Word: hip-hop
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Poetry used to be the emperor of the literary universe, but lately it has been overshadowed by almost every other genre - novels, comic books, self-help - or just channeled into other media, like rock and hip-hop. These days most bookstores stock a few odd volumes on a back shelf, and most of those are written by singer Jewel. But people are still writing poetry and finding ways to say things no other medium can - if you have the time to stop and listen...
However, when I’m in my car, what I choose to do with my time is entirely up to me. While I have the freedom to roll down my window in Times Square and blast hip-hop music, I also have the freedom to roll them up and talk on my cell phone or listen to CDs of my own accord. The public is not listening...
...anymore. The South is finally where hip-hop's at. These days, the biggest acts on Billboard's urban charts and on MTV are Southerners like the Ying Yang Twins, Ludacris, Mike Jones and, of course, Atlanta duo Outkast, which last year became the first hip-hop act to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. The cutting edge of Southern music: a danceable, rapid-fire, bass-heavy rap (frequently blended with R&B) called crunk, fine-tuned and marketed by loud, gold-toothed former DJ Lil Jon and popularized partly through his massive and spectacularly vulgar...
...that doesn't sound like [it was made by] a guy from New York or somebody from L.A. It's specific to the South," says U.S.C. professor Todd Boyd, author of The New H.N.I.C: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop. "A big part of hip-hop is about representing, and they want to rep their culture." The Sundance hit Hustle & Flow, about a Memphis, Tenn., pimp who wants to be a rapper, will introduce the sound to an even wider audience and ought to boost collaborators like Memphians Al Kapone and Three 6 Mafia...
...South is still rising. MTV has ordered a reality show called Crunkville. Meanwhile, competition for Lil Jon and company is emerging out of Houston, via a hip-hop twist called screw, a smoother, less frenetic rap that slow-danced its way out of Texas last year when Lil' Flip's Sunshine became...