Stretching the bluegrass boundaries farther than ever before, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass kicked off its weekend run with a Friday morning educational program featuring a rap and break-dance performance by pioneering hip-hop artist M.C. Hammer. Several thousand students from San Francisco middle schools responded to the feel-good performance with more exuberance than they might have for a pure bluegrass set, even though Hammer might have been as "old school" and before their time as, say, Earl Scruggs.

Hammer addressed the elephant in the meadow, saying he had been asked what he was going to do at a bluegrass festival. As the bass-heavy groove started up, he yelled the title of one of his hit numbers, "I'm gonna turn this mother out." Crowded on the periphery of the audience (outside the fenced-off kids-only center section), a robust crowd of young adults who had come of age with the Oakland-based Hammer in the 1980s and '90s, chanted along.  Read more »