Rap Music

In its latest bid to reach young male consumers, Taco Bell Corp. launched a new $12-million advertising campaign Monday that features the rap artist Young MC pitching its products on the MTV cable channel. The campaign marks the first time that Taco Bell, a subsidiary of PepsiCo Inc., has bought commercial time on a national cable television network. With the ad, the Irvine-based firm also joins other companies using rap music in their marketing efforts. "We think that rap music has entered the mainstream," said Taco Bell spokesman Elliot Bloom.

It had only been a few years since Adam Yauch had found fame as the in-your-face rapper and bass player MCA in the transgressive, boundary-breaking trio the Beastie Boys. But in 1992 he was searching for something else, traveling in Nepal to snowboard and pursue a growing interest in Buddhism when he came upon a group of Tibetan refugees. The encounter intensified his interest in the teachings of the Dalai Lama, and he was soon one of the world's leading advocates for the cause of Tibetan independence.

Rapper Heavy D died last month of a blood clot in his lung that was likely formed during a long flight home from London, where he had performed a tribute to Michael Jackson, according to the L.A. County coroner's office. Although some had speculated that Heavy D's weight or pneumonia played a role in his death last month, the autopsy report released Tuesday revealed that he suffered from deep leg thrombosis that caused a pulmonary embolism. Known as the silent killer, a pulmonary embolism is the medical term for a blood clot in the lung.

The Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, best known the world over as the thoughtful, witty, in-your-face rapper MCA, has died, according to Rolling Stone and the hip-hop website Global Grind, which is run by Russell Simmons. Yauch, who had been battling cancer for the last three years, was part of a trio of New York rappers whose music starting in the 1980s transformed the budding genre and helped take hip-hop nationwide. Yauch, who was 47, achieved fame with the Beastie Boys, but as their fame grew he directed his energy toward his lifelong passion: Buddhism and Tibetan independence.

The mother of late rap star Notorious B.I.G. has decided to dismiss from a wrongful-death lawsuit the man she accused of shooting her son, raising new questions about theories surrounding the entertainer's slaying seven years ago. In her suit, Voletta Wallace had named Southland resident Harry Billups, also known as Amir Muhammad, as the triggerman who ambushed her son on March 9, 1997, in the mid-Wilshire district.

Make way for the Motherlode. Tonight is women's night at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, where concert promoters say 17,000 fans are expected to attend the first all-female rap revue in history. "This concert is a milestone in rap," Queen Latifah, arguably the most popular female rapper, said. "The idea of presenting an all-female revue is thrilling and long overdue."

The city's neon lights vibrated in the polished hood of the black BMW as it cruised up Las Vegas Boulevard. The man in the passenger seat was instantly recognizable. Fans lined the streets, waving, snapping photos, begging Tupac Shakur for his autograph. Cops were everywhere, smiling. The BMW 750 sedan, with rap magnate Marion "Suge" Knight at the wheel, was leading a procession of luxury vehicles past the MGM Grand Hotel and Caesars Palace, on their way to a hot new nightclub.

The voice on the other end of the phone was tiny and wounded, nothing like the supple tenor that made R. Kelly the most popular R&B singer of his generation. He said he was sitting in front of a television watching Mike Tyson's boxing career descend to a bloody, pitiful low, but it was a feeble distraction from his own battles against prosecutors and public opinion.

Rapper Travis Lane has little in common with conservative Republicans. But Lane, one of only a handful black rappers in Orange County, agrees with some of their criticisms of rap music. Some rap songs are full of profanity, focus on obtaining material possessions such as drugs and cars, and do not offer solutions for fixing society's ills, Lane says.

Next time you brush against a car in the grocery store parking lot, it might just break out in song. Well, rap, actually. The Canoga Park inventor of an electronic car alarm system that verbally warns passersby to back off has updated his creation to include a musical message urging would-be thieves to bust a move instead of bust in. Venture too close to a car outfitted with Michael Nykerk's Invisibeam system and a voice from somewhere under the hood lets loose: "Yo!

Rapper Heavy D died last month of a blood clot in his lung that was likely formed during a long flight home from London, where he had performed a tribute to Michael Jackson, according to the L.A. County coroner's office. Although some had speculated that Heavy D's weight or pneumonia played a role in his death last month, the autopsy report released Tuesday revealed that he suffered from deep leg thrombosis that caused a pulmonary embolism. Known as the silent killer, a pulmonary embolism is the medical term for a blood clot in the lung.

Few longtime pop music critics have been as fearlessly unhip in both their likes and dislikes, have been so willing to accept oft-ignored music on its own terms and have been as rock 'n' roll as Chuck Eddy, writer, former Village Voice music editor, self-described curmudgeon, ex-Army captain and hair-metal expert. Eddy's work is compiled in "Rock and Roll Always Forgets: A Quarter Century of Music Criticism," a career overview whose very title is contrarian: The writer's got a problem with the premise of Bob Seger's hit song "Rock and Roll Never Forgets.

Jay-Z is a great American artist ? and he'd be the first to tell you so. "Decoded" is an elegantly designed, incisively written bid for cultural legitimacy by a man whose XXL ego is underscored by an equally outsized inferiority complex (as big egos so often are). To Jay-Z's credit, this hip-hop art book is not just one man's memoir. It's also a passionate defense of a musical form that's often as misunderstood as this complicated spokesman. Just as it's hit the economic skids, hip-hop has a champion on a rescue mission.

No one can rock it on the mike like Patsy Cole, also known as Lady P, a 48-year-old rapper and grandmother of 28, with two more on the way. She hustles, flows, rhymes and raps, all with the intention of conveying an important message to kids and teens: If the youngsters can do it, so can she.

Los Angeles police are checking reports that the fatal shooting of rapper Dolla at the Beverly Center had its roots in a dispute the rapper had with an events promoter who on Tuesday was arrested on suspicion of murder. Law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because the investigation was ongoing, said detectives plan to travel to Atlanta, where both the victim and suspect live, seeking clues. Roderick Anthony Burton II, a.k.a.

The police were polite but firm as they arrested Shahin Felakat, a lanky teen whose mussed-up strands of dirty brown hair reach in all directions, and charged him with singing lyrics that threatened Iran's Islamic order. After a few days in jail, the 18-year-old rapper ran back to the studio to rejoin his homeboys. "The authorities have a very negative view of rap," Felakat says. "They say rap has a corrupting influence.

With all the discussion of rap "music" of late, I feel compelled to remind you that the correct way to designate an acronym, in this case RAP, is with capital letters. Which stands for what? Why, Real Annoying Prattle, of course! SCOTT ROSENLIEB Bakersfield

Friday night, as rapper Nina Dioz was making her U.S. debut at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, she slammed her microphone down midsong and started yelling expletives at the sound engineer from the stage, telling the crowd, "This place doesn't want me to give you the show you deserve." She had been asking for the bass to be turned up, to no avail. Nina Dioz, 23, is Mexico's answer to Grammy-nominated powerhouse M.I.A.

Just six months ago, few people outside of hip-hop heads who stumbled across Asher Roth's MySpace page or blog had heard of the up-and-coming rapper. Now, thanks to the seemingly unstoppable single "I Love College," savvy marketing from Scooter Braun and maybe even the fact that the 23-year-old's pals helped take down a madman on an airplane earlier this year, Asher Roth somehow has made music fans forget all about Eminem's long-awaited comeback. "I didn't know 'I Love College' was going to be 'the one,' " Roth said, somewhat sheepishly, from Atlanta earlier this month.