News that Rebirth, Lil Wayne�s rap-rock album, will actually see the light of day has the blogosphere uniformly horrified, and with good reason. Its first single, �Prom Queen,� plays like an 11-year-old 311 song, complete to the outdated, tuneless riffs. Count me among the minority who doesn�t think Rebirth has to be a total train wreck, though. If a savvy producer can convince Weezy to reconsid...

In its early years, Linkin Park’s Projekt Revolution Tour sported a nearly 50-50 mix of rock and rap acts. It’s symbolic, then, that the lone rapper on this year’s Projekt Revolution tour, Busta Rhymes, was dropped, leaving behind a line-up of just alternative and hard-rock acts like Chris Cornell, Ashes Divide . . .

In a bid for post-rap-rock relevance, Linkin Park downplayed the role of rapper Mike Shinoda on their most recent album. A year later, however, Denver upstarts Flobots stormed modern-rock radio playlists by doing just the opposite, delivering “Handlebars,” a single built around monotone, Shinoda-esque raps....