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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Image via Darrell Bell

​Hip-hop is the world's most brazenly capitalist genre of music. If Jay-Z's not talking about playing Monopoly with real cash, then Kanye West's tweeting about the cherub-motifed Persian rugs and golden goblets he's just scored at Fishs Eddy. But while certain rotund rap types would have you believe they were running extensive criminal enterprises before they decided to pursue a career in rhymed verse, the truth is more mundane. Most rappers suffer the rite of working demoralizing dead-end jobs while attempting to jump-start their careers and clock up music industry cash, whether it's the Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man greeting tourists at the Statue of Liberty, Biggie bagging groceries at a Met Foods supermarket, or Kanye's mush-mouthed rapping friend Consequence ringing up monochromatic sweater vests at GAP. So when Fat Joe--who just so happens to have released a new album last week--opened his heart to us about sweating it out as a security guard one summer at a sneaker store, we decided to round up a whole batch of New York City's hardest-working rappers--including Prince Paul, El-P, Joell Ortiz, and Tanya Morgan's Von Pea and Donwill--and ask them to talk about their old temp-job blues. Their wretched stories are below.

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​Yes, for hip-hop enthusiasts, primarily it's Rick Ross Day, his new Teflon Don unleashed upon the world and primed to polarize the masses. (For! Against!) But take a moment to peruse "I'm Gone," the newly leaked and eerily beautiful closer off next week's rap-world polarizer (on a way smaller scale, but still), Fat Joe's The Darkside Vol. 1, produced by DJ Premier and cut soon after Guru's death: "Gangster? Fuck that, I'm Gang Starr/Tell Nas hip-hop's dead now/My man's gone." Feel free to tune it out when Joe starts ranting about winning talent shows at the Apollo and wearing "medallions down to my dick." Usually he's way more engrossing, honest: If you need a primer, looks like these are still available. [Per Rap Radar]