Hip Hop

Law 5: So much depends on reputation -- guard it with your life. Hip-hop producer DJ Premier boiled this law down to "Reputation is the cornerstone of power" and had it tattooed on his arm. Law 8: Make other people come to you -- use bait if necessary. New York rapper L.G. had this one printed, epigram-style, on the in-leaf of his underground mix tape, "Industry Co-Sign II: The 14 Tracks of Power."

The venerable Southland legends Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre headline Sunday's set at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Hard-core hip-hop heads are salivating at the prospect that Dre might preview his overdue opus "Detox," and the pleasures of a sold-out field bumping to Snoop's "Gin and Juice" are self-evident. But MCs on Coachella's hip-hop undercard, including Compton's Kendrick Lamar and Harlem's ASAP Rocky, also have the potential to emerge from the fest as major new stars.

SAY what you want about street fashion -- it's too bright, too busy, too baggy -- but just don't call it a fad. Even in a city like Las Vegas, which dynamites its history with a peculiar glee, those clothiers and cobblers on the cutting edge of such fashion regard what they hang on racks and place on shelves in their small stores as a lifestyle, a way of being.

Something curious has been happening on the music landscape lately. In the span of a few weeks, a jazz artist with a critically lauded new album has hit the late-night TV circuit with performances on the David Letterman and Jay Leno shows, debuted at No. 15 on the Billboard pop chart, and performed a packed-to-the-rafters showcase at Austin, Texas' annual rock 'n' roll smorgasbord, SXSW. And the strangest part? The musician's name isn't Esperanza Spalding. The artist in question is Houston-born pianist Robert Glasper, and his new album on Blue Note Records has become one of the top stories of the year by taking jazz to all sorts of unexpected places.

More than two decades after he helped define Los Angeles' early electro-rap sound, Arabian Prince holds court inside Sawtelle's vinyl-jammed Turntable Lab. He's still filled with the restless creative spirit that drove him when he was an original member of N.W.A and that is captured on the newly released "Innovative Life: The Anthology -- 1984-1989." "The title had to be 'Innovative Life' because that song expressed everything about me. I always try to create and forge new paths," Arabian Prince, 43, says.

A Tribe Called Quest's fifth album, "The Love Movement," may have just hit the record stores, but there's no celebration these days among fans of the premier hip-hop crew. Because of personal and business differences, the group is calling it quits after a decade in which the Tribe proved to be one of the most innovative and influential outfits ever in rap.

Electric Chair One of the first Orange County stores to sell hip-hop, it has GAT baggy jeans ($60), Huntington Beach-based Soul's bowling button-up shirt ($40) and Huntington Beach-based Split's Beatnik tapered pants ($44) and plaid shorts ($39). 410 Main St., Huntington Beach, (714) 536-0784; 5269 2nd St., Long Beach, (310) 987-0778, and 10121 Hole Ave., Riverside, (909) 359-8003. Funkeesentials This is the designer boutique for hip-hoppers.

When Hotlanta rapper-turned-movie star T.I. was arrested on drug possession charges earlier this month, there was a feeling of "haven't we all been here before?" But also genuine surprise. From ODB to DMX, Kanye to 'Pac, hip-hop performers have a chronic habit of getting busted for stupid stuff. Identity theft. Cruelty to animals. Wearing a bulletproof vest after being convicted of a felony. Rappers behaving badly have become one of popular culture's most numbing constants. After all, T.I. was already on probation when L.A. County sheriff's deputies stopped his $600,000 Mercedes Maybach on the Sunset Strip for what they said was an illegal U-turn and then detected what they said was "a strong odor of marijuana emitting from the vehicle"; earlier this year, he served a seven-month prison sentence for attempting to buy a cache of automatic weapons and silencers.

What a difference a dance makes. Eighteen months ago, the Cali Swag District consisted of four largely anonymous Inglewood teenagers making R&B/hip-hop hybrids and everything in between. They got nowhere. Then it filmed the video for "Teach Me How to Dougie," the biggest domestic dance phenomenon since Soulja Boy taught a nation of online video novices how to "Crank Dat" in 2007. Go on YouTube. You have your choice of the O.G. version, the sleek "Dougie 2.0" made with Capitol Records money, and a star-studded remix with Bow Wow and B.o.B.

The Grammy Museum's new exhibit "Hip-Hop: A Cultural Odyssey," based on a large-format photography book of the same name, explores the genre's four-decade history in the United States and its effect on the world. Through interactive mixing and listening stations, video footage, rare photographs and original artifacts, visitors will get a taste of what made the first pioneering moments from such auteurs as Grandmaster Flash so appealing. Highlights include handwritten lyrics from Tupac Shakur, LL Cool J's trademark Kangol hat, the Run-DMC leather jacket and pants worn during the "Walk This Way" performance with Aerosmith and a hip-hop sneaker gallery.

Tiger JK's life has been defined by his sense of never quite belonging. He came of age in 1980s and '90s Los Angeles listening to the traditional Korean folk ballads his grandmother played around the apartment, while outside he was drawn in by the city's bustling hip-hop culture. As one of the few Korean American kids at Beverly Hills High, Tiger (who lived on the outskirts of Beverly Hills) never quite felt a kinship with the 90210 lifestyle. And when it came to being taken seriously as an Asian rapper?

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa opened for hip-hop musician will.i.am at the Mendez Learning Center on Monday to announce Los Angeles will join in an Obama administration program to boost the number and diversity of American students studying in China. "Who wants to go to China?" the mayor asked as he stepped to the podium, sparking a quiet reaction from about 100 students who are learning Mandarin. "Aw, man, I can't hear you. Boyle Heights in China, right?" Los Angeles is the third city to participate in the 100,000 Strong Initiative, which was launched last year and is supported by donations.

Mary J. Blige blinked back tears and buried her head in her hands when she recently heard "Need Someone," an emotional ballad off her new album "My Life II ... The Journey Continues (Act 1). " The song, said Blige, is actually an ode to her younger, more troubled self. "From where you stand there's no way to change it, no way to make it make sense and it's lonely there in the spotlight," she sings over lush strings and piano. "Well honey, don't I understand you need someone to love you. " Blige, 40, is revisiting — and comforting — her 23-year-old self for a reason.

People often ask jazz vibraphonist Roy Ayers how, even after five decades of recording, he is still finding ways to introduce his sound to the masses. In his case, necessity has always been the mother of reinvention. "If I didn't have music I wouldn't even want to be here," Ayers, 71, said. "It's like an escape when there is no escape. An escape for temporary moments. " Over the years his escape came in many forms: hard-bop, psychedelic R&B, disco, afro beat, hip-hop and house music.

Today's music charts contain the past, glimpses of the future and the ephemeral glitter and detritus of right now. And there's one compilation series, at once old-fashioned and progressive, that tries to encapsulate it all. The Beatles, whom Timothy Leary once called "mutants … with the power to create a new human species," are still the all-time bestsellers of the Billboard 200 chart, with 19 No. 1 albums. The next artist after the Beatles is the rapper-mogul Jay-Z, with 12 albums.

Making it big is perhaps the oldest lyrical trope in hip-hop, and there are many different ways to go about it. One could take the Jay-Z route and, through hit-making skill and business savvy, rise to the top of the old-guard music establishment. Another is to bypass that establishment entirely, hustling mix tapes and carving out your own regional or genre niche that can become self-sustaining. Or you could do what the Brooklyn trio Das Racist did, which is to write scabrously hilarious songs that make the music and media elite feel very, very bad about itself.

Two of L.A.'s most significant summer hip-hop shows are on the same day this year, leaving fans to choose between Rock the Bells and Power 106's Powerhouse 09 on Saturday. While this means that Los Angeles remains something of a mecca for top-flight live hip-hop in America, it also illustrates that the genre has competing visions for its relevance, and that booking a rap festival is only slightly less logistically complex than planning a moon landing.

It has its own language, and the people who whip up the moves and the mood to match the music are our translators. We'd like you to meet four of L.A.'s best hip-hop choreographers, and see what they wear when they dance. Also on tap: Common talks, and Dr. Grillz puts a shine on your smile.

Being artistic director of a major regional stage company means you get to give everyone "notes" — theater lingo for putting in your two cents while a play is being readied. Being Marc Masterson, newly arrived as South Coast Repertory's artistic director, means you may still have to receive a note or two, at least when it comes to interior decorating. David Emmes, South Coast's co-founder and the previous occupant of Masterson's corner office at the Costa Mesa theater, had one to give after he saw the poster the new man had propped on a chest of drawers.

MUSIC Traveling hip-hop festival Rock the Bells is taking a page out of the genre's history books by focusing on a set of game-changing albums for this year's showcase. Though still relatively downsized from lineups of the past, a who's who of rap royalty, including Lauryn Hill, Nas, Cypress Hill, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Mobb Deep, Raekwon and Ghostface, and the GZA, headline the bill for the eighth year of the multi-city festival. San Manuel Amphitheater, 2575 Glen Helen Parkway, San Bernardino.