It’s been a long while since I gave up my former day job: financial analyst supervillain. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think of those days past, those days way back when I was a mild-mannered number cruncher, before I volunteered for mutagenic alteration, and hip hop was a straight-forward, easily identifiable genre. But now everything has changed. As fate would have it, all those eggheads did was make me really ugly and plant a computer chip in my head that activated a teleportation cloak. Unfortunately for me, I could never seem to teleport fast enough to avoid getting my heinie pummeled by that gang known as ASBG (Ass Stompers of Bad Guys).

Yet solace abounds, because hip hop is experiencing a renaissance. You’ve probably already heard this, but hip hop is expanding. For instance, the Chocolate Industries Urban Renewal Program offers up a scintillating compilation called Rapid Transit that looks to tackle this expansion (and it truly is scintillating). Featuring the likes of Roots Manuva, East Flatbush Project + D.E.S., Push Button Objects and Funkstsrung, the bases get covered and the rink zambonied twice over. Original and remix versions of the classic "Tried By 12," Ko-Wrecktechnique’s "Metro Dade" and other tunes demonstrate both traditional and progressive hip-hop styles and abstract electronic music manifestations. Although I can’t say that this compilation is better than a Wendy’s spicy chicken combo with Biggie fries, I can say that Rapid Transit is really good. That’s word is bondage, kid!

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