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You mean you? Well, you did paint your face blue once. Blackface might not go over quite so well...

"Treat it like boxing, stick and move, stick and move...."

One shot?

I was under the impression there were multiple.

"If I wasnt in the rap game
Id probably have a key knee deep in the crack game
Because the streets is a short stop
Either you're slingin crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot
Shit, its hard being young from the slums
Eatin five cent gums not knowin where your meals comin from
And now the shits gettin crazier and major
Kids younger than me, they got the sky grand pagers
Goin outta town, blowin up
Six months later all the dead bodies showin up
It make me wanna grab the nine and the shottie
But I gotta go identify the body
Damn, what happened to the summertime cookouts?
Everytime I turn around a nigga gettin took out
Shit, my momma got cancer in her breast
Dont ask me why Im motherfuckin stressed, things done changed"
--Biggie Smalls

R.I.P.
B.I.G.

"Rap music...I hate it. It's tossed off by tossers. You don't need any talent to play that crap. Any ten year old kid can come up with those lyrics. No class, man, No class at all, none of them. But they'll do us all a favour in the end, 'cause those dumb bastards keep killing each other. And you know what I say? Carry on, boys, carry on." - Keith Richards

Biggie was an absolutely horrible rapper with a dreadful voice and flow. He was also the ugliest guy to ever get behind the mike. Aside from his slick production and occasionally good rhymes, I cannot fathom the appeal.

Russell Crowe is playing a jew? Then he probably will get nominated for supporting...

Just for info, they cast the part of Notorious B.I.G. He's being played by Sean Kingston, the young jamaican dude who sang Beautiful Girls with the hook line 'you had me suicidal' that has my four year old daughter expanding her vocbulary, and he is currently on the Fergis 'Big Girls Don't Cry' remix.

As for rap being from no class, well we all know that Keith Richards has always been the examplar of class.

That's some pretty inflammatory rhetoric attributed to Keith Richards, considering how much he adores black music and culture. So I looked it up on the internets. Couldn't find it anywhere. A quote from Richards calling rap artists "tossers" and "bastards" where he hopes they all kill each other. And it's not quoted anywhere. Hmmm....maybe it's not real.

This is the kind of thing he's actually said about rap:

"I think of (gangsta rap) like the hula hoop, as a fad. With the baseball caps and the baggy pants - I just got bored with what they were saying.

"And all those fingers pointing at you all the time! If I think about rap, which is basically talking over a beat, right, I think of Bo Diddley, to begin with, and then, where I really thought it reached masterpieces was in Jamaica with BIG YOUTH and I-ROY, when they were saying something and had some really incredible sounds.

"American rap has never really got on my radar screen, man. I mean, I know my brothers, right, and this is really not the best angle on them. They're all talking about the same thing and it's a wasted opportunity."

And he's also said this:

"Hip-hop leaves me cold. But there are some people out there who think it's the meaning of life.

"I don't wanna be yelled at; I wanna be sung to. I never really understood why someone would want to have some gangster from L.A. poking his fingers in your face.

"As I say, it don't grab me. I mean the rhythms are boring; they're all done on computers."

Seems like a pretty rational take to me.

Wow, how did Keith Richards become some sort of expert on hip hop? This is a guy that hasn't even been relevant musically for at least the past 20 years. Just the fact that he thinks hip hop is all made with computers shows he doesn't really know what's he's talking about. Sinatra probably said the same kind of thing about the Stones when they first broke.

But whatever. Get some opinions of your own and maybe we can talk. But dismissing hip hop or any form of music out of hand just shows that you don't get it and are out of touch.

As to dimissing Notorious BIG as not having a good flow? Let me be the first to call bullshit on that one. One of the best flows ever and even the haters wouldn't argue that point. If, that is, they actually knew anything about hip hop.

Whatever. People that think hip hop is a fad are just delusional. Like it or not, it's here to stay.

Hip-hop is indeed here to stay, but that doesn't automatically mean that most of it isn't crap.

the young kids today with their music!

Muncher, I'm the one who said that Biggie doesn't have good flows. I don't like 'em. Doesn't make me wrong, just different than you. I simply can't listen to him, and I enjoy a lot of hip hop.

You defensively dismiss Richards' assessment of hip hop without actually reading it. He never said rap is a fad. He said "gangsta rap" is a fad. Which it is. He is also right that beats are computerized in the sense that rarely are they created live.

Richards knows more about the history of African-American and Afro-Caribbean music than you or most people ever will, so I think his opinion (and it's just an opinion) should certainly be respected.

By the way, you're right that Sinatra didn't have a very nice opinion about the Stones, but he wasn't completely adverse to rock royalty. He famously sang with Elvis and later would frequently call the Beatles' "Something" "The greatest love song ever written."

Wreck, I'll buy you as a hip hop fan if you actually write something that sounds like you like hip hop. Who do you actually like?

On Biggie, again, you don't have to like him to see that he's got an ill flow. Saying Biggie don't have flow is like saying A-Rod can't hit. It's just plain wrong. You can dislike the guy, but his stats are his stats, and are undeniable.

As for gangsta rap being a fad, again, I have to disagree. Because how many fads go strong for almost 20 years? NWA Straight Outta Compton came out in 1988 and shocked the world. Just last week, 50 Cent sold over 500,000 albums during his first week. Young Jeezy is huge. Jay-Z runs Def Jam and is one of the most popular and well-paid entertainers in the world, no matter the genre.

Despite it's critics, Gansta rap has not gone away. And I have trouble believing that something that goes strong for 20 years is a fad. Next thing we'll hear bebop is a fad, too. Calling it a fad is just a way that haters try to diminish it without really understanding it.

As to Keith Richards:

"Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me"
--Chuck D

I have too many brain cells to properly appreciate hi-hop and rap. I'm with Bruce Willis as Joe Hallenbeck in The Last Boy Scout:

Milo: You think you are so fucking cool, don't you? You think you are so fucking cool. But just once, I would like to hear you scream in pain...

Joe Hallenbeck: Play some rap music.

Rap? Hip-hop? That's so yesterday. I am grooving on Reggaetón these days. And, mind you, I am a 55-year-old white boy, but I'm hipper than all y'all.

Joe, being old enough for a hip relacement does not necessarily make you hipper.

Almost thirty years in and morons are still talking shit on hip hop. Pure racism.

Never mind all that shit--Fogerty's got a new album out. Everyone else is swimmin' in his wake.

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