INCREASE THE PEACE CRITICS HAVE CALLED OUT THE HIP-HOP WORLD FOR ITS FOCUS ON GANGSTA POSTURING AND LACK OF SOCIAL RELEVANCE.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

Chuck D is at the mike.

For a full three hours, the founder of Public Enemy is speaking sure, measured words that roll off his tongue in a monologue on the business he faults for exploiting black death for profit.

``At the end of the 'hood is jail and death,'' the Long Island rapper, born Carlton Douglas Ridenhour, says, speaking to UCLA coeds in early March. ``And we're gonna put it to the music? That's vile.''

It's not surprising that a number of people in the hip-hop industry share Chuck D's concerns - especially when it comes to the corporate-driven renaissance of gangsta rap.

According to them, record companies are only packaging one type of artist for mass consumption and that's the sexist, hedonistic gun-toting thug. That the criminal element then gets glamorized through radio, music videos, TV and movies is also at issue, because as Chuck D points out, ``Rap stars don't live in the 'hood no more.''

In the three decades since New York City MCs started twisting wordplay around beats of funky dance tracks, rap has in fact emerged from the ghetto to become a $1 billion-a-year business. Rap has also raked in more album sales than any other music genre for the last three years.

Last year's champions were Eminem and Nelly. This year, it's most likely to be the Queens rapper dubbed 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson). With his trademark bulletproof vest, semi-automatic and crucifix dangling from the thick chain around his neck, the thuggish rapper has so far sold more than 4 million copies of his Shady/Aftermath debut, ``Get Rich or Die Tryin','' which was released Feb. 6.

And already ``The New Breed,'' his just-released DVD/CD, has entered the album charts at No. 2 (just behind ``American Idol'' winner Kelly Clarkson) with 246,000 copies sold in its first week. Considering the musical portion of 50 Cent's latest only contains three songs - an additional track has been added to newer pressings now in stores - it seems like the stuff fairy tales are made of.

In a way it is.

50 Cent, who has sold the rights to his life story to MTV Books, has lived the life of a street criminal. From drugs to jail time to close calls with death - namely, surviving nine bullet wounds, an incident that sabotaged his first recording contract - he's experienced firsthand what are often just fantasies among most gangsta rappers.

He even glorifies it in his autobiographical rhymes.

But even before his debut album dropped earlier this year, accounts of his gritty past were plentiful.

Nowadays the focus has slightly shifted to 50 Cent's heated rivalry with Ja Rule, which nobody seems too worried about despite suspicion that such disagreements might have led to violence in the rap world. One of the most famous rivalries came to an abrupt end in the late 1990s with the drive-by shooting deaths of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.

Then, last year, Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC was gunned down leaving a recording studio. Even Snoop Dogg barely escaped an assassin's bullet a few weeks ago.

Confronted with the fact that the violence mirrors the themes of their art, rap insiders respond with the ancient assertion that outsiders just don't get it. The violence, they say, has nothing to do with their wars of words or the music that's being created. As Eddie ``Scorpio'' Morris of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five fame puts it, ``That's street - on the street, you just gotta know anything can happen.''

Scorpio, like so many others, also points out that rap was built on industry-hyped rivalries such as the one between Nas and Jay-Z, who tells CNN the feuds are ``like two people playing basketball, two people boxing.''

``It's like boxing on vinyl,'' clarifies Damon Dash, the hip-hop mogul who co-founded Roc-a-Fella Records with rapper Jay-Z. ``It's really not that serious. We're grown men, you know, Jay's over 30 and I'm over 30. I mean, I'm not gonna be fighting in the street over no rap. That's ridiculous.''

While some rappers say the rivalries break up the monotony, others want to see it go back to a more diverse palette.

Left to its own devices, rap has tackled issues of social justice. Examples abound from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to the hard-core trailblazing of Run-DMC, which then gave rise to the political and social criticism of Public Enemy and the considerably less academic gangsta bomb-throwing of N.W.A.

Former N.W.A. member the DOC says before artists can get past the feuding, the industry needs to get its business straight.

``These young guys coming up today have great opportunities, and if they can find some kind of solidarity between themselves then they have a chance,'' the DOC says. ``It's their art and it's their business, so then maybe on the whole, everybody can get a little something, and then you won't have so many people worrying about killing this dude because he doesn't have what this guy has, or he wants to shut this guy down because he wants the top spot, or I want to be the leader of a pack, which is only gonna want to make the other guys wanna come and do something to you anyway.

``It's a big business and there's enough for everybody to get in and get what they need out of it, but like I said, it's business, and it's hard to be fair and shrewd at the same time,'' he says.

Until then rap music remains a one-way street.

A distorted message

That concerns Michael ``Mike Gee'' Smalls of the Jungle Brothers, who appear in concert with Blacksheep June 14 at the Roxy Theatre.

``From what the videos show kids, their goal in life is to make a lot of money, get a lot of women or - if you're a woman - to use your body to get what you want,'' Mike Gee says. ``Men who try to get fast money, fast girls and fast cars usually go about it illegally and wind up in prison.''

Such concerns in fact led the Los Angeles-based Project Islamic Hope last month to organize a boycott of ``Platinum,'' the new UPN cutting-edge drama about two brothers who come up from the streets to own a successful rap-recording label in New York.

The show, the fourth episode of which aired Tuesday night, has come under fire by Project Islamic Hope director Najee Ali over the way it depicts ``the worst elements of hip-hop - it's gangsterism, violence, misogyny and brutality.''

Not surprisingly the network is defending the show as a real portrayal of the industry, one that executive producers, writers, directors and stars know intimately.

Kirk ``Sticky Fingaz'' Jones, the rapper whose new ``Decade'' CD arrived Tuesday and who on ``Platinum'' plays Grady Rhames, one of the brothers, believes the show has balance.

He offers up an episode in which VersIs, the white rapper played by hip-hop newcomer Vishiss, fires a round at a director's rear end.

``Everybody's like, 'They're glorifying violence,' but on the same token I'm conversing with other people, my little sister (played by Davetta Sherwood) being one of them and saying, 'Listen, this guy, he's no good, he thinks he's a stud, he shoots the director in the ass - that's not cool.' I'm totally denouncing it,'' adds Sticky Fingaz. ``You have to show the negative to denounce it.''

While there's still pointing and clamoring and accusations back and forth with explanations of the violence ranging from broken families to corporate exploitation, there are some voices in the wilderness doing things to lessen the violence and its potential.

DJ Kay Slay of the New York radio station Hot 97 has decided to stop participating in the increasingly venomous back-and-forth between 50 Cent and Ja Rule. Says Slay, according to MTV, ``They need to cut it out now.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1) Rapper 50 Cent has drawn from his violent past, which includes gunshot injuries and jail time, for his songs.

(2) Ja Rule is a player in the most prolific feud among rappers today - with 50 Cent.

(3) Bishop, left, Maestro and Sticky Fingaz appear on the UPN show ``Platinum,'' which Project Islamic Hope has boycotted due to what it deems is a negative depiction of the hip-hop industry.