Mr. Brown went from being a fan to becoming Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers, an early and influential rap group.
In the 1980's, he directed a flurry of influential rap videos and gave the music its first national berth as the host of "Yo! MTV Raps".
Pras, a cousin of Mr. Jean and a fellow Haitian-American performer who worked with him in that influential rap group, told The Daily News of New York that he backed one of his former bandmate's rivals.
This year he collaborated with rapper The Game and appeared on the cover of the influential rap magazine Vibe.
F Gary Gray (Law Abiding Citizen) directs a NWA biopic set on the mean streets of south LA, chronicling the influential rap act's rise to fame.
So begins one of the world's most influential rap albums, by the dope-dealing, gangbanging, police-baiting Niggaz With Attitude.
Global entertainment networks have promoted many influential rap artists, like Run-D.M.C. and Salt-n-Pepa, but today there is less and less room for American rappers to experiment with unconventional subjects and styles.
And while Dizzee, Jay-Z and MIA are grudgingly granted places, there's nowhere for Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, perhaps the single most influential rap album of them all.
Guns N' Roses, the hard rock band whose glory days were in the 1980s, and Eric B. & Rakim, one of the most influential rap groups of that era, were among the 15 artists nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year, the hall announced this morning.
While Studying all the various influential rap albums in the course of five months, Game developed a strategy to become a rapper himself and with help from Big Fase, they founded The Black Wall Street Records.
