'Hip Hop Honors' with a Long Island beat

BY GLENN GAMBOA | glenn.gamboa@newsday.com

9:19 AM EDT, October 6, 2008

De La Soul performs at the 2008 VH1 Hip Hop Honors show. (AP Photo / October 2, 2008)

THE SHOW "VH1's Hip Hop Honors"

WHEN | WHERE Tonight at 10 on VH1

THE DEAL The fifth annual Hip Hop Honors - taped at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan last Thursday - recognizes Cypress Hill, De La Soul, Naughty by Nature, Slick Rick and Too Short. Tributes from Public Enemy's Chuck D and Flavor Flav, Estelle, Cee-Lo, EPMD, Busta Rhymes, Ghostface Killah and others. Hosted by Tracy Morgan.

REASON TO WATCH Though hip-hop isn't very good about paying homage to its history, the "Hip Hop Honors" series is. Not only do producers have the artists speak for themselves, telling stories about songs or their sound and how they developed it, they also put the artists' work in context, showing how they influenced other artists and the hip-hop sounds of today.

THE STRONG ISLAND FACTOR The long overdue honor for Amityville's De La Soul, who were uncharacteristically fiery on "Me, Myself and I," and Strong Islanders who lined up to pay tribute, including Roosevelt's Chuck D and Flavor Flav and Brentwood's EPMD, were high points, especially Chuck and Flav's "Stakes Is High" trade-off. Uniondale's Busta Rhymes was enlisted to honor Slick Rick and other reminders, included House of Pain's "Jump Around," featuring Valley Stream's Everlast, of how the area was pivotal in the late '80s and early '90s to hip-hop's spread into the suburbs.

BEST SURPRISE A tribute to the late Isaac Hayes - and an explanation of his importance to hip-hop - was gloriously far-flung, from Cee-Lo's lovely reprise of Hayes' reworking of Burt Bacharach's "The Look of Love" to Estelle's take on Mary J. Blige's "I Love You," which sampled Hayes' music. But Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos," which also sampled Hayes, was masterful.

BEST PERFORMANCE Slick Rick was in rare form during "Children's Story," delivered as royalty, of course, which made him the king even after grand performances of "The Show," "La Di Da Di" and "Mona Lisa" from special guests.

BEST LINE (AT THE TAPING) "Obama wins - gas goes down to 79 cents a gallon and barbecue sauce will be $58 a bottle," says Tracy Morgan. "They know how to get us."

GRADE B