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Rappers go to manners school, clean mouths, act

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CNN's Worldbeat follows a new group of hiphop artists as they receive lessons in the social graces

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By Shanon Cook
CNN

(CNN) -- Streetwise, tough and hip, lips brimming with the latest lingo from the sex-and-drug scenes, big-talking and bad-acting. Sound like the essential ingredients for a modern-day rapper, right?

Not according to Angelo Ellerbee. Founder and president of Double XXposure, a company that teaches basic etiquette to unpolished rappers, Ellerbee says table manners, eye contact and poise play a big part in shaping a star.

"I'm teaching them things that maybe their mothers and fathers have not taught them, " says Ellerbee, whose charm school has trained musicians like Mary J. Blige and DMX.

Following their example, Brooklyn rap group 249 Tech Fam recently headed to Ellerbee's Manhattan school for some rigorous training in the proper way to walk the walk, yes, and talk the talk, too - that would be talking without mouths full, please.

Watch the group learn mealtime manners and have some of the dirty taken out of their dancing in this World Beat report.



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