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Welcome to Florida. Here's Some Cocaine.

by Makkada B. Selah

August 1st, 2006 12:00 AM

Rick Ross
Port of Miami
Slip-n-Slide/Def Jam

The Return of Mr. Black
Dirty Blonde by Annie Fischer

Rap's 2008, Beyond Lil Wayne
by CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN

The Watson Twins' Fire Songs
by WERNER TRIESCHMANN

Gilberto Gil Bleats Like a Seal
by Mike Powell

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson's Empire of Dirt
by Reed Fischer

Trash Talking With Harvey Weinstein
by Tony Ortega

Coming and Then Licking It Up. Is This a Gay Thing?
Savage Love by Dan Savage

At Home With Competitive Swallowers Crazy Legs and Eater X
by Andy Kropa

Gene Simmons and the Whores He Admires
La Dolce Musto by Michael Musto

Columbia's Knotty Noose Problem
by Graham Rayman

The 'W.' Stands for 'War Criminal' (17)
Nat Hentoff

Scientology's Crushing Defeat (14)
Tony Ortega

Runnin' Scared: From Brooklyn, a Rap Campaign Against Tight Clothes (9)
Runnin' Scared: Arcynta Ali Childs

Runnin' Scared: The City Pitted Kids Against Artists in the East Village (6)
Runnin' Scared: Chloé A. Hilliard

Savage Love: My Boyfriend Almost Fathered a Lesbian Couple's Baby?!? (5)
Savage Love: Dan Savage

It's OK to rap about selling cocaine like it's cool. Let's explain something: Hip-hop is like wrestling, and Miami's Rick Ross has muscled his way in with a big personality; buzzwords like money, bricks, hoes, and whips; and, you know, some sound effects from Scarface. Consider the mantra he puts down on "White House." Follow the bouncing ball: "I'm on top of the world/I'm gettin' money/Hundred-grand any day easy/I'm gettin' money." He's on some Eazy-E shit. But while Port of Miami's mythological view of the dope game can be as dumbed down as most rappers' trappin'-and-pimpin' caricature of "the 'hood," "Hustlin' " and its colossal back-at-the-chicken-shack blues-infected turnarounds place Ross at the forefront of a new era in hip-hop lyricism, one that emphasizes consolidating words rather than merely rhyming them. Or consolidating numbers: "Don't tote no .22s/Magnum cost me 22/Tatted on them 22s/Birds go for 22/Li'l momma super thick/She say she 22 /She seen them 22s/We in room 2-22."