bigted

Celebrities Support T.I.'s 'ATL' ; T.I., Director Chris Robinson Speak By Dawn Danz Date: 3/28/2006 5:45 pm Last night (March 27), a number of tastemakers, artists and label executives gathered at The Bombay Sapphire Lounge at Tribeca Cinemas in New York City for the red carpet premiere of T.I.'s debut film ATL. The Chris Robinson-directed film tells the story of four teenage friends growing up on Atlanta's south side while going through various trials and tribulations. "To me the film is about dreams and that anything is possible," Chris Robinson told AllHipHop.com. "You can stray from your path or you can not want to know what you gonna do but as long as you stay focused anything is possible." "It was a great script. The script came to me--- it had a lot of heart and soul in it," Robinson continued. "It just crushed me in that way where I felt like I went through this experience and I wanted to make people feel something. I wanted to tell a story and create characters that really touched people." The film also shows the versatility and growth that the self-proclaimed King of the South has experienced. Warner Music Group president, Kevin Liles told AllHipHop.com, "The movie did a good job of representing the T.I. brand and Grand Hustle brand. Chris Robinson is one of the greatest directors out there and I wish him the best of luck." Queen Latifah, Usher, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, DJ Drama, T.I.'s group the P$C, Avery Storm, Tisha Campbell and Duane Martin were among the attendees at the premiere. "I appreciate all of the love and support; I appreciate the warm welcome into the film industry. I appreciate the opportunity to be involved with such a film of this magnitude," T.I. told AllHipHop.com. "This really helps my movement and if anybody follows my career they know how important it is for me to lead than to follow. Warner Bros., Chris Robinson and the cast made this possible for me and I really appreciate it. I done did everything, now I just got to sit back and let it go." ATL hits theaters nationwide on Friday (March 31). In related news, T.I. released his fourth solo effort, King, today. The album features cameos by Young Jeezy, Jamie Foxx, UGK, BG, Young Dro and more, as well as production from Just Blaze, DJ Toomp, Neptunes and others.

Rev. Run Talks 'Words of Wisdom,' New Projects By Chris Richburg Date: 3/28/2006 1:09 pm Rev. Run's new book Rev. Run's Words of Wisdom has arrived in stores. Published by Harpers Collins, the book was inspired by the motivational message the Run-DMC member offers friends and viewers of his hit MTV show Run's House. The first 5,000 people to purchase the book will be added to Rev. Run's personal e-mail list. "More people wanted the words of wisdom because of the television show. So I said 'I can't reach everyone,' so I put out a book," the minister/rapper said. "Harper Collins wanted to do a book on Rev. Run's words of wisdom, so here we are." Rev. Run first entered the literary world with It's Like That: A Spiritual Memoir. He hopes readers will gather "hope, strength, courage and a deeper prayer life" from reading the new book. Run also revealed that Words of Wisdom is an extension of his ministry, stating, "It's really what I use. What I'm doing when I'm writing these words of wisdom, is you guys are hearing me think out loud. So whatever I'm going through, that night, that morning, all around those moments and however I get though it, again, I just give it out. So yes, it's my ministry. It's me preaching to you. And you get a word. For some people this is the only church they'll ever get." In addition to promoting his new book, Rev. Run is currently filming the second season of Run's House. "The new season will be similar to last season," said Rev. Run, who added the show will feature "situations going on in my home, with a point" as well as showing him as a father, rapper and priest. "I think the show is sort of a self-help show. Like you buy self-help books, this is a self-help show," he said. "It shows a man raising his family. I mean, it's funny. It's going to be funny of course but Run-DMC always snuck a message to you. There was always a message, but you still get the street feeling. That's my job, to get you a message but then at the same time, not throw a sermon down your throat." Rev. Run also recently hooked up with Jeanne Ashe, wife of the late Arthur Ashe for a new Arthur Ashe sneaker. The shoe, which was created by Run Athletics, is currently in stores along with the new Legacy sneaker. On a musical note, the remix for Run's current single "I Used to Think I was Run" will hit airwaves in the coming weeks. The Jermaine Dupri-produced track features Dupri and Da Brat. Rev. Run's Words of Wisdom is in stores now. The second season of Run's House premieres in June on MTV.

Hell has officially frozen over if this happens :shakehead:

*-playoff spot 1* Maize 125-63-1 .664 2* VipaGTS 116-71-2 .619 3* MaxFly 112-72-5 .606 4* Big Ted 05-06 104-85-0 .550 21.5 5* Powers Domination 92-96-1 .489 3 6* Jonas's champs 86-98-5 .468 7 James 76ers 84-100-5 .458 8 And1 82-103-4 .444 9 Top Dawg's House 74-112-3 .399 10 Hierollas 55-130-4 .302 Well the way this reads the matchups are: MaxFly vs. Jona's Champs Big Ted vs. Powers Domination Bye: VipaGTS, Maize Eliminated from playoffs: James 76ers, And1, Top Dawg's House, Hierollas

I think a Big Will and Uncle L album with production by Jazzy Jeff and Marley Marl would be the best collab album ever

Are you sure? I think you transposed a 0 in there or something. And as far as Will's "bad" stuff, I'd like to hear just how bad it really is. I remember seeing Ne-Yo on 106 & Park and saying that, I think he might've been exaggerating though just to hype himself up, since he writes for a lot of singers maybe a lot of those songs will be going to other singers

Honestly I don't mind if he does collab with Dipset, maybe he'll get younger fans if he does that, hopefully his older fans won't say he's selling out for doing that but honestly I don't see it as a bad thing as long as he drops some dope rhymes, yeah Will definately got a lot of love for Rakim and I think that if Will collabed with Rakim that'd also surprise a lot of people, a lot of wack mcs will be dropping their mics

i doubt that will'd do something like that, although i wouldn't mind if he did say that to terrance either, btw i heard that terrance howard criticised three six mafia's performance but wasn't he the one who performed the song in the movie? he waits until his check comes in to complain :kekeke:

:word: Yeah imagine if he also had his own clothing/sneaker line and if he went on tour for "Lost and Found" he'd made alot from that too, I see "Atl" being advertised a lot so that means more $$$ for Will since he produced that film, btw you must got me confused with lambert 'cause I don't mention those guys that much in my posts :stickpoke:

If there's any album Will should be guest appearing on it should be Rakim's album, I'd really like to see that happen, btw I'm also sorta surprised that Rakim's feeling Dipset so much like that

I'd imagine that maybe about 1 or 2 million of that was the profits he made from "Lost and Found", he must have made more than 20 million off of "Hitch" then since it was produced by Overbrook Entertainment, maybe he'll get some money from "Atl" too even though he ain't in it, that's sweet, I probably would probably be like Wes and save a lot of that money, put it in a savings account for a rainy day so it could gain some interest, I'd probably give some to charity, all I need is a mansion, a Benz, and a private jet and I'll be set, lol... btw, I was reading an article somewhere about all the top moneymakers in hip-hop and it mentioned Kanye making 15 million, 50 Cent making 18 million, and Eminem making 20 million but Will made money than all of them even though he didn't sell much as they did, lol...

Well LL doesn't curse anymore since "The G.O.A.T." album, Chuck D and Rakim don't curse that much either so I think that they'd be able to make a profanity free album with Will with no problem and still rhyme about the same topics that they would already, unlike a lot of other rappers out now that wouldn't be able to do a whole album without cursing 'cause of the subject matter they use, doing an album with Kanye West doesn't initially sound too good though since Kanye got too much of an ego and it probably wouldn't work out but if Kanye could put his ego to the side and step his lyrical game up who knows maybe it'd work out, that sounds like too much a stretch, I think Will doing an album with Kel Spence sounds better 'cause I think Kel's a better mc than Kanye even though he didn't blow up yet, btw maybe rappers using profanity is a reason why Will don't collaborate on other rap albums, like if "Pump Ya Brakes" was featured on Snoop's album with gangbanging songs in between that'd hurt his image, lol,

I think JJFP should do an album with MC Hammer 'cause he's working on a comeback now, imagine if they performed together, that'd be incredible, btw I think that a lot of the peeps that we want Will to collab with might be on his collab album he's doing with Kel Spence...

PART I With a new label, a new album and a new master plan for New York hip-hop, the God MC is finally ready to do it his way. Almost three years after leaving Aftermath, Rakim breaks his silence in an exclusive two-part interview with XXLMAG.COM. Posted In: Features Interview:Brendan Frederick Aside from rocking a few shows, paying child support and popping up in a Juelz Santana video, Rakim Allah has kept a low profile in the nearly three years since parting ways with Aftermath/Interscope Records. The split was both disappointing and painfully inevitable. With his elusive Oh My God album shelved and no deal, the great Rakim seemed doomed to the same (royalty) check-to-check existence as 99.9% of rappers who released albums before 1990. But, as it turns out, Ra has been drumming up quite a bidding war for his new label, Ra Records, which will release his seventh album, The Seventh Seal, this summer. While he still seems to have genuine respect for Dr. Dre, Rakim is through compromising, and eager to execute his own vision. Where you been, Ra? Word is you might have a new label situation. Yeah, that’s one of the things that’s been keeping me occupied. I’m trying to get my CEO on, trying to set up a label deal where I do my own album on my own label and look for artists. I don’t want to put too much [out there] yet, but I got a nice situation. I did it different than a lot of people in the business do nowadays. I didn’t go to the labels. I went to an investor and got a bag of money. So even with backing, do you know who will distribute this label? Well, right now we got maybe four or five [distribution] deals on the table, and we trying to get the best deal. That’s another reason why I don’t wanna speak too much on it yet. Got some nice situations and we just want to make sure we got everything on the table before we go ahead with it. Do you know what your label will be called? Right now I’m going with Ra Records, man. Nice and simple. There was a rumor going around that you were maybe doing some business with Talib Kweli. Is there any truth to that? Yeah, Kweli’s manager…they had a deal on the table for us as well. After me and Kweli did a song for Marc Ecko’s videogame, his manager was coming across a deal and wanted to sign us to the deal as well. Is it his label at Warner/Atlantic? Right, right. Is that something you’re still considering? Well, that right there—we don’t close the doors. We got a lot of people just getting at us. We don’t know if we need Warner for the distribution, so we don’t close no doors. How much of the new album do you have finished? We got a little more than half, but a lot of things gotta be done, man. I’ma do some more collabos with a couple people that I respect and some people who have been showing me love throughout the years in the industry. I think the world gonna be surprised by the people that I’m doing collabos with, man. The name of the album is The Seventh Seal. We looking to put that out this summer. What happened to the material that you recorded while you were with Aftermath? Have you been able to keep any of that material? Yeah, the material that I did out in California, I still have access to if I want to put it on my album. But at this point, it’s kind of dated. I made it two, three years ago. I want to make sure when I drop that everything is brand new, fresh. And, without question, as soon as you hear it, it’s going to be what you expected. Now that you’re off Aftermath and without a single producer like Dre overseeing your project, is it more challenging to pull the production side of your album together? When you got one person in the room listening to the tracks, it’s a little easier to pinpoint what you want and where you want to go with it. At the same time, I got a team and we listen to beats. I don’t deal with yes men. If it’s something that I’m feeling and they not, they let me know and vice-versa. It’s a team thing. But at the same time, the team gotta be in tune with what the direction is, what we trying to do here. If you got that in the right place, then everything will go smooth. How did you end up in Juelz Santana’s “Mic Check” video? My man Nick Wiz, one of my producers. Juelz called his crib one night. We spoke on the phone and he let me know he wanted to do “Juice” over. I gave him the blessing on that and let him know how much I respected what he doing. A couple of days later he had the video and I surprised him. I just went down there and showed love. It was kinda totally out of the blue. Are you a Dipset fan? No doubt. I like the Diplomats’ swagger, man. Juelz, Cam’ron, Jim Jones—they bring a lot of swagger back to the game. New York needs somebody right now to hold New York down. So when will there be a Rakim/Diplomats collaboration? Probably soon, man. They one of the cats in the game that I got a lot of respect for, music respect and street respect as well. And when I do do collabos, it’s gotta be respect. I’m not doing it because they sell records or just because they own a certain part of the market. I call ’em “smart collabos” because at the end of the day they makes sense. I don’t want people do be like, Why did Ra do a joint with this dude? I’m just trying to be focused. It’s 2006 and a lot of things have changed. A lot of different producers is bringing different things to the table and it’s that time. I’m solo. Everything should fall into place. I’m not going to spread the album too thin as far as different sounds. You gotta have that chemistry on the record. If I can make a classic album, then I did my job. Nowadays New York hip-hop has essentially taken a back seat to what’s going on Down South. What do you think the next generation of New York rappers should do to get things back on track? I think it’s simple, man. If we just do what we do, then everything will be good. That’s what makes the Down South artists successful. That’s what makes the Midwest artists successful. That’s what makes the California artists successful. They do what they do. They bring theyselves to the table. The world is intrigued by seeing what they do down in Texas. The way they dress their cars up, what they drinkin’, the way they dancing. Just like they was intrigued by the movement that we was bringing to the table. But now I think some of the artists figure that we have to kind of change our sound to fit different markets. I think if everybody just stick to they guns, it will be beautiful. Without the market being big and blowing up, it’d still be backyard hip-hop. We gotta take advantage of the marketing being so big, but we have to know how to capitalize off it without giving up too much of the original New York sound. We can touch the Down South market, we can touch the West Coast as long as we make sure we give them something that they can relate to. PART II Maybe it was too good to be true, but a collaborative album between Rakim and Dr. Dre—Oh My God—was worth finding out. Aside from his appearance on Truth Hurts’ smash R&B hit “Addictive,” Ra’s stint on Aftermath seemed doomed after years went by with no album to show for it. So when the inevitable split with Aftermath came in 2003, things looked grim for Ra. But his future looks bright since getting his C.E.O. on, founding his new label Ra Records (Click HERE for Part I of the interview if you missed it yesterday). With his new album, The Seventh Seal, on the way, Rakim Allah finally tells the truth about why he couldn’t work with Dr. Dre. Back when you were leaving Aftermath, you said in some interviews that Dre wanted to go in one direction and you wanted to go in another. What exactly did you mean by that? The artist that I am is the artist I want to remain. My integrity and my pride for my craft, hip-hop and the hood is something that I don’t want to play with. Dre, I respect him. He’s a smart cat, man. He knows what’s in the mainstream. But at the same time, picking the guns back up and talking about a lot of the dirt that I’ve been around and seen, I don’t think that’s a smart move for me right now. I respect the people that I been around. I respect the neighborhood too much. I don’t want to play myself short with that. The things that I’ve seen and the people that I’ve been around is real people. I respect them, and I’m not going to do nothing to put them out there. So, do you feel like there was a sort of pressure for you to talk about more street stuff when you were on Aftermath? Yeah, because basically that’s what Dre wanted to me to do. That was Dre’s direction. My direction is the direction that I’ve been going in for the last few years. Was there ever a time Dre sat down and said, “You should rap about this sort of thing”? In a nutshell, no doubt. Dre got his people around him that would speak to me, or they would ask my manager to ask me. Sitting down in the studio and speaking to Dre, he would most of the time say, “Well, that’s what I want you to talk about, Ra.” Things that go on in the ’hood, things that I’ve been around—that’s what he wanted me to speak on and that was clear. And [from] some of the people at his label, that was they message as well. So you wouldn’t want to rap about things that go on in the streets? I do grimy records, but it has to have a purpose. One of the grimiest records I did was “Juice,” and that was for a movie. Its purpose was to show you the difference between what you think juice is and what happens if you take the wrong road. If I feel there’s a justification for it, like the Truth Hurts song that I did—that record right there was a little controversial for me because of the content that I spoke on. A lot of people used to think I sold drugs, but I never did. But it’s to the point now where everybody know I don’t sell drugs. But on the record, [“Addictive”] was speaking on how she love her man regardless of what he do or what his job is. Regardless of where he at, he turn her pages. I like the song, I like Truth Hurts as an artist, so I did the song. I felt it was a little controversial, but that’s what the song was calling for. I like to make a point with what I do. I don’t want to keep doing the same thing that I might have done before or keep doing the same thing that everybody else is doing right now. I don’t feel that’s good for Ra, I don’t think the world want that from Ra and I definitely don’t want to hear that from Ra myself. So when he was trying to get you to go in that direction, where did you see your lyrical content going? I like the more conscious levels of hip-hop that bring awareness. I’m trying to get out of the stereotype that they put us in. Everybody don’t have to rap about selling drugs, everybody ain’t gotta rap about guns. A lot of people seen it, a lot of people been through it, but [if] you saturate the game with it, it gets to the point where that’s all there is. I’m that other dude; I want to rap about something else, I want to say something else. And at the end of the day, the ’hood is going to embrace it. That’s who I am. But I don’t have to speak on negativity. If I got 15 records on my album, all 15 of them don’t have to be about the ghetto miseries. Lyrical content aside, were there other reasons working with Dre was difficult for you? Did you have different methods of working? Nah, I can work in the morning, work at night—that’s really no problem. It was just the content; I was trying to get on the same page. That’s the main problem. Sometimes I get up in the morning now and work on something. If I feel like the creative energies is flowing, I do it in the morning, if not I wait till eight, nine, 10 at night when it get a little quieter. The time and the situations, that’s nothin’. I’m flexible with that. People say that Dre is kind of a control freak when it comes to his music. Is that something you experienced? Dre has been doing what he’s been doing for a while and he feels that that formula is it. When something’s not broke, you don’t fix it, and that’s his formula. The only thing is, he gotta look at the artist sometimes. I came from my own beginnings as far as hip-hop. I didn’t want him to feel that I was going to do 15 records about peace and ****. But, at the same time, I just wanted him to respect who I was because I respected who he was. I like rhyming on more New York–oriented music, but I told Dre, “Look dude, I know what you do. I love what you do. The world love what you do. So I have to get on some of them West Coast tracks.” Of course he’s going to put a little Ra swing on it, but that’s what Dre do. That’s what we love him for. I was ready to make the change and meet him halfway and I just wanted him to meet me a little more halfway as far as who I was and what I wanted to do. At this point in your career, you don’t really have to prove anything to anyone. Realistically, what kind of commercial expectations do you have for this next album? I want to kind of finish what I started. It got to the point where it’s eating me up. But as far as commercial [expectations], I’m not really reaching for nothin’. I think the world know what I do. They not expecting me to be extra radio-friendly as far as the sound of my music. I wanna do good music. I know the producers I’m gettin’ at is gonna give me that big music, and I’ma do what the track calls for. That’s the main thing that me and Eric B used to do when we did our album; we didn’t sit down and try to make a single. We did 12, 13, 14 records on an album and after we finished the 14, we sat down and picked a single. But I think nowadays, people try to reach for a single or try to make a single. I just like to let it flow, man. I like the beat to tell me what to do and I take it from there. When I walk down the street for a young kid to say, Oh, that’s one of the greatest ever right there. That’s enough for me. I don’t have to reach.

I see what you're talking about there AJ but this ain't a school here, this is a casino, kids don't go there 'cause gambling is illegal for kids, why won't they ban that if they're so concerned with morals all of a sudden? lol, it's an adult environment, only people 21 and over are there so I don't see nothing wrong with playing gangsta rap there in an adult venue, I agree with you about how it shouldn't be played in public places where kids are, unless edited liked the radio where anyone could listen,but this ain't a place where kids hang out, places like bars, casinos, and strip clubs are ok for the gangsta rap to be played if anyone that age says that they're gonna shoot somebody 'cause they heard 50 Cent say so then in a song obviously they got problems since they should know better at that age... As far as kids go, the sad thing though is that the parents of a lot of kids don't control what they're kids listen to or see, they see Rated X movies let alone Rated R movies before they turn 18 and they listen to violent music at young ages too while the parents don't pay attention to that, parents deserve some blame, before I was 18 my parents only let me listen to edited CDs and I couldn't watch rated R movies, well since I was mature enough they decided to let me listening to unedited CDs and watch rated R movies with my older friends earlier than that, it's more than just about what I could or couldn't listen to, they were there to teach me how to handle myself in society and problems I face and that's what kids need the most but they don't all have, I think what it comes down to the most is that parents raise their kids, a lot of parents are too busy working or they ain't there for their kids so they don't know right from wrong, the reason why kids fight with each other and do things that they shouldn't do is 'cause they don't have any parent care about them, if music and movies raise kids instead of the parents there's a serious problem there, last year Chuck D was saying in one of his terrordome posts that he saw a woman about 35 years old in a music store buying a dirty version of 50 Cent's album for her 10 year old son and he was disgusted about that, that shouldn't be happening, parents need to raise their kids bottomline for violence to stop, and if they grow up with no guidance they're gonna always get into trouble when they get older as well 'cause they don't know better until somebody disciplines them So AJ most likely those kids you know probably don't have parents that care for them 'cause if they did they wouldn't act the way they act, they'd get set straight enough to know not to imitate everything they hear or see, it's not just the music making them act that way, it doesn't matter if the music was more cleaner there'd still be kids acting rebellious if they don't have guidance, to say that if music would be clean everything would perfect would be stupid, when rap was cleaner back in the 80s there was still violence, I'm sure 15 years ago when MC Hammer was the most popular rapper there was still plenty of kids that were as juvenile as there are now, rap doesn't make the world violent, the world's violent already and it always will be....

well it does seem to be about preference, i like clean rappers like will and mc hammer but i also like listening to hardcore rappers like dmx and dr. dre, but it seems that most either like only clean rap or they only like hardcore rap, like most eminem fans would diss you for liking will and most of us will fans here don't like eminem and we diss him

Well Will's the type of rapper with his clean cut style that some of those people would like who don't normally like rap 'cause they think gangsta rap is too violent but some of those who're into gangsta rap don't like Will 'cause they can't relate to what he's saying, it's hard to please everyone, and Will has sold a lot in his career through the people who could relate to him but those who're into that gangbanging lifestyle call him soft while Eminem sold a lot through different people relating to him even though he got his share of criticism since some people think his music provokes violence, there's not a rapper out there you could say that everyone in the world loves, everyone gets their share of criticism for what they do since everyone has a different view on things

I don't think gangsta rap is the reason why there's violence so I don't think that they should ban playing it, that's like saying you're gonna shoot somebody after you watch a mafia flick, it's just entertainment to us fans, so it ain't gonna affect us to do what's being said there, but art is an immatation of life, artists express what's there, violence'll always be there, if we really wanna stop violence we need to bring our troops back from war that're dying unnecessarily, like Pac once said: "We got money for war/but we can't feed the poor", Maybe if there was no violence out there and the streets got cleaned up from guns, prositution, and drugs then add better schools plus more jobs than maybe there wouldn't be any need for gangsta rap, a lot of these rappers grew up with this lifestyle so they're gonna express it, see Will grew up being raised by both parents and went to a catholic school so he ain't gonna be rapping about thug life but most of these gangsta rappers weren't that fortunate, they didn't know who some of their parents were and they went to bad schools, what they rap about is what millions in the 'hoods experience everyday, you put those cops and government officials who criticise gangsta rap in the 'hood to live for a while and they'll feel the same **** that these gangsta rappers are rhyming about, and now when it comes to casinos having violence, they'll still be violence occuring even if all the music they play is clean, it's just as stupid as having the NBA dress code, the players'll still fight whether they wear suits or doo-rags....

You're joking right?!! :bat: :rofl: :stickpoke: If Michael Jackson is a one hit wonder so is everybody else in the music industry, he's the highest selling recording artist of all time if I'm not mistaken...

:word: there's too much biting going on these days, dmx is damn right in that song, i hope he comes back strong with his new album 'cause he's one of the realest in the game, i wouldn't mind if him and will got together and did something either

Well I think reason why he dissed "Pon De Replay" in this song is 'cause he was on Hot 97 last month and said that he was upset that Def Jam decided to release "Pon De Replay" before his single last summer, he said he felt disrespected, I don't think it was Rhianna's fault though so he shouldn't diss her for that 'cause she don't control what to release, he should just take shots at Jay-Z, not at Rhianna, rappers dissin' non rappers is not a good look, damn I wish he was on Interscope and they released 50 Cent before him and see what he'd do then, lol, well that's why DMX is so respected 'cause he ain't afraid to speak his mind and get walked on, but hey I don't like that song much either and I'd personally would rather have heard DMX's new single last summer instead of Rhianna's gimmick song so I could care less, lol, the thing that made "Pon De Replay" look like a gimmick is 'cause it got released it right when "Switch" was topping the charts, obviously it was done to get the "Switch" fans to like that song and buy her album, usually when somebody jacks a beat they don't do it right away but that was obvious the way it was done, there's a lot of beats sounding the same though so it's obvious that the reason why he dissed "Pon De Replay" is not 'cause of just that but 'cause he wanted his single to come out before hers...

I wasn't really feelin' "Pon De Replay" that much either, I thought it was a carbon copy of "Switch" too, DMX is right...

Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean brings help - and hope - to Haiti By Amy Bracken, Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor Tue Mar 21, 3:00 AM ET CITé SOLEIL, HAITI - When residents in the slums of Haiti's capital want to express rage or joy, they often throw a street party. Musical bands march through town, gathering crowds that almost overflow into the trash-filled canals that line the streets. ADVERTISEMENT That was the scene when Grammy Award-winning Haitian-American hip-hop star Wyclef Jean - one of the founders of the hit group The Fugees - showed up in the Cité Soleil slum earlier this month. One man standing on a truck yelling "Vive Wyclef!" said he thinks Mr. Jean will help him get a job. Others said they love Jean for the work he's doing for the Haitian people. Jean's Yéle Haiti organization - launched last year to find and fund groups working in education, healthcare, and the environment - is already making a difference in the neediest communities. And it is an increasingly visible - and audible - force for change across the country. Jean's early success here, observers say, lies in his star power and reluctance to get involved in politics. This uniquely positions him to be a unifier in a stratified country, bringing together rich and poor, black and mulatto, and those in opposing political camps. His willingness to appear with both rebel leaders who helped drive former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power and pro-Aristide gangsters has irked some here, but even critics who question the long-term impact of Jean's humanitarian efforts don't deny the sense of hope he is bringing to the hemisphere's poorest people. "Wyclef is one of the few people who is really able to bridge a divide in Haiti, reaching out to gang leaders, business leaders, donors ... this is very exciting," says Caroline Anstey, the World Bank's country director for Haiti and 15 other Caribbean countries. Ms. Anstey says Jean has enabled development projects to continue in dangerous areas in part by providing hope to the residents. "His focus on music and sports and young people is a very, very hopeful approach because it's really focusing on the next generation and bringing hope to people who up to now have had very little hope." p>Jean describes his motivation for starting Yéle Haiti in broad terms. "I think what happens is you're born and you die, but there's this little space in the middle and from that little space emerge some of the greatest people with the greatest responsibilities. How did I get to that space? I don't know. My dad was a minister so he was always talking to us about giving.... I came to my country to help." Today, Jean sees Yéle as an expanding movement. "I always say that Yéle Haiti is not a charity. It's a movement. We don't really need your charity, we need your movement. So physically do something." Yéle partnered recently with the Haitian cellphone company ComCEL to provide scholarships and other support for youths attending L'Athletique d'Haiti, a sports and tutoring program, and to rebuild schools and provide scholarships for children in Gonaives, a town devastated by floods in 2004. Robert Duval, a former local soccer star now revered for his creation of L'Athletique d'Haiti, says his group gets a boost not just from the funds Yéle provides. "We've been here eight years, and we've been doing a relatively good job," he says, "but now Wyclef puts so much electricity into the job that we get to be known more, and people get excited, and then the best comes out." Bringing hope Today, through Yéle, 20 schools have been rebuilt, more than 2,000 people who weren't regularly receiving basic food now are, 1,700 previously unemployed men and women of all ages are working to clean the streets, and 3,754 students are receiving scholarships. With ongoing support from ComCEL, Yéle has pledged to almost double the number of scholarships in 2006, and is rolling out program expansions in higher education, environmental awareness, sports, food distribution, and HIV prevention. And Yéle, from the Creole word for "cry" or "yell," is growing louder, with more initiatives being done through music. Jean recently emceed a hip-hop contest in the Bel Air slum as part of the USAID-funded Clean Streets project. From 50 contestants in three different slums, Haitian rap star "Jimmy O" Alexandre and Jean selected four from each neighborhood to perform in Bel Air. The crowd and Jean himself were stunned by the show. "I held my tears back because I'm a tough guy, but it was very emotional," Jean later said. "I mean, there was hope in their eyes. They're super stars in their own country, and the world just doesn't know who they are yet, but they're going to know." Jean, who said he learned to speak English by rhyming, says hip hop is universal and the best way for youths to communicate. He says he wants these Haitians to see themselves on television and to be discovered by the world. That's why he purchased Haitian TV station Telemax. One station feature will be the live finale of the hip hop competition. ComCEL Executive Director Bernard Fils-Aime said the movement also involves broadening the horizons of the wealthy elite by connecting them with the poor majority. ComCEL and Yéle plan to do this by organizing soccer competitions between different kinds of neighborhoods, and through school trips to plant trees. Jean says he hopes to produce all kinds of Haitian musicians through his label Sak Pasé (What's Up) Records. "I think the Haitian people are just the coolest in the universe, you know? And I want to always let them know, y'all are jazzy, y'all are sexy, and don't let anybody twist that," he says.

I heard that song a couple weeks ago, I believe he was dissin' Rhianna's "Pon De Replay": "I thought that "Pon De Replay" was hot! Not! How you gonna jack Will Smith for a beat? It's like how you gonna jack me out the streets? "

Well you're right about that I think Tatyana Ali and Camp Lo got some airplay but they really didn't blow up that much though, more people probably just remember them from being featured on Will's albums than anything else, lol...