Black Ice, the Philadelphia poet whose thunderous delivery helped take spoken word from underground stages to HBO and Broadway, has died. Born Lamar Manson, the Def Poetry Jam standout became one of ...

Back in 2004, Kanye West had already made an indelible mark on the hip-hop world by producing the best tracks on Jay-Z’s watershed 2001 album The Blueprint. But Def Poetry Jam provided a two-pronged ...