Darren is a Bronx-born writer/reporter who's dabbled in entertainment journalism for over a decade. Bylines have appeared in/on Maxim and Maxim online, AOL's The Boombox, Alternative Press, Popmatters, Star, Blender and others. His CD reviews have been published in the All-Music Guides to Rock and Hip-Hop.
Darren Ratner
Flavor Flav on ‘The Howard Stern Show’
The words "charming" and "exhausting" sum up Flavor Flav's interview with Stern back in 2011, during which the Public Enemy rapper and 'Flavor of Love' star looked like he'd been smoking up at Burger King. The two conversed (or shouted) at length about drug abuse ($2,600 a day on crack...
Snoop Dogg on ‘The Howard Stern Show’
Hilarity ensued in 2001, when Snoop Dogg and some of his Dogg Pound were all-too delighted by watching the "rappin' granny" do her thing. Snoop is usually a laid-back interview subject, so watching him lose it like he's on laughing gas makes it one of the greatest Stern moments ever...
Ice Cube on ‘The Howard Stern Show’
He's talented as heck, but South Central, L.A.'s Ice Cube had a rep for being one of the more in-the-background rappers of his generation. His 1998 Stern interview managed to reveal that he adores his wife and studied architectural drafting at a local tech school...
The LOX’s ‘Money, Power & Respect’ Album Turns 15
The late 1990s were a strange time for hip-hop. Fans may still have been swooning from the almost obligatory success of early albums like Biggie's 'Ready to Die,' but a surge in pop music was changing the momentum for many rap artists.
Rappers Appearing in Video Games
Unless you've been under a rock for the past 10 years, you've probably noticed the revolutionary changes taking place in the video games we play. Long gone are the days where just capturing mushrooms and rescuing the princess were considered fun and cutting-edge. Nowadays, the guns have gotten bigger, the graphics way better and the plotlines so thick it takes some people years to reach a conclusi
DMX in Def Jam Vendetta
A typical fighting game usually contains one or two roided-out characters who would probably give their own mothers a beatdown if provoked; Yonkers rap legend DMX proudly takes on that role in Def Jam Vendetta, a pro wrestling-style game that replaces your typical Hulk Hogan types with rap's fiercest personalities such as Scarface, Ghostface and Joe Budden...
Wu-Tang Clan in Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style
This 1999 hit for the Playstation console is one of the first instances of hip-hop infiltrating the video game world -- complete with samurai swords (RZA's weapon); giant hammers (Method Man's weapon); and a drunken ODB who relies mostly on his fists...
Redman in Def Jam: Fight for N.Y.
It's certainly up to debate, but Newark, N.J.-born rapper Redman really does stand out amongst his fellow hip-hop hooligans (Method Man, Slick Rick, Xzibit) in this one-on-one fighting classic, where gaining control of the seedy New York City underworld is the ultimate goal...
50 Cent in Blood on the Sand
A bit presumptuous, we'd say, for a rapper to think he could star in two of his own video games and expect people to, you know, buy them. 50 Cent pulled it off, though -- particularly with this awesome follow-up to 2006's Bulletproof and its lessons in pixelated swagger...
Snoop Dogg in True Crime: Streets of L.A.
True Crime's good-cop-vs.-the-Russian-mob storyline put many gamers in snore mode back in 2003. But if you were actually awake enough to reach the end, you might remember having the chance to unlock Snoop Dogg's character and run him around the streets of Los Angeles -- guns blazing...