From golf-club tipple to ghetto-fabulous grog

A No 1 hit, routinely cited as one of the best hip-hop songs of all time, 2003's Slow Jamz was a collaboration between Kanye West, Jamie Foxx and Twista. The lyrics include the line "Sippin' Hennessy, play some r'n'b, tryina smoke a B". Slow Jamz represented a new beginning for the Corkman's Cognac, so much so that Hennessy - now more sassily referred to as "Henn-dog" or "Henn-roc" - is the new bling.

As a brand suffering from a terminal old man/golf club/ Waspy image, Hennessy's embrace by Kanye West was the drinks world equivalent of Tommy Hilfiger ditching its preppy image to become a ghetto-fabulous brand. Thanks to lyrical endorsements from 2Pac, Kanye West, Pharrell Williams,

P Diddy (or whatever his name is this week), 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg, Hennessy has gone in with a bullet onto a strange but influential chart that monitors the number of times a brand is name-checked in song lyrics.

This "endorsement chart" is fervently scanned by companies to see just who is name-checking what in today's charts. A good mention by the "wrong" person could be worth millions in free advertising. Last year's figures, saw Hennessy enter at No 6, above Cristal at No 8 and (yikes) the AK-47 at No 10.

Hennessy has been keen to exploit this chart progress by hosting a series of worldwide Hennessy Artistry events. The thinking is that the younger generation might not be attracted to Hennessy straight but to a Hennessy cocktail that is more in keeping with youthful palates. So the Artistry musical events have line-ups that feature a "cocktail" of musical styles. At last year's US Artistry gig the line-up was Kanye West and The Strokes; at this year's it was Pharrell Williams and Fall Out Boy.

Williams, kingpin of The Neptunes and NERD, usually shuns endorsements, but the appeal of playing Hennessy Artistry was simple: "I drink it! And I also like the chance to be able to play on the same bill as Fall Out Boy. So much in music now is put into genres that it's good to see how my audience react to a guitar rock group and how their audience react to a hip-hopper like me."

You can see why the likes of West and Williams were targeted by a high-end cognac. Scoring a hit with leading urban artists can bring heat to a product in the larger white suburban market. "White suburbanites resonate with the strong anti-oppression messages of rap, and the alienation of blacks," says Ivan Juzang, who works with a US research company that looks at urban youth spending patterns.

Williams will now write and score a series of Hennessy TV and Internet ads. This represents the latest evolution in a hip-hop culture that has proven more durable than other music trends. Whereas genres were once hemmed in by a strict codes of dress and behaviour, the wonder of hip-hop is its elasticity. Whereas once it was Tommy Hilfiger, then oversized jeans, then Cristal, now it's cognac.

But, as author Don DeLillo has warned: "As soon as Madison Avenue breaks the code, Harlem devises a new one."

Hennessy is enjoying its moment in the rap limelight, so much so that The Urban Dictionary, that essential arbiter of ever-changing hip-hop styles, now carries three definitions for the cognac:

1. The No 1 gangster liquor - and 2Pac's preference.

2. Hennessy is a word 2Pac rhymed with "enemies" at least 5,000 times - "Just me and you evading enemies/Let you get my last shot of Hennessy"

3. (a) A bottle runs anywhere from $40-$4,000, therefore showing that the consumer

can afford lots of bling;

(b) Hennessy and cognac are fun to pronounce and also sound classy and distinguished.