Is New York hip-hop dead?
Within the recording industry, from rappers and label executives to music journalists and publicists, people believe that New York rappers don’t wield the same chart power as they did earlier in the decade. Back in the day, Def Jam was stocked with Big Apple stars (Jay-Z, DMX, Ja Rule, Cam’ron), Nas’ releases regularly went platinum…
Mating Calls
Don’t think you’ll get any love come Valentine’s Day? Expecting a night of staring morosely at the walls of your studio apartment, with only ice cream, Jack Daniels or Internet porn to comfort you? Don’t resign yourself to a long night of solitude just yet. Pherotones, the ringtone-cum-aphrodisiac, have been the talk of the blogosphere…
Blowfly’s Van Burglarized in Charlotte
Original Dirty Rapper Blowfly’s van was burglarized in Charlotte while parked outside of the La Quinta Inn at 3100 Queen City Blvd. The theft occured between 2:30am and 1pm, Saturday, Jan. 21. Blowfly was in Charlotte for a performance at the Milestone Club on Friday, Jan. 20. If you have any information regarding these items,…
The Envelope, Please
It’s Grammys night in Los Angeles, so let’s head up to the North Carolina mountain town of Marshall to roll out the red carpet for the inaugural NAPPY Record of the Year. In case you missed it — and it was easy to miss, which is one point of this tale — the Marshall-based band…
Parks Helms gets Equality Award
Mecklenburg County Commission Chairman Parks Helms picked up a statewide award recently, and no one is happier for him than his Republican arch-nemesis, Bill James. The Human Rights Campaign Carolinas, an advocacy group for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, with more than 18,000 members in the Carolinas, just awarded Helms its 2006…
CL Recommends
Is Rock Dead? by Kevin J.H. Dettmar (Routledge paperback). “I’m conscious of having lured you here under false pretenses,” the writer begins in the preface to this narrative on the unending pronouncements of the death of rock & roll. Dettmar, an English professor at Southern Illinois University, embarked on this book after a critic attacked…
Left of the Dial
Last fall, Democrat Tim Dunn appeared before a group of Mecklenburg County Democratic women. By several accounts, the meeting did not go well. Dunn’s credentials — a lieutenant colonel in the US Marine Corps Reserve; a veteran of two conflicts, Iraq and Kosovo; an attorney who helped build the case against Saddam Hussein — were…
The Blotter
Your mama: When he couldn’t reach the woman he was trying to threaten, a resourceful harasser phoned the woman’s mom and left this message: “You better watch your back. There’s no love lost between us. You better contact me. I can’t be responsible for what happens.” The victim of the threats told police she believed…
Stop PaymentAlternatives to payday loans
A death knell may be sounding for payday lenders in North Carolina. More than a month after one of the state’s largest purveyors of the short-term, high-interest loans was ordered to stop lending, other payday companies also are suspending new cash advances. Several of the businesses that dotted Charlotte strip malls now sit vacant. It’s…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I have a 40-minute bus ride to my office every morning. There was this lady sitting in front of me, and I noticed a few minutes into our ride that she had a large white sticker stuck to the back part of her shoulder. I don’t know if it was the sales…
Hubcap Heaven
Ever noticed how some Latino houses look like small junkyards, with old beat-up cars everywhere? Ever wonder why? A recent UNC study shows the average Hispanic household in North Carolina has 3.7 people (compared with 2.4 in non-Hispanic households) and brings in about $32,000 a year (compared with $45,700 for non-Hispanics). You can translate that…
Stargazer
Aquarius The Waterbearer (Jan. 19 — Feb. 18) Take a break and escape for some R & R. Your life is like a locomotive gone wild and you deserve some quiet time, away from the hubbub. Make it a point to get out in the natural world of water and plants. For the mentally inclined,…
Short List
OIL RISES AS IRAN PRESSES ON WITH PROMISE TO PURSUE NUCLEAR PROGRAM Mr. President, you have no more cans of whoop-ass left to open up. SENATE BEGINS HEARINGS ON DOMESTIC WIRETAPPING BY NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY J. Edgar Hoover in da house! NEW REPORT TELLS WHAT PROMPTED PANTHER CHEERLEADERS’ ARREST Yep, still says they were gettin’…
Film Clips
Current Releases BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN The secret behind this adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story is that behind its convenient (and infuriating) designation as “the gay cowboy movie,” this is as universal as any cinematic love story of recent times. Scripters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana and director Ang Lee have managed to make a movie…
Where’s the new business?
The folks at the Charlotte Chamber can’t explain it. Down at the government center, they’re mystified. And the Charlotte Observer? They haven’t written a word about it, even though the Chamber sent the paper a press release weeks ago. Outside those halls of power, few people know that Charlotte’s new business recruitment numbers have plunged…
Cimarron, Johnny Belinda, Lust for Life among home entertainment reviews
WARNER OSCAR CLASSICS (1931-1956). Getting into the spirit of the Oscar season, Warner has released a handful of vintage Academy Award-winning films (all sold separately) covering a 25-year span. Watching these films of varying quality, it becomes apparent that the Academy’s occasional penchant for picking unworthy winners is hardly a modern phenomenon. To wit: Cimarron…
See & Do
Wednesday, February 08 Brace yourselves for a glorious, region-wide onslaught of Shakespeare, from Belmont Abbey to Children’s Theatre to Salisbury. It begins at beautiful Robinson Hall, on the UNC Charlotte campus, with The Merchant of Venice. Presented by Actors of the London Stage (who are currently based at the University of Notre Dame!), the production…
Crash and Learn
The yawn that I stifled shortly past 8:30am during last week’s live announcement of this year’s Oscar nominations wasn’t due to sleepiness. Instead, that involuntary emission was a result of the list of nominees being read by Mira Sorvino and Academy president Sid Ganis. The nomination announcement can always be counted on for a few…
Show Love by Giving Blood
For starters, let’s crunch some numbers: 3 — number of lives saved by one pint of donated blood; 32,000 — pints of donated blood used every day in the US; 4.5 million — American lives saved each year by blood transfusions; 60 — percentage of eligible blood donors in the US; 5 — percentage of…
Romance Defined?
What defines romance? You certainly can’t avoid pondering this question with Valentine’s Day nuzzling your neck. Is it a fluffy stuffed animal that squeals “I Love You,” or Godiva chocolate that plugs pounds onto your saddlebags? And, hey, if you’re cajoling with calories, certainly wine fits in there somewhere, if only to loosen up your…
Letters
Is Tara going Tidytown? I have long enjoyed the writing of Tara Servatius. I love the way she rips the scabs off the Charlotte uptown crowd. However, her article “Where Have All the Ghettos Gone?” (Feb. 1), makes me fear that she has finally succumbed and surrendered to the Tidytown mentality. The most egregious statement…
Ciao Bella
Much has been made of the exodus of snowbelters to the greener golf courses (er, pastures) and cheaper rents of the sunny South. Charlotte is virtually overrun by (I mean, has welcomed) thousands of new residents from these colder climes. Many of those new residents bring with them some of the ethnicity and foodways this…
You Have to be Tough
I cannot goddam believe it, but I’m actually trying to talk Lary into having a baby. Not with me, Jesus God, get that out of your head. I mean with his perfectly normal (sorta) girlfriend, Kung Fu Kitty, who is young, beautiful, fertile as a little sperm whale and — here’s the important part –…
The Tipping Point
Mr. Pink: I don’t tip because society says I gotta. I tip when somebody deserves a tip. When somebody really puts forth an effort, they deserve a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, that shit’s for the birds. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just doin’ their job. . . Do you know what…
Welcome to the Snake pit
In an otherwise silent hotel conference room, 5,100 plastic tiles jiggling in 51 Scrabble pouches sounds like a whole lot of irritated rattlers. I should have known better than to talk, but I needed clarification on a Scrabble term I had just overheard: volatile opening (which, surprisingly, is not an orifice on the human body).…
Songs of flesh & fantasy
As our Lust List issue is meant to ease the passage of Valentine’s Day, let me be your crit Cupid and propose some sonic arrows that cannot miss the heart and booty of your target. Before he leapt to his death from the 15th floor of Manhattan’s Essex House Hotel, the late sanctified soul icon…
Lust List
Forget the schmaltz in those Hallmark Valentine’s cards at Eckerd and CVS. Love is overrated. So in this issue we bring you Creative Loafing’s first Lust List, a celebration of love’s hot ‘n’ steamy cousin. We asked you, our readers, to nominate Charlotte’s sexiest citizens, and then we found ourselves with the difficult task of…
