Talking about hip-hop

Depending on with whom you speak, the state of hip-hop has never been better, or it's never been worse.

University of Georgia music business student Rebekah Baldwin - who along with classmates Elizabeth Schenck and Stephen Prevots has established H.E.R Hip-Hop LLC - believes hip-hop has descended into a developmental and creative nadir, and the time has come to kick it old-school and breathe some new life in the genre.

Working from the H.E.R ("Hip-hop in its Essence is Real") philosophy, as espoused by rapper Common, Baldwin and her colleagues formed their company with the goal to offer artists assistance in promotion, publicity, booking, publishing and licensing.

"We're concerned with the deterioration of hip-hop," Baldwin says. "What's on the radio now doesn't really have any value. We want to showcase artists whom we feel are creating quality hip-hop."

To that end, the fledgling enterprise will host its first event - the H.E.R Hip-Hop Showcase - on Friday at New Earth Music Hall.

Besides performances by seven hip-hop artists, including national artists Dead Prez, Kidz in the Hall and WrittenHouse, Atlanta-based Donnis and Stanza, and Athens-based artists Fresh and WildKard, the event will feature a panel discussion and a preconcert mixer.

"We met in the UGA music business program, so the company and the showcase have come out of that," says Baldwin, who adds that H.E.R initially was hatched in October and was incorporated officially in January. "This all came about when we went to a hip-hop festival in Atlanta last year and thought it would be cool to have something like that here. We've had to put it tog

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