Live from Bedford Stuyvesant...

Guru once rhymed about the importance of how a rapper's voice sounds. If ever there were a rapper whose voice was tailor made for hooking listeners before they even heard the entire couplet, it would be Big Daddy Kane's. Kane's baritone was smooth enough to talk your girl out from under you but still raw enough to sock you in the gut with the cold wordplay.

He's performing at Herbert Von King Park in his old Bed Stuy hood for Summer Stage at 7 p.m. today. We talked to the legendary rapper about how the neighborhood has changed since he grew up.

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Big Daddy Kane

For almost three decades, Brooklyn MC Big Daddy Kane has remained a fixture of "Greatest Rapper of All Time" conversations. From his iconic singles like "Raw" and "Ain't No Half Steppin'" to a live show that ranks -- even today -- among the most revered in the genre, his influence can be heard in the syllable-slaughtering and smooth-personas of just about every great rap artist to emerge in his wake. Kane returns to the stage tonight for two shows at the Blue Note with his new supergroup The Las Supper. Backed by New York funk outfit The Lifted Crew and joined by singer Showtyme, the performance looks to prepare the world for the crew's upcoming album Back to the Future. We spoke to Kane and Showtyme about working on Kane's first new album in a decade, as well as bringing his lauded live show to the Blue Note stage.

See also: Watch: Big Daddy Kane in Prospect Park on Saturday Night

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"Otis" fever is in full effect, thanks to the Otis Redding-sampling song from Jay-Z and Kanye West's much-ballyhooed Watch The Throne project leaking Wednesday night. The track's production, based around a slick chop of Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness," might be the most impressive thing about the song, what with Jay-Z largely forgoing rapping for doing that breathless thing which suggests not so much an economy of breath control as him realizing that he can mumble anything and fans will still give him pots of money. But anyway. In celebration of "Otis," here are ten other royal rap flips of Redding's music.

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Care to see Big Daddy Kane reenact the moment described in today's New York Times, when the rapper implored the audience at Saturday night's show in Prospect Park "to join him in the shimmy called the snake"? And obligingly "Brooklyn, showing the love, danced along"? It starts at around 4:30. Also, this show drew 6000 people. Brooklyn, we salute your loyalty.