Rapper

Edward "Slick" Harris says he's anti-everything.He's anti-drugs, anti-alcohol, anti-violence, anti-black-on-black crime, and those stands are reflected in his music.Harris, 20, of West Baltimore, is an accomplished rapper. He and Caletta "MuvaLita" Brown and their posse, Shock-Trauma, perform at dance clubs and festivals throughout the city, and hope to record an album soon.But Harris' raps aren't full of braggadocio and violence as are a lot of rap songs. He delicately weaves warnings of the perils of drugs and violence into his songs that, typical of the genre, feature a pulsating beat.

I'm late on this, but it wouldn't be right if I didn't mention Mobb Deep's Prodigy coming home yesterday after serving a three-year bid for gun possession. This wasn't the H.N.I.C.'s first prison stint but let's hope it's his last. Prodigy is a legend in the game, and based on the lack of New York rappers making noise, his gritty voice is needed more than ever. Welcome home, P. Here's a throwback: "Keep It Thoro" from 2000's H.N.I.C. Bonus clip: Prodigy speaks after his release.

It was a difficult year for hip-hop star Kanye West and British soul revivalist Amy Winehouse, two of 2007's most visible artists. One is still grieving the sudden death of his mother while the other -- dogged by rumors of severe drug abuse -- has been battling health issues that forced her to cancel several shows. But at least professionally, the two will end the year on a good note as each garnered multiple Grammy nominations yesterday. West leads this year's nods with eight, followed by Winehouse with six. Veteran rockers Foo Fighters, celebrated rapper Jay-Z, quirky rapper-producer Timbaland, pop superstar Justin Timberlake and R&B singer-songwriter T-Pain all received five nominations.

When Jasiel Robinson was growing up in Atlanta, he learned much about running a business from his father, who owned a hair-care products company. Years later when Robinson became platinum-selling rapper Yung Joc, he applied the same progressive business acumen to his career in hip-hop. It's not just about making music. "You have a recognizable name and face and a credible reputation. You can relate all that to building financial wealth," says Joc, who plays 1st Mariner Arena tomorrow night as part of Screamfest '07, which also stars fellow Atlanta rapper T.I and R&B-pop princess Ciara.

J. Cole shocked a lot of industry heads and rap fans with the release of "Cole World: The Sideline Story," the debut LP he mostly produced himself. It hit No. 1 on Billboard its first week, and since hitting shelves Sept. 27, the album has sold more than 300,000 copies. He has no major singles or high-profile cameos; Cole merely built a following from the ground-up, with strong mixtapes and opening tour slots. Consider his show Thursday night at Baltimore Soundstage part of the earned victory lap. Cole is the type of rapper capable of writing radio-friendly hits ("Can't Get Enough" feat.

It was a bright moment in hip-hop, a day that undoubtedly will go down in a future chapter of the culture's history. Two of the genre's most visible and successful acts, 50 Cent and the Game, decided to stop acting out gangsta fantasies and squash the feud between them. After years of cartoonishly violent images pervading hip-hop, this truce is welcome relief. "I'm so proud of them," author Afeni Shakur, mother of celebrated rapper-actor Tupac Shakur, said in an interview. Since the still-unsolved 1996 murder of her son, who attended Baltimore's School for the Arts, Shakur has become an outspoken anti-violence activist.

When Mos Def's latest album, The New Danger, dropped in October, I prematurely called it one of the best rap albums to come out this year. I was just excited that the artist had finally released a follow-up to his excellent 1999 debut, the gold-selling Black on Both Sides. But I have lived with the latest CD for the last two months. And I must confess: The New Danger is overly ambitious, full of grand intentions that never really fly. Rock (early Funkadelic, a little Jimi Hendrix) is clearly his style inspiration throughout, but his ambitions nearly swallow him on the record.

Go white boy, go white boy, go!--"Play That Funky Music," by Vanilla IceSometimes it seems as if Vanilla Ice just can't keep out of trouble.First, there was the dust-up over his past. Ice's record company biography claimed that the blond- haired, blue-eyed rapper was a product of the Miami ghetto, that he even went to the same high school as 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell.Not so, said the Miami Herald. Robbie Van Winkle -- Ice's real name -- actually graduated from a high school in suburban South Dallas.

He was thinking of a master plan. For Murs, signing with a major label wasn't about "selling out," and he certainly wasn't about to compromise his art too much. The underground West Coast rapper, an acclaimed independent artist for more than a decade, needed a bigger platform for his witty, richly metaphorical messages of perseverance and uplift. Warner Bros. Records certainly had the muscle, and last year the earnest artist signed on the dotted line. On Murs for President, his major-label debut released late last month, the rapper wanted to broaden his musical scope.

When the biggest rap tour of the season stops by 1st Mariner Arena on Saturday, opening act Machine Gun Kelly will provide a stark contrast to the flashy, dipped-in-gold Maybach Music Group trio of Wale, Meek Mill and headliner Rick Ross. While the MMG clique presents a cool, almost icy demeanor in its songs, the 22-year-old Cleveland rapper, born Richard Colson Baker, takes the opposite approach, fearlessly spitting double-time flows in the face of the audience. When his rapid-fire delivery fails to spark the crowd, MGK keeps a battering ram of a single in his back pocket.