Rap

Anti-rap crusader C. DeLores Tucker's lawyers didn't listen to the lyrics before claiming that the words of slain rap superstar Tupac Shakur defamed their client, a former Pennsylvania secretary of state. This was a big mistake, because the lawyers got the allegedly offensive lyrics "flat out wrong," according to a federal judge in Philadelphia. U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter yesterday dismissed Tucker's $10 million defamation case against the rap star's estate and the estate's lawyer, Richard Fischbein.

Outside O'Hara's restaurant at 39th and Chestnut, about 20 expensively dressed young men are having a shoving match over the comparative virtues of rappers Three Times Dope and Steady B. The sounds of their argument are heard inside, where Penn students are uneasily tucking into lunch. Eventually, one patron sidles up to the manager, who like the busboys, is watching the fracas with his nose against the glass. "Excuse me," she asks. "But are we . . . safe in here?" "Oh sure," he says.

In football, a "rap" has long been known as a strong defensive weapon, a blow to the side of the helmet to let the opponent know you're there and thinking of him. Los Angeles Raiders defensive back Lester Hayes is a master rapper, perhaps the player most feared by scampering wide receivers throughout the league. But these days Hayes is doing a different rap - to music. Hayes is just one of 26 Raiders who rap, rock and dance in "The Silver/ Black Attack," a record and video.

I've always admired men and women whose legacy included theological speeches and/or poetic writings, forever transcending their accomplishments. Men like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose "Mountaintop" speech moved a people, and women like Maya Angelou, whose poem, "On the Pulse of Morning," touched this great nation. Gangsta cap now has society moving . . . and ducking . . . and praying. From urban battlefields, to Town Watch communities, gangsta rap is making its way into every home, unexpectedly - by someone trusted with a key. The unimaginable horror committed by the 13-year-old and 11-year-old boys who gunned down a schoolteacher and four students in Jonesboro, Ark., reflects the suppressed nightmares of torment-ridden parents, shouldering the responsibility of raising what society has dubbed a "difficult child.

"There's a lotta kids today," says Quincy Jones, "who figure, 'Hey, I'm gonna go for the gold 'til I'm 16, and if I live past 20, that's great.' " This is not an optimistic assessment. "What we have to do," he continues, "is provide an alternative to the glass pipe. 'Just Say No' doesn't mean anything in the inner city. It's coming from someplace else - well-intended, but naive. The only people who get someone's attention there are rappers like Ice-T, who's saying you can get killed if you wear the wrong colors.

There's a message in the death, life and art of rapper Tupac Shakur for those too offended by his violent, profane and misogynous behavior ever to listen to his work. It bears being heard by parents and all adult members of the Tupac Is a Thug club. They may not realize that rap or hip-hop music is one of the major styles popular among those twenty-something and younger, regardless of race, income or locale. Gangsta rap, Shakur's style, is a subset whose appeal is strongest among young black people in cities but probably will be heard by your child at some point.

AH, SUSAN Sarandon - Hollywood intellectual and iconoclast. Let's consider what it is that makes her worthy of a multi-page spread in the Daily News (Sept. 9). She is an admitted drug user. She admits to having indulged in pre-marital sex in college. (I believe the old fashioned word for that is "fornication. ") She had an "affair" while married. (I believe the old-fashioned word for that is "adultery. ") She now lives - unmarried - with a man who fathered a couple of her children.

You may not realize this, but those teenagers stepping and sweating on the dance floor to the scratching, subversive, electronic dissonance of a Public Enemy rap are actually commenting on the ideas that Henry David Thoreau advanced in his treatise on Civil Disobedience. And, those of you who went to see Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing this summer - you may be similarly unaware that, when pizza man Sal trashes Radio Raheem's boombox, he is acting out the ancient, Platonic dialogue between the philosophers and the poets.

There aren't that many places to go, where they come from. Mount Holly's a small town. But they have a message, and they've got to take it somewhere. Coming Off Correct, or C.O.C., is an aspiring group of rap singers on its way to a recording studio, then to Mississippi. Then, who knows where. "Our goal is to set an example that if you set your mind to something, you can achieve anything," said Harold Russell, 24, the group's producer. "A lot of people dream and don't continue with it. " C.O.C.

I JUST GOT the chance to see the videotape of rapper Chuck D at the recent hip-hop summit in New York, and what he had to say was illuminating about the world of rap and the entertainment corporations that run it. The first thing that struck me was that Chuck D used one curse word after another. The guy could have been giving his talk in a locker room, as opposed to a room filled with ministers, women and others. What he has to say is important, but he cuts himself off from mainstream audiences with that language.

Jay Harris, one of the area's top football recruits, was stripped of his scholarship by Michigan State earlier this month after he posted a series of profanity-laced rap videos on YouTube, a source said Tuesday. Under the name "Jay DatBull," the Downingtown East senior has uploaded nine videos to YouTube. Using explicit lyrics, Harris raps about drugs, with derogatory references directed at women and homosexuals. His first single, "DatBull 4 Life," surpassed 50,000 views over the weekend and appears to show Harris smoking marijuana while sitting behind the steering wheel of a car. Harris, a wide receiver, said he freely chose a rap career over football.

Chris Kelly, 34, half of the 1990s kid rap duo behind one of the decade's most memorable songs, "Jump," died Wednesday at an Atlanta hospital of an apparent drug overdose, authorities said. Mr. Kelly, known as "Mac Daddy," and Chris Smith, known as "Daddy Mac," made up the rap group Kris Kross and were known for wearing their pants backwards as they rhymed. No official cause of death had been determined, pending a toxicology screening. However, "it appears it may have been a possible drug overdose," said Cpl. Kay Lester, a spokeswoman for the Fulton County police.

By Jim McGovern Included in a really spectacular Easter vigil sermon was this poem by Emily Dickinson. Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune - without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. Hope.

Tyler, the Creator has been one of hip-hop's best, brightest, and most provocative. As the wild centerpiece of the wilder Odd Future collective, he was - in Wu Tang Clan terms - both its RZA (the overall sound designer) and its GZA (its most unique rapper). Tyler's incendiary solo albums Bastard and Goblin got gobbled up by the masses and criticized for their wrongheaded misogyny, homophobia, and rape and vampire fantasies. Sure, he said he was kidding, but his name - for better and worse - was on the tip of every tongue for his vividly vicious lyrics, barking raps, and ominous musicality.

It's no secret that Punxsutawney Phil is a shadowy underworld figure. And yet it now looks like the dirty rat-cousin could burrow his way out of a possible death sentence in Ohio. A supposed higher-up in the Gobbler's Knob mob has stepped forward to be the fall (or winter and still-not-spring) guy. Police in Maryland, however, have yet to withdraw their "Suspect Wanted for Fraud" proclamation. Being a famous groundhog in Pennsylvania isn't such a warm and fuzzy deal anymore.

In August, Joe "Run" Simmons and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels came out of retirement to rap once more as Run DMC for Jay Z's Made in America fest on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. And they'll play Saturday at the Borgata Event Center in Atlantic City. Simmons, also known as Reverend Run, laughs about the day the hip-hop innovators behind such rap classics as "Walk This Way" and "It's Tricky" got the offer for the mega-gig. "We got a call from management, DMC said he was down, so I was down," says Simmons.

AMBRIDGE, Pa. - Now this is the story all about how a high school student's life got turned upside down. But it was all just a bad rap. The student's voicemail greeting triggered a lockdown at his Western Pennsylvania school after a receptionist misheard his rendition of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. While trying to confirm an appointment with Travis Clawson, 19, the receptionist thought the message said "shooting people outside of the school. " The line is actually "shooting some b-ball outside of the school.

The rapper French Montana and his entourage left Philadelphia on Friday afternoon after a day spent answering questions from detectives about a late-night shootout that erupted near Montana's tour bus, leaving one man dead and another injured. After Montana's sold-out show Thursday night at South Street's Theater of Living Arts, the rapper's bus was parked near the Holiday Inn Express on Columbus Boulevard around midnight, surrounded by hundreds of friends and fans, when a car with tinted windows drove up and shots were fired from a rolled-down passenger-side window.

GRANDPA sweaters. Pro Wings, with Velcro. Fur coats, extra fluffy. Fringed brown jackets. Footie pajamas - for adults. All cheap. All used. All . . . the height of fashion? Absolutely, according to the song "Thrift Shop," which occupied the No. 1 spot on both Billboard's Hot 100 and R&B/hip-hop charts for most of February. The creation of Seattle rapper Macklemore, producer Ryan Lewis and vocalist Wanz (who performs the addictive, Barry White-like hook), "Thrift Shop" is more than a sketch of West Coast trends, more than a YouTube sensation, more than a huge crossover hit. It's an anthem for a sort of secondhand style that's been part of Philly culture for a while now. And, it's getting bigger by the day. Exhibit A: Sara Semborski, the hip, 22-year-old manager of Circle Thrift on South Broad.

By day, Jannie L. Blackwell is an oh-so-serious Philadelphia City Council member, known for helping the homeless people who show up at her office and for overseeing her West Philadelphia district like a fiefdom. But Thursday night, she was "Jannie from Cheyney. " Clad in a black-and-white Adidas track suit, bulky gold chain, and sunglasses, the councilwoman - a graduate of Cheyney University - and several staffers did their own version of the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight. " "And in conclusion / I'd just like to say / I'm Jannie from Cheyney / have a blessed day," she rapped.