“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.”
Gogo music, a sound embedded in the nation’s capital and its surrounding suburbs, is being imported to North Carolina by the droves of Washington-area transplants who now call this state home.[…]And though it hasn’t yet penetrated North Carolina’s native fabric, observers say, gogo has been able to get more of a grip here than in other areas because of the similarity of D.C. and Triangle African-American culture.
Every day there is a new Bay Area rapper rising out of their daily worries and into a struggle to dust off haters. Stanley P. Cox, otherwise known as Mistah F.A.B., has overcome every hole in the ground and those days when there was no sunlight – just dark gray skies – in order to become one of the biggest rappers in the Hyphy movement.
X-Clan first came onto the hip-hop scene in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, when they released their critically acclaimed, ground-breaking album, To the East, Blackwards. The Brooklyn-based crew followed that record up with the equally solid Xodus, a mere two years later. Although Brother J launched a side project, Dark Sun Riders, in the mid ‘90s, the group really hasn’t been heard much from since.
Kitwana said, “Growing up as a young black male in New York in the ‘80s, I witnessed people’s constitutional rights violated on a daily basis by the War on Drugs. I’m concerned about the implications for people’s rights being violated by some of the provisions of the Patriot Act and the War on Terror.”
With the surplus of thugs, pimps, and miscellaneous gangsters in hip-hop today, it can be difficult to find a voice that represents the struggles of the average man. Fortunately, there are a handful of groups like Wade Waters that spit insightful rhymes and stand for more than the status quo of money by any means.
Over the course of his storied career, Tokyo’s DJ Krush has carved out a unique niche in the international hip-hop world. His mesmerizing beats led the “trip-hop” movement of the mid-1990s (along with Tricky, DJ Cam and others) and now, Krush has released some of his most classic work on a self-remixed double CD entitled Stepping Stones. Crave caught up with Krush (and his translator) while he was doing press out of Sony Music Japan’s New York office to talk Tokyo, gear and his thoughts on the current state of rap music in the U.S. and beyond.
Modern society advocates unrestrained freedom and audacious self-expression. Graffiti’s bold use of bright colours and undisciplined scribbling cater to this trend and it is becoming more and more popular. Nowadays graffiti has gone beyond simply scribbling on walls. Police officers no longer chase graffiti artists. Instead, there appear special bars for them to enjoy their hobby.
