Free Republic

Country music is at an impasse. The genre’s two biggest stars — who also happen to be two of the nation’s best-selling artists —couldn’t be more different: one, an ebullient gay Black man; the other, a loutish-behaving, drunk white bigot. Lil Nas X has upward of 20 million singles sold of his genre-blending song “Old Town Road,” while Morgan Wallen’s double album, Dangerous, is preparing to reach two consecutive months atop Billboard’s Hot 200 chart. This comes after Wallen uttered the word “ni**er” out loud while being filmed on the first day of 2021’s Black History Month. Despite the 27-year...

It was 1979. Hip-hop was happening, in dance halls, at high school gyms and on street corners in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Rappers such as Melle Mel and Fab Five Freddy were spitting rhymes over scratching turntables; breakdancers performed with them, throwing down acrobatic moves, stylishly posing.

Pitbull went public with the contract he signed with Florida -- revealing the state paid him a ton of money to be its ambassador -- but he only did it after a politician pushed him into a corner. ....Florida state's Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran had filed a lawsuit asking a judge to allow Pitbull's deal to be made public. As we reported ...Pitbull's company had threatened to sue if representatives leaked the "trade secrets" in his contract.

When North Carolina Gov. Patrick McCrory signed House Bill 2 into law, I wonder if he was thinking long-range about what the result might be. I can’t see him and his staff wondering out loud if their thick-skulled, cracker logic...

After some tumultuous years in transition, the Hiphop Archive is firmly settled back at Harvard. And it’s about to raise its profile significantly, with a new fellowship named for the rapper Nas, a widely recognized leader of hip-hop’s “knowledge is power” movement.

He said: "My doctor told me those mysterious new pills were methadone, which is used to wean heroin addicts off dope. Had I known it was methadone, I probably wouldn't have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can't even say 100 per cent for sure. “My doctor told me the amount of methadone I'd taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin. Even when they told me I almost died, it didn't click." The 36-year-old hip-hop star admits his substance abuse addiction had spiralled out of control by then. He added to Vibe...

Byron Hurt takes pains to say that he is a fan of hip-hop, but over time, says Mr. Hurt, a 36-year-old filmmaker, dreadlocks hanging below his shoulders, “I began to become very conflicted about the music I love.” A new documentary by Mr. Hurt, “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” questions the violence, degradation of women and homophobia in much of rap music. The intended audiences include young fans, hip-hop artists and music industry executives — black and white — who profit from music and videos that glorify swagger and luxury, portray women as sex objects, and imply, critics say,...

When Bassam Khalaf raps, he calls himself the Arabic Assassin. On the Web: Khalaf's music Web site. NOTE: This site contains obscene material A Houston-based rapper said his decision to call himself the "Arabic Assassin" was meant to stir up a bit of controversy in the music business. The stage persona — along with some incendiary lyrics in one of his songs — also helped get Bassam Khalaf fired this month from his job as a baggage screener at Bush Intercontinental Airport. "I thought it was kind of ridiculous. What does my music have to do with my job?" Khalaf...

Come one, come all -- comment on this year's freak show. It began with three sluts on stage in their underwear.