Strange Neighbors Spring 2000

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"No one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all other goods."—Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

In 1993 an underground Brooklyn hip-hop trio calling themselves Black Moon released their debut album on Wreck Records. The record, aptly titled Enta da Stage, stripped down the then popular airbrushed thump and swagger of East Coast rap to a grease paint scowl of urban New York drama. Enta da Stage was a new direction in hip-hop, but perhaps its greatest significance was to the careers of Black Moon's fellow associates in rhyme. Rather than focusing the fruits of their newfound success solely on building their own fame, Black Moon instead parleyed their good fortune to win recording contracts for a half-dozen of their cohorts. The members of these fledgling groups—Original Gun Clappaz, Smif-N-Wesson, and Heltah Skeltah—joined with Black Moon to create a meta-group of sorts, the Boot Camp Clik. Along the way, Black Moon frontman Buckshot even co-founded his own record label, Duck Down Entaprizes, as a means of navigating the free market system while maintaining the group's interests at heart. In the often unforgiving waters of the record business, the Boot Camp Clik managed to set a precedent for self-guidance that has been followed and expanded upon (to the tune of millions of dollars) by the likes of Sean "Puffy" Combs (Bad Boy Records), Suge Knight (the now defunct Death Row Records), and Master P (No Limit Records).

The story of the Boot Camp Clik is indeed an encouraging tale of camaraderie and sound business acumen, but what, you ask, do rappers with stage names like "Louisville Sluggah" and "DJ Evil Dee" really have in common with the robed Grecian philosophers of old, other than a penchant for loose-fitting ...

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