1935: Is it back? Economically, maybe, who knows. Fashion-wise? Andre Benjamin certainly believes so fiercely! Andre, a.k.a. Andre 3000 of Outkast, long ago gave up rollin down the strip on Vogues and slammin Cadillac doe's in favor of acting, singing weird songs, and designing fancy menswear under the label "Benjamin Bixby." It features old-style things like breeches and waistcoats and "plus fours," something I could not even identify despite being a stylish man myself. So: is this a mark of progress, or something to scoff at? Take a look!: Despite the fact that his clothing line is perhaps not for me—and perhaps something that would cause me to make jokes were I to spy it on the street, offending as it is to my traditional small-mindedness—there's no denying that Andre is a guy with an actual claim to being an artist, whereas just about every other celebrity designer just has a claim to being a narcissist. So good for him!

Hip hop music was formally unveiled on an August night in 1973, when DJ Kool Herc started cutting two identical records back and forth to keep the freshest part playing, making the world's first break beat. It was only a matter of a few short years until the "up jump the boogie to the bang bang boogie," and another few years to "Sucker MCs call me sire," and then things really started rolling, and within a decade there was Puffy rapping about money while dressed in money driving a money car made of money. And who lost out? Kool Herc himself. The man is the walking embodiment of hip hop's shunning of its quasi-spiritual roots:

Grab your 40 and roll a blunt: The trailer for Notorious has finally hit the interweb. With Brooklyn rapper Gravy (née Jamal Woolard) playing Biggie and Derek Luke as P. Diddy, we can't wait for this one. But will the film be a fitting legacy to one of the greatest rappers of all time? It's hard to say from this teaser, which offers only a few glimpses of actual footage. Still, those glimpses are pretty awesome: Biggie as a little kid counting money? That pinstripe suit? Gold, Jerry, gold. On the other hand, the film is being released on Jan. 16, 2009 — historically a studio dumping ground. If it was really "sicker than your average," wouldn't Fox Searchlight drop it over Christmas? Only time will tell, but for now, the trailer holds us over after the jump.

"What happens when two Hollywood rappers team up with a cracker from Oakland ? Ghetto beats and gnarly rhymes slap you in the face." Sounds great. New hip hop law: If your rap crew hires Lizzie Grubman's PR firm to tout your shout out from Perez Hilton, you suck.

Controversy: A magazine has published a list of "Overrated" things! Is their analysis correct? They certainly hope you will argue about it a lot! Blender's list of the most overrated things in music ends with a typically "provocative" #1: Deceased rapper Tupac. Former Gawker columnist Tionna Smalls has already started an online protest campaign! Problem, though: Tupac is the most overrated thing to hit music since the synthesizer craze. It's the mythology that did you in, Pac:

Steve Stoute is Jay-Z's partner in Translation Advertising, and specializes in connecting huge corporations to "urban" celebrities for ridiculous amounts of money. Such as R&B star Chris Brown's secret deal to make a song all about Wrigley's gum, but not tell anyone until after it was a #1 hit! "It's incredible that an artist was nominated for a Video of the Year with a Wrigley's jingle," says Stoute. Yes, quite. "And 'selling out' today, he adds, means creating inauthentic relationships between pop culture and product." Oh, I thought it meant "The Slogan On Steve Stoute's Business Card." [Adweek]

Biggie Smalls was one of the greatest rappers of our generation. Way nicer lyrically than the more iconic Tupac, his fellow murdered MC. Another point in favor of Biggie: he had a crazier wife. That would be Faith Evans, the Bad Boy R&B singer who is most famous for-let's be honest-being Biggie's wife. Now Faith has written an autobiographical book, and although I'm sure there's lots in there about empowerment, mourning, etc., check out this part where she sneaks into Biggie's house, pulls Lil Kim out of his bed, and beats her ass!:

Times are hard for celebrities: Rocafella Records co-founder and former Jay-Z sidekick Damon Dash (pictured, with Maybach) can't pay his mortgage! His bank has started foreclosure proceedings on his two apartments after the mini-mogul failed to pay his combined $78,500-per-month mortgage. Times are also hard for celebrity coverage: as you can see, it's been reduced to finding ways to tie in the mortgage crisis with celebrity lifestyles. The media's already expanded the definition of "celebrity" to include politicians and athletes, so playing off real estate trends is a logical next step. There's a massive news hole to fill. First Ed McMahon was foreclosed on, now this! When will it stop? We can't wait to find out! [Newsday. Pic via NYM]

You may have exclaimed "Uhhhhhhh!" when you heard that New Orleans' favorite musically atrocious bounce rapper Master P is planning to launch a new cable network called Better Black Television (BBTV). P says it will be "a family-friendly network" with "positive subject matter," meaning it's designed to be a kick in the balls to BET, which has been knocked forever for having a trashy programming lineup. Master P jokes aside, could this thing actually work-and should it? We, the opposite of his target demographic, will tell you the answer: BBTV's announced show lineup so far includes hip hop video and interview shows with only "appropriate" music included; a comedy show; a kids' show called Gee Gee the Giraffe; a bilingual soap opera; a cooking show; a financial literacy show; a "behind-the-scenes" celebrity show; family-friendly black movies; and profiles of historical black figures. If you've spent much time watching BET, the lineup sounds awfully familiar. BBTV is essentially saying that it will be what everyone hoped BET would be before it degenerated into lots of infomercials, Juice reruns, and endless repetitions of, um, Master P videos. (Although BET has made a bit of a comeback with original programming recently, it hasn't been enough to resurrect its reputation for embracing stereotypical lowest-common-denominator black programming). So yes, the irony of Master P running a positive network is not lost on anyone. But give the man some credit. He went from selling tapes of his terrible music out of car trunks to running a business conglomerate that probably makes him worth more the Puff Daddy, his more glamorous NYC counterpart. BET has long had the "black cable network" idea to itself, which allowed it to get away with selling such crappy programming for so long. So P, we salute your business sense and your commitment to positivity, if not any of your 15 albums or your son's equally grating music. Master P could easily be the next black billionaire; he just needs to remember not to go so heavy on the music censorship that he blocks exposure for the next coming of himself. Uhhhhhhhh.

One awkwardly rapping local television reporter might be written off as a crackpot. Two might simply be a coincidence. But six different videos of TV reporters breaking into rhyme? It's a trend that has spanned decades, but has only recently been teased out into the open by the hard work of YouTube skimmers. Complex puts together a definitive list of this painful but hypnotic media meme. We've included just one example for you after the jump: an apparently 17-year-old traffic reporter from North Carolina delivering her morning traffic report in the form of a spasmodic (drug-fuelled?) freestyle rhyme. Let's battle, girl:

So Michael Bloomberg won't be going to the Olympics in Beijing, or attending the upcoming Democratic or Republican conventions. At least that's what he revealed today at a press conference alongside Jay-Z. During which he also dropped in a reference to one of Jay's songs. So if you don't see him at the conventions, but you do see him bobbing his head at the Young Jeezy concert in two weeks, now you know why. The video of the mayor and the rapper is here.

When you're a big time Miami crime rapper who took your name from a legendary cocaine dealer, and somebody "accuses" you of once being a prison guard, why not just admit it? Then you could have a nice laugh about how far you've come. Instead, Rick Ross denied it, and got The Smoking Gun on his case, which just keeps on releasing more evidence of his C.O. career, and now people like us are providing links to his Certificate of Appreciation "in recognition of your service as a Perfect Attendance Employee assisting the Department of Corrections." Hustlin' baby. After the jump, the now-famous photo of the big coke don at his graduation ceremony as a corrections officer, which he tried to attribute to "online hackers" or something:

When a business has completely saturated one market, it can either die out or expand into another market. I think it's safe to say that rap-as-pop-music has reached its tipping point in terms of US commercial appeal. Luckily there's a billion people in India who have yet to embrace pimpology! Rappers in America have been stealing Indian music for beats for quite a while now, but the relationship hasn't been reciprocal. Snoop Dogg is on the kizzle, though, coming to Mumbizzle with a suitcase full of mizzle (marketing strategies). His main obstacle? India's current old-ass musical tastes:

Female rapper Lil Kim and female rapper #2 Foxy Brown are both being sued for the same reason: being procrastinating authors. Ha, [we're-all-in-same-boat joke]! Simon & Schuster has filed suit against both of them for taking their advances ($40K and $75K, respectively) and then not writing a damn word. Ha, if only [Keith Gessen joke]! And they have no excuse for not doing it-they were both in jail! Ha, [OJ-confessional-book joke]! I'm sure you'll all grieve for the lost opportunity to read Lil Kim's prospective book, which was titled "Untitled Novel." Ha, how come these things never happen to [blogger-turned-author joke]? [NYS]

Some internet person made the outrageous assertion that hip hop superstar Kanye West might be using some hired help to keep up with the posting on his blog. The rapper has a "ghost blogger" named Marcus Troy, they say. Kanye will be damned if he sits back and allows his fans to believe that he does not personally type every rant and find every photo of oddly shaped foreign water bottles all by himself! Ghost blogger? Psht! Kanye has posted irrefutable evidence that his blog is a one man operation:

Scene: At the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival in DUMBO on Saturday. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz takes the stage for his mandatory media-whoring opportunity, and starts shouting out Brooklyn and the headlining act, KRS-ONE (who's actually from the Bronx). "K..R.. uh.. K-R-So- One!" says Markowitz (A WHITE GUY, LOL). Later, KRS-ONE is on stage doing his rock-the-vote bit. "Y'all heard from the Bronx Borough president..." he says. BURN, MARKOWITZ.

If you were a totally unknown rapper who suddenly appeared in a documentary rhyming alongside the late Biggie Smalls, one of the greatest and fattest men to ever pick up a microphone, wouldn't you be happy for the publicity? (Yes, if you were smart). Not if your name was Supreme, a Brooklyn rapper who is suing some documentary makers for $20 million (good luck) for using footage of the Notorious B.I.G. battling Supreme in 1994. It caused him "mental distress," the poor lil guy! The Post says the suit "neglects to say who won the war of words between Supreme and Biggie," but we're gonna go with "Biggie by a mile," based on classic clips like this one:

The hip hop magazine XXL has a serious problem: It was founded back in the days when hip hop people actually wore XXL clothes. Now, everybody wears tight pants, and young'uns don't even understand what "XXL" means. So Byron "Bol" Crawford, a blogger for the magazine's website-whom I secretly love (NO HOMO, Bol) because he is perhaps the most offensive asshole on earth-is trying to revive the relevance of XXL's name by encouraging hip hop to "reclaim its manliness." By, uh, smashing all "teh gheyness."

At one time-1994, specifically-Nas was the king of New York, and the greatest rapper alive. Over successive albums he got somewhat less great. But he did a good job of scoring free publicity for his new album by naming it "Nigger," then, predictably, being forced to change it. You have to like him though-he's the kind of guy who tells the WSJ that he envisions the hip hop nation growing old and "going to Snoop Dogg concerts in the meadow." And he has this sweet Fox News dis track out too. You all (meaning "Briganti & Co.") should have memorized it by now:

Is America ready for a Real World cast member to serve in Congress? Don't worry, it's just Kevin, from season one! Back then Kevin Powell was sporting a high top and being the serious guy in the New York house with Heather B and the southern girl and the model guy and the other guy. Now, Powell has shaved his head and declared his candidacy for Congress from Brooklyn. And if young people can't relate to this guy, all hope for political engagement is lost. Observe Powell's stellar set of pop culture credentials: