Good morning, D.C.!

For a few moments yesterday, the Twitters lit up some with debate over the growth, priorities, and coverage of the city’s hip-hop scene. The impetus?1) Andrew Noz‘s City Paper Music in Review piece on D.C.’s wealth of very good rappers and paucity of great ones; 2) rapper Head-Roc‘s rebuttal on Arts Desk; 3) The premiere of WKYS’ video countdown of D.C.’s hottest rappers in 2010. Then the debate kind of petered out, and everyone returned to their usual late-December inertia. I liked producer/MC Oddisee‘s thoughts:

DMV artists, why on earth would any of you give a flying f*ck about being included on a list that @939WKYS is responsible for assembling?

Come on you all, the world is massive. Pay attention to what pays attention to you.

Here’s the WKYS video, with a cameo by Arts Desk contributor Marcus J. Moore:

Also out there! WaPo‘s Blake Gopnik—-who’s leaving the paper for Newsweek/The Daily Beast—-has been spending his week in the Corcoran, meditating on paintings that call out to him in the museum’s “Salon-style” rooms. However! On Day 2, he choses two strangely recessive portraits by Gerard ter Borch from a room whose paintings are not arranged Salon-style! Le horreur! But it’s a nice piece.

WaPo‘s Anna Hornaday tells us about the paintings that will soon be entered into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, including two classic D.C. films, All the President’s Men and The Exorcist. Here’s the full list. Amazing inclusion: The Maysles Bros.’ 1975 faded-wealth documentary Grey Gardens.

TBD has several unusual retrospective pieces: The year in severed heads! The year in Rick Ross! The year in film incentives! The year in waiting!

Coming soon: The year in retrospective pieces! (Actually, Largehearted Boy is all over that.)