Free Republic

Don't let 7-year-old Nicholas Johnstone's blond hair, green eyes and middle-class upbringing fool you. This Berkeleyite may be from the 'burbs, but shorty can bust a rhyme and knows a hot track when he hears one. Raised near the base of the Berkeley hills, Nicholas' favorite artist is rapper 50 Cent. The first-grader makes up his own lyrics, raps along with hip-hop radio and even mimics the limp walk fashioned by early rappers. His parents introduced him to classical and jazz music as a toddler. But from his first day of kindergarten, Nicholas started using slang that his parents knew...

Second Girl Shot In 9 Days In Englewood (CBS) For the second time in little more than a week, another young girl is shot to death in the same Chicago neighborhood. It's a crime that has people in the Englewood neighborhood outraged. Ten-year-old Siretha White was celebrating at her own surprise birthday party Saturday night when bullets pierced the window of a home in the South Side neighborhood killing her. Just eight days earlier and just blocks away, 14-year old Starkesia Reed was also killed by a stray bullet in her home. As CBS 2's Rafael Romo reports, the...

NEW YORK For nearly three decades, hip-hop relics such as vinyl records, turntables, microphones and boom boxes have collected dust in boxes and attics. On Tuesday, owners of such items _ including pioneering hip-hop artists such as Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Fab 5 Freddy _ will blow that dust off and carry them to a Manhattan hotel to turn them over to National Museum of American History officials. The museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is announcing its plans to embark on a collecting initiative, "Hip-Hop Won't Stop: the Beat, the Rhymes, the...

When scores of shoppers are forced to cower on the ground on Canada's busiest street because more than a dozen gun-toting punks are using it as a shooting range, it is time to stop kidding ourselves. It is time to demand action. Where is the leadership? Where is the law? An innocent 15-year-old girl is dead, gunned down in yet another gang fight. Six other innocents were also shot, all for daring to go Boxing Day shopping in downtown Toronto -- a city once so staid, Boxing Day shopping itself was illegal. Toronto's police chief calls it "infuriating." The city's...

Scandal Erupts at the L.A. Times By Jan Golab FrontPageMagazine.com | December 2, 2005 Times are bad at the L.A. Times. Competition from new media and “a lingering feeling of bias” continue to plague the paper and drive down circulation. Editors John Carroll, Michael Kinsley and leftist icon Robert Scheer have all recently been sent packing. Now, the once venerable paper faces a scandal of Jayson Blair proportions, one that may topple key players—including a Pulitzer Prize winner—and permanently sully its reputation. The Times’ questionable coverage of the Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. (AKA Biggie Smalls) murders has long been...

Alarm in US as 'gangsta bible' goes mainstream By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles (Filed: 31/10/2005) An American magazine about gangster life that was originally aimed at prisoners is selling so well that it is to go on sale in major stores. To the alarm of those working in crime prevention, Don Diva, which calls itself "the original street bible", has become required reading in many inner cities. Don Diva's controversial 'children and firearms' issue It features interviews with convicts, and includes tips on where to hide drugs and buy the best diamond-studded gold teeth and money-counting machines. Critics say...

You can't say that National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern does not enjoy a challenge. Players will have to observe a dress code beginning this season, he has announced. The idea is going over big with the players -- like flood insurance in the Sahara. The code, delivered in a short memo last week, boils down to this: No bling. "Bling," for those of you who are not fortunate enough to have a teenager in your home, is short for "bling bling," a hip-hop term for gaudy jewelry and other forms of showy, ostentatious style. In 2002, "bling bling" joined...

They seem almost as if they were randomly plucked from Madison's streets - the mother of a 9-month-old baby, the National Honor Roll graduate, the 16-year-old son of a University of Wisconsin Medical School professor. Except for their relative youthfulness, the 12 people charged in a gang-style shooting Aug. 9 in the village of Oregon, WI defy easy generalizations. They are rich and poor, high- achievers and juvenile delinquents. They are black and white and Hispanic and Asian. The crime they are charged with - three vehicles full of people opened fire on a home in a middle-class suburb, wounding...

They say that behind every great man is a great woman, mistress, and probably a gang of mobsters too. Remember that America was built on dreams, courage, passion, sweat, tears, blood, and a little bit of illegal activity. And all that also happens to be the necessary ingredients of a good gangster. That's why gangster films top America's favorite all-time movie genres. In a way, they represent the struggle between the authorities and families of organized crime, which helped define what the American Capitalist culture is today. Whether you're rooting for Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Scarface or Tom Powers...

Rap diva Lil' Kim was convicted Thursday of lying to a federal grand jury to protect friends involved in a shootout outside a radio station. Lil' Kim and her assistant were both convicted of perjury and conspiracy but acquitted of obstruction of justice. They each face up to 20 years in prison; sentencing was set for June 24. The 29-year-old former sidekick and mistress of the late Notorious B.I.G., known for her revealing outfits and raunchy raps, testified that she did not notice two close friends at the scene of the 2001 shootout — her manager, Damion Butler, and Suif...

On December 24, 1971, the New York Times ran one of the first of many articles on a new holiday designed to foster unity among African Americans. The holiday, called Kwanzaa, was applauded by a certain sixteen-year-old minister who explained that the feast would perform the valuable service of "de-whitizing" Christmas. The minister was a nobody at the time but he would later go on to become perhaps the premier race-baiter of the twentieth century. His name was Al Sharpton .... With money also comes forgetfulness. As those warm Kwanzaa feelings are generated in a spirit of holiday cheer, those...

Lil' Kim was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice Wednesday by a grand jury in a New York federal courtroom. The charge stems from the rapper's alleged involvement in a three-year-old shootout that occurred outside the offices of New York radio station Hot 97. The 28-year-old MC, whose real name is Kimberly Jones, is charged with conspiracy to commit perjury, make false statements and obstruct justice; perjury before the grand jury; the making of false statements; and obstruction of justice, according to court documents. Indictments occur when a grand jury decides that there is sufficient evidence for a case...

SYRACUSE, NY--Can Queen Latifah help high school students understand the writings of Karl Marx? Can Sean "P. Diddy" Combs help them appreciate the work of towering historical figures like Galileo, Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci? The Syracuse school district thinks they can. The district has sent a 12-page packet to each teacher at its four high schools that suggests ways to incorporate hip-hop performers and their work into their teaching. The packet, put together by two teachers and the district's coordinators of fine arts and social studies, is intended to harness the energy the March 10 Hip-Hop Summit is generating and...

<p>BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson urged the University of Alabama on Monday to consider hiring a black to replace football coach Mike Price, fired over allegations of personal misconduct.</p> <p>Speaking in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Jackson said the hiring process at Tuscaloosa should focus on "the best coaches available in the market."</p>

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The mother of a Los Angeles woman allegedly killed and partially eaten by aspiring Texas rapper Antron Singleton (aka Big Lurch) has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Tha Row Records and others, Billboard Bulletin reports. Singleton, 27, allegedly killed and mutilated his 21-year-old roommate, Tynisha Ysais, on April 10, 2002, following a night of drug use. A medical examination of Singleton's stomach after his arrest found human flesh, according to reports. Singleton is awaiting trial on charges of murder and torture. The civil suit, filed last week by Carolyn Stinson in L.A. Superior Court, alleges that Singleton was actively courted...

An aspiring rap star who has been charged with murdering his roommate and eating part of her lung did so as part of his record label's plan to cultivate a "gangsta" image for him, the victim's mother charged in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles. Antron Singleton, a rapper who goes by the stage name Big Lurch, faces murder and torture charges after police found him staggering naked and covered in blood on a south-east Los Angeles street on April 10, 2002. In a nearby apartment, police said they found the mutilated body of Tynisha Ysais, 21, with teeth marks...