Correction from December 11 issue

Due to a reporting error, in last week’s Restaurantarama column ["Family affair"], we identified Dick and Linda Oliva as owners of Richard A. Oliva & Sons ceramic tile company. In fact, they are owners of Ceramico Tile Co. We apologize to the Olivas for this mistake.

C'ville hip-hop R.I.P.?

Inside the warm wooden belly of the Outback Lodge, a crew of local rap musicians named Heavy Hustle Entertainment has finished its set of tunes and roams the floor in a pack, their homemade black t-shirts bearing the words "Heavy Hustle Ent." on the front and, on the back, stage names like "Big Mike" and "Young Shotti," baseball caps sporting the abbreviation or outline of their home state, Virginia.

Hip-hopsters

Violence has made it hard to hear live hip-hop in Charlottesville, but many local artists, including all of the Stack Boys, have MySpace pages where they share their music. We checked out some of their tracks, and below is a list of some of our favorites, along with a taste of the rhymes that they […]

The Big Doe Rehab

cd When gangsta rap ensemble Wu-Tang Clan recorded "Da Mystery of Chessboxin’" for 1993’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), they opened the track with a clip from a 1981 martial arts film called Shaolin & Wu Tang. In the film, members of rival kung-fu clans are pitted against one another by a government official that […]

Straight Outta Compton [with video]

cd In 1988, N.W.A. changed the course of popular music with their debut album, Straight Outta Compton. It wasn’t the first or the best "gangsta rap" album, but Straight Outta Compton sold two million copies, proving that white American teenagers hungered for profanity-laden, hardcore rap music. This month, Priority Records is celebrating their lucrative discovery […]

Super Mario Galaxy

videogame Mario’s excellent space adventure isn’t just the Wii’s first absolutely must-have game—it’s also the equivalent of an interactive Disney movie, with rainbow-star bits plummeting from the sky and bursting from patches of grass and pummeled enemies. Manipulating an on-screen cursor with the Wiimote to collect and use the star bits to unlock new colorful […]

City looks to shirk density costs

"The city wants density, but we want you developers to pay for it." That is the essence of a proposed change cooked up by city staff and presented to the Planning Commission December 11, a last minute addition to a rezoning package that has been in discussion for almost a year. The changes were originally […]