Meet hip-hop's new players

Back in the day, only a handful of video games came with a hip-hop vibe. Players could summon their inner video director by splicing images of the teen rappers Kris Kross in 1992's Kriss Kross: Make My Video. Digital versions of LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and Queen Latifah battled on the basketball court in 1995's RapJam Volume One. And members of the Wu-Tang Clan collective battled one another in 1999's Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style.

In the midst of all this came Grand Theft Auto, which hit the hip-hop/urban jackpot. The game incorporates the lifestyle elements detailed in the hottest gangsta-rap hits: drug dealing, thugging, and womanizing. With five versions released since its debut in 1997, the series has become one of the world's top-selling games.

The success of GTA led to the rise of similar games that delve into the grittier side of urban life. Tired of GTA? Then try NARC, Snow, 25 to Life, or Manhunt. But the content of these games -- the industry generates a staggering $18 billion a year -- bothers organizations such as Children Now, a child-advocacy group in Oakland, Calif. Its 2001 report, ''Fair Play," took the industry to task for its games' lack of diversity and racial stereotypes. Among the report's findings for the 65 games tested: None featured Latina or Native American male characters, the majority of the heroes were white, black males and Latinos tended to be athletes, and Asians appeared as wrestlers.

''One of the issues with the video game industry," says Patti Miller, director of Children Now's Children & the Media program, which organized the ''Fair Play" report, ''is that it has predominantly white male producers. The impact of white male producers is you see a lot of white males [in the games]."

Enter Def Jam, the legendary hip-hop label, which tested the game-world waters with the rappers-as-wrestlers games Def Jam Fight for NY in 2004 and Def Jam Vendetta last year. Their success is turning the Def Jam titles into the GTA of new urban games made by people in the hip-hop community who grew up playing video games. Their participation helps to add some much-needed diversity to the industry.

In the next year, a handful of these games will start appearing in stores. 50 Cent offers his image and voice to 50 Cent: Bulletproof, a shooter game scheduled for release in November. Clothing retailer and former graffiti artist Marc Ecko looks to the graffiti world for inspiration in Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, in which the goal is to help Trane (voiced by rapper Talib Kweli) work his way up from newbie to graffiti legend. Pushed back to next year: Fear and Respect, a game written by veteran director John Singleton about an ex-con (played by Snoop Dogg) who's jumped by rivals on the day he's released from prison.

''It's a trend," says Bruno Bonnell, Atari's chairman and creative director, who gave the green light to Ecko's project. ''What is more important is that behind the trend we need authenticity."

But authenticity doesn't resolve more pressing issues about the content of these games. Will the creative input of people in the rap world help relieve the gaming genre of racial, ethnic, and sexual stereotypes? Or will the creators of these new games follow Def Jam's lead and continue incorporating these elements because they sell?

''When we talk about wanting to see more diversity," says Children Now's Miller, ''it's not only in the quantity of roles -- it's in the quality of roles. Clearly, if all of a sudden you start to see an increase in diversity, but people of color are still being represented in stereotypical or negative ways, that's not actually improving the picture."

Ecko is not surprised by the hip-hop community's enthusiastic embrace of game culture. In the music industry, placing a song in a video game is increasingly a critical step in getting exposure for an artist. Hip-hop has always been about hustling -- if a way to make money appears, people in the industry will happily go through that door to make a profit.

Take 50 Cent, for example, who gave Vivendi Universal Games, the creator and distributor of Bulletproof, extraordinary access. The project was brought to Vivendi by 50 and Jimmy Iovine, cofounder of Interscope Records, after 50 turned down a voicing gig in the recently released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

''I've seen games," says Andre Emerson, the executive producer of Bulletproof and a 10-year veteran of the industry, ''where we might have a property, individual, [or] celebrity, where if you pay the right fee they'll lend their name, maybe likeness, maybe voice, and may never even meet the talent. With 50, he's been engaged in the story, the mood, the visuals, the game mechanics."

Bulletproof follows 50 through the streets of New York City as he battles underworld figures to uncover a conspiracy. It includes an all-star cast: Dr. Dre appears as an arms dealer, and Eminem plays a ''shady detective," says Emerson. The G-Unit crew -- Tony Yayo, Lloyd Banks and Young Buck -- help players move through the game by picking locks, hot-wiring cars, and setting explosives.

50 Cent did extensive photo sessions and about four hours of voice-over work for the game, says Emerson. The artist even recruited the game's writer, Terry Winter, an Emmy-winning scribe for ''The Sopranos," who also wrote the script for the rapper's upcoming film, ''Get Rich or Die Tryin'."

The game also provides 50 with a cross-promotion bonanza. All the products he designs or endorses -- G-Unit clothing, Reebok sneakers, Glaceau Vitaminwater -- appear in Bulletproof. The game also works as a greatest-hits package for 50's fans. Songs and new freestyles? Check. Videos made by 50 and G-Unit? Check.

Although 50 was able to enthusiastically throw himself into the creation of Bulletproof, video game executives have a mixed reaction to the hip-hop community's push to provide creative content. On one hand, the industry welcomes the marketing power of hip-hop celebrities.

''Games are enormously competitive now," says Emerson. ''You walk into any game store, and there's a sea of titles on the wall. You look at it like, 'What should I buy? What's cool? What's hot?' 50 brings persona, he brings awareness, he brings credibility, he brings excitement. Those are all the things that I knew would help this project get the level of success that we're shooting for."

Ecko, however, calls the initial reception by game executives to his proposal -- which included Ecko having creative control -- ''icy." ''[There] was a lot of cynicism," says the man who has gone from making T-shirts for Chuck D to heading a $1 billion-a-year multimedia company, Marc Ecko Enterprises. '' 'How could this kid who makes sweatshirts tell me about how to make games better?' "

Part of the resistance to neophyte voices, say gaming industry insiders, is the result of the industry being relatively young and approaching new ideas tentatively. Hence the infinite permutations of Grand Theft Auto or of tricked-out-car games such as LA Rush and Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition.

The hip-hop community develops products differently. ''With all of the businesses I have," says Ecko, ''the one common thread is understanding the market, understanding whether there's a void. It took a very simple analysis to see the merit and take the risk of putting Getting Up together."

Ecko poured his insider knowledge of hip-hop culture into Getting Up, slang for covering an object with graffiti. The work of more than 50 graffiti artists, including Futura 2000, Mike Giant, and Shepard Fairey, are included in this digital homage to the art.

Ecko chose the Collective, a game development company in Newport Beach, Calif., to help him bring his dream game to fruition. The Collective put together a team that includes a couple of black animators and a lead designer who is Hispanic, says Ecko. But he bemoans the fact that only two women are working on the project.

A new program hopes to solve the diversity problem from the bottom up. Joe Saulter, the CEO of the African-American video game company Entertainment Arts Research, recently announced the launch of the Urban Video Game Academy, which will teach game programming to African-American high school students in Baltimore, Atlanta, and Washington D.C.

The question remains whether these games will ultimately battle stereotypes. The lead characters in Bulletproof aren't athletes, but black men who steal cars and blow up things. You could also point accusatory fingers at Getting Up. The protagonist breaks into private property to tag objects.

But dig a little deeper, says Ecko, and criticisms don't pan out. He believes the negative aspects of tagging is balanced by graffiti's artistic influence on everything from fine to commercial art.

''Do I condone writing graffiti illegally?" says Ecko. ''No, it's illicit; I don't condone that. Do I condone practicing that aesthetic art form of graffiti legally? Yeah, I think it's cool; I think it's important. I don't want it to die with the generation of hip-hoppers that never got the ability to get this form of expression out there to be discussed, debated, loved, hated -- whatever. That's my intent."