True Rhymes

And they don't need to, as long as the No Limit, Bad Boy, and Wu-Tang factories keep cranking out this-month's-model albums and promoting them to death. In the seismic It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, also released during the late Eighties, Public Enemy's Chuck D rapped, "Don't believe the hype." At the time Chuck was warning rap's detractors to take hip-hop seriously, warning record stores to stock his albums, and warning radio stations to play his songs. Today, that plea is a relic, so naive as to be charming. Don't believe the hype? What else is there?