Music: Hip-Hop's Next Wave

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Musical and lyrical honesty has always been a core hip-hop value--then again, so has exaggeration. On one hand, rappers want to keep their music true to life. On the other, boasting and roasting are also part of the tradition. Lately, exaggeration has ruled. It's often hard to find real experience in the cartoonish raps of many gangsta rappers. Q-Tip, on his new album, Amplified (Arista), brings back the honesty--but doesn't cut back on the fun. This is a party album about picking up chicks (Vivrant Thing), cruising the streets (Let's Ride) and dancing in clubs (Breathe & Stop). "I look at a track like a lady I'm about to get into a relationship with," says Q-Tip. "I let the music guide me and take me wherever."

What makes Amplified noteworthy is the fact that it is ultimately reflective about its playfulness. The CD's unlisted final track, Do It, See It, Be It, contains a heartfelt message. "The song says you can be who you want to be," says Q-Tip. "Just see your goal." Q-Tip raps about growing up in Queens, the breakup of A Tribe Called Quest and his embrace of Islam. He admits his partyin' ways don't always conform to Islamic values, but he's constantly striving to better himself, and at least in his mind, it's the effort that really matters.

On the CD Black on Both Sides (Rawkus), Mos Def's cultural concerns reveal themselves in every number. The opener, Fear Not of Man, delivers a manifesto: "We are hip-hop. Me, you, everybody... So the next time you ask where hip-hop is going, ask yourself: Where am I going?" On the song Mr. Nigga, Mos Def raps along with Q-Tip about the myriad indignities faced by young blacks at the hands of policemen, waiters and others, even when the young black men in question are rich and successful. "Even if it's never said and lips stay sealed," he raps about his antagonists, "their actions reveal how they really feel." On another track, he questions the size of the defense budget.

The Next Wave is also getting screen time. Q-Tip is set to star in a film for New Line, which he co-wrote, titled Prison Song. He describes it as a "hip-hop opera" that explores the pressures of the penal system. Mos Def and the Roots' Thompson have roles in Spike Lee's Bamboozled, a film that satirizes television. The Roots' Black Thought has a starring role in Brooklyn Babylon, the forthcoming film by Marc Levin, director of the edgy Slam.

Underground rap may soon have an impact on television too. MTV is developing a sketch-comedy series based on Lyricist Lounge, a showcase founded in New York City in 1991 by Anthony Marshall and Danny Castro as a place for unsigned rap artists to display their skills. The founders have since taken their open-mike show on tour and released a compilation album of highlights (Mos Def and Q-Tip make guest-star appearances).

What's compelling about these acts is that they are not overtly focused on chart topping. "Follow your heart/And not mankind," Q-Tip raps on Do It, See It, Be It. Eclecticism is seen as a virtue. The Roots is working on a cover of Bob Dylan's 1976 song Hurricane, a protest anthem about Rubin ("Hurricane") Carter, a black boxer sentenced to die for a crime he didn't commit. The song is scheduled to appear on the sound track to the Denzel Washington film The Hurricane. Mos Def is also contributing material to the album.