It depends when the company was founded also, as far as using up-to-date slang. Fly works for like early 90s for sure. (Cite: "Girls be on my jock, cause my system's fly," LL Cool J, "Boomin System," 1990.)

And Deb. My point was not so much about this one point but about the setting you are building in general. At some point you will need some dialog, and you will want it authenic or at least free of embarrassing errors. True?

Gar, I have nine separate sources - most of them at the elite level of the industry - who've been basically instructed to talk to me whenever I ring their phones. I also have eleven hours of interviews, the founding braintrust of FUBU, sitting around their conference room at the Empire State Building, shooting the history in their own language. Sometime after we close the deal, I should be spending a weekend in LA as a guest VIP, absorbing the club scene there now, asking questions and talking to people about what it was like then.

Not an idiot. And not overthinking it.

The language will also have some pretty frickin' qualified WIP readers.

Yeah, I have a feeling Deb has more than enough qualified peeps to steer her on the lingo.

I mean, that's kind of how this party got started, y'know?

Deb, I almost hate to ask because silly question, but will you be listening to the dulcet sounds of classic hip-hop for this? (A thing for which I figure you've got plenty of sources as well.)

Sorry for mentioning the obvious. Of course you have sources.

Heh. Gar, sorry I sounded pissy - I only just realised how pissy I *did* sound. I honestly didn't mean to, and your advice is good. But truly - trust me. I'm seriously good at what I do, even when it's uncharted waters. If I get in over my head, there are a whole lotta peeps covering my back.

Plei, I'm going to have to. The only thing about this that really makes me want to whimper and crawl into a corner. Because me and hiphop, notoriously not so much.

OK, Wyclef Jean. But that's pretty much it.

Hmm - while not following it as much as Erika, I have followed a little. You might try Gil-Scott Heron -before the time you are writing about but he started the whole damn thing. Before Gil-Scott Heron there was street poetry. Afterwords there was Rap. And then even the whole thing of taking rap and mixing it with Jazz - GSH was one of the first to do that too. Of course you have heard of him and probably heard him to boot. But if you are going to have to listen to a lot of hip-hop, and normally don't like hip-hop try listening to some GSH first. I don't say it will reverse your feelings or opinions or anything; but maybe it will let you get something out of it you otherwise would not get.

Plei, I'm going to have to. The only thing about this that really makes me want to whimper and crawl into a corner. Because me and hiphop, notoriously not so much.

e me. I'll shoot you some stuff that you may not hate. (I may or may not have encoded it already. Nope. Not encoded. Will do tomorrow.)

Also, Roz's friend Jen may be able to suggest some that won't hurt your brain.

Gar, again, sorry to sound pissy, but I'm 52; you're teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.

I have a far too vivid memory of telling my "how can you not like rap it's so FRESH and NEW!" friends of my daughter about "We Almost Lost Detroit" and "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", and getting the big eyeroll. Truth is, rap was originally supposed to be guerilla street theatre, a kind of performance art. It aint music. Hiphop is, but to me, it's all of a massive irritating blandness. Yes, I'm including the Fugees.

It isnt that I don't know the stuff. It's that I loathe it. 98%, at a conservative guess, makes me want to kick something.

Plei, if you think there's anything that won't send me into severe eye-tic reaction, shoot it along, by all means. And yep, I'll ask Roz to hook me up with Jenny. I owe Roz a call.

deb, it sounds like the same visceral reaction I have when I even so much as hear football on the television.

I love hiphop, though. But if I had to write about football...there's not any game in the world that would make it palatable for me.