They say every hero needs a theme song. The same can be said about columnists, too. Sometime around spring break of 1989 or 1990 a college friend and I decided to sojourn from Cincinnati to West   

"Can you see the pride in the panther, as he glows in splendor and grace?" ­ Mos Def When I developed the concept for The Ledge (my monthly column focusing on positive Hip Hop music an  

"In my neighborhood, when you're shot, you get up and keep going." -- 50 Cent Within a single week during February 2003, over 800,000 people flocked to the stores to hear the Queens-bred r  

Imagine a 60-year-old man standing in a grocery store checkout line with a portable CD player blasting a classic Mos Def and Talib Kweli mixtape. That will be me in 20 or so years, unable to shake  

"We need to expand rap beyond this land/Set up competitions with England and Japan " -- KRS-One, "Build Ya Skills" A friend recently convinced me to lift my ban of Eminem's sadly predic  

"Guys wanna wife me and give me the ring/I'll do it anywhere, anyhow, I'm down for anything..." -- Lil' Kim, featuring 50 Cent, "Magic Stick" So, I'm stuck in traffic and having this   

As long as you got mentally dead people/Who are living in a mental death/Meaning living in a mental grave/You need somebody to dig that grave up and bring them back to life ... -- Prince Rakeem   

You've heard the story by now: Back in the mid-'70s, DJs in the Bronx borough of NYC would host these huge street parties while emcees would rhyme over the hypnotic break beats of the latest vin  

"This ain't rappin', this is street-hop ..." -- Nas There's a glitch in the Hip-Hop Matrix, a departure from the norm: One who walks among the Hip-Hop glitterati, making his rounds on the