Rock the Mic

In a concert season hindered by slumping sales, ho-hum lineups and meager turnouts, an all-star rap tour dubbed Rock the Mic is proving to be one of the summer’s hottest tickets. That probably has a lot to do with the superstar headliners, who are among the shiniest stars in hip-hop’s galaxy. 50 Cent is arguably the genre’s biggest name of the moment. His 5-million-selling major-label outing Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was launched by the ubiquitous radio smash “In Da Club,” which continues to rock parties from the projects to the ‘burbs. Snoop Dogg, whose winning MTV show, Doggy Fizzle Televizzle, has everyone adding a few z’s to their vocabularies, was tapped to portray Huggy Bear in the big-screen remake of Starsky and Hutch. The laconic MC’s recent star turns also include last year’s hosting of a Girls Gone Wild video and a heavily publicized swearing off of gin and bong juice. Jay-Z, whose Blueprint 2.1 was recently released, almost seems like Roc the Mic’s elder statesman. But Hova’s predilection for bawdy showmanship hasn’t waned one whit, and his arsenal of trunk-bumping hits places him among hip-hop’s most crowd-pleasing frontmen.