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THE ARGUMENTS Here’s what local officials have to say about the gun issue: U.S. REP. JASON ALTMIRE, D-4, McCANDLESS TWP. In Altmire’s opinion, the Second Amendment allows the right to bear arms, and Philadelphia, like Washington D.C., would be included in that same argument. Within the last month, Altmire and hundreds of other congressional leaders signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting that fact, that the court should uphold the constitution and overturn the D.C.’s ban on handguns. “I think we have a Congress that the majority supports the Second Amendment and believes we don’t need more gun...

Hip Hop Revisionism by: Christine Axsmith Benedict, March 26, 2008 The Democratic Party lost its strong connection to young black professionals, asserts Keli Goff in her new book entitled Party Crashing: How The Hip Hop Generation Declared Political Independence. The visceral attachment to the Democratic Party, born of standing against fire hoses, is not present in her generation of American black. There's been "a shift in how race defines the American experience and you have to adjust the message to the audience you are trying to reach, and I don't think the Democratic Party has done that," Ms. Goff announced...

If you’re looking for a two-word motto for hip-hop in 2007, you could do worse than that: “Keep grinding.” This was the year when the gleaming hip-hop machine — the one that minted a long string of big-name stars, from Snoop Dogg to OutKast — finally broke down, leaving rappers no alternative but to work harder, and for fewer rewards. Newcomers arrived with big singles and bigger hopes, only to fall off the charts after selling a few hundred thousand copies, if that. Hip-pop hybrids dominated the radio, but rappers themselves seemed like underground figures, for the first time in...

1) 50 Cent was hired to rap the sermon and give the service “street cred.” 2) When a recent visitor asked about advent services, a confused volunteer gave her directions to the nearest pharmacy. 3) Thanks to a new title sponsor, the service was renamed “The Starbucks Christmas Eve Extravaganza at Springfield Community Church” 4) Hannah Montana offered to sing in the service but was told she is “too over the hill.” 5) The sign language translator was sacked and replaced by someone who instant messages the sermon text to the PDAs of the hearing impaired. 6) The entire Christmas...

THERE'LL be no ho, ho, ho this Christmas. Aspiring Santas have been told not to use the term "ho" because it could be seen as derogatory to women. Thirty trainees at a Santa course in Adelaide last month, held by recruitment company Westaff, were urged to replace the traditional festive greeting with "ha, ha, ha".

The late Pope John Paul II is the star in a new “trip hop� music video backed by the Vatican which is expected to challenge for the number one slot in the Christmas DVD charts. With music composed by British composer Simon Boswell, an agnostic who made his name scoring for Italian horror movies, Santo Subito! is intended to build on the growing cultic veneration of the late Pope and add impetus to the campaign to make him a saint. The DVD, to be launched in the UK by Universal, the company that publishes Amy Winehouse, takes its title...

November 12, 2007 -- The mother of rapper Kanye West died Saturday night in Los Angeles, his spokesman said yesterday. The cause of death was not released. Donda West, 58, served as chief executive of West Brands LLC, the parent company of her son's business, according to the Web site of the Kanye West Foundation, which she chaired.

This was written by the bloggers girlfriend. Top 5 Reasons Why Hip Hop Is Considered Dead": In the year 2007, it is likely to hear people talk of the long awaited Hip-Hop album releases and who’s really hot. Though with almost an equal amount of negative characteristics to Hip-Hop, it is also likely to often hear a simple three lettered phrase, “Hip-Hop is dead.” Now, this doesn’t mean go throw Nas and Jay in the bin, it just means that the art is due for a major repair. There are a number of reasons as to why people turn away...

Song Links Saggy Pants to Being Gay The Bryant Park Project, October 26, 2007 · A new campaign by the city of Dallas targets the hip-hop style of wearing your pants low enough that your boxers are showin — and part of your posterior, too. The campaign has a signature song, "Pull Your Pants Up," by Dooney Da' Priest, that links so-called saggin' with being gay. After the BPP blogged NPR's original report on the public service announcement, listeners objected to lyrics they consider homophobic. Andrew Jones commented on a line about living "on the down low" — common slang...

As cousins Travis and Chuckie Jones stroll off the South Broward High campus on school days, they're "gooned out." Wearing oversized T-shirts and low-riding jeans, they mimic the hard core look that gangsta rappers first popularized in the 1990s. The Jones boys' jean shorts, held up by belts, are hanging around their thighs and sag so low that you can't help but see the gym shorts they wear underneath. "I like saggin'," said Travis, a 15-year-old sophomore. For him, wearing baggy, ill-fitting jeans, is cool — and makes a strong statement. It's all about attitude. "It tells everybody to kiss...

No, these two don't have the latest hit on the Billboard charts. They are Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis of the so-called "Jena 6." The two walked the red carpet of the 2007 BET Hip-Hop Awards, held this weekend in Atlanta. According to those in attendance, they spoke briefly about the case before presenting the Hip-Hop Video of the Year Award. Though their cohort Mychal Bell is back behind bars, that didn't stop the two from hamming it up for the cameras (even holding up the number six with their fingers). What does it say about the culture's celebrity obsession...

ATLANTA (AP) - Grammy-winning rapper T.I. was arrested Saturday—just hours before he was to take the stage at the BET Hip-Hop Awards—after federal officials said he had paid his bodyguard to buy machine guns and silencers for him. The arrest resulted from an investigation that began this month when a federal firearms licensee contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives about a man inquiring about buying a machine gun without registering the weapon as required by law, according to a criminal complaint filed Saturday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. After trying to buy several machine guns from...

This Saturday, some Episcopalians will be interfaithing all over downtown Seattle: Join us on October 13 for a day of learning and experiencing the ways in which movement becomes a form of worship. There will be opportunities to whirl with the Sufis, dance with liturgical dancer Betsey Beckman, to walk the labyrinth. While in Beantown, they'll be doing this all weekend: All are welcome at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston, Massachusetts on October 13 at 5:30 p.m. for the HipHopEMass ’Big Bean’ Celebration with the newest Hip Hop Bishop, ’Great Momma’ Gayle Harris. On October 14, 10 a.m. - 3...

Dear brothers (do you mind if I call you brothers?), Have you heard about the movement to ticket and fine people - meaning, people like you - for wearing sagging, underwear-revealing pants? It started in a small Louisiana town, where you can now get up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for exposing your undergarments. Proposals have since popped up from Atlanta to Baltimore to Trenton, and last week even in Yonkers. It's only a matter of time before some enterprising City Council member puts it on the table here in New York. And in every city,...

Lawmakers, music industry executives and rappers disagreed Tuesday over who was to blame for sexist and degrading language in hip-hop music but united in opposing government censorship as a solution. "If by some stroke of the pen hip-hop was silenced, the issues would still be present in our communities," rapper and record producer David Banner, whose real name is Levell Crump, said in prepared statements to a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. "Drugs, violence and the criminal element were around long before hip-hop existed." At the hearing, music videos showing scantily clad women were played; music executives in dark...

GREENSBORO - Future games between bitter rivals N.C. Central University and N.C. A&T State University are in doubt after football players and coaches clashed in a benches-clearing brawl Saturday night. The latest melee to mar the NCCU-N.C. A&T rivalry started after the final seconds ticked off the clock with NCCU winning 27-22 on a game-saving interception. Players from the Durham university then ran out from their sideline and stomped on the Aggies' bulldog logo painted at the center of the field, taunting the defeated team. Fists and helmets were soon flying. The fight, which lasted about five minutes, cleared the...

Despite the fact that seemingly half of his time is spent doing good works on behalf of the legal system, Snoop Dogg's court docket is looking refreshingly clear for now. Scrapping a previous denial, the actor-rapper pleaded guilty to one felony count of possession of a dangerous weapon in connection with his arrest last September at Orange County's John Wayne Airport for trying to carry a collapsible baton onboard a flight to New York. Originally, the hip-hop star had claimed that the baton, which airport security detected in his carry-on, was a prop for a music video and he...

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued a San Jose semiconductor company today on charges that it racially harassed an African American assembly technician and then laid him off him when he complained. Novellus Systems Inc. allowed a Vietnamese American employee to play and rap aloud to music lyrics that included anti-black epithets, the federal agency said. The assembly technician, Michael Cooke, complained repeatedly to his superiors, but the co-worker continued to sing along to the music and use racial slurs, the agency said. "That kind of language pains me," Cooke said. "The N-word is not something I take lightly....

Only very rarely does a publishing event turn into a major culture-shaping phenomenon. Yet if we’re honest with ourselves, I think every person in this room today would have to agree that, however accomplished we as a group may be, our collective influence on American culture pales by comparison with the publishing landmark I’m about to discuss. I refer, of course, to the fact that 2007 is the anniversary — the fortieth anniversary — of the founding of Rolling Stone Magazine. That means we were 20 years into the revolutionary phase of rock & roll when Allan Bloom famously assessed...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Trousers that dangle way below the belt and expose what the wearer has on -- or just has -- underneath have been banned in two cities in the southern state of Louisiana, city officials said Wednesday. "We unanimously passed the legislation because we have had so many complaints from citizens who don't want to see young men with pants hanging so low, showing their underwear and, in some cases, their posterior," Louis Marshall, a city councillor in Alexandria, told AFP by phone. "The legislation is gender neutral: we wouldn't want to see young ladies walking down the...

JAMARCUS MARSHALL, a 17-year-old high school sophomore in Mansfield, La., believes that no one should be able to tell him how low to wear his jeans. “It’s up to the person who’s wearing the pants,” he said.Mr. Marshall’s sagging pants, a style popularized in the early 1990s by hip-hop artists, are becoming a criminal offense in a growing number of communities, including his own.Starting in Louisiana, an intensifying push by lawmakers has determined pants worn low enough to expose underwear poses a threat to the public, and they have enacted indecency ordinances to stop it.Since June 11, sagging pants have...

Deputies with the Maricopa County sheriff's office raided the Cave Creek, Arizona, home of rapper DMX on Friday morning (August 24), and according to a police spokesperson, 12 pit bulls were removed from the residence, all in bad condition. Police would not get into specifics but did say the animals are being tended to by veterinarians. At this point, DMX (real name: Earl Simmons) has not been officially charged with any crime, but police are still investigating. DMX was not at his home at the time of the raid, during which police also discovered a large cache of weapons. Police...

Times-Union Editor Regrets Offensive Word In Cartoon Readers, NAACP Complain To Newspaper UPDATED: 12:35 pm EDT August 20, 2007 This cartoon on the editorial page of Friday's Florida Times-Union generated strong reaction from readers and the leader of the NAACP. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- An editorial cartoon taking shot at those who fail to turn in violent criminals generated controversy, then a response from the Florida Times-Union. The cartoon appeared on the editorial page of Friday's newspaper with a caption saying, "The new rule of law." It shows what appears to be a man shot, and a gunman standing over the...

I refuse to have one ounce of sympathy for Michael Vick, who recently plead guilty in federal court to arranging dog fights on his Virginia property and when those dogs did not perform accordingly Vick was accused of killing several dogs himself It is mind-boggling to imagine what the hell was going thru Michael Vick’s mind when he was engaged in his dog fighting venture? Here is a Black NFL Quarterback, who was pretty much set for life with the Atlanta Falcons, making millions of dollars a year on and off the field of play with endorsements from major retailers....

50 Cent believes his new album will outsell Kanye West's upcoming disc, and he's betting his solo career on it. Both 50 Cent and West have albums due out Sept. 11. 50 Cent, who has sold better than West, has been riled by forecasts that sales of West's "Graduation" could rival those for his "Curtis" CD. "Let's raise the stakes," the 31-year-old rapper told hip-hop Web site SOHH.com in an interview posted Friday. "If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I'll no longer write music. I'll write music and work with my other artists, but...

The generation-long swim in a musical sewer may experience a mild sanitization thanks to the imprudent use of black gangsta-rap by a 66-year old, pasty-faced white guy from Westport, Conn. The Associated Press reports that in the wake of the Don Imus flap, such superstar rappers as Chamillionare, Master P, Talib Kweli, and popular 17-year-old newcomer Sean Kingston aim for heavy airplay without the filth. Hopefully, they’ll get it. Before the rhythmic idiosyncrasy known as gangsta-rap infested our cultural arena, composers purposed to soothe, entertain and energize the human spirit. “I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive...

All the breathless debates about Michael Vick are missing the point. The bigger issue has nothing to do with whether or not he deserves the right of due process, or whether NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should suspend him, or whether Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank should enable him or give him tough love. It's not even about whether ... Nike should be launching another designer shoe with his name on it. All of those are minor distractions from ...: How did someone like Michael Vick ever come to exist? Are we really ready to have that conversation? Do we dare...

Police: Pa. Boy Stabs Brother Over Game Jul 17 01:16 PM US/Eastern LANSDOWNE, Pa. (AP) - A 13-year-old boy fatally stabbed his brother with a steak knife after the 16-year-old refused to turn over a video game controller, authorities said. Jahmir Ricks was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Antwan Ricks at their home outside Philadelphia. The older boy died of a single stab wound to the chest, police said, and a bent and bloody knife was recovered from the home. Lansdowne police said the younger boy told them, "I just stabbed my brother," when they arrived at...

Label terminates contract before album releases and confuses everyone NEW YORK – As the hip-hop industry's tradition of wholesome, thought-provoking lyrics has slowly decayed since the 80's, one artist wants to buck the trend by adding a new level of linguistic complexity to his lyrics. Tru Dawgma, a self-proclaimed "exegetical elaborator," insists that his new style will help counteract hip-hop's recent reputation of promoting only superficiality, sex, drugs, and violence. But not everyone appreciates Dawgma's approach, as God's Fro Records recently terminated his contract and stated, "Most of our listeners don't have a GED, let alone an M. Div.!" God's...

FReep This Poll! Do you think the NAACP's funeral for the 'N-word' will reduce its use? Yes No Not sure

As the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings and the so-called C.E.O. of hip-hop, do you think the outrage over Don Imus’s prickly language and his firing might broaden into a crusade against song lyrics? It already has broadened to lyrics. It’s been that way since 1983. They’ve been yelling at me from Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys till now. What do you make of Barack Obama, who recently said that rap musicians should reform their lyrics? What we need to reform is the conditions that create these lyrics. Obama needs to reform the conditions of poverty. I wish he really...

Russell Simmons, Al Sharpton, NAACP Urge Rap/Hip-Hop Censorship What is it with everybody and rap/hip-hop these days? Russell Simmons and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) issued a statement (April 23) urging the recording industry and media outlets to censor misogynistic lyrics and racist terms from future recordings. The Rev. Al Sharpton announced steps in his battle against rap music and will take his fight into various corporations' boardrooms, by buying stock in companies that promote the music. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recently announced that it has launched an initiative called 'The Stop Campaign'...

JOHN Howard doesn't know a lot about American rapper Snoop Dogg, but he knows enough to back the decision to refuse him an entry visa to Australia this weekend. Speaking on Melbourne radio station 3AW yesterday, the Prime Minister said the reasons for banning Snoop Dogg from Australia were sound. The singer and actor was due to perform and present an award at tomorrow's MTV Music Video Awards in Sydney, but was refused a visa this week, following a string of convictions for firearms and drug offences in the US. On those grounds, Snoop Dogg failed the character test that...

Critics of vulgar, violent, gangster-style rap music make a mistake when they write off rap stars as stupid, immoral and self-destructive. They may be immoral and self-destructive, but they're not stupid. As one of my readers observed in a thoughtful e-mail, they're making a rational economic choice. The reader wrote: "I had to stop and ask this question to myself: 'Would I call my mother a 'ho' or my sister a 'bitch' if I could make a couple of million dollars and get out of poverty and live a pretty good life?" In a line of work that dangles riches...

 This is an excerpt from Stop Snitchin' April 19, 2007 Click Here to View Full Article Click to view CBS video Stop Snitchin'["... on Feb. 5, 2006, when Israel Ramirez, a student he had mentored and loved like a son, was shot to death outside a soundstage in Brooklyn. Ramirez was working as a bodyguard for the rap star Busta Rhymes, who was making a music video. A person who was there told 60 Minutes Ramirez was shot in front of Busta Rhymes. He died at the scene two days before his 29th birthday, leaving a wife and three children behind....

...Mrs. Clinton, you may recall, took umbrage at Imus's remarks, branding them "small-minded bigotry and coarse sexism." His words, she said in an e-mail to supporters, "showed a disregard for basic decency and were disrespectful and degrading to African Americans and women everywhere." Good for her, I say, except it must be asked why she was down in Florida making nice to -- and pocketing big bucks from -- a rapper whose obscenity-laced lyrics praise violence, perpetuate racist stereotypes and demean black women. Check out Timbaland's latest album, "Timbaland Presents Shock Value." Here are lyrics from the track "Come and...

"He [Imus] didn't just cross the line," Mr. Obama said in an interview with ABC News. "He fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America."[SNIP] Before Obama's speech, the crowd was warmed up by a performance by Nappy Roots, a popular hip-hop group.[SNIP] U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, contemplating a run for president, met privately with rapper Ludacris to talk about young people.

For decades, school districts have organized around a simple idea: Whatever you give to white students, give it to black students, too. Put both groups of students in the same schools. Expose them to the same teaching. If they struggle, give them the same help. In the Tampa Bay area and across the nation, this was how educators atoned for the long-ago sin of relegating black children to inferior schools. Now, in a class-action lawsuit that has Pinellas County's top educators on the defensive, the plaintiffs say the policy of equal access has failed the school district's 20,000 black students....

What to do? That's the only thing left to ponder now that the hot mess that was NBA All-Star Weekend has left us with no choice but to deal with a problem that has been fomenting for 20 years. Prison culture swallowed hip-hop culture, turning party music into a celebration of violence, hostility, disrespect and drug-dealing. Prison culture created the Black KKK and negated much of the progress won by the civil-rights movement. We can no longer afford to live in denial of these realities, and we must formulate a game plan to combat the self-destructive culture that is influencing...

Time to Stop Looking Past Black KKK: Denial Only Empowers Negative Forces in Community ------------------------------------------- Could you imagine the level of denial had my column not been written? We would still be running around pretending that NBA All-Star Weekend was some sort of glorious black holiday, and anyone who dared mention the nasty elements of what transpired in Vegas would be shouted down as a racist. Denial is a problem's No. 1 enabler. We have a problem in the black community, and it didn't make its debut at All-Star Weekend Vegas. What was impossible to ignore in Vegas was on...

ATLANTA, Feb 20 (Reuters Life!) - A hard-hitting documentary on hip-hop that asks why it often shows black men as violent sex-addicts who abuse woman is sparking debate among a generation of young people raised on rap videos. In "Beyond Beats and Rhymes" film maker Byron Hurt, a former college football star, goes on a journey of discovery around the United States, challenging hip-hop artists and record producers in the multibillion dollar industry. [snip] "We are hoping to...challenge that narrow, destructive vision of masculine identity particularly for young men and boys that are the faces of hip-hop," Schmidt-Gordon said in...

SAN JOSE, CA, February 12, 2007, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A hip hop group entitled Flipsyde, led by the singer known as Piper, released a song in Dec. 2005 entitled "Happy Birthday...so make a wish" which voices the remorse and love that a father feels towards his unborn child who was killed by abortion. The music video of the song from Flipsyde’s album, “We the People”, was just brought to the attention of LifeSiteNews. It is an undeniable testament to the guilt and sadness that many fathers experience after losing their child to an abortion.

(CBS4) COCONUT CREEK Investigators say Kevin Mair, 25, of Plantation walked into his classroom Friday morning at Atlantic Technical Center in Coconut Creek using a cane and wearing the types of headphones used in a gun range. Surveillance tape was released by the police showing the suspect approaching one person and that person doubling over. They say he became agitated and displeased about the lack of black history courses being taught. (February is Black History Month.) The teacher asked Mair to leave and called for staff assistance. Broward school spokesman, Keith Bromery, said the student – who is an adult...

COVINGTON — Police caught up with and arrested a 16-year-old youth after his loose-fitting pants slipped down around his legs and forced him to his knees, the Police Department said Wednesday. Officers spotted the boy Monday afternoon and gave chase, Covington police said. The 16-year-old, whose name was not released, was wanted in the beating and robbery of a 35-year-old Covington man Nov. 2 and the carjacking and beating with a brick of another man Jan. 14, police said. The 16-year-old was booked on counts of armed robbery and aggravated battery in the Nov. 2 attack and aggravated battery and...

Whenever I start thinking about all the damage that's been done to America by the social engineering socialists, I have to remind myself that some of my best friends are left-wingers. That doesn't do much for my blood pressure, but at least it serves to remind me that they're not all as self-righteous as George Soros, as fatuous as Michael Moore, as smarmy as Jimmy Carter, as shrill as Nancy Pelosi, as hypocritical as George Murtha, Ted Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, or as deceptive as Barack Obama, the fellow with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate...

The 800-pound gorilla is back, and as usual folks are pretending the critter ain't in the room. We'll call this particular 800-pound gorilla Joey, in tribute to that 1940s film about the giant ape called Mighty Joe Young. I think it's time Joey got his props. I think it's time we acknowledge Joey. Joey, meet the guys. Guys, shake hands with Joey. "The guys" in this case are those Baltimoreans who, for the past week, have expressed angst and dismay about the appalling way some young black men in this city, addicted to the thug life, dispatch each other with...

"Wrong place at the wrong time." Who knew the wrong place to be on New Year's Eve was at a party welcoming in the new year? Who knew the wrong time to be murdered was now – when people are so callous about death that it's almost as if we're asking the victim, "Just what did you do to get yourself murdered?" There are many words to describe the senseless killing of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams. Unfortunate. Heartbreaking. Sad. But here's the one word we can't use in describing such a death: Unexpected. Over the past 12 months, three...

ATLANTA (AP) - Heavy bass beats echo through the church as youngsters rush down the sanctuary aisles. Colorful stage lights spin overhead and fans scream, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" Yet, when the sextet Dem Unknown WarriorZ appears up front, the music and the audience go quiet. Group leader Bennie "Preacha" Foster asks the crowd of about 2,000 to first "give God the praise." Then the beat returns even louder than before. This high-energy act could stand as the headliner at any nightclub. But the group's chosen stage is the pulpit, bringing a faith-infused version of the hip-hop style called crunk to...

A video clip posted on YouTube has helped Canadian police in the investigation of a nightclub murder. Police in the southern Canadian city of Hamilton posted a clip from club surveillance cameras onto the popular naff clip sharing site in an appeal for information. The clip was subsequently viewed by more the 34,000 people. The footage showed people arriving for a Sean Price hip-hop concert last month. Ryan Milner, 22, was knifed to death in a car park after the concert. On Tuesday a baseball cap-wearing man seen on the clip, wanted for questioning, turned himself into the authorities. George...

NEW YORK (AP) — A popular hip-hop disc jockey died Saturday after being shot at least 13 times earlier this month, police said. Carl Blaze, born Carlos Rivera, was shot outside an apartment building near Manhattan's Inwood section on Dec. 7, and his $20,000 diamond chain was stolen, police said. He was taken to Harlem Hospital Center, where he died Saturday. Blaze, 30, was a DJ for hip-hop and R&B radio station Power 105.1 FM for about three years. He had gained a large fan base by spinning records at clubs and on the air on Friday and Saturday nights....