Mr. Wang, in his second show, let us know that he can make hip connections (a cropped gold leather jacket with tweed shorts, a mannish vest over a soft white chemise), but the clothes don't yet tell us if he has an aesthetic of his own.
"He has become a kind of hip-hop James Dean," says Andy Cowan, editor of Hip Hop Connection.
Someone sharing Mansfield's hope is Andy Cowan, who was until last year the editor and publisher of the British magazine Hip Hop Connection.
In the absence of magazines such as Hip Hop Connection, UK rap breeds on sites including SB.TV, GrimeDaily, djsemtex.com, World Star Hip-Hop and Dat Piff.
Lyrics Born – Oh Baby (From lyricsborn.com, via Hip Hop Connection) Sixteen years in the game for the "funkiest man in new media today" and the Bay Area's most playful MC still manages to keep up with the kids.
The records were released in the UK, but never really pushed: when the British monthly Hip Hop Connection asked about sales figures for Spice 1's most recent album back in the mid-90s, the label's publicist said it had shifted six copies in the UK.
In its March 2006 issue, Hip Hop Connection ranked 2001 number 10 on its list of the 100 Best Albums (1995 2005) in hip hop.
That year, readers of Hip Hop Connection voted it the fourth best album of all time, leading the magazine to speculate, "In a few years' time, it could even be remembered as the best rap album of all time".
Reasonable Doubt ranks on top of albums lists by Rolling Stone (2003's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", Blender (2003's "500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die"), Vibe (2004's "51 Albums Representing a Generation, a Sound and a Movement"), and Hip Hop Connection (2006's "The 100 Greatest Rap Albums 1995-2005").
The hip-hop connection doesn't go too far -- real graffiti art was for free (like early hip-hop), and it never reached the stratosphere even when it did become marketable.
