Hip-Hop for Dogs

I’m by no means fluent in hip-hop lingo, as I found out the hard way several months ago when my story on female emcess was published. Many of them got pissed off that I used their “street names.” Why? Were there warrants out for their arrest? Were they in the witness protection program? No. Apparently, it just isn’t cool to reference rappers by their legal names instead of their performance monikers. “People don’t refer to Diddy as Sean Combs in articles,” one girl told me.

Yeah well, Diddy is a complete fucking tool and I don't read articles about him.

But I'm willing to accept that I made a mistake and learn from it. Therefore I didn't so much mind reading -- ok, skimming-- Janet Penn’s Hip-Hop for Dogs: From Bling to Phat, Your Dog is One Cool Cat.It's an illustrated dictionary of hip-hop slang that explains terms like chedda (lots of money), doin’ a bid (spending time in jail), and busted (an ugly female). More importantly, the book contains plenty of adorable pictures of dogs wearing bling.

Hip-Hop for Dogs makes a good gag gift to give people who are obsessed with their canine friends. But don’t expect any awesome birthday/ Christmas presents in return.

Penn is an awesome illustrator. Note: illustrator. These are digitalized doggies! Yes, they're super cute. But the above picture would be way better if it featured actual pugs wearing red sweatshirts. These lazy pug homies simply got madeover via Photoshop. That's just wack, yo!

Hip-Hop for Dogs: From Bling to Phat, Your Dog is One Cool Cat comes out November 4, 2008. (Simon & Schuster, $12.95 hardcover)