Cookin' With Coolio.

​Today, excitable Long Island-raised rap firebrand Flavor Flav will open his House Of Flavor restaurant in Las Vegas. The restaurant—which will have fried chicken and something called a "red velvet waffle" on the menu—is Flav's second attempt to break into the food world, following the disastrous Flav's Fried Chicken experiment in Iowa. (In brief: It bombed, lasting for just four months, and also stoked the ire of his Public Enemy partner Chuck D.) But Flav's far from alone in deciding that sometimes the rap game reminds him that he's, well, just very very hungry. Here's a guide to the new rap food movement.

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​The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness—in which we determine the quintessential New York musician—launches this morning with a series of polls. Up first: Harlem's quintessential hip-hop cadre, Dipset, takes on the genre's megamogul, Diddy. Check out the arguments in favor of each contestant below, and then cast your ballot on Facebook.

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via YouTube

​Mariah Carey w/Diddy
Gotham Hall
Thursday, March 1

Better than: A promotional tote filled with branded swag.

Initally, some words about Diddy's performance were going to open this review, but when Mariah Carey hit the stage after him, his portion of the show was all but forgotten. Still, for the sake of context, a brief explanation of his purpose.

Diddy opened last night's event at Gotham Hall, a promotional event for Caesars Entertainment Corporation's unveiling of their new loyalty member program called "Total Rewards." The whole production was an over-the-top spectacle that was streamed online, with live performances happening in four cities around the country: Maroon 5 was in Chicago, Gavin Degraw in New Orleans, Lil Wayne in Los Angeles.

But none of those artists had more buzz going in than Mariah Carey, and none of them rose to the occasion quite like she did. Diddy was fun, performing his Bad Boy catalogue, but when Mariah hit the stage, she owned it.

Carey opened with "It's Like That," her dancefloor-tailored 2005 single from The Emancipation of Mimi, and for someone who was supposedly getting her sea legs back, it didn't seem like she's lost a step—instead, it seemed like she gained one. Most of the dancing duties were handled by her stable of male backup dancers, but Carey, sporting a sleek black gown, sashayed, leaned, and grooved along with her sharp band.

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​This weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, the season where people--despite their best efforts--engage in communal listening thanks to power of radios blaring through cracked-open windows, propped bodega doors, and other points of entry that are cracked just wide enough to let in something resembling a breeze. The unofficial establishment of a Jam Of The Summer has been something of a fun pre-season ritual for pop watchers, who love prognosticating on matters regarding mass musical-consumption tastes. After the jump, five songs that have the bass-shaking power to be heard all over New York City this summer--and song that'll probably get played quite a few times thanks to its seasonally appropriate theme.

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Diddy-Dirty Money, Tyga, Lloyd
Hammerstein Ballroom
Friday, April 22

Better Than: That time Diddy's son took Nicki Minaj to his 16th birthday party.

"Diddy's not so much my thing," said a friend as we waited amid hundreds of fans and at least ten gigantic spinning cardboard cutouts of Ciroc bottles at Hammerstein Ballroom on Friday night. "I did like Get Him To The Greek, though," he conceded soon after. And indeed, it was the MC's vaguely comical, absolutely larger-than-life public persona that brought us to the Hammerstein tonight. Biggie and Bad Boy Records aside, Sean Combs is a businessman and an all-out entertainer at his core. And despite the handful of surprise guests, run-through of songs from DDM's debut Last Train To Paris, and emotional Biggie tribute, it was obvious that the point of the night was to clue the audience in on what it was like to be Diddy. And we were buying it.

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​The 1997 murder of Christopher Wallace, b/k/a/ the rapper The Notorious B.I.G., remains unsolved. Last week, the case became both more transparent and more suspicious as the FBI opened up its files into an investigation about not just who shot Biggie Smalls, but also who helped orchestrate the killing. Popular accounts and common conspiracy theories about Biggie's death usually allege some combination of 2Pac and Suge Knight's Death Row records camp, LA's Crips gang, and corrupt L.A.P.D. officers being the masterminds behind the murder. The FBI's files, which span from 1997 to 2005, do little to prove or dispel these allegations--although they do make for sadly sinister reading.

While the first wave of reports has concentrated on the contents of Biggie's pockets on the night he died--marijuana, a pen, an asthma inhaler, three "larger size" condoms, and a driver's license issued in Georgia--the reports also contain insights into the often-nefarious side of the mid-'90s rap scene. So for those without the patience or printer ink to scour through the 350-plus pages--which include heavily redacted witness statements, a sketch of the crime scene, internal memos, and even a reference to a Village Voice article (on page 48 of Section 1)--here are ten insights into music-business-related matters.

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​As previously noted, the pop-house that dominated the charts in 2010 was really fucking insipid. So to see this boneheaded year off, here's an anti-poetic tribute comprised of over 30 hits, misses, and album cuts that came out (or flourished) this year about going to the club, taking shots, dancing, and generally being as mindless as possible. If things continue on like this, you may not have to use your brain whatsoever in 2011. Fingers crossed! (Click on the line for its source track.)

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Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week!

The most important artist of 2010.

​Hi everybody!

To completely gloss over the Taylor Swift effect (I listened to 30 seconds of Speak Now and thought, "Uh, no," and never looked back), and get to what actually matters: despite Sean's prediction, I don't even care enough about Dr. Luke to defile him. His is the sound of now, and that means so much more than what's actually going on within most of his producing. I think most of Teenage Dream is ingenious, though. It's an album of power ballads with house beats and rave sounds and blood-curdling yelping. We know the ingredients of this frothy girly drink well, but they've never quite been blended like this. Objectively, it rocks and knocks harder than Robyn's output this year, which may be precisely why those people who enjoy Body Talk would avoid it. Wimps.

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Diddy: dirty money plus ice cream.

​Rejoice New York, Diddy's long, long, long-awaited Last Train To Paris is finally out today, after three years in the making and some of the most pleasurable pre-album explicating known to man. The record, see, is about the woman of his dreams, except after a one-night stand, he fails to get her name. They eventually reunite, then tragically split again, the result of a misunderstanding. Finally: "One night in London, I get offstage at 9:45pm and I hear that she's in Paris. It's one of the foggiest nights, so I can't take my plane, I can't drive. The only way I can get to her is the last train to Paris..." BOOM! The record was reportedly inspired Felix da Housecat and all sorts of other delightful Eurohouse cheese (these influences are less audible then maybe you'd like them to be on the actual record) which, as Diddy tells Vulture's Amos Barshad in a late breaking contender for interview of the week/month/year, the rapper producer discovered at Ibiza's legendary club DC10:

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​Posse cuts are like friendlier versions of the WWE's Royal Rumble -- a platform designed to showcase all of the stars in the game, both up-and-coming and certified. Think back to the Main Source's 1991 "Live At The Barbecue," featuring Akinyele, Joe Fatal, and the debut of a rapper named Nas, or Big Pun's "Banned From TV" remix, featuring the murderer's row of N.O.R.E., Nature, Cam'ron, Jadakiss, and Styles P. More recently, there's been 2008's "Swagger Like Us"--T.I., Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and M.I.A.--or last year's "Forever," featuring Drake, Kanye West, Eminem, and Lil Wayne.

This year in particular, the posse cut seems to be in vogue. Kanye West has been the most visible artist to use the posse cut approach recently, stacking the majority of his G.O.O.D. Friday freebies with numerous MCs and singers. West also recently announced "All Of The Lights", the third single from his upcoming album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, will feature 11 artists (including Elton John!). But it's not just West calling all MCs to the booth. For whatever reason, great rappers have been teaming up a lot lately, and the result has been a hip-hop fan's wet dream. Every week, there's either some new remix or original song with numerous MCs trying to lay down the verse fans will talk about long after the song is playing. Here are ten of 2010's best posse cuts so far, complete with a verdict on who won each one:

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