So, um, Rock the Bells released the roster of artists for the summer ‘08 tour and, ah, it’s fucking phenomenal. At least for an aging hip-hop head like myself. …

The tour is really a back to the future show with an all-star lineup of acts from the “Mid-Nineties Revolution” – A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharcyde (all four members!), Nas, Method Man, Redman, Raekwon and Ghostface Killa – plus a gang of some of the best up and coming rappers like Spank Rock, Kid Sister, The Cool Kids, Flosstradamus and Murs. That’s a great lineup – incredible really. The tour comes to San Francisco on August 16.

Concurrently, another hip-hop tour – Paid Dues – put on by the same folks, is coming to Berkeley in June. While it doesn’t pack the firepower that Rock The Bells does, it has some damn fine acts: Rakim, De La Soul, Hieroglyphics, Sage Francis and Little Brother. Paid Dues lands at the Berkeley Community Theater on June 14.

You know what would be cool? If they got rid of one of the days of the Outside Lands Festival and stuck Rock The Bells in its place, I’d be a happy man. I’m still debating about whether seeing Radiohead is worth $300, and if these artists were included, I’d pay $400.

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[Editor's note: We'd like to welcome Uncle Corey to our band of brothers here at the Stranger Dance. Besides being a certifiable life-long music lover and all-around brown-bear-cub-like nice guy, he also spent the better part of his 20s working for a host of newspapers across Washington and California, so he'll hopefully bring some kind of journalistic credibility to what we do here.]

It always bugs me out when I’m talking about music to someone younger – especially a music lover – and I ask if they like a band from 10-15 years ago and, in return, get a blank stare: “I’ve never heard of them.” It’s weird, especially since I grew up in an era where I grew up on my parent’s music (’60s and early ’70s rock), was weened off of that (’80s pop radio – but only for a year or two), then branched off on my own (thank you Run D.M.C.). Apparently the time-lined introduction to music doesn’t happen anymore.

So, before I digress too much more and end up yelling at those young punks to get off my lawn, I’ll get to the point. I love rap (or hip-hop, whatever your Hipster Dialect-o-Tron 3000 requires you say), I have since lo, that fateful day in 1985, when I heard Run D.M.C.’s “King of Rock” and had my first “Holy shit!” moment with music that didn’t involve Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I’ve loved it ever since, in all it’s twist, turns and incarnations. Old-school, basic shit? Fuck, and yeah. Pop rap? “Summertime” was a great song and fuck you if you’re too cool to recognize it. Black militant rap? Let me dig out my red, yellow and green Africa pendent. Gangsta rap? The fuck you looking at, bitch? Point is, unless it’s total bullshit, I can handle it.

My question, though, is when was the golden era of rap? Join me, won’t you, after the jump and we can discuss.

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