Hip Hop

20,000 GAMERS Be a part of an international gaming event from the comfort of your hometown at Worldwide Dungeons and Dragons Game Day. With more than 700 locations registered to play and an expected 20,000 participants, the games are set to begin Saturday. Participants will play simultaneously from places like Serbia, Argentina and Baltimore. Gamers will enjoy the fantasy worlds of role-playing filled with monsters, ogres, vampires and royalty. ....................... The event takes place Saturday at nine Maryland game and comics stores, including Walt's Cards in Dundalk, Dream Wizards in Rockville and Games and Comics and Stuff in Glen Burnie.

Nas Untitled Sun Grade: B- Oops, he did it again. Nas managed to get pop and hip-hop circles buzzing over an album title before a beat or rhyme could be heard from it. The last time the New York rapper did this was in 2006, when he declared in the title of his eighth CD Hip Hop is Dead. When Nas announced the original title for the follow-up (an all-too-familiar racial epithet of various usage), he fell under more scrutiny, as articles and urban music blogs tightly tracked the album's status.

Harford Dance Theatre will present "Robin Hood" on Friday and Saturday, May 18 and 19, at 5:30 and 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 20 at 1 and 4 p.m. in Harford Community College's Chesapeake Theater. Enter Sherwood Forest if you dare and discover this delightfully clever telling of the famous legend of Robin Hood. Join Friar Tuck, Brave Beverly, Cordial Cordelia and the rest of the Merry Men as they hip hop, tap and dance their way through one zany misadventure to another. Tickets are $8 to $10 and are available at the Harford Community College Ticket Office in the Chesapeake Center or by calling 443-412-2211.

The All Rap Round Robin is far from the average microphone-too-low, DJ-too-loud, consistently tardy hip-hop show. Now entering its fifth year, the gathering of the city's on-the-fringe hip-hop acts will converge Friday night on Floristree. The event will showcase Baltimore's underground rap scene, which appears to be growing, given this year's expansion from nine acts to 12. The Round Robin, which was formed by longtime friends and rappers Dan "Height" Keech, Mickey Freeland and Bob Jones, is unusual because it lacks a headliner.

Years ago, a 7-year-old Indya Streams was riding in the back of her aunt's car when she burst into a spontaneous freestyle rap. Streams' aunt, Tracy Wilkins, turned down the car stereo to listen. When Streams was finished, Wilkins tested her, making her repeat her rhymes, and was impressed with what she heard. "She just spit it out," Wilkins said. "I was like, ‘Wow. Do you want to do that?' She said, ‘Yeah.' " Most 7-year-olds dream big, but Streams followed through.

Robert Greene, whose books on power and strategy have found an audience among hip-hop fans, will be a featured guest at 9:15 a.m. Sunday at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church at 1300 Druid Hill Ave., Baltimore. Greene's works include "The Art of Seduction," "The 33 Strategies of War" and "The 48 Laws of Power." His latest book, "The 50th Law," co-written with the rapper 50 Cent, is a favorite of the Rev. Frank M. Reid III, senior pastor at Bethel, who has been passing it out to church members and friends.

Many English words derive from Latin. Others from Spanish, American Indian, Norwegian. You name a country, an English word probably came from there. But in the grand history of William Shakespeare, some words are invented by brilliant minds. Derrick E. Vaughan, the president of Dunkadelic Sports Marketing, is one of those modern-day wordsmiths. He said he created the term "dunkadelic" in 1997 in order to find a one-word term that would combine the basketball and hip-hop culture fusion (coincidentally, he's also the creator of National Basketball & Hip-Hop Culture Month)

Cat's looking even more beautiful than usual (which I didn't think was possible) as she welcomes us to tonight's episode with 16 dancers still left in the competition. The opening number has all the dancers dressed like Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp and they're using a weird filter to make most of the picture black and white while leaving the open umbrella red. It reminds me of a precious greeting card your grandmother might send you. The routine is a little meh overall, with music that never seems to rise and fall.

Preadolescent twins Kevin and Keith Cobb aspired to be rap music giants and perform on stage with rappers Run DMC as the dynamic duo Lives of Virgoes.But "they didn't walk that way," emulating the title of one of Run DMC's smash hits."We really didn't get that much exposure," said Kevin B. Cobb, now 25 and a Mount Hebron High School history teacher. "My (older brother) tried to manage us, but he didn't know anyone.... He was a local man who didn't know anything at all about managing anyone because he didn't know of any contacts."

It's an argument always heard in rap-talk: Where's that hip-hop with substance? Surely that question is followed with complaints about Waka Flocka Flame (seriously, his name comes up every time) and other swag/money/women-first artists. I love that type of rap, but I can understand the sentiment (yet I can't get behind the curmudgeon/"rap sucks now"/"what happened to lyrics" preaching). But there's nothing wrong with balance, and when portrait-of-a-life realism rap is done well — no finger-pointing, no hip-hop-is-dead grandstanding — it can be downright refreshing.