Chino XL (born Derek Barbosa, April 8, 1971, in The Bronx, New York but raised in East Orange, New Jersey) is a rapper well respected among hip hop enthusiasts for his battling abilities. He is notorious for his usage of self-consciously over-the-top punchlines (which usually take the form of puns or similes) and for his exaggerated egotism. He is also well known to many for a brief feud with Tupac Shakur.
If “gay rapper” is an oxymoron where you come from, how to get your head around the notion of a gay rapper performing in a sports bar? What in most cities might seem plausible only as some sort of Sacha Baron Cohen-style provocation is just another weeknight in the cultural Galapagos that is New Orleans. Sometime after midnight on the sweltering Thursday before Memorial Day, the giant plasma-screen TVs at the Sports Vue bar (which “proudly airs all major Pay Per View events from the world of Boxing and Ultimate Fighting”) were all switched off...
Rhyming is an art form. Just like painting, dancing and hustling. If you don't know the techniques of the genre you can easily be swept off your feet. Enter Hip Hop staple, Poison Pen, a battle MC turned street prophet. The Brooklynite started in 1996 at the first online radio station 88HipHop.com, before tearing through the streets as the undefeated champ of the NYC MC battle circuit. After participating in the Blaze Battle...