Hip-Hop quotable

Nas goes hard on this third verse from Hero, the Polow Da Don produced first single from Nigger Untitled.

This universal apartheid
I'm hog-tied, the corporate side
Blocking y'all from going to stores and buying it
First L.A. and Doug Morris was riding wit it
But Newsweek article startled big wigs
They said, Nas, why is he trying it?
My lawyers only see the Billboard charts as winning
Forgetting - Nas the only true rebel since the beginning
Still in musical prison, in jail for the flow
Try telling Bob Dylan, Bruce, or Billy Joel
They can't sing what's in their soul
So untitled it is
I never change nothin'
But people remember this
If Nas can't say it, think about these talented kids
With new ideas being told what they can and can't spit
I can't sit and watch it
So, sh! t, I'ma drop it
Like it or not
You ain't gotta cop it
I'm a hustler in the studio
Cups of Don Julio
No matter what the CD called
I'm unbeatable, y'all

No N-word? No big deal

So the news dropped this week that Nas new album will not be titled N-Word. It will either be self-titled or untitled, depending on whom you ask. The release date being floated around is still July 1, which is, coincidentally, my birthday.

In part because of my day job and in part because I feel like I've been devoting entirely too much ink to Nas, I refrained from weighing in on the latest news. I'm still trying to sort out thoughts and have been doing a lot of reading and following what others are writing. Nas has been making the rounds at Web sites and radio talking about the new album, so I decided to just fall back.

I'm not surprised the album's title will be changed, although I'm disappointed, if only from the standpoint that a Harvard Law professor is able to release a book titled Nigger, while a rapper is not. Above all, I think Nas has achieved his goals in many ways, that being able to show that censorship exists still an that there are double standards for rap as a media.

One day - when we're old and gray - I'm sure the back story about why the album was changed will come out.

You know it's summer in L.A. when ...

1. It's 80 degrees at 9 a.m. in the San Fernando Valley.

2. The Do-Over at Crane's Tavern in Hollywood is poppin' off again.

3. Homies are talking about going to Venice.

4. The freaks are out and so is the cottage cheese.

5. Everybody's talking about how hot it is.

6. Allergies

7. The steering wheel's so hot it can burn your hand you're not careful.

...

Nas speaks on N*gger album

Spotted at Nah Right

50 Cent in Tanzania

Curtis, Banks and Yayo - collectively known as G-Unit or G-Unot, depending on who you ask - just popped over in Dar es Salaam last weekend. For my people in Bongo, it's the equivalent of a visit from a head of state.

I spotted these pics over here.

Straight Outta Kyiv / Hip-Hop Saved My Life

I've had a little writing block for the past week as I made a transition to a new
8-5 and did a little soul-searching following the LAT Beatbox fiasco.

It's nothing that a little MTV Jams couldn't fix. Catching Lupe's "Hip-Hop Saved My Life" alone did it for me.


It goes well with this little personal piece I scribed called "Straight Outta Kyiv" that the good folks at The Root just ran. It delves into my reasons for writing about Hip-Hop, touches on race, death and the album that started it all for me, It Was Written.

It's the album that Lupe often cites as an inspiration:

Sean Bell is no Winston Hayes

Here's something to think about.

NYPD's finest pumped 50 bullets into Sean Bell's car last year outside a Queens strip club, killing him. Last Friday, a judge decided that the cops didn't do anything wrong and let them go without so much as a slap on the wrist.

In 2005, L.A. County Sheriff's deputies pumped 120 shots at an SUV driven by a Compton man named Winston Hayes. He survived, and last month a civil court jury awarded him $1.3 million in damages, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Although no amount of money is going to bring Sean Bell back, I hope Bell's widow receives a much larger award from civil litigation.