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    Articles by Jon Caramanica
    Survivors?
    Survivors?
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    You thought Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was tough? Try keeping a slot in an of-the-moment girl group. There…

    Read Story

    Eminem and 'dem
    Eminem and ‘dem
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    D12 Devil’s Night (Shady/Interscope) Eminem told Spin recently that he started his label, Shady Records, only to put out his…

    Read Story

    Businessmen: (clockwise from left) Master P, Suge, and Puffy.
    The last dons?
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Hip-hop’s first don was Russell Simmons, who in the early ’80s partnered with a longhair named Rick Rubin and converted…

    Read Story

    Mystikal
    This is slack jobbing, Vol. 2
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    This week, I listened to albums so you don’t have to. . . .

    Read Story

    Scarred sons
    Scarred sons
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    No artist in hip-hop has gone as criminally unsung as Scarface. For well over a decade, the Houston native has…

    Read Story

    Garage Sale, Vol. 1
    Garage Sale, Vol. 1
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    It’s hard work representing for the hip-hop nation. So hard, in fact, that no institution seems capable of giving out…

    Read Story

    A love like yours is rare: Atlantic Starr.
    Starr struck
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    After my dad got burned in a carburetor explosion at the auto repair shop he owned and managed, my mom…

    Read Story

    Jillin' for beats
    Jillin’ for beats
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Mariah Carey strips down to a rawer hip-hop sound.

    Read Story

    The peacemaker
    The peacemaker
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Making up is hard to do. At last week’s MTV Video Music Awards, Destiny’s Child (at least, what’s left of…

    Read Story

    Jurassic 5: Touted as the group to save Los Angeles from its morass of self-indulgence.
    Rap dinosaurs
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Do you remember the Los Angeles season of MTV’s The Real World? Race and politics were all over that ill-fated…

    Read Story

    . . . my thing was to take the whole fucking tamale and put my stamp all over it. . . .
    Niggaz We Assimilate—Dynamite Hackand Kid606
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Seeing a bunch of white guys bopping across MTV pretending to be rappers is no cause for critical reflection these…

    Read Story

    More songs about bitches and the 'hood: 8ball &MJG.
    Hard pimps
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Methinks the baller doth protest too much. Polite, gold-toothed, braided, and jovial-as-he-wants-to-be, 8ball is hardly the prototype for post-Too Short…

    Read Story

    Masked avenger
    Masked avenger
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1895) We wear the mask that grins and lies It hides our…

    Read Story

    Pulling punches: Mos Def goes rock with Jack Johnson.
    Black rock
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Mos Def and company transition from hip-hop to Hendrix, but can it be done?

    Read Story

    Rah Digga strikes a Lauryn Hill pose.
    Pretty thugs
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Chick rappers used to be only slightly more popular than white rappers. Or gay rappers. In the brutally masculinist world…

    Read Story

    Pastor Troy
    Slanguistics
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    PASTOR TROY Face Off Madd Society/Universal PREFUSE 73 Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives Warp THE SOUTH’S FIRST HIP-HOP wave may…

    Read Story

    Ras has found a home with a beat.
    Rap Smart
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    RAS KASS Van Gogh (Priority) Ras Kass was the answer. Seven years ago, the Carson, Calif., native appeared out of…

    Read Story

    Fab raps like a well-trained machine.
    Coming off the bench
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    FABOLOUS Ghetto Fabolous (Desert Storm/Elektra) Twenty-plus years of hip-hop evolution—a steady, sometimes seismic process of natural selection—and at the beginning…

    Read Story

    LL Cool J: Ill bombs and dot-coms.
    Ghostown.com
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    About a month before 360hiphop.com launched, the bombs started dropping. Every morning, as folks would turn on their machines, the…

    Read Story

    DJ Shadow turns the tables with a compilation of brass band music.
    Brass monkeys
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    I had checked off “percussion” when Ms. Weiskopf handed out the thin slip of paper that listed our sixth-grade band…

    Read Story

    Dream: An escape from Puffy's nightmare?
    Puffy’s Angels
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Pity the P. Diddy. For the past two weeks, Sean Combs has been trapped in court all day, listening to…

    Read Story

    Jay-Z talks the fight.
    Roc Star Beef
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Hip-hop’s lyrical fight club

    Read Story

    Gettin' It on the Streets
    Gettin’ It on the Streets
    By Jon Caramanica • October 9, 2006 12:00 am

    Certain things are meant to be bought on the street. It’s clear, for example, that the trade in certain mind-altering…

    Read Story

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