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Singer Amy Winehouse, the jazz-pop diva best known for a hit song describing her refusal to go to drug rehab, entered a treatment facility last week to tackle her narcotic addition.

The announcement came just days after the 24-year-old was pictured in British tabloid The Sun apparently inhaling fumes from a small pipe. Police have launched an inquiry into the matter.

“Amy decided to enter the facility today after talks with her record label, management, family and doctors,” Universal Music Group said in a statement.

“She has come to understand that she requires specialist treatment to continue her ongoing recovery from drug addiction,” the statement said.

Winehouse, who is nominated for six Grammy Awards for her acclaimed Back to Black album, seems to be as famous for her drug problems as for her music. Since the album’s US release last year, she has canceled a slew of appearances amid reports of drug use.

The album’s most popular song, Rehab, references her struggles, and is a defiant anthem against entering a treatment facility.

Rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight has been named by police as a member of a notorious gang in a crime-plagued suburb of Los Angeles.

Knight, best known as the co-founder of the rap label Death Row Records, was one of some 200 people named as members of the Mob Piru street gang in a crackdown by authorities in the city of Compton, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Knight, who was raised in Compton and spent five years in prison, said that including his name on the list of gang members was a “publicity stunt” by police.

“This is crazy,” Knight told the newspaper. “I’m a 42-year-old businessman, not a gang member. I don’t even live in Compton anymore. This injunction lists people who are already in jail - and at least one guy who is long dead.”

“I am engaged … to Barack Obama,” Scarlett Johansson joked in an interview. “My heart belongs to Barack, and that is who I am currently, finally, engaged to.”

Johansson, who showed her support for the Democratic presidential candidate at the Iowa caucus earlier this month, was really just deflecting a question about rumors she might be engaged to actor-beau Ryan Reynolds.

The 23-year-old also talked about the warm welcome she received while visiting troops stationed in the Persian Gulf last week. “Everybody that I met there was so incredibly friendly and polite and genuine and generous,” she said. “They were so, so sweet. I mean, I was just amazed.” Johansson said some people ripped patches off their jackets as gifts and handed her challenge coins from their military units. One Marine offered up his St Christopher medal.

Lil Wayne was arrested on three felony drug charges after federal agents said they found illegal drugs, including cocaine, on his charter bus at a checkpoint in southwestern Arizona.

A Border Patrol dog alerted agents to the presence of illegal drugs on the bus, said Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman Ramona Sanchez. Among what a search yielded: nearly 114g of marijuana and just over 28g of cocaine, as well as drug paraphernalia.

Officials also found a .40-caliber pistol registered to the performer, who has a concealed weapons permit in Florida. Authorities are looking into whether he violated any weapons laws in Arizona.

Former British pop singer Gary Glitter, jailed in Vietnam for child molestation, is considering moving to Hong Kong after his release, a report said Sunday.

The 63-year-old - jailed for three years in 2005 for molesting girls aged 11 and 12 - has asked his Vietnamese lawyer Le Thanh Kinh about the possibility of a new life in the city, the Morning Post said, quoting unnamed friends of Kinh.

Glitter - whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd - is set for release in August, when he will be deported back to the UK.

But he told Kinh he wants to return to Asia as soon as possible, the report added.

Glitter began thinking about Hong Kong 13 months ago after a meeting about life in the UK with British police and a sex offences specialist at his prison in Thu Duc, the source said.

“It wasn’t a happy encounter. He said afterwards he didn’t like the sound of it at all, and it made him determined never to settle back in the UK,” a friend of Kinh told the English-language paper.

Kihn denied Glitter had spoken to him about moving to Hong Kong, and said “it is not clear where he will go after his release.”

Mobb Deep affiliate, Big Noyd, is a veteran when it comes to New York rap music. After being introduced on Mobb Deep’s 1993 single, “Stomp ‘Em Out,” Noyd has been a staple on Mobb Deep projects ever since. That changed, however, when the Mobb signed with G-Unit and he didn’t appear on their project Blood Money.Now, as the Mobb continue to put out projects independently, Noyd seems to be going out on his own, hoping to spread his wings without sitting the shadows of the legendary Queensbridge duo. With his fourth solo album, Illustrious, in stores via Koch Records, the 32-year-old veteran — who’s been patiently waiting for his time to blow — sits down with BallerStatus.com to talk about working on without having Mobb Deep as a crutch, working closely with M.O.P.’s Fame, and why after more than 10 years and three solo albums, he’s still hasn’t cracked the mainstream.Either way, Noyd considers himself a “shining star” and you have to read on to find out why.Everything is good, I can’t complain. I wanted to push the album back just to prepare myself a little bit more. Just to let everyone know, not just New York or the East Coast. It’s out now though, and I’m just doing my little promo run.It’s good. Fame (of M.O.P.) actually produced the first single, called “Things Done Changed” featuring Kira. It’s still that Noyd hip-hop hustle, the hustler grimy music, but the sound done changed. People are enjoying it and I think people are enjoying the collabo with me and Fame doing the joints together.I’ve really been hands on since the latest project. A lot of other times, you know I was in the Mobb Deep camp, the Mobb Deep shadows, so there wasn’t nothing for me to do other then write my verses and that was it. Putting the concepts of the songs together, that was left up into the hands of the producers, which was Havoc and Prodigy. This time, I’m really hands on, so I gotta come up with the concepts, the flows, the style of rhymes, pick the beats… so I’m really hands on. That’s where I’ve really grown from doing, which was different back in the days where like it was left in others hands and all I had to do is write my 16 and I was done. I’ve definitely grown from there.On the business end about it, I got my own studio now, so it’s not like… I’m learning the Pro Tools a little right now. I don’t have to spend all my money in the studios no more. Again, as far as the business, I’m learning the best way to do things is just be hands on instead of having that representative going in and taking meetings for me. Now, I do that all myself. I’ve made changes like that.You mentioned going in and doing more as far as making your songs. So, how it that now? Instead of just worrying about your rhymes, you have all the responsibility now?It’s definitely hard, but they say anything that come easy ain’t worth it. It’s hard because not only did I have the luxury of having people doing it for me, I had great people doing it for me. Nobody can make music like Mobb Deep. Them dudes is so talented. It’s hard, but it’s been good though. It’s been a good struggle because I enjoy doing this. It’s not like a 9 to 5 that’s hard, and you don’t wanna wake up in the morning and go to work. It’s one of those things I don’t mind. I love going to work. It’s been fun learning.You mentioned Fame producing your single, but he also has the “executive producer” title on your album. What kind of role did he play in the creation of your album?I knew Fame for a minute man, but we really never did no music together. I had bumped into him one day at a studio and we had did one song together. It came out so hot that he was like “What you doing tomorrow? What you doing next week? Let’s get in the lab and do some joints.” I was like “I’m with it my dude.” We did like 10 songs and we picked the best four out of the 10 to use for the album. He knew I was working on the album and I had producers come through the studio to play me beats, so he was like “Yo, you mind if I sit in and listen to some beats, you know, help you pick the beats?” That’s how that all started. He helped me pick the beats, helped me write hooks, and helped me everything — from the artwork and everything. He was really hands on. I’d do a hook and he’d be like “I don’t like that, change it,” or I’d do a verse and he’d be like “You can do that better, you can say it hotter than that.” It was like a puzzle we put together and we made sure all the pieces fit.He didn’t necessarily teach me stuff I didn’t know, because I had picked up a lot of stuff from Mobb Deep, but it was just a different way of doing it. It all comes out the same, there’s just different ways about doing stuff. Instead of if I did a hook and it was bouncing, he’d be like “Hold on, that flow is ill, but slow it down.” Little points like that.I came up with Illustrious kinda like meaning a shining star. I’m not a star like I’m selling millions of records or you see me on MTV, like a $100 million and all that, but I’m a star in own right to me. I came a long way in the struggle, in the middle of Queensbridge projects, and for me not to be dead or in jail right now — just to be talking to you right now and having an article in a magazine — I’m a star in my own right.It’s crazy. I got the single “Things Done Changed.” The video is out there. That song, it’s basically just about how things have changed over the years in hip-hop. How we went from gold chains to diamonds on our necks, or shell toe Adidas to Nike boots, you know what I mean? That song is one of the concepts.I got another joint that’s on there that’s called “We Gotta Get It Done.” “Get It Done” is basically like no matter what we do, we got young adults looking up to us, and we gotta get it right. Like you don’t wanna accept the role of being a role model, but you are, so you gotta get it right. You gotta let kids know that not everything glitter under the sun. You gotta show some type of positive, like you’re not talking about shooting guns just to be like doing it. You gotta show some type of respect to the children, so this way not everybody wanna grow up to be thugs or end up dead or in jail.Then there’s a lot of other joints that’s that gutter, grimy Queensbridge lifestyle music, it’s just the sound changed a little bit. The vocals are still about my homies on the block still grinding it out, trying to make it out the hood… still getting money and still about these bitches that be flirting at the clubs. It’s still about the long chains, hanging down to my d—, you know what I’m saying? We still keeping it gutter, but we making it a little more live. You’ll definitely wanna see me perform this live.As you mentioned earlier, you wanted to get out of the Mobb Deep shadows this time around, and I noticed there is no Mobb Deep on this album, which is usually not the case. Can you elaborate as to why you didn’t work with them this time around?Everything is good. Those are my brothers for life. I know from the outside looking it, people might be like “What’s up with Noyd and the Mobb?” But, everything is great. Those are my brothers before rap, and without rap, you don’t even know. Like my mother and Havoc’s mother are like sisters. Rap music will never come between us. I just wanted to do something a little different, like step out of the limelight of the Mobb and show people I can stand on my own two feet and put all the light on Noyd as a solo artist. That don’t mean in the near future, we won’t work together.I was just with Havoc today, I passed him the album, the acapellas, because he’s gonna start doing remixes for them already. We wanna be ahead of the game, we don’t wanna wait until a song blows up and then do a remix. No, we getting remixes ready now. He’s doing new beats to all the acapellas for the songs. We doing remixes, getting N.O.R.E. and Capone on some of them. Get Cormega on some of them. We still making music to this day. I wasn’t on Blood Money, but that was just 50 [Cent] trying to get Mobb Deep established with G-Unit. The plan was, once they get established on G-Unit, then we bring the whole camp. Unfortunately, it didn’t sell what it was expected to sell with G-Unit and things didn’t work out the way that it should.I don’t got the Mobb on this album the way I usually do. I just wanted to do it different, so people didn’t get the same old Noyd album. Something new and different.He got that extension recently, so he be out for a little bit. What can I say? No one wishes they brother gonna go to jail. That’s almost like worse than being dead. The vibe is good. He’s holding his head. P’s a strong dude.What we doing now is just — since he’s working on H.N.I.C. 2 — usually you do a couple videos, but he’s doing one for every single song because he won’t be here to shoot any others. We really just trying to make the best of it.When he go in though, he gonna be alright ’cause he’s a strong dude. There’s not too much positive to bring out of it, but sometimes there is.You’re a veteran in the game. You’ve been doing it for over 10 years, but for whatever reason, you’ve been unable to really break to the next level. Why do you feel that is?It has to do a lot with my situations man. My first deal with Tommy Boy, my first solo album… I had one of the biggest deals, next to AZ back then. I did “Give Up The Goods” and I got signed to Tommy Boy for $350,000 and that was back then, so it was a lot of money. With that situation, it came out an EP, instead of an LP because I f—ed around, pulled out the hammer, shot somebody, got attempted murder and had to go to jail for a while. So that f—ed up that situation.I came home, I did a deal with Landspeed. I came out with “Shoot Em Up, Bang Bang.” I wasn’t able to do a little video or no press because the Landspeed label was shutdown. They got sued by Interscope or something. So, that was another issue with that project.Then, I did my own project, which was On The Grind. I just wasn’t ready for that, at that time. At that time, I really needed a label that would help me reach people that I wasn’t able to reach. I didn’t understand that at the time. I thought that with my name alone, my track record with Mobb Deep, that I’d be able to drop an album on my own. There was a lot more to that though. You need that machine, which is a distribution company sometimes, helping you with their connects. That was an issue. I dropped an album on my own when I wasn’t ready.It wasn’t the music ever. It was just my issues, but hopefully this time around with God on my side, 2008, I got a chance to blow. I just wanna get this album out, get my name out there and hopefully I make some noise in the game, so I can bring my label up.

Fuego Entertainment, Inc. (OTCBB: FUGO) todayannounced the release schedule of 14 new English music albums to bereleased by April 29, 2008. These albums will be released through the Fuegomajority owned English label Echo-Fuego Music and distributed in NorthAmerica by Koch Entertainment Distributor, one of the leading distributorsof music and entertainment content in the world. Music genres for these newreleases include Rap, R&B, Country, Rock, Soul, Hip Hop Instrumentals andDance.

New releases in stores by February 5th are KRS-One “Adventures in Emceein”and Ahmir “The Gift.” In stores by February 19th are Marcus Allen “Get toKnow Me” and “Hip Hop Dance Party - Volume One” by various artists. Instores by March 4th are NoXcuse “Xtra Flex” and Eriq J’Mar “Always Eriq.”In stores by March 18th are Jeff Maddox “That’s What Love Does” and RamSqad Raw “Keep it Real.” In stores by April 1st,are Euricka “Heavy As AFeather” and Da Massic “Dat-Man-So-Sick.” In stores by April 15th areDonald Connor “Paparazzi” and Positive K “Back to the Old School.” Instores by April 29th are Jeff Johnson “The Southpaw Outlaw” and DJ NoRap”Phantom.”

All Fuego Entertainment Music International (FEMI) releases are availablenow for full CD purchase and individual track download. New Echo-FuegoMusic releases will be available upon release for full CD purchase orindividual track downloads on our website at www.fuegoentertainment.net.Two free tracks for download of all FEMI and Echo-Fuego new releases aremade available on our website for all Fuego Plus Silver and Gold levelmembers.

Fuego Entertainment, Inc. is engaged in the production, acquisition,marketing, sales, and distribution of entertainment products. For moreinformation, please visit Fuego Entertainment athttp://www.fuegoentertainment.net

This press release contains statements, which may constituteforward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the PrivateSecurities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.Those statements includestatements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of FuegoEntertainment, Inc., members of their management, and assumptions on whichsuch statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that anysuch forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performanceand involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differmaterially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements.

2007 was the year that the gloss, floss, and “status of a boss” image that made rap music so commercially successful in the early 1990s stopped impressing people so much. Suddenly, rap artists were forced to create real art — or just hustle, hard — to be heard.

Hip-hop, it seemed, was going out of fashion. It just wasn’t cute anymore. Not after ‘hood hero Michael Vick got caught dog fighting, and definitely not after we taught Don Imus to call the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy headed hos.” The act had worn thin and consumers rebelled, deciding to go out and spend their money on better things than “Curtis,” 50 Cent’s latest album. Nevermind the prize-fight worthy hype for “Curtis” and a record sales war waged against Kanye West. By industry standards, the album was an utter flop, barely crawling past the 1 million mark. That’s quite a contrast to the over 5 million sales on his last album.

This might have hurt 50’s feelings — and pockets — had he not been making millions off of his “Formula 50″ vitamin water venture, or his ever-popular G-unit clothing line. Because, you see, ‘07 was also the year of diversifying your game. Creating and finding more avenues for revenue was the mantra of the past year. That entrepreneurial spirit kept the game afloat in a time a when perpetually multi-platinum artists (multi-million unit pushers) had to scratch and crawl their way to gold (500,000 sales).

Rapper Jay-Z, who was also the president of Def Jam Records from 2005 to the end of 2007, started the year with a “back from retirement” album that was a critical and commercial flop, despite a marketing blitz that was the hip-hop equivalent of the “Spiderman 2″ campaign. Undaunted, he returned to the studio months later to record and release a concept album and soundtrack to Denzel Washington’s street hustler epic “American Gangster,” which was received better by both critics and the record-buying public — a shot at redemption he likely would not have gotten if he, as Def Jam president, didn’t give it to himself. He’s also co-owner of the New Jersey Nets, and is said to have just bought my favorite clothing line, Artful Dodger. Soulja boy, Hurricane Chris, Mims, and any other new artist with a hit would do well to follow these hustling examples.

But not all rappers are in it for the money. For years, Bay Area rap artists have been at the forefront of the independent music hustle. This has long been a region where one can be commercially successful and financially comfortable with a fan base of fewer than 50,000. For an independent artist, the money is quicker, more direct and more easily accountable, meaning that you can control your business with greater accuracy than most major labels. With the consignment deals most independent artists make with local record stores, they receive between half and two-thirds of the profits generated. Not to mention live shows, which are usually a major artist’s bread and butter.

The risk in being an independent artist is higher. If you are not commercially successful, not only are you not making any money, but you’re losing it. Not to mention the fact that your art will never be recognized on the same level as more mainstream artists — so, no Grammies for you. But that is a small price to pay if you can sell one-third of 50 Cent’s albums and still make big money. The Bay Area’s E-40, San Quinn, Messy Marv, Tha Jacka, Keak da Sneak, Mr. F.A.B., Bavgate and Beeda Weeda are artists who, for the most part, have never been on a major label and are still eating fat. Some of these dudes own homes, and with Bay Area property values being some of the highest in the country, that should tell you something.

If major labels or mainstream America lose interest in hip-hop culture and rap music, it is of no consequence. In fact, this current recession in the hip-hop economy will be a good thing if it runs off all the rappers and potential moguls who only got into the game for the money, hos and clothes. In fact, it seems like recently hip-hop has retreated aesthetically and sentimentally back to the ‘hood. Some of the biggest songs of the last half of 2007, like “Duffle Bag Boy” and “I’m So Hood” and even “Crank That,” have been directly and definitively made for the ‘hood. Artists are trying less to cross over into white America and more to gain respect and notoriety from people who look like them. And that is a beautiful thing because hip-hop first and foremost is a street culture and rap is street music. Maybe this will be the beginning of a new golden age: one where the culture controls, exploits, and owns its image and therefore directly reaps the financial benefits.

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The Hip Hop Congress will host its 4th Annual Midwest Summit : ’Politics, Globalization and the Hip Hop Generation- in collaboration with the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor (www.mesa.umich.edu) from Friday, February 1st to Sunday February 3rd, 2008.

The Hip Hop Congress will host its 4th Annual Midwest Summit : ’Politics, Globalization and the Hip Hop Generation- in collaboration with the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor (www.mesa.umich.edu) from Friday, February 1st to Sunday February 3rd, 2008.

Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that Hip Hop Congress means drugs, guns, and scantily
clad women. We highlight the entire Hip Hop spectrum and advocate a broader vision of Hip Hop culture than the stereotypes often seen on TV and Radio. Hip Hop Congress (HHC) is an International Grassroots Network that educates, empowers, and unites individuals. We preserve and evolve Hip Hop by inspiring social action and cultural creativity within the community. Drawn from evolving Black cultural expression, the Summit will connect this modern cultural phenomenon to University of Michigan’s programming in celebration of Black History Month. To highlight this, the Summit will feature Black History 101 Mobile Museum.

The Summit will bring together a diverse group of people encouraging participants to educate themselves on world and domestic issues, organize action, and recognize how hip hop culture can be used to create positive change. The goal of this year’s summit is to connect those interested in Hip Hop with education, social consciousness and community action.

Activities will feature a concert featuring renowned Hip Hop artists and will include workshops, panels and discussion on prominent domestic and world issues related to Hip Hop addressing Race, Gender, Politics, and Globalization. Scheduled guests include Professor Griff of Public Enemy, Prince Whipper Whip of the Legendary Cold Crush Brothers, OneBeLo, DLabrie and the Motor City Hip Hop Revue featuring Baatin of Slum Village, Invincible, Supa Emcee, 5 ELA, Versiz and more. There will also be workshops teaching Graffiti Art, Breakdancing, DJ’ing, and MC’ing.

The Summit will be attended by interested parties from throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, California, New York and more.

Hip Hop Congress is an organization run by active young people who understand the societal pressures of today’s youth. We use Hip Hop to inspire social and civic action and stimulate individual creativity. The Congress was created in 1993 to organize Hip Hop culture and pool resources and ideas into viable programs based on uplifting the greater Hip Hop community. Since its inception, HHC has expanded around the world, making good music, good citizens and good connections across our globe.

BRIGHT, earnest and articulate young rapper Michael Reepa radiates confidence and hope for the future.

The 21-year-old talks enthusiastically about the music, film and computer projects he has become involved with - including “anti-gang violence” messages filmed last week that will be soon be posted on YouTube.

It is hard to believe that Michael had only known a life of school expulsions, violence, crime and gangs until last year. With 10 stints in jail from the age of 15 behind him he turned his life around with the help of St Giles Trust, a Peckham charity that supports young offenders.

He was an urban offender growing up on the Bredinghurst Estate in East Dulwich, but he was tired of it. Michael said: “I was getting fed up with the life and my uncle said something that made me think.

“He said I was like one of those surfers, paddling and paddling when there are no waves and they aren’t getting anywhere. People are robbing and fighting in the street but they could get a job and have a normal life.

“People say: ‘No one will give me a job because I’m black’ or ‘I’m a criminal’, but there is always a way.”

Michael, whose parents separated when he was 10, described himself as an angry,frustrated and creative child who might have been helped by early intervention. He began to go off the rails when he was kicked out of school at 15.

A shadow crossing his face, Michael said: “From the age of 19 I decided I wanted to change my life,but I kept on being drawn back into situations, back into trouble.

“Once you’re in that cycle it’s so easy to say: ‘Anything I do doesn’t work’.”

He said although prison was boring, he wasn’t deterred from crime until he found a substitute and was accepted on to cooking, computer and film editing courses two years ago in Rochester jail.

He was helped by Junior Smart, who runs the SOS project with the St Giles Trust to help rehabilitate young offenders by getting them involved with creative projects.

When he came out of prison in November 2006 he attended a Princes Trust musical training course,then set up a recording studio in his mum’s flat in Dulwich and spent a month inviting his neighbours to lay down beats and rap with him.

He said: “I call them the ‘talented thugs’. There are so many people out there with so much talent, so much to offer, but they’re not given the chance to use it like I was. I would like to start a record label and give these people a chance.”

Working with Mr Smart he later recorded his track, Change, on an album with St Giles Trust called Rapping Up Europe. It was written and produced in a week by 17 multinational artists from the area, along with a video diary.

Michael is still working with three friends he brought to his bedroom studio and has set up Dead Man Records - a metaphor, he said, for his past life as a “dead to the world” prisoner.

Only three of the 50 young men Mr Smart has worked with have reoffended - whereas 70 per cent of inmates end up back in the clink.

Having served time in jail Mr Smart knows from experience that real rehabilitation is not about punishment but kindling hope by offering positive experiences and nurturing talent.

A calm and softly spoken 32-year-old, with a passion for pointing youngsters in the right direction, he said: “We talk about building more prisons, but those people have to come out eventually. And if we don’t do something to stop them re-offending, to break the cycle, then they’ll be back in and taking more people with them.”

Michael is currently doing work experience with Rolling Sounds music production studios in Deptford and filming positive anti-gang messages for Mr Smart to post on YouTube, in response to an epidemic of home videos which glamorise the criminal lifestyle.

The furor over the name of rapper Nas’s forthcoming CD perfectly illustrates the divide between the civil rights generation and the younger hip-hop generation, which has benefited from the social advances the elders fought for.

Nas announced in October that he would use a certain racial slur as the title of his 10th CD, which will be released in February - Black History Month. The news came a few months after the NAACP had shown its disapproval of the word by holding a mock funeral for it during its convention in Detroit.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and representatives of the NAACP quickly criticized Nas’s decision. In response, Nas told MTV News, “If Cornel West was making an album called [racial slur], they would know he’s got something intellectual to say. To think I’m gonna say something that’s not intellectual is calling me a [slur], and to be called a [slur] by Jesse Jackson and the NAACP is counterproductive, counterrevolutionary.”

Tension between the hip-hop and civil rights generations has been brewing since C. Delores Tucker began complaining about the content of rap lyrics in the 1990s. Lately these clashes have become more frequent. Some members of the younger generation criticize older leaders such as Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton for demonizing hip-hop and focusing on the use of the racial slur rather than addressing social ills, such as black-on-black crime or high dropout rates. The other side is represented by such people as actor and activist Bill Cosby, who in his 2007 book “Come On People” blamed the crisis in the poor black community on “the gangsta rap industry and their white enablers.”

Recently, six local representatives of these opposing generations sat down at the Globe’s request to discuss what’s driving a wedge between them. During a three-hour conversation, they moved beyond the surface issues of acceptable words and the influence of hip-hop music to explore the changes in society that have brought the black community to its current state. They discussed the impact of a materialistic society, the effect of the urban public-education system on youths, and the lack of a common sociopolitical goal within the community.

“There’s a real difference, and I don’t think it’s about the music,” says Mel King, a longtime community activist and former state representative who now heads the South End Technology Center. “We were involved in the ’60s, the ’50s. It was like a common direction. The common direction was the civil rights movement, desegregation - it was very clear.”

Now the goals are murkier. Although desegregation occurred, it failed to remove underlying problems.

“Racism has become so multifaceted,” says Chris Conroy, 25, a teaching fellow at South Boston’s Patrick F. Gavin Middle School. “It’s not easy for youth to access a way to fight those things.”

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - “Somebody Scream! Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power” is the story of this powerfully influential and yet surprisingly little-understood American musical genre.

The story has been told several times in the past few years; there would seem little need for yet one more account. Journalist Marcus Reeves’ first book more than makes the case for its necessity, however, even if the going is rocky at times. Couched in the lively prose of a cultural reporter, his thesis is that generations with little direct connection to the civil-rights or black-power eras find in rap culture “the popular voice of America’s black, brown and white underclass. (Those huddled masses yearning to breathe free and, one day, be rich enough to drive off in a Bentley.)”

To illustrate this idea, Reeves takes readers through a muscular narrative of rap music that gets more done by leapfrogging from one milestone to the next, avoiding the risk of spreading itself thin by attempting to be definitive. Each chapter places a particular artist or group in the context of what was happening simultaneously in racial politics, whether it was the assault on black teenagers at Howard Beach that inspired Run-DMC or the Million Man March with Tupac Shakur.

This format forces Reeves to make some rather abrupt transitions, segueing from a vibrant take on the factors that contributed to the rise and fall of a particular rap icon to a racially tinged news development that doesn’t always relate. He clearly has done more research on the music side; his chapter on the psychology of Public Enemy is especially on-target.

at 6:12 PM, January 8, 2008

The triumphant return of the soul-patch

It’s sort of weird that the emo-rap underground has taken so long to adapt the mixtape. For the most part, the Def Jux types of the world choose to disseminate their throwaway songs on tour-only CDs or limited-edition collectible colored-vinyl EPs or whatever, but I’d be a whole lot more interested to see what might happen if rappers from that whole extended scene tried their hand at straight-up mixtapes: slimline CD cases with photocopies inlay cards, unbelievably annoying drops, songs where the DJ runs back the beginning of the track five times, the whole thing. And I’d be way more curious to hear Aesop Rock over Rich Boy beats than over, say, Aesop Rock beats. Maybe that’ll never happen, but we’re at least one step closer now. Last week , Atmosphere, for a while my favorite indie-rap group, released Strictly Leakage, a free downloadable mixtape. As much as I might like to hear Slug rapping over “Roc Boys” and “Dey Know,” this isn’t that, but it’s a step toward it. Slug does rap over a few older tracks from the likes of Kool G Rap and Ice Cube, and the new beats, all from longtime producer Ant, are organic and sample-based enough to fit in nicely with the older beats. Strictly Leakage starts with the regal, triumphant horn riff that Marley Marl sampled for Big Daddy Kane’s “Young, Gifted and Black,” and I got an immediate rush the first time I heard it, partly because I love that beat and possibly because Jay-Z started The S. Carter Collection with the exact same track a few years ago.

Of course, Slug has never been anywhere near Jay-Z or Kane as a rapper, and he’s been steadily deteriorating for the past few years. He’s at his best when he’s agonizing over failing relationships or contemplating quiet solitary moments, two things he never does here. And churlish as it may be to complain about an album’s worth of free new music, Slug drops plenty of clunkers here. When he posted the mixtape, he wrote that Atmosphere had conceptualized Strictly Leakage as their party-rap album, and party-rap isn’t exactly his strong suit. When Slug tries to do straight-up battle-rap these days, it can feel awkwardly mannered and forced: “It’s termination day for these halfwits / Flippin’ them lips from the cradle to the casket.” “Full Moon” is a song about how great Atmosphere’s live shows are, and on it Slug actually uses the term “raise the roof.” He also does the thing where he bitches rotely about gangsta rap and materialism, a tired lament that I sort of can’t believe the indie-rap world is still working. And on the Rhymesayers posse cut “Crewed Up,” a couple of the guest-rappers drop n-bombs, and he actually bleeps them, which is just weird.

But I’m still happy about Strictly Leakage, mostly because of how it sounds. Slug always struck me as being one of the few indie-rap mainstays who actually might have a decent shot at mainstream stardom if he ever bothered to take it. He raps on beat, his lyrics are concrete and unpretentious, and he evinces a sort of bullying charisma that keeps his songs likable even when he’s saying stupid stuff. That charisma is still there, along with a warm empathy that makes him tough to hate. Before lashing out at thug-rap on “Little Math You,” he defends a suburban kid who rebels through rap: “Go ahead and make some ruckus for the hell of it / And yell it on the streets of that monotonous development.” It’s one thing to define yourself and your audience through negation, by disapproving of music that has nothing to do with you; it’s another to stick up for even the most embarrassing segments of your audience. And Strictly Leakage is full of little concept-songs that might only half-work but which end up endearing anyway. There aren’t a whole lot of quotable punchlines on “Domestic Dog,” the song about picking up girls at the supermarket, but the idea is disarming enough to work, as are the lines about using his father’s old records to teach himself to scratch on “Road to Riches.” And even when he’s talking self-important bullshit, the beats move. Ant only ever works for rappers under the Rhymesayers umbrella, but his tracks here would’ve worked perfectly well on, say, the last Freeway album. His tracks are warm and breezy, and they work effortlessly with Slug’s husky bark. Ant was the reason that the last Atmosphere album, You Can’t Believe How Much Fun We’re Having, wasn’t a total drag, and if Slug continues his slide, he’ll be saving grace of the next Atmosphere album, too.

It’s instructive to compare Strictly Leakage to another new mixtape, Joe Budden’s Mood Muzik 3. In almost every way, Budden is a better rapper than Slug: more fluidly eloquent with a wider frame of reference, a more candid emotional urgency, and a better sense of verbal economy. Slug and Budden both know how to tell a story, and both can be a bit rhythmically lead-footed, but Budden wins on every other front. Still, I’m finding Strictly Leakage to be a whole lot more compulsively listenable than Mood Muzik 3. All the beats on Budden’s tape are new, and most of them are total mixtape fare, flat and hookless. And the mastering on Mood Muzik 3 is annoyingly muddy and distorted. It’s also about twice the length of Strictly Leakage. I’m not saying this stuff to bury Mood Muzik 3; it’s a powerful piece of work, and when it sees actual commercial release next month, Budden will have presumably dealt with its sound-quality issues. But it’s also a mixtape made not made to be listenable. Atmosphere makes most of its money as a touring act, and these days it seems to be adapting the Fugazi model to releasing music: the albums are primarily just previews to the live show. But even their most flawed music is still made with actual listeners in mind. That’s a good thing.

Voice review: Christian Hoard on Atmosphere’s Seven’s TravelsVoice review: Michaelangelo Matos on Atmosphere’s God Loves Ugly

It begins with a voice saying: “Hello Suzy, I have your $100 phone card here for you.”

Then it launches into an unlikely tale of a man being pursued by a woman who only wants him because he can afford to subsidise her mobile phone habit.

Phone Card, by veteran performer Crazy, is one of the most controversial new tunes in the run-up to next month’s Trinidad and Tobago carnival, because of the double meaning in its lyrics.

The Trini tendency to pronounce the word “for” as “fuh” means that the song’s seemingly innocent refrain, “She only want me fuh card”, ends up sounding blatantly sexual.

The tune has already made its mark in the charts published in two newspapers, the Sunday Punch and the Bomb. The only thing is that there is no legitimate way of buying it at the moment.

If you go into one of the rapidly dwindling local record shops and ask for it, you will be sadly disappointed. Yet the main shopping area in central Port-of-Spain is full of street vendors with illegal copies.

From a cart behind a truck parked in Charlotte Street, a man is selling a range of CDs in slimline cases with badly-photocopied covers.

The music on view is all reggae, dancehall, R&B and rap. But in response to the question, “You have any soca?”, he pulls out another set of discs hidden in a black plastic bag.

They turn out to be home-made compilations featuring Crazy’s tune along with other new sounds from local artists - proof that Trinidad’s record industry has been all but overwhelmed by the music pirates of the Caribbean.

Trinidad and Tobago’s local music business revolves around the annual carnival, with new soca and calypso releases supposedly scheduled to reach retailers in time for February’s festivities.

But with CDs often manufactured in the US or Canada, many of the most popular songs are not properly available until the last minute.

In fact, some do not hit the stores until long after that year’s influx of foreign tourists has flown home.

However, promotional copies are sent to radio stations and to the major carnival bands. From there, they leak out to the pirates, who burn them on to blank CDs.

Every year, the local music industry body, the Copyright Organisation of Trinidad and Tobago (COTT), prosecutes a number of street vendors after a series of high-profile police raids.

In the most recent operation, on 28 December, 40 people were arrested and charged in six different locations.

Enrico Camejo, who has run COTT’s anti-piracy efforts for the past three years, estimates that the sale of illegally-copied music costs the country’s music industry up to $2.4m (?1.2m) a year - a big deal for a small Caribbean economy.

He explains that for legal reasons, COTT can only bring criminal prosecutions when the music being sold is local, although it is possible to seize and destroy counterfeit CDs of other music.

The organisation cannot represent international copyright holders in criminal cases, only its local members - which is why the pirate vendors keep the soca CDs under wraps at first.

“The pirates don’t blast the local music as much,” he says. “They’ve been told by their lawyers - imagine, pirates have lawyers! - so they’re not afraid to expose the foreign music.”

The potential punishment for music piracy in Trinidad and Tobago is certainly strict enough. Each count of copyright violation carries a maximum penalty of a $100,000 fine in local dollars ($16,000; ?8,000) and 10 years’ imprisonment.

However, you have to catch the pirates first. COTT’s Mr Camejo admits that police constables taking part in an anti-piracy raid are only told about it on the day, for fear that they will tip off the vendors if given advance notice.

“In every country, there’s corruption in a force,” he says.

Mr Camejo describes music piracy as a “plague” and harbours no illusions about being able to stop it: he aspires only to “keep it to a minimum”.

But counterfeited music is not only easier to find, it’s also cheaper.

A pirate CD bought on the street costs the local equivalent of $3.20, as against $16 for the genuine article.

Meanwhile, the pirates have a new tune to sell. This one begins: “Crazy! Suzy say de $100 card you send for she missin’ a zero - was a $10 card.”

Yes, the self-explanatory Phone Card Reply, by the previously unheard-of Silver and Impulse, seeks to mock Crazy’s sexual braggadocio.

Far from being a great lover, says this female-sung riposte, “he clock always readin’ half past six and he flashlight always dim”.

This new song is being spread by yet another illicit medium, the internet download.

It is already featured on a wide number of music blogs and other sites dedicated to Caribbean music.

Fortunately, there are also authorised ways of obtaining soca music online.

New site trinidadtunes.com bears COTT’s stamp of approval and offers more than 5,000 songs for download at 99 US cents each, including one or two of those elusive tunes not yet available in the shops.

But with wireless-enabled music phones now as popular in the Caribbean as anywhere else, Trinidad and Tobago’s music business will have to act fast to avoid losing that market to pirates as well.

As one Trini blogger puts it: “The cry when you hear a good song is no longer, ‘flash up unno lighter!’ It has become: ‘Turn on yuh Bluetooth! Ah ha’ to get dat tune!’”