Rhyme

Clipse "Hell Hath No Fury" (Jive / Zomba) * * * Virginia's Clipse didn't invent crack rap but the group has become its patron saint. Cocaine-inspired themes are almost as old as hip-hop itself, but on the Clipse's 2002 debut, "Lord Willin'," rappers Pusha T and Malice eschewed cautionary tales of crack despair in favor of cartoonish decadence inspired by the "Miami Vice" era.

A judge ruled Tuesday that prosecutors could not charge rapper Busta Rhymes with possession of a weapon -- a machete found inside a sport utility vehicle -- following his Aug. 12 arrest on an assault charge. Rhymes, 34, appeared at the brief hearing during which the judge rejected a prosecution request for the additional charge against the rapper. Rhymes, whose real name is Trevor Smith, was charged with assault after he allegedly attacked a man for spitting on his car.

Performing Jean Racine's "Phaedra" in English is like trying to make champagne in New Jersey. It's not a matter of Gallic snobbery. The conditions are all wrong. The play poses formidable translation challenges. The formal elegance of Racine's rhymed verse is more than decoration; it's a worldview. Phaedra is a character who's torn between her passion for her stepson Hippolytus and her proud nobility. The conflict unfolds in the tragedy's verbal patterns.

IDIOSYNCRATIC rapper Busta Rhymes has the bestselling album in the country this week with "The Big Bang," which sold 209,000 copies its first week in stores. It was a big drop to second place where the Dixie Chicks album "Taking the Long Way" finished by selling 130,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music retail sales.

Rebecca Kielpinski was a star prep basketball player in Mandan, N.D. Major colleges recruited her, but the University of Alaska at Anchorage landed her after agreeing to participate in a test dreamed up by the athlete's mother. UAA Coach Jody Hensen completed a scavenger hunt designed to teach her about Rebecca and her hometown. Poems were hidden around Mandan and contained bits of information and clues as to where the next poem could be found.

Can you be a poet and a football player? Can you be an artist and a basketball player? Can you be a salsa dancer and a break dancer? Taylor Henry, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound sophomore at North Hollywood Campbell Hall, is not afraid to be different. His mind is open to learning, experimenting and exploring. "Even though I know I can't do everything, I do a lot of things," he said. At 15, he's a standout defensive end with 14 sacks in only his second year of organized football.

"When things may be hard to deal with in life / That's just a part of the plan that makes you deal better with life.... Of faith, the only thing you can hold on to in times of trials / Because whenever there's a storm there's always the sun that follows." * Shin-B, a Los Angeles hip-hop artist, sits before a studio microphone at Radio Korea's sleek, bustling headquarters in a high-rise building on Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown.

Is Eminem's current concert tour his last hurrah as a rap star? An article in Thursday's Detroit Free Press, citing colleagues and business associates, suggested that the controversial, million-selling rapper will retire the Eminem persona and concentrate on discovering and producing other artists when the "Anger Management" tour concludes Sept. 17 in Ireland. The show, co-headlined by 50 Cent, plays Hyundai Pavilion in Devore next Saturday.

Martha O'CONNOR tried to sell out, but no one was buying. In 2003, O'Connor, who is now 33, had been writing novels for half her life. Four books to be exact. The first when she was 15. Although she had a literary agent, O'Connor had never found a publisher. The fourth, she was sure, would be the charm. "I wrote a mystery with a young, sassy detective," she says, sitting in her living room on a leafy street in this Marin County neighborhood. "I thought I had completely faked out the market.