Damon Hodge

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Lyrical longevity: Weekly hip-hop party celebrates two-year anniversary; Wednesday, June 23, 2010; "When I started the parties, I made sure that we focused on attracting real fans."
Soul-satisfying fare at Ella Em's: Despite some glitches, this North Las Vegas restaurant is packed with potential; Wednesday, April 21, 2010; Ella Em's fried chicken has caused a fuss, but this restaurant has more to offer.
Making their Move: Hip-hop group powers its way to success; Wednesday, March 31, 2010; Meet the most successful local hip-hop group no one has ever heard of.
Martin Lawrence is still sorta crazy: But he is a long way from where he once was; Wednesday, March 24, 2010; Lawrence’s near-capacity show provided glimpses of the actor/comedian he used to be.
The State of Race Relations: An uneasy peace: A look at West Las Vegas, ground zero for race relations; Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010; West Las Vegas now sits in the city’s most racially diverse district. With diversity comes both promise and peril.
Angie's is good for the soul: Cleveland’s Angie’s is the latest to give this MLK space a go; Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010; Meet Angie, an Ohio-by-way-of-South Carolina soul-food matriarch, whose two restaurants on Cleveland’s east side have provided that city’s residents a deep-fried fix for a quarter-century.
Hustle and go: Vegas hip-hop’s Mr. Do Everything refuses to slow down: Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009; After 17 years worth on the local hip-hop frontline, DJ Dantana has stories.
Vegas rapper Mr. Finley signs with iconic label Def Jam: Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009; “I’m definitely carrying the city on my back.”
Ladies first: Female rappers, Las Vegas and breaking through: Ms. Undastood, Lady L.U.S.T. hope to empower female emcees; Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009; Ms. Undastood and Lady L.U.S.T. hope to empower female emcees.
Skydro: Success Stories; Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009; Daydream-inspiring, but in a generally good way, Success Stories is unlike anything you’ve ever heard from Vegas hip-hop. For starters, the 20-song CD is overwhelmingly positive.
Hack the Mack: The Middle East Project; Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009; Hack the Mack starts strong, but as the CD proceeds, there’s less spitfire, and Hack’s retreat to tired and ultimately unadventurous topics (guns, girls and ganja) seems to sap his energy.
Rideout: Ride Wit Me: The Prequel; Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009; Cut from the North Las Vegas thug-hustle cloth, Rideout is, perhaps, one of Northtown’s more able lyricists.
Getting bigger: Vegas’ B does music his way, and fans are eating it up; Thursday, July 30, 2009; At 6-foot-7, 330 pounds, Vegas-by-way-of-California artist Big B is unquestionably the biggest (and perhaps only) rapper/punker/white-trash guru/Carey Hart flunky in the music industry. And he’s hungry.
Jay-Z: Thursday, July 9, 2009; Watching Fabolous and Ciara lumber through uninspiring sets before Jay-Z took the stage Friday meant that the night’s success rested on Jay-Z’s capable shoulders.
Muslims speak out: Local leaders want it known that ignorance is the greatest danger voters face; Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008; For nearly 20 months, U.S. Muslims have watched Barack Obama fumble as he tries to debunk rumors that he’s a closet Muslim.
Hey, everyone, important community issues being discussed here!: Um, everyone ... anyone ... ?; Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008; School over, dozens of students filed past the solitary sign-holder pointing visitors to the Greenspun Junior High auditorium for the first of several community forums on education sponsored by state Senate Democrats.
A debate to remember (and forget): Two takes on the first mano a mano between McCain and Obama; Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008; n hit the jackpot. Minutes into Friday evening’s presidential debate-viewing party at Sierra Gold at Jones and the I-215, someone won $20. Two center-bar televisions cut away from Barack Obama’s meandering economic prescription for the recession, and up popped glowing graphics and the word jackpot in red uppercase letter
Touring the educational corridor: Charter schools and alternative approaches attempt to redefine education in West Las Vegas; Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008; New York-based Edison Schools, the nation’s largest and most controversial for-profit school-management company, roared into town in 2000, winning the right to manage seven campuses, including one of the state’s most troubled—West Middle School. Burrow into a surly patch of the city, off of Lake Mead just west of Martin Luther King, and there is West. North of the school is Buena Vista, a shuttered apartment complex politely described as a mini-Beirut; to the east, the FBI’s gleaming new headquarters occupies a patch of desert that was once a popular disposing ground for used condoms and spent shell casings.
Worldwide local tour: Undeterred by casino freeze-out, rapper creates traveling hip-hop showcase; Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008; Juiced by receptive crowds at First Friday performances in February, the West Las Vegas rapper set his sights on large bars and casino showrooms. Most venues declined before even hearing his pitch.
Electile dysfunction: Clark County may have new voting machines, but it faces more scrutiny from poll-watchers than ever; Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008; Florida in 2000 gave us hanging chads and butterfly ballots. Ohio in 2004 set precedents for voter intimidation and massive disenfranchisement (350,000 missing or purged names).
No flip-flops: And other things I learned tagging along with vote canvassers; Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008; Sunday morning and the sun is on low boil. An inordinate number of flies annoyingly hover near the entrance of the Sunrise Library. Outside, a few Barack Obama supporters prepare clipboards and paperwork for the day’s mission: persuading people to support their man.
The best bet: McCain or Obama—who's better for our state's biggest industry?; Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008; By now you’ve probably heard so much about how John McCain and Barack Obama will restore our faith in government and have seen enough hit pieces calling bullshit on the other guy’s promises that it’s hard to tell fact from spin.
Lowden Clear: The state GOP chair is confident Republicans will beat the odds and prevail in November; Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008; Come November 4, we’ll know whether Nevada Republican Party chair Sue Lowden is Nero, sitting idly by as the empire burns, or the political version of Joe Namath.
What's the use?: With the city’s old courthouse building in mothballs for several years now, many mull its future role; Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008; Real-estate agent Jack LeVine describes the shuttered Clark County Courthouse on Third Street as a “classic icon of mid-century modernism.” You may be thinking: This place, modernist? Even before it closed in 2004—its court functions moving to the stately, 17-story Regional Justice Center a few blocks away—probably few thought that this place, with its boxy shape and the aqua-colored siding on its towering column, was much to look at.
Beats, rhymes & life: Damon Hodge on the latest in local hip-hop; Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008; Damon Hodge reviews 3 CDs from local hip hop artists.
Subprime = subcrime?: Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008; At the corner of Fremont and 15th Street, a Las Vegas police camera, powerful enough to scan two dozen locations and pinpoint a license plate from six blocks away, watches the Saturday evening activity. It records the groups of young men patrolling Fremont—back and forth, forth and back—the scantily clad women staring down motorists and the touristy-looking folks who may have wandered a bit too far.
Solemn journey: Too late to save her son, a mother wants to warn others about prescription drug abuse; Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008; Debbie Zarder takes a deep breath. Lips trembling, she stifles tears and begins walking down the narrow hallway in her modest Henderson home, past the game room where her son, Robert David Jojola, spent many evenings playing games on his PS2 system, toward the scrum of barking dogs, some of which he helped deliver, and to the door leading to his room. Everything looks much as it did on May 23, the day he died.
Movement or fan club?: Getting the vibe at this year’s National Hip-Hop Political Convention; Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008; A line forms behind a circle of people flanking a table where ex-Black Panther Dhoruba Bin Wahad waxes pseudo-philosophic on the inherent evil of the U.S. political system. “President Bush should’ve been stopped a long time ago, but no one’s been willing to incur the wrath of the empire,” Wahad says of this unseen, Bush-empowering cabal.
Paging Mr. D ... Mr. Chuck D: Hip-hop conventioneers wonder: Where have all the activists gone?; Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008; Nas is bumping on the public-address system as T.J. Crawford readies the remaining National Hip-Hop Political Convention attendees for a closing session on the fall elections. “Can I have everyone’s attention?” Crawford says to nearly 60 people in UNLV’s Classroom Building Complex auditorium on Sunday afternoon. Deep-voiced, stocky and built like an NFL fullback, Crawford is a commanding presence, which helps him rein everyone in. After three days of meeting, intellectual jousting—and, yes, some partying—people are antsy to go home.
Trial run: Scot Savage hopes his website devoted to the O.J. Simpson case becomes a cash cow; Thursday, July 31, 2008; “How lucky for me that he made the stupidest mistake of his life in my city!” Scot Savage is talking about former NFL star, television pitchman and double-murder acquittee Orenthal James Simpson.
Five Questions with Troy Nkrumah, local organizing head of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention: Thursday, July 31, 2008; [Vegas hosting the National Hip-Hop Political Convention] is major considering Las Vegas attempted a ban of hip-hop. That, along with the fact that, nationally, Vegas is not on the map for either hip-hop—except for the b-boys—or for progressive youth activism. The 2008 Convention is the perfect opportunity because all eyes will be on Vegas.
The celebrity watchdog: Chatting with top Las Vegas entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs; Thursday, July 24, 2008; In the final months of her reign as Miss Nevada, Alicia Jacobs figured life after pageantry would be filled with legal tomes, a clerkship or two and, eventually, a law career. When legendary entertainment manager Bernie Yuman (Siegfried & Roy, Muhammad Ali) marched the Las Vegas native into Channel 13’s offices in 1994, those plans took a turn.
Felina: Lady Like; Thursday, July 24, 2008; Vegas has been barren on the R&B front, but Felina, the first R&B act on Heat City Recordz, aims to change this with the debut of Lady Like.
Nas: (Untitled); Thursday, July 17, 2008; Nas is cursed. Ever since the release of 1994’s seminal Illmatic, the Queensbridge representer has faced impossibly high expectations.
Taxing argument: Desperate times call for … open wallets?; Thursday, July 17, 2008; Here’s the deal, folks: We need higher taxes. There, I said it. And (gulp) I mean it. We need them because we can’t budget-cut ($1 billion and counting) our way to fiscal health. Nor can we rely on Casino Inc. to part with much more—gaming revenues already provide half of Nevada’s general-fund budget.
Sin City sex trade: A former call girl comes clean on servicing the Rat Pack; Thursday, July 10, 2008; Tell-all books have a hold on the public psyche for much the same reason that high-level gossip does: Americans are a nosy bunch, as addicted to TMZ.com and Page Six as older generations were to the McNeil-Lehrer Report.
Neither pucks nor Picassos: Why now’s not the time to pursue a pro-sports stadium or a world-class museum; Thursday, July 10, 2008; What should come first, the sports stadium or the fan base, the world-class museum or the appreciative culture? To those counting the days until we can pay to see flying pucks (or basketballs) or hanging Picassos—in a museum not attached to a casino, that is—my answer may sound like heresy: The latter is more important, particularly if we’re serious about either endeavor.
Back from Iraq: What’s being done, or left undone, when soldiers come home with problems?; Thursday, July 3, 2008; On July 31, 2005, in an alley near Sahara and the Strip, 20-year-old Iraq war vet Matthew Sepi machine-gunned 47-year-old Sharon Jackson and 26-year-old Kevin Ratliff, killing Jackson. Published reports note that Sepi said he feared for his life—he told police he thought he was being ambushed and merely reacted the way he’d been trained.
Rhyme N Rhythm: Disaster Survival Kit; Thursday, July 3, 2008; Press materials for Rhyme N Rhythm describe the group as a hip-hop soul funk experience, but its seven-song demo could more aptly be described as Pharcyde-ish bonhomie mixed with Roots-ish musicality.
Hogg Corps: Street Concepts; Thursday, July 3, 2008; Bay Area expatriates Hogg Corps don’t swing for the fences as much as they could on Street Concepts, and the result is an uneven CD that’s about as satisfying as a handful of fries on an empty stomach.
See No Evil: To tell or not to tell? Why the stop-snitching phenomenon is more complicated than you might think.; Thursday, June 26, 2008; A bulky man stands sentry at the southwest entryway to Sierra Pointe Apartments, two pinkish buildings that bookend the aptly named Crack Alley. His head is on a constant, owl-like swivel, back and forth, forth and back, his wary eyes locked on anyone who approaches. He communicates with passersby with unblinking looks, knowing head nods and the occasional “What’s up?”
Basketball vs. Barack: How each one’s victory could impact dipolomatic relations; Thursday, June 26, 2008; The latest misnomered iteration of the U.S. basketball Dream Team begins practice this weekend in Las Vegas, in preparation for (hopefully) winning gold at the upcoming Beijing Olympics and restoring American hoops supremacy. In case you’re keeping score, NBA-ers haven’t won a gold medal since 2000 and haven’t inspired global dunk-on-your-head, shoot-a-three-in-your-eye fear since 1992’s Bird-Magic-Jordan squad.
The Unsung List: More under-the-radar individuals and groups; Thursday, June 19, 2008; There are more Las Vegans making a difference in our community than you might think. Meet some of the city's unsung heroes.
Who ya’ gonna call?: Whether you want to help the homeless, save the environment or to sidewalk and shove, you can depend on these proven activists to deliver; Thursday, June 19, 2008; Whether you want to help the homeless, save the environment or to sidewalk and shove, you can depend on these proven activists to deliver
Crusading for your community: Whether they’re helping kids, refugees or disenfranchised minority groups, these locals are working hard for Vegas underdogs; Thursday, June 19, 2008; By now, it’s a story we’re used to: Vegas sits atop every bad list and brings up the rear on every good list. Everything from our schools to our rickety social service infrastructure to the way we treat our homeless needs dramatic improvement. Meanwhile, our rapid growth, relative affordability (thanks foreclosure crisis), job stability (despite the economic downturn) and hotness factor (kudos to George Maloof, among others) are the envy of the country.
Pool Position: A look at the big business of Strip pools, by the numbers; Thursday, June 19, 2008; Of all Vegas’ pool parties—Wet Republic at MGM Grand (billed as Vegas’ first ultra pool), the Palms’ Ditch Fridays, Tao Beach’s Sunset Sundays, Venus at Caesars, Bare at the Mirage … if I missed your favorite, no disrespect—I’ve only been to one: the spring break-ish peo-pool-alooza that is Rehab at Hard Rock.
The heavenly hitter: Glen Lerner addresses controversy, why he’s hated by the media—and his personal relationship with God; Thursday, June 12, 2008; Lerner’s in the makeup chair, readying for his next commercial, whose campy script calls for Lerner to narrowly escape an oncoming car. Lerner is the self-professed Heavy Hitter of personal-injury lawyers—“Many of our clients have received settlements of over One Million Dollars ($1,000,000.00)!” his website screams. He’s practiced law in town for nearly 20 years, the last 10 of which he’s spent building a reputation as an ambulance-chasing, do-gooding, make-the-bad-guy-pay attorney, even if that superhero persona exists first and foremost in his own mind.
Bun B: II Trill; Thursday, June 12, 2008; With II Trill, the follow up to 2005’s semi-solid Trill, Bun B (Bernard Freeman) might finally get credit for helping power the South’s rise in the rap game.
From TV to Vegas: Two more cooking-show vets talk shop; Thursday, June 5, 2008; Kitchen competitions have taken cable and Las Vegas by storm. Hell's Kitchen winner (3rd season) Rock Harper and Iron Chef America competitor Akira Back spill the secrets of their prime-time moments doing battle at the cutting board.
I want to be a star: How much have chef shows increased enrollment in local culinary schools?; Thursday, June 5, 2008; You’d think watching Gordon Ramsay curse out lowly waffle-flippers on Hell’s Kitchen would be enough to deter anyone from a career in the kitchen. Not so. Enrollment in culinary schools throughout the country is on the rise, powered, industry observers say, by the rising popularity of reality-television cooking shows such as Bravo’s Top Chef, Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen and the Food Network’s Next Food Network Star.

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Damon Hodge

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