Word: rawkus
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...Koch Records)3.5/5 StarsTalib Kweli used to be inextricably linked with the NYC vibe of a Brooklyn block party, the backpacker haven Rawkus Records, the warm, thick voice of his old partner Mos Def, and the coolly meditative guitars and pianos DJ Hi-Tek brought to all his productions. But now, Rawkus is gone, the New York hip-hop scene is in hibernation, the old Mos Def is AWOL (lost to Hollywood and bad concept albums), and Hi-Tek produces worthless album tracks for G-Unit and 213. Since 2004’s crossover flop...
...much independent hip-hop, from Rawkus to Rhymesayers, suffers from that tidy precision—hanging onto skeletons of forms long after the first experiments made them stick...
...James was a counterintuitive choice to head STAR. After leaving college, he had shied away from News Corp., founding Rawkus, a record company that specialized in rap-metal bands a few years before Limp Bizkit made millions with the formula. He also had a brief dalliance with cartooning, producing a strip whose antihero "Albrecht the Hun" preferred literary pursuits to raping and pillaging. But James eventually set aside his own artistic impulses and joined the family fold. He first took over News Corp.'s small but troubled music division in 1996. Next, with investors clamoring for greater involvement with...
...MORE PRISONS, next to a painting of the Cuban flag. It was easy to spot the trappings of American hip-hop in the animated crowd--baggy pants, and T shirts splashed with the names of American artists (Mos Def, the Notorious B.I.G.) or record labels (Bad Boy, Rawkus). Nearby, fatigue-clad soldiers--an ever watchful presence on Havana's streets--eyed the proceedings...
...Black on Both Sides (Rawkus), Mos Def's cultural concerns reveal themselves in every number. The opener, Fear Not of Man, delivers a manifesto: "We are hip-hop. Me, you, everybody... So the next time you ask where hip-hop is going, ask yourself: Where am I going?" On the song Mr. Nigga, Mos Def raps along with Q-Tip about the myriad indignities faced by young blacks at the hands of policemen, waiters and others, even when the young black men in question are rich and successful. "Even if it's never said and lips stay sealed," he raps...