FREE RIDE

Tonight's Top Stop: The Coup

Photo courtesy Alexander WarnowBOOTS RILEY AND PAM THE FUNKSTRESS found themselves in rather a harsh spotlight in late September 2001. The socialist hip-hop duo who make up the Coup were about to drop their fourth album, "Party Music," on an unsuspecting public, when it seemed they had to come up with a new cover idea, and pronto. After all, it was no time to be showing the World Trade Center towers exploding, an image the Coup had come up with when such a thing was virtually inconceivable. If there was an upside to the duo's notoriety, it was that critics paid attention to "Party Music," a mind-blowing collection of sage advice, anti-capitalist rage and -- why not? -- party music that redefined political hip-hop from its beats to its lyrics to its intrictate, endlessly inventive rhyming. The Coup are sure to bring controversy, provocation and a sense of righteous outrage to their Black Cat show tonight.
» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; Iselyfe, T-Kash and Poem-Cees, 8:30 p.m., $10; 800-551-7328. (U St.-Cardozo)

» FOR MORE OF TONIGHT'S TOP STOPS, click here.
Photo courtesy Alexander Warnow

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