidic event that marks the end of the summer season, so too comes another ancient tradition: The Fall Music Preview. What delightful sounds can we expect to be emanating from stereos over the next few months?
By day, Allen Samuels is a popular casino host in Atlantic City. By night? He's A. Samuels, the illest fledgling rapper in the game, son!
The only bad things about this video, "The Andover Song," are the excruciatingly earnest lyrics, the disconcerting juxtaposition of a bunch of freshly-scrubbed teenage prep school lacrosse aficionados with the format of a non-parody rap video, the horribly awkward cameo by the elderly authority figure, the depressing realization that this video's production values are much higher than those on many videos by "real" rappers, and the overarching statement that the very existence of this video makes about the dissipation and decline of hip hop culture in America.
Rich Hil, the tatted-up 21 year-old son of Tommy Hilfiger, just got himself a record deal with Warner Brothers. (You can celebrate the moment with him in this video.) While Hil is, at least, more talented than Chet Haze, the rise of two celebrity scions into hip hop prominence at once makes me fear the very worst.
Last week, a man imprisoned in New York said that he shot Tupac in an infamous 1994 robbery on the orders of Jimmy Henchman, a hip hop industry power player who became a wanted man earlier this year when he was charged with cocaine distribution. After a month on the run, Jimmy was arrested yesterday, holed up in a secret, faraway hideout:
In November of 1994, a bunch of unknown guys ran up on Tupac at Quad Studios in Manhattan, shot him, and robbed him. (Not the shooting that killed him! That was two years later.) That 1994 shooting was the spark that set off the East Coast-West Coast hip hop wars. And the assailants have never been discovered. Until now, maybe, allegedly!
There was a debate on the floor of the Illinois Senate yesterday about the state's budget crisis, and Republican senate minority leader Christine Radogno got up to make a "point of personal privilege." The point just happened to be a quote from a Wu-Tang Clan song.
Last week, the GOOP-itrix herself, Gwyneth Paltrow, appeared on the Graham Norton Show (which is like The Tonight Show if Jay Leno was Irish, gay, and actually funny). She rapped. Yes, she did the first few lines of the NWA classic "Straight out of Compton."
WorldStarHipHop.com is an extremely popular online one-stop shop for rap videos, sex videos, and ripped off random ass videos of disturbing occurrences in fast food outlets. It may not be as "classy" as other video sites like, uh, YouPorn, but it's making a pile of money for its founder, Queens high school dropout Lee O'Denat, a.k.a. Q.
