Word: urban
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...post as chair of the English department at Chicago State University. "It's like Walt Whitman. 'Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.'" West's old boss, Damon Dash, puts it a little differently: "He combines the superficialness that the urban demographic needs with conscious rhymes for the kids with backpacks. It's brilliant business...
...image in the media-if it appeared at all-was generally relegated to gardeners, maids and barrio gangsters. When sales of salsa overtook ketchup in the early 1990s only Heinz seemed to care. Then came Ricky Martin and his bilingual anthem to "Living La Vida Loca." The song redefined urban pop and Latinos, almost overnight, became cool...
...fence, which was built in 1994 to prevent terrorists crossing into Israel, gazes out over a sea of concrete. This is the village of Beit Hanoun, which merges with the massive refugee camp of Jabalya and, in turn, Gaza City itself. There is no break in the drab urban sprawl until our Twin Star chopper passes the dunes around the Israeli settlement of Netzarim...
...Showtime president Robert Greenblatt told Ridley he wanted Barbershop to be a kind of urban-comedy M*A*S*H--a sitcom that would take a hit movie in a new direction. Before Greenblatt took over at Showtime, his production company made Ridley's UPN drama Platinum, a savvy look at the hip-hop business. Ridley also wrote Undercover Brother, a 2002 send-up of blaxploitation movies. "He's a really funny writer but also very intelligent," says Greenblatt. "I thought he would bring the right combination of humor and analysis to the series...
Like the movie, however, the show is ultimately a tribute to the barbershop as a nexus of African-American life where professionals and hustlers, up-and-comers and down-and-outers, cross paths. "It's an urban comedy," says Ridley. "But it's also an urbane comedy. We do jokes about selling CDs out of the trunk of your car, but we've also got jokes about Tucker Carlson." Even more so, this appealingly motormouthed show is a celebration of language--boasting, blathering, put-down and pontification--and the new cast has an easy rapport and naturalness. It doesn...