Rap Group

Troy Dixon, 22, a dancer for the rap group Heavy D & The Boyz. Police said Dixon, whose stage name is Trouble T-Roy, was standing on the third-level ramp at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis late Saturday when another group member, while fooling around, rolled a trash barrel down the ramp toward him. Dixon jumped on a four-foot retaining wall to avoid the barrel and fell over backward 30 feet to the ground. The group, from Mt. Vernon, N.Y.

Nice girls and hard workers apparently finish last on "The X Factor. " That's one lesson from Thursday night's double elimination show, which saw the rap group Lyric 145 and rocker girl-next-door Jennel Garcia sent home (in Garcia's case, well before her time) - and CeCe Frey stick around to sing another week. The other lesson was Simon Cowell is a complete jerk. Really, even nastier than you might previously have imagined. Cowell, perhaps bitter that his rap group had been unceremoniously eliminated early in the show without even a shot at a save, pulled an extremely mean move on fellow judge Demi Lovato, who had two out of three of her singers - Garcia and Paige Thomas -- in the post-Lyric 145 bottom two. "I just really feel bad for Demi," he said, unable (or not trying)

The San Diego city attorney's office will not prosecute a Los Angeles-based rap group that allegedly simulated sex acts with inflatable dolls during a summer concert, authorities said Friday. Deputy City Atty. James Cahan said his office considered bringing obscenity charges against three members of the rap group Digital Underground, who allegedly acted out oral sex and intercourse on stage during an Aug. 26 show at the San Diego Sports Arena.

After a baseball rain delay wreaked havoc on "The X Factor's" big who-made-the-live-shows reveal last week, Fox finally managed to deliver the rest of the results in an hourlong show Tuesday night. Heading into the episode, we already knew which singers in the Teens category Britney Spears had ushered through (Diamond White, Carly Rose Sonenclar, Arin Ray and Beatrice Miller) and which Over 25s L.A. Reid had finally resigned himself to embracing (David Correy, Jason Brock, Tate Stevens and Vino Alan)

The Rap group Public Enemy released a video with actual footage of the violence at last year's Greekfest riots just in time for this year's Laborfest. And city officials are not happy about it. The video version of the song "Brothers Gonna' Work It Out" shown on MTV last week "has grossly misrepresented what Virginia Beach is trying to do relative to Laborfest," city spokeswoman Pam Lingle said Tuesday.

A member of the rap group NWA was charged Thursday with assault in the beating of a Woodland Hills man. Andre Romell Young, 26, of Agoura Hills--whose stage name is Dr. Dre--and his attorney were arranging for the rapper to surrender to authorities, said Ted Goldstein, spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney's office. Young faces two misdemeanor charges in connection with the May 5 beating of Damon Thomas, 22, Goldstein said. The charges were filed Thursday in Van Nuys Municipal Court.

The host of a weekly rap TV show filed a $22-million lawsuit Thursday against four members of the top-selling rap group "N.W.A," contending that one rapper severely beat her at a Hollywood nightclub in January and that the others libeled her. In the Los Angeles Superior Court suit, Denise (Dee) Barnes, who hosts Fox-TV's "Pump It Up," accused Andre Young, who is known in the group as Dr. Dre, of assault and battery and emotional distress. N.W.A members Eric Wright (Eazy-E), Lorenzo Patterson (M.

An arrest warrant has been issued for a member of the rap group N.W.A. on assault charges stemming from a dispute with a record producer, police said. Andre Romell Young, known to his fans as Dr. Dre, allegedly assaulted Damon Thomas at a Woodland Hills apartment complex, police said. Thomas suffered a broken jaw in the May 5 incident, police said. Authorities said Young faces misdemeanor charges of intent to cause great bodily injury and assault with a deadly weapon.

A Los Angeles-based rap group may be prosecuted by the San Diego city attorney for allegedly simulating sex acts with inflatable dolls during a summer concert at the Sports Arena, authorities said Thursday. The Aug. 26 show involved members of the rap group Digital Underground, which may be guilty of "obscene conduct in a public place," said Deputy City Atty. Gretchen North.

The decision last week by the San Diego city attorney's office not to prosecute three members of Los Angeles rap group Digital Underground for simulating sex acts with inflatable dolls during an Aug. 26 concert at the San Diego Sports Arena was a good one. Still, that the city attorney even considered bringing obscenity charges against the rappers is a grim reminder of the growing disrespect authorities around the country are showing for First Amendment rights to free speech and free expression.

Boot camp on "The X Factor" came to an end Wednesday night, crushing dreams as the 60 remaining acts shrank to a tidy 24. It was the best of times for some, the worst for others, and probably completely confusing for the singers who were eliminated and then called back shortly thereafter to be told they were no longer soloists, but rather part of groups that could either take over the world (like the British "X Factor"-created boy band One Direction)...

Celebrity-watching will be part of the fun as New Orleans begins gearing up for Mardi Gras this weekend. Kevin Costner will serve as grand marshal of today's Krewe of Endymion, one of the largest, glitziest parades. He'll be joined by the Doobie Brothers and Belinda Carlisle, former lead singer of the Go-Go's. On Sunday, wrestler and reality TV star Hulk Hogan will reign as king of the Krewe of Bacchus. The rap group Salt-N-Pepa (Cheryl James and Sandy Denton) will ride a float in Monday's Krewe of Orpheus parade.

The cameras at the 78th annual Academy Awards flashed in the faces of many celebrities Sunday, but none shined back as brightly as Three 6 Mafia, thanks to the rap group's diamond-encrusted grins. The Tennessee hip-hop collective won for best original song, and no one seemed more shocked than the members themselves. They bounded to center stage, deliriously happy that academy voters had embraced a hit called "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." The excitement was still swirling Monday morning.

Investigators in Boston were searching for suspects in the city's bloodiest crime in a decade after four men were fatally shot in a basement that neighbors said was used as practice space by a rap group. Three men were found dead at the house and a fourth died at a hospital, Police Supt. Bobbie Johnson said. The men were in their late teens and early 20s. "It's much too early to speculate on a motive in this incident," Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole said.

The new single from rap group G-Unit is called "Stunt 101." But the stunt being watched most closely by industry marketers is how Interscope Records is selling the music. The company is about to launch an ad campaign that will turn the forthcoming release into a kind of lottery, a la "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory." The Vivendi Universal-owned label is hiding "golden tickets" in four of the first 500,000 copies of the album, which features rap star 50 Cent and hits stores Nov. 18.

Jam Master Jay, part of the pioneering rap trio Run DMC, was shot and killed Wednesday, the group's publicist said. Publicist Tracy Miller confirmed the death of the 37-year-old disc jockey, whose real name was Jason Mizell. He was shot once in the head and was dead at the scene, said police Det. Robert Price. He said the shooter remained at large and police had no information on a motive.

Nude dance shows and adult bookstores are scattered throughout the county where the rap group 2 Live Crew gave its controversial performance, a police detective testified today at the band's obscenity trial. Defense attorney Bruce Rogow cross-examined Broward County Sheriff's Vice Detective Eugene McCloud, the prosecution's first witness, in an attempt to show that the sexually explicit concert did not violate contemporary community standards.

In the wake of last month's Ice-T "Cop Killer" furor, top executive ranks within the recording industry are re-evaluating their commitments to the marketing of violent and sexually explicit rap music. At entertainment giant MCA, women employees pressed top corporate management to pull one rap record back from retailers.

There was a time, not so long ago, when hip-hop mattered. Artists such as Public Enemy, KRS-One and Disposable Heroes of Hiphopricy created vital music of urban rebellion, brash and lewd but also pointedly insurrectionary. By the late '90s, politically charged hip-hop had receded into a cartoon version of social protest, and the music was co-opted by white suburban America as a soundtrack to nothing in particular.

OutKast is arguably the best rap group of all time, but it has never won a Grammy--a situation that may change because it has been nominated not only for best rap album, but also album of the year. Jay-Z's "The Blueprint" and Ludacris' "Back for the First Time" are worthy rivals in the rap competition, but OutKast's "Stankonia" contains doses of daring musicianship, political commentary and a creativity that's unmatched by other albums in the category.