Tokyo, Japan -- Hip-Hop monk, MC Happiness has started rocking audiences in Japan by rapping traditional Buddhist sutras over thugged-out beats.

Kansho Tagai was blown away when he first heard hip-hop because even though he couldn't understand the English lyrics he still felt the vibes.

He likened it to reading sutras at his temple - as most of his audiences are unable to understand the ancient language in which the sacred texts are written.

Inspired by the accessibility of rap, he set about trying to spread the word of Buddha to a younger generation by writing rhymes that teach old-skool lessons in modern Japanese.

He began inviting children, students and artists to visit his temple for some untraditional teachings - and they were impressed by his mad skills.

Buddhist follower Yuriko Watanabe said: "He really amazes everyone with his talent. When I first saw him on the stage, I was like 'Wow!'"

Tagai now holds it down in front of audiences full of streetwise kids dressed head-to-toe in sportswear.
But he isn't stopping there - he has big plans for the future.

He's perfected the moonwalk, he plans to break out his first freestyle rap any day now and soon he is hoping to drop bombs on the dancefloor with a new twist on the genre - hip-hop tap dancing.

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There are some hip hop tours that do go on in the bronx (birthplace of hip hop) and all around NY for those interested. I thought i'd share this with anyone thats interested in visiting us here in NY. These are just some of the tours, the site has others.

I haven't been on the tours but probably because i was born and raised here and have already been in all those areas many times before these tours started and through out my life but its a great tour for all ages if your ever in NY. I think its great for others to experience this, it was also allot of fun. We did have the gang years and all but once that anger was expressed through hip hop, it changed alot of things in nyc from the breakdancing battles, mc'ing to graffiiti to dj battles etc, i still call them the good old days. ok enjoy
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Hush Tours founded in 2000 are the worlds only hip hop experiences that use celebrity talent as the guides for each tour.

“Our vision for this business was to create an interactive and comprehensive learning experience for all ages and nationalities. I really wanted to share the true inside story of the evolution of this culture – ultimately helping people to learn what hip hop culture was and continues to be; ‘how’ it all started, where exactly it all began, who the influencers and influences were (and continue to be)

New York City is known to the world as the birthplace of hip hop. Preserving the roots of hip hop culture means teaching tour participants the true essence of this genre. This is precisely what we have done with our tours and experiences”, finishes Ms. Harris.

Separating the facts from fiction are the actual celebrities from the day; Grandmaster Caz of the original Coldcrush Brothers, Kurtis Blow, Rahiem (The Furious Five) Reggie Reg, Mikey D, Ralph McDaniels, DJ Kool Herc are just some of the legends that tell the story of how hip hop began.

“Using the actual music legends and pioneers of hip hop to tell the story is what is the most interesting aspect of our tours”, states Harris. “While we are a completely professional and licensed business ‘telling’ the story by the insiders who lived it is what makes our experiences truly different.”

These fact finding tours sizzle with interactive entertainment and educational fun for all ages, backgrounds and nationalities. Hush Tours experiences assures every participants an understanding of hip hop events, the dance style, graffiti art, rap music and dj’s that started this legendary music and continue to proliferate its popularity today.

“Learning about hip-hop’s history is especially important now when the genre is plagued by incidents of violence and controversy – learning the roots will help make things better."

All the hip hop tours
http://hushtours.com

CELEBRITY GUIDED HARLEM/BRONX BIRTHPLACE OF HIP HOP TOUR
Why settle for a regular NYC sightseeing experience when you can hang out with celebrities and learn about the birth of hip hop culture? We invite you to join us for a trip down memory lane with legendary emcees and hear the REAL story of the foundation from those who lived it.
http://hushtours.com/tour1.html

Take a hip hop look at the birthplace of hip hop, with legendary emcees like GrandMaster Caz (Cold Crush Brothers), Kurtis Blow, Rahiem (Furious Five) and Reggie Reg (Crash Crew).

This tour is made for hip hop enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds, from all locations around the world. Join your celebrity guides as they entertain and educate you about the relevance of each location by providing you with exclusive anecdotes about the historic clubs, battle sites, video locations and parks where hip hop took its first baby steps.

On this 4-hour guided, narrated hip hop adventure, you’ll see sites throughout midtown Manhattan, Harlem, and the Bronx that inspired and nurtured hip hop culture.

Your tour includes:
- Safe transportation on a luxury motor coach
- Live entertainment
- Hip Hop pioneer tour guides
- Hip Hop sites including video locations, sites of historical battles and more
- Exclusive photo ops and autograph opportunities with your celebrity guides
- An old School Hip Hop Style group photo available for download from our website!
- A bus load of EXTRAS you must see to believe!
https://www.zerve.com/hiphoplook/sat11

Walk This Way - The Harlem Hip Hop Walking Tour
Your 2-hour guided, narrated adventure through Harlem includes:
Viewing a multimedia 3-screen production that tells you the history of New York and how it grew into one of the world’s greatest urban centers EXCLUDING MONDAYS
Checking out Dip Set, Harlem’s oldest record shop
Photo Ops of the legendary Apollo Theater
Taking a look at numerous Harlem clubs
Listening to Hip Hop historian tour guides
Admission to Museum of the City of New York EXCLUDING MONDAYS
Exclusive photo ops and autograph opportunities with your celebrity guides
And EXTRAS you must see to believe!
Join us, share your thoughts about life in the Big City, and Walk it Out!
If you think the glass of a bus window will keep you from seeing the best that Harlem has to offer, then put on some comfortable shoes and take a leisurely hip hop stroll through the Mecca of Black culture with pioneers of hip hop as your guides.

The Harlem Hip Hop Walking Tour
Or to purchase by phone, call
Zerve at 212.209.3370.
http://hushtours.com/tour3.html

RAPPER'S ROW: THE QUEENSBRIDGE JAMAICA, & HOLLIS HIP HOP TOUR
Take a guided tour through midtown Manhattan and Queens with a view inside the beginning of the second decade of hip hop pinpointing when the music business began to accept it as a genuine art form, not just a fad.

Covering early artists as well as today’s top performers and producers such as Marley Marl, Mc Shan, Roxanne Shante, Nas, Mobb Deep, Salt & Pepa, Tribe Called Quest, RunDMc, LL Cool J, the Lost Boys

Your celebrity guide(s) will entertain/educate you on the relevance of each location along the way. We'll visit the neighborhoods, schools and street corners depicted in the lyrics giving you a broader understanding of referrals made in songs and locations used in videos
http://hushtours.com/tour2.html

they also have one for the graffiti hall of fame.

This article brought to you by the Austin Weekly News:p>

Artists, historians examine the decline of positive messages in today’s rap music industry
By CINQUE MUHAMMAD Contributing Reporter

Rap music has undergone drastic changes in the last 20 years. Considered the golden era of the music and culture, the '80s to mid-'90s, is when many Hip Hop purists came of age.

Fans of that era blissfully reminisce of the days when one could tune to BET's Rap City in the afternoons and view videos by seminal "Gangsta" rap group NWA, but then be sobered by the anti-violence message in a video by KRS-One.

Local urban radio stations would spin Too Short's edited pimp tales and the politically-conscience rhymes of Erik B. and Rakim in the same play list. And for every head-turning, sexually-charged stage show of The 2 Live Crew, there was Public Enemy offering balance in the rap universe with their socially-conscious songs.

For some "old-school fans," such days are long gone.

Silencing positive messages

Some Hip Hop purists argue that there was much more balance in what was seen in heard in rap's golden era.

As one group of artists wove tales of sex and violence, there were also those MC's who promoted a sense of social responsibility, family values, and the fervent quest for knowledge.

Purists maintain that today's consumers are being bombarded with music perpetuating moral degradation while positive messages have become few and far between.

Today, urban radio chart toppers such as Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop" and Usher's "Love In This Club" openly suggest that it's cool to engage in sexual acts in public places.

Have major labels and distributors given up on artists with more substantial messages?

According to Hip Hop historian Davey D, the answer is yes, and it's being done intentionally to silence strong, progressive voices looking to uplift black people.

"For some reason, people have forgotten that the struggle, and people's willingness to oppress you, still continues," he said. "What is going on in 2008 is connected to what took place in 1988."

Not only did the positive voices in rap from decades past help create enlightened ideas, argues Davey D, but they also provided guidance and awareness for youth seeking direction.

Rappers became the new leaders, picking up where the black power movement of the late 1960s into the '70s had ended. Artists successfully endorsed street gang truces and called for an end to all forms of subjugation, like police brutality.

"Once groups like Public Enemy startedcoming under scrutiny-and it was discovered that they were really the followers of (Minister Louis) Farrakhan, and people were following Farrakhan because of them-then these major record labels were like, 'Nah, we aren't going to pay for that no more,'" said Davey D. "'We're going to pay for something else.'"

He contends that socially-conscience rappers faced the same systematic attacks on their message as did leaders of the civil rights and black power movements.

"It showed up in the form of radio stations suddenly not playing these groups, even though they were playing them much before," he said.

This, Davey D argues, is the reason why certain TV network programming was phased out.

"It might have showed up in the form of MTV taking their #1 show, which was Yo! MTV Raps, and just saying, 'We're not going to do that no more,'" he said. "It might have been BET just saying, 'Let's get rid of Teen Summit.' These are touch-points that these groups enjoyed, and it allowed them to talk to the masses."

So, while groups such as Public Enemy, X Clan, and KRS-One's Boogie Down Productions were not outright slaughtered and incarcerated as were the leaders a generation ago, they faced a "media assassination," Davey insists.

Even NWA, he argues, was targeted when, in 1988, they spoke out against police brutality.

"The record F*** Tha Police, which got them on the radar with the FBI, definitely caught the eye of law enforcement," he said.

Davey D further claims that today's multi-million dollar rappers, such as Jay-Z and P Diddy, are safe because they haven't really challenged the system. Meanwhile, politically-candid artists such as Dead Prez and Immortal Technique receive little or no radio airplay.

Is Hip Hop-the movement-dead?

Chuck D predicted Hip Hop's transformation in his 1990 classic single, "Welcome to The Terrordome."

"When the '90s were coming in, a whole bunch of different things were happening in society that rap music was answering to, which showed itself as being a diverse art form," he recalled. "Therefore, the threat of black people having something to say, with their large vocabularies through rap music, was something that kind of threw the media on its side for a minute. So I saw this coming."

As a result, the culture lost more than it gained, Chuck D contends.

"Because you see a few people make financial gains, [that] doesn't mean that the entire movement and people were catapulting forward," he said. "That's what I saw at the end of the '90s-somebody was defining us before we could define ourselves."

Rappers, Chuck D added, began to do anything for money, such as glorifying drug dealing.

"People started giving drug dealers props. I've seen neighborhoods wiped out by drug dealers for like a 15- to 20-year period. It's very easy to take advantage of black people because it's been done for 300 years, and we've learned to love the abuse."

Because today's mainstream rap music relishes materialism and sexism, the music is disdained by many music lovers. That's caused some within the genre to ask, "Is Hip Hop, the movement, dead?"

Some say yes, as did rapper Nas, who dedicated his 2006 album to that theme, sparking an ongoing debate in the Hip Hop community.

Davey D, though, says it's a misconception to assume that the culture is dead-consumers and listeners only have to look harder for music with more substance to it.

"The consumer is led to focus their attention only on MTV and BET, because that's all under Viacom. You're asked to only listen to the Clear Channels, Disneys, ABCs and Radio Ones of the world. We're taught to only look for what comes out of the four major record labels. If it doesn't exist in these distribution points, then it doesn't exist," he explained.

Web companies such as YouTube, MySpace and iTunes, however, have eagerly welcomed this new generation of positive artists and their fans, providing an outlet for networking and exposure.

"A lot of cats are out there doing it on the web and all over," said Chuck D. "They're just not placing their career in the hands of some major corporation."

Davey D sees this as giving artists and their messages more independence.

"This means more people are in the game than there was before. So instead of 100 groups you have 1000 groups," he said. "You might not have been able to get in the game 10, 20 years ago. It's just that some of these groups are now a little bit more on your radar."

Hip Hop played a big part in bringing peace from a gang life for many. Self expression through graffiti, bboy, beatboxing, the emcee, the dj, the knowledge all was a way of expressing ourselves with out the guns, weapons, violence. We instead battled as crews against each other using the elements of hip hop. Some of these expressions were almost like a cry for help is how it was for some when no one else would listen.

From Gangs To Glory
For those who are unfamiliar with the Zulu Nation, they began as an organization founded by Afrika Bambaataa at Stevenson High School in the Bronx. Back than it was simply known as 'The Organization'. Bam who once lived the gang lifestyle and was trying to change his ways and saw the newly formed group as a way out. Bam who was known for reading and staying up on the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and other African American leaders, changed the name to Zulu Nation after watching a movie that told the tale of the well known South African tribe.. Bam was inspired by their resistance to Dutch settlers. As Hip Hop became popular, the group became known as the Mighty Zulu Nation and as later the Universal Zulu Nation.

The story behind the evolution of UZN is significant. Back in the days Zulu's struck fear in many who lived outside of their Bronx River Housing Project strong hold. While they gave birth to Hip Hop's first B-Boys and B-Girls, the group for the most part was made up of former gang members. Many of them from the Notorious Black Spades which once reigned terror throughout the Bronx in the early to mid 70s. It used to be a really big deal for cats to hang out at Bronx River and not get stuck. It was a sign of toughness and brought much prestige. Many of the early crews tried to associate themselves with Zulu Nation for protection from roving bands of stick up kids and other gangs turned crew. It was in this backdrop that Bambaataa and other conscious brothers spent a lot of time teaching and preaching and working with Zulu members to bring about positive change. Bam often talks about how he would do simple things like bestow titles like 'King' and 'Queen' upon Zulu members in an attempt to instill pride and confidence. His feeling was that if you treated people like royalty then they would turn around and act like royalty in their actions. As Bam's recording career blew up, he saw too it that many of folks who were from the streets got an opportunity to go on tour with him and the Soul Sonic Force. Sometimes they were employed as roadies. Other times they worked as security. Again Bam's main objective was to see to it that local cats got a chance to see there was a much bigger world outside the Bronx.

Change didn't happen over night, but today the testament to all that hard work is the fact that there are vibrant Zulu chapters in more than 20 countries all over the world with estimated membership of over 10 thousand. They have come to embrace and preserve Hip Hop's key elements and have exemplified what is often considered Hip Hop's 5th Element-'Knowledge'. To me the beauty of it all is seeing what was once considered a 'ruthless gang' evolve' to a group that has strived and succeeded in serving the community. There are all sorts of stories about Zulus ridding their housing projects of drug dealers and many of the older guys spending time mentoring younger people. There are stories about Zulus escorting women to and from their apartments as well as looking out and helping those in need. This of course is in addition to various Zulu chapters that have involved themselves in local politics including the fight to Free Mumia and get him a new trial. We also can not overlook the fact that it was Zulu Nation members who put out some of Hip Hop's first records as well as among the first to establish Hip Hop's first radio shows. Who could forget Zulu Beats with Afrika Islam on WHBI. Its a shame that there hasn't been more of a public celebration and acknowledgment of this organization and its accomplishments.

Zulu nation, Afrika Bambaataa (much respect)

What Is Hip Hop Culture?

Too many people are unclear as to what Hip Hop Culture really is and tend to use the term frivolously. Hip Hop Culture is commonly recognized by its main elements: Graffiti, Djing, Breakdancing (B-boying), Mcing, and Beatboxing. These elements are forms of art designed to express a deeper meaning. At its core, Hip Hop is also much more than art and entertainment. Hip Hop is the constantly evolving spirit and consciousness of urban youth that keeps recreating itself in a never-ending cycle. It is joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain, victory, defeat, anger, happiness, confusion, clarity, humor, intensity, dream, nightmare, life, death, and everything else in between. It is the spirit that connects the past to the present and lays a path towards the future. The spirit of Hip Hop is the same as Jazz, Reggae, Blues and a multitude of other types of expressions. Hip Hop Culture cannot be assimilated, integrated, diluted, watered-down, sold for profit, or pimped. It will always exist, in this incarnation or another. Hip Hop is life and all it has to offer. This knowledge lays the foundation for all those who thought of Hip Hop as nothing more than entertainment.

Hip Hop!
Hip hop teaches the history of the inner city. It teaches the economics of post-industrialism. The hip hop culture is a lens through which we can really analyze current events and politics in our society. Hip-Hop adds a face and a voice to those who might not have otherwise been seen or heard from in any other medium. Whether right or wrong Hip Hop gives credence to those who have been historically shunned, disregarded, oppressed and invalidated. Hip-Hop is an evolving life force within the person that lives it, breathes it, and moves around in it. Hip-Hop is more than what you hear on the radio, read in the magazines, or what you watch on TV. Hip-Hop is you. Hip-Hop is ME!