Hip-Hop News

You can’t be serious!!!! This week in Ohio, which is my home state, a redneck judge ordered a kid to listen to 20 hours of Beethoven for playing rap music too loudly in his car. LOL - the kid decided instead to pay the fine. Check out the news story after the break. (more…)

Young people today who have embraced hip-hop as a culture might help to decide the outcome of the next presidential election. When it became clear that both parties had presumptive nominees, the Hip-hop Summit Action Network (a New York based non-profit) launched Voteforit!08, a non-partisan online video campaign to help draw young Hip-hop fans of voting age into the voting booths. The news public service announcement, which features Doug E. Fresh, George Lucas, and R&B chart-topper, Ciara, was uploaded onto YouTube in July.

Seven years ago, the Hip-hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) kicked off with a town hall type meeting with participation from entertainment and music industry leaders. Since then, the organization has been using Hip-hop culture as a bridge to connect youth to community-based initiatives. (more…)

The Hip Hop Caucus’ - Respect My Vote! Campaign, along with Radio One, Inc. and the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, registered more than 30,000 voters during its national “One Vote Day” voter registration drive on September 30th - according to news sources.

Thousands of citizens in sixteen cities across the country participated in events aimed at mass voter registration. Radio One stations broadcasted live from central locations in each of the participating cities urging unregistered voters to attend their local registration site to register onsite. Artists such as Nelly and Raheem DeVaughn helped draw large crowds to registration stations, allowing Hip Hop Caucus volunteers to register an average of 1,200 voters within each of the different markets. (more…)

Detroit, MI - According to news sources, Jay-Z will perform Saturday at Detroit’s Cobo Arena during a free rally and concert to promote voter registration. With just five days left to register voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is traveling to Michigan Thursday and sending in his wife and a top hip-hop artist to push the registration message.

The campaign also has created a video playing on the Obama Web site and YouTube that features Obama, running mate Joe Biden and a host of Michigan Democrats and popular entertainers who have hosted voter registration rallies and events in the state.”This is the biggest election of our lifetime,” Obama says in the video. “If you are already registered to vote, get your friends and family to register to vote. If you need more information about where to go, get on our Web site. … Remember, we need to do it by October 6th.” (more…)

There is no disputing that, in the past two decades, hip-hop music has received quite the bad rap. While critics wag their fingers at the promotion of violence and criminal activity often heard in lyrics, proponents of the genre claim the content is simply a reflection of news and reality for the disenfranchised.

Amid all the ruckus, it is easy to overlook the quieter voices in rap music; not every artist rhymes about guns and drugs. Having spent his early years in war-torn Somalia before seeking refuge in Canada, poet and hip-hop artist K’naan could easily take his place among today’s most favored gangster rappers–and probably with more credibility. However, that’s not his style. (more…)

Washington, D.C. - Although for many youths in the Benning Road area, hip-hop is the soundtrack of their lives, the Urban Arts Academy aims to transcend the familiar beats and rhymes and use hip-hop as a catalyst to change lives. “Hip-hop is your life,” Goldie Deane, the academy’s director, tells students. “It’s not the only thing in your life, but it’s a resource for many things in your life.”

Hip-hop as a musical genre is generally defined as vocalization over mixed music and beats. But hip-hop also describes a culture that branches out to include rapping, DJ skills, art, fashion and break dancing. It’s a collaborative culture that evolves as new generations add their interpretations to the lifestyle and the music, which is said to have had its roots in the Bronx. (more…)

New York rapper Nas has never shied away from news controversy in his almost two-decade career. Even so, the artist, whose real name is Nasir Jones, has little patience for controversy for the sake of selling albums. “If you’re just faking the funk, if you’re just starting trouble with people just for attention and you got no goal, it’s going to end before it started,” Nas said. “People will catch onto it.”

Nas’ latest untitled album has stirred up plenty of its own trouble. Nas originally called the album N—-r, but left it untitled after criticism around the title. Rev. Jesse Jackson and the NAACP both criticized Nas for the album title, while some artists, including Jay-Z, Alicia Keys and Common, supported it. Nas said he eventually changed the title because he didn’t want the negativity to overwhelm his album’s content. (more…)

The masses seem to be uniting for the most historical presidential election, ever, as the bi-partisan Hip-Hop Caucus is teaming with Radio One for the “Respect My Vote” Campaign, aimed at registering over 50,000 voters on September 30. According to news sources, the ambitious one day voter registration drive will be held in 15 big market cities throughout the country, including Atlanta, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, Charlotte, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.

Radio One will utilize 52 stations across the nation to broadcast live from a central location in each city, allowing registrars to set up eligible voters. Radio One Corporate Director of Marketing Barry Macon explained his company is obligated to spearhead this movement due to their years of community activism. (more…)

Who knew that in ancient Rome, the gladiators were really b-boys? This little-known interpretation of history is brought to you by the likable new nonverbal, hip-hop dance comedy, “Break Out,” in which a magical book falls to Earth and contains stories about the alleged hip-hop evolution of mankind. The book finds its way into the hands of five male prisoners, already inclined to mock their captors. Emboldened by this enchanted text, they are soon tunneling their way out of jail.

Styling itself as an news-worthy extreme dance comedy, “Break Out” is a fond send-up of prison-escape film cliches, with a modern twist: These jailbirds, clad in outlandish striped prison togs, are experts at hip-hop, break dancing and beat-box (vocal percussion). The producers of “Jump” have focused the talents of their latest Korean cast — 10 of the best b-boys and b-girls in Asia — into a slapstick-laden, cops-and-robbers show, choreographed by the SevenSense Creative Team. (more…)

Afrika Bambaataa and other pioneers of hip hop are scheduled to travel to Ithaca, N.Y., to speak at a two-day conference celebrating Cornell University Library’s acquisition of Born in the Bronx: The Legacy and Evolution of Hip Hop, a collection that documents the early days of hip hop with recordings, photographs, posters and more.

According to news sources, events on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 are scheduled to include music, performances and lectures by several of hip hop’s founders, and roundtable discussions led by prominent speakers from the hip hop and academic communities. Cornell University Library will host the event, which will highlight the one-of-akind historical materials. (more…)