Jermaine Foster's alter ego, Jermiside Scarwell, has an undying love-jones for Cincinnati. He reps for her on CD. She doesn't know. He moves away. She doesn't know. After contending in Top Cat  

I still hear him giggling, gurgling excitement like a boy with a fistful of dimes chasing down the ice cream man. When I met Tyrone Shelton, I didn't know what to think. I was about 17 when some   

"This is Jibri," says the MC, in a voice deeper than Don Cornelius' first thing in the morning. It's 10:30 on a Saturday night, but Jibri isn't on the mic. He's taking a break from the tedi  

Brian "BJ" Digby (aka Holmskillit) looks more Crest kid than a 30-year-old. Yet he speaks like he lived when Cab Calloway rapped "Minnie the Moocher." Like OGs in Sunday shoes who know "real  

Anyone overhearing Randy Weaver say he wants to change artists' minds and restore independent Hip Hop's viability through a nonprofit Web site might assume he has a Napoleon complex. Yet Napoleo  

When baby Snoop Dogg was learning to form sentences, Max Julien, the quintessential mack (The Mack, Cleopatra Jones), was the first to utter, "Yo' bitch chose me," and laid his pimp hand down   

Like oil, the soil's "black gold," Hip Hop is a natural resource that attracts investment. Stakes are high, and since everyone wants to strike big, idioms like "underground" and "keepin' i  

Although Jamaica's Rock Steady DJs introduced the notion of playing one record against another to New York listeners in the 60s, it wasn't until the early '80s that those techniques began to r  

Spoken word is an artform that either speaks to you or it doesn't, because to some, the expression is intangible. But for Poetresse, speaking words into existence is as spiritually cleansing as S  

Center stage, a DJ makes a note whine under flexed fingers, chopping chords into bits. Microphone fiends deliberate who's illest, delivering punchlines and taking hits. Fresh air is clipped by th