Barack Obama's speech today in Berlin, Germany.
toi

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama kicked off on Thursday a European tour in Berlin, which was ready to give him a rapturous welcome amid a yearning on the continent for change in Washington.

Obama was to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier before making a foreign policy speech in front of an expected crowd of tens of thousands.

"He is awaited like a magician who can clear away the clouds of a troubled world," the influential German newsmagazine Der Spiegel said in a cover story. "Obama is the hope of a western world with a lot of worries..."

Barack Obama Berlin Speech

Colbert Report spent almost the entire show on Nas' Fox News protest.. here's the colbert's report on the Nas Fox Protest, the interview and performance of "Sly Fox":

Nas on Colbert Report part 1

I was too tired to pay close attention so I will rely on y'all to render a verdict. this is the full "Black In America" special from Wednesday Night, July 23, 2008:

CNN Black In America Special, 7/23/08 Part 1

CNN Black In America Special, 7/23/08 Part 2

from eurweb:

Rapper Nas is about to replace Lil Wayne atop the Billboard 200 chart Wednesday when sales figures for his new untitled album hit the streets from Nielsen SoundScan.

According to the tracking firm, the Def Jam release sold 113,000 copies during its first three days of commercial availability through Thursday. The total, however, is considerably less than the first week sales of Nas' last No. 1 album, "Hip-Hop Is Dead," which arrived in late December 2006 selling 354,000 copies during Christmas week...

Most interesting to me is this note at the end of the piece.. these places are where 80% of music is sold?

The three-day tally for Nas' album represents un-weighted sales at nine leading music merchants -- Trans World Entertainment, Apple, Best Buy, Circuit City, Borders, Starbucks, Target, Anderson Merchandisers and Handleman Co. They account for about 80% of the U.S. album market.

You gotta put some strategery into it.

The Underground Railroad returns once again tonight at midnight. You can tune in here, or on WBAI 99.5 FM if you live in the tri-state area. And while you're listening you can talk to us live in the chat room.

What's really sad about this sort of hipster racism isn't even the racism, it's the desperation of the pleas for attention.. all this shirt really says is "oh please oh please oh please, please be shocked by me!" In fact, are we sure this even happened? The only source verifying the alleged assault seems to be Braun himself.

"Obama Is My Slave" shirt sparks lawsuit threat
metro

When a 25-year-old Manhattan graduate student who was assaulted Tuesday night got dressed that morning, she probably didn’t anticipate that her T-shirt would provoke four teens into shoving her, pulling out her earphones and spitting in her face. Then again, with a shirt sporting the slogan, “Obama is my slave,” it may have been wise to consider the possibility.

Now she’s suing the $69 shirt’s designer, Apollo Braun, for “all he’s got,” the designer claims...

I remember as a kid in the 80s, riding on the ferry to visit my cousins in Martha's Vineyard, listening to "King of Rock" on my walkman and looking around thinking "man, i must be the only person on this boat who knows or cares that this music exists." Never woulda guessed that 25 years later the Martha's Vineyard Times would be proudly profiling their own local rap groups. The me of today is sending a letter to the me of 1983, that reads "We won."

Moving to a different beat: Complex Humans
martha's vineyard times

Rap is difficult. An abbreviation for "rhythm and poetry," it is a form of music, and like any form of music, it doesn't follow rules, it is whatever the artists make it into.

Complex Humans, a group composed mostly of recently graduated regional high school seniors, is the Island's most prominent homegrown rap group...

...Like any form of music, there is nothing rap has to do and an infinite number of interpretable possibilities, it can do. The stereotypical urban rapper rolling within his reputation is not a target for emulation.

Mr. Brown's poise was put to the test as Saturday's show at Outerland was sparsely attended. But the group stepped up, unnerved, simply adapting their set and keeping the show moving. They demonstrated that rap is not about cheering crowds or rowdy mindsets but about expression, proposed through a microphone and married to a beat.

From locals who have become popular musicians to popular musicians who have become locals, the Island has sustained and cultivated many styles of music. It remains to be seen if Island hip-hop can continue to grow in appeal and legitimacy, but with groups like Complex Humans continuing to perform and improve, there seems to be no reason why it shouldn't succeed.