Picturing Hip-Hop: "Who Shot Ya?"

On today's show, photographer Ernie Paniccioli talked to Farai about his book, Who Shot Ya? Three Decades of Hiphop Photography, which captures legendary hip-hop celebrities in their element.

He talked about fighting with Salt-N-Pepa in the early days, hip-hop's "colonization" and rap music's evolution through photos.

Take a look at some of his pics with the greats:

Ernie with Queen Latifah

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Geoffrey Bennett

4:01 PM ET | 06-20-2007 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Hip Hop Straight Outta Lebanon

On today's show, Farai talked to Shereen Meraji, a producer for NPR's Day to Day, about hip hop in the Middle East.

Meraji traveled to Lebanon on a fellowship and reported on how last summer's conflict between Israel and Hezbollah affected the country's youth. She found that, much like in the United States, young people there were using hip hop as a primary means of expression, to convey life as they saw it.

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Geoffrey Bennett

6:53 PM ET | 06-15-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Send Us Your Photos

To coincide with our series on hip-hop, we thought it fitting to dust off those old photo albums and search for the "back in the day" shots we'd much rather forget -- back when everybody was rocking shell top Adidas, rope chains, Lee jeans and high-top fades.

We're extending the invitation for you to do the same. If you have photos hidden away -- no matter how embarrassing -- send it to us! If your entry is among the best, we'll post it for all to see and catapult you into "News & Views" infamy.

Here's how to do it:

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Geoffrey Bennett

4:04 PM ET | 06-15-2007 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

FOR THE HIP HOP LOVER IN YOU ...

As our second week in our month long hip hop series comes to an end, we were talking in the office today about how exciting it has been to have some of hip hop's best on the show. From Monie Love to Russell Simmons to MC Lyte... we've been pretty spoiled this week. We hope you continue to tune in because we have more great interviews on the way. In fact, just a few minutes ago, Farai wrapped up an interview with DJ Drama that we will air on the show tomorrow. In the interview he talks about everything from why he loves creating mixtapes to his recent legal troubles.

We're making it a point to maximize our time with each of these great guests. So at the end of each interview that we've done, we have been asking these hip hop artists and Dj's a few additional questions that reveal more about their connection and love for hip hop. Their answers got us to thinking about what answers we'd give... So, now it's your turn. Yes, that's right, we want your answers, too.

Here's what we want to know from you:

1) What is your favorite hip hop memory?
2) What is your first memory of hip hop?

And last but not least, this is probably the hardest question to answer for those of you who are hard core hip hop fans...

3) If you were driving cross country and could only bring one hip hop album with you, which album would you bring and why?

For those of you who are curious what answers our guests have been giving us, stay tuned. We plan to create an audio collage out of their answers that we will air on June 29th, the last day of our hip hop series.

Nicole Childers

7:54 PM ET | 06-14-2007 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Feedback About Our Russell Simmons Interview

So it seems folks are still talking about Farai's provocative interview with Russell Simmons last week. Even our friends at EURweb took note.

Here's a sampling of your comments:

From Albert Harum-Alvarez:

"I think Farai should have gently insisted on being treated better by this bigheaded man. That would have been the most direct way to deal with the issue of misogyny."

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Geoffrey Bennett

12:50 PM ET | 06-14-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Out on the Town.... Rapper Monie Love and the TrueSchool Movement...

As you know by now, this month we've been bringing you a series on hip hop. We've spent quite some time brainstorming about this segment both in and out of our editorial meetings. One of the biggest challenges for us has been picking which hip hop artists to have on the show. We are only dedicating a select number of segments to this series and there are so many artists to choose from!

I love hip hop. Which means that this exercise of having to narrow down the list of hip hop artists we have to choose from has been all the more difficult for me. One person that was on my "must book" list was rapper Monie Love. I have been a Monie Love fan dating back to the days when she rapped along with Queen Latifah on the hit "Ladies First".

In addition to being a fan of her music and an unabashed Anglophile (Monie's British), I was eager to have her on to talk with Farai about her experiences as one of the first lady rappers in the industry. I also wanted to know what she had been up to lately and how she was feeling about the current generation of hip hop artists and their music.

So, I looked her up on myspace.com and sent her a message requesting an interview. I heard back from her within hours. Not only did she agree to come on the show but she informed me that she was en route to Los Angeles the following day. She was coming out here to host what she called a "True School" party and she invited me to come and check it out.

For those of you who may not have heard about it before, TrueSchool Corp. is a company who's made it their mission to bring back and celebrate the hip hop (and R&B) music, culture, and lifestyle from the 1980's through the mid-90's. So far they have thrown more than two dozen TrueSchool parties in cities all over the country. Monie Love works with the company and serves as host of these events.

I attended the party Monie invited me to in Los Angeles and both the crowd and the music were dynamic! DJ 9th Wonder and DJ Cuzzin B took turns spinning a combination of hip hop and r&b hits from the 1980's and 1990's. They played hits ranging from Tupac's hit "I Get Around" to Mint Condition's "Pretty Brown Eyes". I must admit, each song they played sent me on a trip down memory lane...

And Monie Love wasn't the only celeb in the house. Spinderella from Salt N' Pepa and Rapper Yo Yo also came through to show their love and support. When Monie Love announced over the mic that Yo Yo was in the house, the crowd went wild! Yo yo grabbed the mic and rapped one of her hits as the crowd enthusiastically rapped (word for word) along with her.

If you are interested in learning more about TrueSchool and what Monie Love has been up to lately, take a listen to the interview that Farai did with Monie Love. Monie also was part of a conversation on women in hip hop that Farai did with Professor Tricia Rose and Rapper MC Lyte.

To check out the rest of our coverage on hip hop this month, please click here. And to check out our hip hop related blogs, click here.

Nicole Childers

8:16 PM ET | 06-12-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

The Zen of Hip Hop: Or, Russell Simmons Unplugged

You gotta check out today's interview with Russell Simmons. Props to producer Roy Hurst for taking 40 minutes of raw tape and cutting out most of the cursing and shouting... but leaving in just enough to give you a sense of how things went in the studio.

Russell Simmons is a hard man to book for an interview, so when he scheduled with us for a recent Friday we leapt at the chance. He rolled into NPR West six deep with people on cell phones: mainly burly men who did not smile. His shoes were arctic white, probably Air Force Ones, though I'm not up on the sneaker game. His shirt was covered in sanskrit writing. His hat was purposefully thrust to the side.

You just know some interviews are going to require a bit of energy, and there was adrenaline pumping for me (and I think other members of the staff) well before Simmons was seated in studio.

After all, this is the man who so put out the staff of WGN-TV in Chicago that they ran a blog post called "Russell Simmons: Get Over Yourself"

It read in part:

What we didn't get to in the interview is that SImmons is a proponent of Yoga. Page 71, he writes, "Meditation can help bring you back to a place that you probably forgot even existed. A place where you will know the right choice to make in every situation. A place where you can be in control of your emotions and ignore the distractions that keep you from focusing on what's really important."

Maybe all that sitting in silence caused his inner Ying or Yang to explode. All of the book's quotes from Ghandi about peace and love are fine, but it's all hard to take seriously when the author is cussing on two phones at the same time, and text-messaging his empire, instead of focusing on the people sitting right in front of him.

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Anyhow, given that context, just listen to what we got out of him.

Apparently, talking about misogyny is a no-no. Good thing we're doing a special roundtable on gender and hip hop next week!

It's all part of this month's Hip Hop series. And we got a LOT of other great stories up our sleeve.

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Anyhow, for me, this ranks as one of my all time favorite interviews. Not favorite the way you might say "chocolate is my favorite sweet," but more like, "this will go down in the annals of my interviewing history."

Hey, it didn't blow all the way up like Gene Simmons on Terry Gross' Fresh Air.... I'm relieved.

Oh, by the way, if you want to get a good decoder ring for some of the buddhist philosophy Russell and I were talking about, check out this great book on Buddhism and African-Americans, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace by Angel Kyodo Williams. Really, anyone can benefit from it... whether you're interested in Buddhist practice or just learning about the philosophy, it's simply written and clearly delivered.

Can't wait to hear what y'all think of the interview! And is Russell, as he says, a servant of hip hop?

Farai Chideya

4:06 PM ET | 06- 4-2007 | permalink | comments (29) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)