Hip-Hop Nation

  • THIS PAGE AND COVER: PHOTOGRAPHS FOR TIME BY KWAKU ALSTON; STYLING BY LISA MOSKO; MAKEUP BY ANITA GIBSON; HAIR BY VERONICA FLETCHER

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    One of the most ambitious new CDs is the Roots' Things Fall Apart (named after the book by the Nigerian Nobel laureate Chinua Achebe). The CD features live instrumentation, lyrics suitable for a poetry slam and a cameo from Erykah Badu. Roots drummer Ahmir hopes, in the future, the more creative wing of performers in hip-hop will form a support network. "There are some people in hip-hop that care about leaving a mark," he says. "There are some of us that look at Innervisions as a benchmark, or Blood on the Tracks or Blue or Purple Rain. Leaving a mark is more important than getting a dollar. I think Lauryn's album is one of the first gunshots of hip-hop art the world is gonna get."

    You could get the money
    You could get the power
    But keep your eyes on the final hour.
    --Lauryn Hill, Final Hour

    It's Puffy's 29th birthday party, and the celebration is being held on Wall Street. Inside the party, women in thongs dance in glass cages. Above the door a huge purple spotlight projects some of Puffy's corporate logos: Bad Boy (his record company) and Sean John (his new clothing label). But where's Puffy?

    The music stops. The crowd parts. Muhammad Ali arrives. He's only the appetizer. The score to Rocky booms over the speakers. Only then does Puffy enter, in a light-colored three-piece suit. Forget being street. He's Wall Street, he's Madison Avenue, he's le Champs Elysees. Donald Trump is at his side. It's Puffy's moment. His album No Way Out played on some familiar gangsta themes, but it's a smash hit. Puffy is a household name, a brand name. In fact his name comes up again and again, in gossip columns and other people's rap songs. He has transformed himself into a human sample. He is swallowed by the crowd.

    You are at the Emporio Armani store on Fifth Avenue in downtown Manhattan. There's a benefit here tonight for the Refugee Project, a nonprofit organization Lauryn Hill founded to encourage social activism among urban youth. Hill is here, and the cameras are flashing. Her musical performance on Saturday Night Live has boosted her album back to the upper reaches of the charts. In a few days she will receive 10 Grammy nominations, the most ever by a female artist.

    She never did do that SNL skit about the hooker. She says she feels too connected to hip-hop to do a movie or TV role that might compromise the message in her music. She addresses the crowd. "I'm just a vehicle through which this thing moves," she says. "It's not about me at all." You think back to some of the rappers you've talked to--Jay-Z, Nas, the Roots, Grandmaster Flash. A record cues up in your mind: "Ain't no stopping us now..."

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