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Rap Sheet: Staying Ahead of the Game

• Versatility: Talib Kweli on how Hip Hop has changed, “It’s a different competition these days: Who is the best businessman? Who’s got the best swagger? Who can be the coolest? At the time I came in, it was almost about not being cool. It wasn’t about looking the part. It was really about bringing it. The best MCs, like Lil Wayne, aren’t the best because they can rap; it’s because they understand that.”

• Therapeutic: Erykah Badu spoke to a crowd in Tel Aviv, Israel and announced her support for Palestinian Hip Hop. Rocking an ‘Out of Iraq’ t-shirt, the singer expressed why she admires about it, “They use (hip-hop) as a form of liberation, as a form of pre-resistance, as a form of therapy,” she said.

• L’chaim!: On the stranger side of Rap news, Pharrell was driving past an orthodox Jewish wedding in Miami and ended up stopping to take pictures. Guests then invited him to join the service and bless the groom. Then he played this card, “He kept asking people: ‘Don’t you know who I am? You don’t know (hit song) ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot?’ But he was having fun.”

• Taxing: Fat Joe claims his monies are in order in light of reports that he owes back taxes, “I definitely pay my taxes, I’m straight upwith it. The first thing I ever learned in the entertainment business is you gotta pay the IRS. First thing. Before I take a dollar, before I buy me a bag of potato chips, I pay those people.”