"Moving through over a dozen cities across four continents, Freedom Moves: Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures represents a cutting-edge, field-defining moment in Hip Hop Studies. As we approach 50 years of hip hop cultural history, and 30 years of hip hop scholarship, hip hop continues to be one of the most profound and transformative social, cultural, and political movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In this book, H. Samy...
"The first in-depth biography of Nipsey Hussle, the hip hop mogul, artist, and activist whose transformative legacy inspired a generation with his motivational lyrics and visionary business savvy-before he was tragically shot down in the very neighborhood he was dedicated to building up"--
"Fat Joe is a hip-hop legend, but this is not a tale of celebrity; it is the story of Joseph Cartagena, a kid who came of age in the South Bronx during its darkest years of drugs, violence, and abandonment, and how he navigated that traumatizing landscape until he found-through art, friendship, luck, and will-a rocky path to a different life. Joe was born into a sprawling Puerto Rican and Cuban family in the projects of the South Bronx. From infancy...
"From mansions to trap houses, office buildings to strip clubs, Atlanta is defined by its rap music. But this flashy and fast-paced world is rarely seen below surface-level as a collection not of superheroes and villains, cartoons and caricatures, but of flawed and inspired individuals all trying to get a piece of what everyone else seems to have. In artistic, commercial, and human terms, Atlanta rap represents the most consequential musical ecosystem...
The first chronicle of A Tribe Called Quest—the visionary, award-winning group whose jazz-infused records and socially conscious lyrics revolutionized rap in the early 1990s.
"The essential oral history of hip-hop, from its origins on the playgrounds of the Bronx to its reign as the most powerful force in pop culture-from the award-winning journalist behind All the Pieces Matter, the New York Times bestselling oral history of The Wire. The music that we would later know as hip-hop was born at a party in the Bronx in the summer of 1973. Now, fifty years later, it's the most popular genre in America and its electric impact...
The History of Gangster Rap is a deep dive into one of the most fascinating subgenres of any music category to date. Sixteen detailed chapters, organized chronologically, examine the evolution of gangster rap, its main players, and the culture that created this revolutionary music. From still-swirling conspiracy theories about the murders of Biggie and Tupac to the release of the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton, the era of gangster rap is one that...
Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop became the Esperanto of youth rebellion and a generation-defining movement. In a post-civil rights era defined by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop crystallized a multiracial, polycultural generation's worldview, and transformed American politics and culture. But that epic story has never been told with this kind of breadth, insight, and style. Based on original interviews...
On this four-decade-long journey from the studios where the first rap records were made to the boardrooms where the big deals were inked, "The Big Payback" tallies the list of who lost and who won along the 40-year road to hip-hop's dominance.
A comprehensive, chronological survey of rap and hip-hop from 1973 to the present is based on the author's long-running show on Rapstation.com and details the most iconic moments and relevant songs from the genre's recorded history.
Tracing the careers of hip-hop's three most dynamic stars, this deeply reported history brilliantly examines the entrepreneurial genius of the first musician tycoons: Diddy, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z Being successful musicians was simply never enough for the three kings of hip-hop. Diddy, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z lifted themselves from childhood adversity into tycoon territory, amassing levels of fame and wealth that not only outshone all other contemporary hip-hop...
An illustrated highlight reel of more than 100 women in rap who have helped shape the genre and eschewed gender norms in the process
The Motherlode highlights more than 100 women who have shaped the power, scope, and reach of rap music, including pioneers like Roxanne Shanté, game changers like Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott, and current reigning queens like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, and Lizzo—as well as everyone who came...
"Equal parts musicology, biography, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the invention of a new kind of beat by the most underappreciated musical genius of our time"--
"Breaks in the Air provides a social and cultural history of rap music on Black radio in New York City from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. Radio shows were crucial in the growth of hip hop in New York, and Klaess explores the intertwined histories of sounds, institutions, communities, and legal formations converging in that post-Civil Rights period. John Klaess offers a careful analysis of the city's three crucial commercial radio stations-WBLS-FM...
A cultural portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning rap superstar documents his coming-of-age as an artist, his genius as a lyricist, and his profound impact on today's racially fraught America.
Modeling her words of wisdom after Maria Shriver's self-help book, movie star and musician Queen Latifah presents a book of advice geared toward young women. Here, she reveals that young people are more susceptible to partner abuse and offers a variety of strategies to break free from the violence.
"What's Good is a work of passionate lyrical analysis, a set of freewheeling liner notes, and a love letter to the most vital American art form of the last half century. Over a series of short chapters, each centered on a different lyric, Daniel Levin Becker considers how rap's use of language operates and evolves at levels ranging from the local (slang, rhyme) to the analytical (quotation, transcription) to the philosophical (morality, criticism,...
"The Notorious B.I.G. was one of the most charismatic and talented artists of the 1990s. Born Christopher Wallace and raised in Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie lived an almost archetypal rap life: young trouble, drug dealing, guns, prison, a giant hit record, the wealth and international superstardom that came with it, then an early violent death. Biggie released his first record, Ready to Die, in 1994, when he was only 22. Less than three...
"Filled with more than 250 images of artists including Ice Cube, The Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, Naughty by Nature, Public Enemy, 50 Cent, N.W.A, Snoop Dogg, Lil' Kim, Flavor Flav, Lauren Hill, Queen Latifah, TLC, many that have never before been published, this book is set to become the new hip-hop photography bible. With exclusive, behind-the-scenes access, preeminent photographer Brother Ernie captures the last four decades of the evolution of...
"Legendary wordsmith Raekwon the Chef opens up about his journey from the staircases of Park Hill in Staten Island to sold-out stadiums around the world with the Wu-Tang Clan in this revealing memoir"--
