“Other People’s Property” is a very good book that is at its best when its author acts like a DJ. But don’t get it twisted: [Jason] Tanz sees hip-hop as text more than as sonic phenomenon or, for that matter, stone groove. “Other People’s Property” is made up of nine journalistic pieces, each a mix of reportage and personal reflection about race and the industry of hip-hop. It’s freaky, equally in love with Western philosophers such as Jean Baudrillard and the classic albums from hip-hop’s golden era. In a very hip-hop effort to get his shine on, the author mashes up his prose, cutting in and out of reportage and confessional styles.
This cutting edge documentary not only unmasks the faces of seven individuals addicted to graffiti, but it exposes their thoughts, feelings, faults and fears — an avenue unrivaled by any graff film to date[…]”Graffiti is like the United Nations. There is a representative from all corners of the earth. Black, white and the many shades in between, man or woman.”
With the Christmas holiday approaching, various Hip-Hop artists are involved in charitable events to help families in their communities experience a great holiday season. In addition to previously mentioned efforts by Jay-Z, Ludacris, Chris Webber and David Banner have teamed up to give 250 children a Merry Christmas in Dekalb County, Georgia.
Def Jam President Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter has helped to relieve New Yorkers caught in the midst of a crippling New York City transit strike and has arranged to commute people to work by chauffeured limo. With state-supervised mediation talks still under negotiation, Jay-Z commuted seven people from the Bronx in one limo, seven in a limo through Queens and two limos for 14 people in Brooklyn since the Def Jam president hails from Brooklyn.
The rapper 50 Cent is still holding a baby and a gun is still sticking out of his paints in Andre Charles’s mural on E. Third St. and Avenue B, which Charles told The Villager he would paint over last week. Complaints about the gun by some local residents, including fellow muralist Antonio “Chico” Garcia, prompted Charles to add to his Web site a cringing rat over the words “Graffiti artist calling the cops” with a link that highlights Garcia’s quotes in The Villager two weeks ago.Garcia did complain to local police, but only after he first expressed his dislike of the painted weapon to Charles, Garcia said. While Garcia opined that Charles is hyping the situation to attract attention, Charles claimed dissenters weren’t getting the right message — that 50 Cent is a role model. Charles insisted he is waiting for the weather to turn warmer to paint something else, something perhaps even more provocative.
A song written by a Sandwich High School student has led to his being charged with a felony for threatening to bomb the school.
Kanye West may have been this year’s hottest hip-hop act - earning no fewer than eight Grammy nominations this week - but he also sees himself as a political commentator. During a national television fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Katrina he declared: “Bush doesn’t care about black people!” Blunt, certainly. But how you take West’s wisdom about the President may say something about how you respond to the notion, increasingly discussed, that hip-hop has become a new mainstream medium for political discourse, activism and change. And that it is a phenomenon not limited to the United States.
Snoop Dogg and Reverend Jesse Jackson gave eulogies at a funeral service for executed Crip co-founder Stanley “Tookie” Williams today (Dec. 20) at a South Los Angeles Church.
Lil’ Kim is getting into the holiday spirit despite being incarcerated and has teamed with fellow Brooklyn native Zab Judah and clothing company Mitchell & Ness to donate toys to under-privileged youth in Philadelphia.
