Hip-hop tour beats a bad rap; The 'Hard Knock Life' tour features hardcore rappers Jay-Z, DMX, Method Man and Redman.(TICKET)

Byline: Philip Booth CORRESPONDENT

Korn, Rob Zombie, Limp Bizkit and the ever-clownish Marilyn Manson may imagine themselves as working the extreme edge of pop music. Still, it's fun to imagine those rockers a decade back, duking it out in a steel-cage match with rap warriors Ice-T, Public Enemy and N.W.A.

Or better yet, put those latter acts in a battle-of-the-bands contest with their successors, hard-core hip-hoppers Jay-Z, DMX, Method Man and Redman - the Def Jam labelmates who have joined forces for the "Hard Knock Life" tour.

The concert trek, the first rap tour of its kind and scope in nearly a decade, plays the USF Sun Dome in Tampa on Thursday. The quadruple-bill …