Danyel Smith

Looking back on my life as a woman in the music industry, I’m unsettled by the inescapable sexism perpetrated by Sean Combs and others.

The birth of a pioneering Black dance company comes alive in Karen Valby’s “The Swans of Harlem.”

When more people are watching the Hallmark Channel than CNN, you know we’ve reached a new level of interpersonal isolation.

Her renowned shape was sculpted for public consumption, but she ultimately reclaimed it for herself.

Biggie. Tupac. DMX. We pay tribute to 63 stars who died too young.

Her moody, enigmatic music made her a megastar. Can she learn to live with success?

Hip-hop's battle-ready swagger is thrilling and joyous. What sits behind it is more complex.

At a time when hip-hop artists and fans are infatuated with the idea of gangsterism, three bands that came to the Palladium on New Year's Eve confronted the trend by being as real as their so-called gangsta counterparts. The music of A Tribe Called Quest has been through a metamorphosis, the trio's sultry, jazz-inflected hip-hop completely changed to a raucous variation on their own musical theme. On a bill that included the rap groups De La Soul and Souls of Mischief, A Tribe Called Quest easily dominated.

Carole King danced wildly with her guitarist on Friday at the Beacon Theater, and then in unison with her background singers. She twirled around in a velvet frock and tossed her hair around, rocker style. She punched her fist into the air. But when the spotlight on the drums and the guitarist faded, and Ms. King sat at the piano, her fans quickly turned silent. They were rapt in anticipation of what old songs she would sing, of what little piece of life Ms. King would lay bare with her lyrics. That the theater's sound technicians twisted knobs from "muddy" at the beginning of the evening to "extra loud" for the duration was only a minor irritation: Ms. King's performance was effervescent. Thoughtfully planned and loosely executed, Ms. King easily balanced old and new material. Never folky, maudlin or cabaretlike, Ms. King's performance combined the best of singer-songwriter sensibilities and rambunctious showmanship. Some of her moves seemed calculated (like the inclusion of a black choir for two songs), and

Naughty by Nature's lead rapper, Treach -- short for the treacherous M.C. -- held himself above the crowd at the Coca-Cola Summerfest's stop at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night like some glowing, hypnotic talisman. The crowd's loving response to him and to Naughty by Nature's string of hits was undying. He has what fans refer to as "mad skills." Treach is a personification of urban truisms and stereotypes: he wears naughty b-boy style like a halo. Treach has a pointed disregard for things politically correct and his amplified obscenities are just sporadic enough to still be thrilling. Unlike so many rappers who fall into the category of gangsta, Treach conveys a multi-dimensional persona. His every gesture speaks to the wary coolness of ghetto authenticity. In the hip-hop nation's quest for the real -- the ability to retain street mannerisms and sensibilities in the face of popular success -- Treach rises to the constant challenge of a young, jaded public.

Naughty by Nature's "O.P.P." (as in "other people's property"), a bouncy party jam about a cheating lover, was a big hit in 1991. The rap, which sampled a Jackson Five song, had a chorus that became part of the lexicon of hip, young Americans -- "You down with O.P.P.?/ Yeah, you know me." "O.P.P.," which sold more than two million copies, propelled the rappers' eponymous debut album to platinum. But "Naughty by Nature" may have raised unrealistic expectations. The group's recently released second album, "19 Naughty III" (Tommy Boy 1069; CD and cassette), is a disappointment. In its music and lyrics, the first album throbbed with seductive abandon. It reverberated with a consistent, almost tangible bass line. On cuts like the tough-guy rap "1, 2, 3" and "Ghetto Bastard," a bleak portrait of growing up poor and fatherless, "Naughty by Nature" captured the starkness of urban life and made it palatable to both hard-core and mainstream listeners.