Rawkan or no Rawkan, I'm contributing a gang of reviews to thee resurrected Hit It or Quit It, and dudes, I am fired up. I'm amped just to read this thing. Jessica Hopper has rounded up most of the absolute tightest writers in the game, lined up some of the best interviews (not sure I should divulge what little I know), and got this shit bound like a book. This feels like I just got invited to join the Ego Trip staff or some such, and the only drawback is that I have to spend the next week listening to, like Smoke or Fire and Jane so that I can adequately savage them instead of playing The B.Coming over and over and over. In fact, fuck the haters, I am straight taking over this year. Check Seattle Weekly in a week or two. Check the cover story in the next D.I.W. This is my summer. Nothing can stop me.

I've long been sleeping on Jeff Chang's writing, mostly because his tastes and mine don't overlap much (I don't like neo-soul). But Can't Stop Won't Stop is the best book about music I've ever read, even though it isn't really about music. This thing was an absolute joy to read from end to end. I didn't think there were too many new ways to tell the whole birth-of-hip-hop story, but Chang nails it so perfectly, bringing these images I just can't get out of my head: Grandmaster Flash trying to take apart and put together radios that he stole from stripped cars, the Rocksteady Crew doing blow at the Roxy, Korean kids with white headbands coming in from the suburbs with rifles to defend liquor stored during the L.A. riots, the entire Source staff walking out on Dave Mays. These beautiful, sad, glorious things just keep coming, page after page. I would've liked to see a thing or two about the rise of Southern rap and maybe a chapter on Biggie but fuck it, this is a masterpiece.

The day after I saw Sin City, I was talking with my friend Nat on the phone, and we were going over all the things we liked and didn't like: Micky Rourke was serious, Clive Owen's sneakers were totally weak, they made Rosario Dawson look busted, it was boring in parts, etc. And then Nat said: "And Miho .... Man, they even had a ninja! That movie was awesome!" Thoughtful pause. Me: "Yeah, that movie *was* awesome." Although I do have to say that the use of Rory Gilmore as a hooker with bad earrings was perhaps the creepiest thing in a movie jammed full of creepy things. Bridget made the point that the movie kept subtlely referring to Gilmore Girls when she was onscreen: highlighting the blue eyes, making her call her mom every couple of minutes. Not right.

Can someone please tell me the deal with the good-not-great new Pimp C album? Like, when was it recorded? Did he produce the tracks? Did he do this from prison? (Seriously, I want to know. I have the bootleg, and it conveys no information.) If he did, this is truly one of the weirdest albums I've ever heard. It's got none of that Beanie Sigel claustrophobic regretful incarcerated sadness; I don't think he even mentions prison over the course of the thing. It's like a less likeable version of the last Devin the Dude album: slow, lazy sunkissed beats with twinkling acoustic guitars and glittering reggae drums, pinched nasal twang flowing freely, guests stopping by like it was a dinner party. Some cruise ship stuff. And he made this while he was in prison? Truly mind-bending.