Word: hip-hop
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...same conclusions as the music's voluminous critics. In February, the filmmaker Byron Hurt released Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary notable not just for its hard critique but for the fact that most of the people doing the criticizing were not dowdy church ladies but members of the hip-hop generation who deplore rap's recent fixation on the sensational...
...Suge Knight and dogged by rumors of money laundering. But between 1992 and 1998, the label churned out 11 multiplatinum albums. Gangsta rappers reveled in their outlaw mystique, crafting ultra-violent tales of drive-bys and stick-ups designed to shock and enthrall their primary audience--white suburban teenagers. "Hip-hop seemed dangerous; it seemed angry," says Richard Nickels, who manages the hip-hop band the Roots. "Kurt Cobain killed himself, and rock seemed weak. But then you had these black guys who came out and had guns. It was exciting to white kids...
...Hip-hop now faces a generation that takes gangsta rap as just another mundane marker in the cultural scenery. "It's collapsing because they can no longer fool the white kids," says Nickels. "There's only so much redundancy anyone can take...
...Somali refugees making its mark on Kenya, Waayaha Cusub has become a popular phenomenon way beyond Little Mogadishu. Ordinary Kenyans can now be overheard enthusing about their music, which is getting a lot of airtime on local and foreign TV and radio stations and provides an unusual twist on hip-hop whose lyrics are delivered in an eclectic mix of Swahili, English and Somali - allowing the band to reach audiences in Kenya, Somalia and the Somali diaspora. Being heard by Somalis back home is important to the band, members say, because of their message of reconciliation...
...continues about how to deal with the problems posed by older gangs, it's the new wave that is costing the government sleep. Police statistics suggest that about 70 teenage gangs, with more than 1,000 members, are prowling the depressed suburbs of southern Auckland. Inspired by violent rap, hip-hop music and L.A. gang culture, they seem destined either to swell the ranks of the more established ethnic or motorcycle gangs, or, perhaps more alarmingly, to create their own equally ruthless organizations. Dubbed the ABC gangs by police, who shorten their two- or three-word names to acronyms, they...