One of Rolling Stone's Best Music Books of 2015 From Geto Boys legend and renowned storyteller Scarface, comes a passionate memoir about how hip-hop changed the life of a kid from the south side of Houston, and how he rose to the top-and ushered in a new generation of rap dominance. Scarface is the celebrated rapper whose hits include "On My Block," "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" and "Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta" (made famous in the cult film Office Space). The former president of Def Jam South, he's collaborated with everyone from Kanye West, Ice Cube and Nas, and had many solo hits such as "Guess Who's Back" feat. Jay-Z and "Smile" feat. Tupac. But before that, he was a kid from Houston in love with rock-and-roll, listening to AC/DC and KISS. In Diary of a Madman, Scarface shares how his world changed when he heard Run DMC for the first time; how he dropped out of school in the ninth grade and started selling crack; and how he began rapping as the new form of music made its way out of New York and across the country. It is the account of his rise to the heights of the rap world, as well as his battles with his own demons and depression. Passionately exploring and explaining the roots and influences of rap culture, Diary of a Madman is the story of hip-hop-the music, the business, the streets, and life on the south side Houston, Texas.

Award-winning poet Cheryl Boyce-Taylor pays tribute to her departed son Malik 'Phife Dawg' Taylor of the legendary hip-hop trio A Tribe Called Quest in this intimate collection. Mama Phife Represents is a hybrid-story that follows the journey of a mother's grieving heart through her first two years of public and private mourning. Told through a tapestry of narrative poems, dreams, anecdotes, journal entries, and letters, these treasured fragments of their lives show a great love between mother and son. Artist and artist, teacher and friend. Cheryl Boyce-Taylor's gift includes drawings, emails, hip-hop lyrics, and notes Malik wrote to his parents beginning at age eight. Both elegy and praise song, there is joy and sorrow, healing, and a mother's triumphant heart that rises and blooms again. Mama Phife Represents has been awarded the 2022 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry by The Publishing Triangle

Breaking the global record for streams in a single day, nearly 10 million people around the world tuned in to hear Kendrick Lamar's sophomore album in the hours after its release. To Pimp a Butterfly was widely hailed as an instant classic, garnering laudatory album reviews, many awards, and even a canonized place in Harvard's W. E. B. Du Bois archive. Why did this strangely compelling record stimulate the emotions and imaginations of listeners? This book takes a deep dive into the sounds, images, and lyrics of To Pimp a Butterfly to suggest that Kendrick appeals to the psyche of a nation in crisis and embraces the development of a radical political conscience. Kendrick breathes fresh life into the Black musical protest tradition and cultivates a platform for loving resistance. Combining funk, jazz, and spoken word, To Pimp a Butterfly's expansive sonic and lyrical geography brings a high level of innovation to rap music. More importantly, Kendrick's introspective and philosophical songs compel us to believe in a future where, perhaps, we gon' be alright.

An NPR Best Book of the Year "Without God Save the Queens, it is possible that the contributions of dozens of important female hip-hop artists who have sold tens of millions of albums, starred in monumental films, and influenced the direction of the culture would continue to go unrecognized." -AllHipHop.com Can't Stop Won't Stop meets Girls to the Front in this essential and long overdue history of hip-hop's female pioneers and its enduring stars. Every history of hip-hop previously published, from Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop to Shea Serrano's The Rap Yearbook, focuses primarily on men, glaringly omitting a thorough and respectful examination of the presence and contribution of the genre's female artists. For far too long, women in hip-hop have been relegated to the shadows, viewed as the designated "First Lady" thrown a contract, a pawn in some beef, or even worse. But as Kathy Iandoli makes clear, the reality is very different. Today, hip-hop is dominated by successful women such as Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, yet there are scores of female artists whose influence continues to resonate. God Save the Queens pays tribute to the women of hip-hop-from the early work of Roxanne Shante, to hitmakers like Queen Latifah and Missy Elliot, to the superstars of today. Exploring issues of gender, money, sexuality, violence, body image, feuds, objectification and more, God Save the Queens is an important and monumental work of music journalism that at last gives these influential female artists the respect they have long deserved.

She's the spiciest ingredient in the legendary rap group Salt-N-Pepa, and the outspoken star of VH1's smash-hit reality show. She's Sandy "Pepa" Denton -- and she's never at a loss for words. Now, in her first tell-all book, Pepa talks about sex, music, life, love, fame, and so much more...."Most of you know me as Pep, or Pepa, the fun-loving half of Salt-N-Pepa. I am the party girl, the one who is down for whatever. But behind the laughs and the smiles is a whole lot of pain."

Funny, fearless, and full of life, Sandy "Pepa" Denton is a pop culture icon whose remarkable story is every bit as captivating and provocative as her Grammy Award-winning music. This is the real Pepa -- upfront, uncensored, unstoppable -- and these are the memoirs of a true pioneer, fighter, survivor, and inspiration to women everywhere.

For the first time, Pepa talks about:

- Her troubled childhood
- Surviving abuse
- Her first encounters with Cheryl "Salt" James
- Salt-N-Pepa's instant success
- Her failed marriages and her escape from domestic abuse
- Her "breakup" with Salt and their eventual "reunion"
- Her triumphant comeback on the VH1 reality shows "The Surreal Life," "Fame Games," and "The Salt-N-Pepa Show"

Filled with surprising insights, outrageous anecdotes, and celebrity cameos -- including Queen Latifah, Martin Lawrence, Janice Dickinson, Omarosa, Missy Elliott, L.L. Cool J, supermodel Caprice, Ron Jeremy, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez, "Spinderella," and many others -- "Let's Talk About Pep" offers a fascinating glimpse behind the fame, family, failures, and successes of celebrity...and into the faithful heart of a woman who will always value the good friends she found along the way. In the words of Sandy "Pepa" Denton, "there's no walking away from that."

The mother of rap superstar Kanye West shares her experiences on being a single mother raising a celebrity. As the mother of hip-hop superstar Kanye West, Donda West has watched her son grow from a brilliant baby boy with all the intimations of fame and fortune to one of the hottest rappers on the music scene. And she has every right to be proud: she raised her son with strong moral values, teaching him right from wrong and helping him become the man he is today. In Raising Kanye, Donda not only pays homage to her famous son but reflects on all the things she learned about being his mother along the way. Featuring never-before-seen photos and compelling personal anecdotes, Donda's powerful and inspiring memoir reveals everything from the difficulties she faced as a single mother in the African American community to her later experiences as Kanye's manager as he rose to superstardom. Speaking frankly about her son's reputation as a "Mama's Boy," and his memorable public outbursts about gay rights and President George W. Bush, Donda supports her son without exception, and here she shares the invaluable wisdom she has taken away from each experience-passion, tolerance, patience, and above all, always telling the truth. Ultimately, she not only expresses what her famously talented son has meant to her but what he has meant to music and an entire generation.

J-Rod moves like a small tank on the court, his face mean, staring down his opponents. "I play just like my father," he says. "Before my father died, he was a problem on the court. I'm a problem." Playing basketball for him fuses past and present, conjuring his father's memory into a force that opponents can feel in each bone-snapping drive to the basket. On the street, every ballplayer has a story. Onaje X. O. Woodbine, a former streetball player who became an all-star Ivy Leaguer, brings the sights and sounds, hopes and dreams of street basketball to life. He shows that big games have a trickster figure and a master of black talk whose commentary interprets the game for audiences. The beats of hip-hop and reggae make up the soundtrack, and the ballplayers are half-men, half-heroes, defying the ghetto's limitations with their flights to the basket. Basketball is popular among young black American men but not because, as many claim, they are "pushed by poverty" or "pulled" by white institutions to play it. Black men choose to participate in basketball because of the transcendent experience of the game. Through interviews with and observations of urban basketball players, Onaje X. O. Woodbine composes a rare portrait of a passionate, committed, and resilient group of athletes who use the court to mine what urban life cannot corrupt. If people turn to religion to reimagine their place in the world, then black streetball players are indeed the hierophants of the asphalt.

Hip-hop as survivor testimony? Rhymes as critical text? Drawing on her own experiences as a lifelong hip-hop head and a philosophy professor, Dr. Lissa Skitolsky reveals the existential power of hip-hop to affect our sensibility and understanding of race and anti-black racism. In each chapter-keenly titled with a notable hip-hop phrase-she examines how the academic exclusion of hip-hop from discourses around knowledge, racism, white supremacy, genocide, white nationalism and trauma reflect the very neoliberal sensibility that hip-hop exposes and opposes. At this critical moment in history, in the midst of a long- overdue global reckoning with systemic anti-black racism, Skitolsky shows how it is more important than ever for white people to realize that our failure to see this system-and take hip-hop seriously-has been essential to its reproduction. In this effort she illustrates the unique power of underground hip-hop to interrupt our neoliberal and post-racial sensibility of current events.

Only one woman knows - his mother Debbie Nelson, at one point reviled on dozens of Internet sites as the most hated mother in the world. But by cleaning out her own personal closet, Debbie reveals a bitter-sweet story of a single mother who gave her son everything in an attempt to make up for his absent father and her own miserable childhood. This, her no holes barred autobiography, is an open letter to Marshall Bruce Mathers III, a loving reminder of how they once were, and an attempt to set the record straight by untangling the unspoken and enigmatic alter egos Eminem and Slim Shady. It reveals that there's much more to the story than his fans ever thought.

A Tribe Called Quest - Beastie Boys - De La Soul - Eric B. & Rakim - The Fugees - KRS-One - Pete Rock & CL Smooth - Public Enemy - The Roots - Run-DMC - Wu-Tang Clan - and twenty-five more hip-hop immortals
It's a sad fact: hip-hop album liners have always been reduced to a list of producer and sample credits, a publicity photo or two, and some hastily composed shout-outs. That's a damn shame, because few outside the game know about the true creative forces behind influential masterpieces like PE's It Takes a Nation of Millions. . ., De La's 3 Feet High and Rising, and Wu-Tang's Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). A longtime scribe for the hip-hop nation, Brian Coleman fills this void, and delivers a thrilling, knockout oral history of the albums that define this dynamic and iconoclastic art form.
The format: One chapter, one artist, one album, blow-by-blow and track-by-track, delivered straight from the original sources. Performers, producers, DJs, and b-boys-including Big Daddy Kane, Muggs and B-Real, Biz Markie, RZA, Ice-T, and Wyclef-step to the mic to talk about the influences, environment, equipment, samples, beats, beefs, and surprises that went into making each classic record. Studio craft and street smarts, sonic inspiration and skate ramps, triumph, tragedy, and take-out food-all played their part in creating these essential albums of the hip-hop canon.
Insightful, raucous, and addictive, "Check the Technique "transports you back to hip-hop's golden age with the greatest artists of the '80s and '90s. This is the book that belongs on the stacks next to your wax.
"Brian Coleman's writing is a lot like the albums he covers: direct, uproarious, and more than six-fifths genius."
-Jeff Chang, author of "Can't Stop Won't Stop "
"All producers and hip-hop fans must read this book. It really shows how these albums were made and touches the music fiend in everyone."
-DJ Evil Dee of Black Moon and Da Beatminerz
"A rarity in mainstream publishing: a truly essential rap history."
-Ronin Ro, author of "Have Gun Will Travel "

In 1997 the rap group Racionais MCs (the 'Rational' MCs) recorded the album Sobrevivendo no Inferno (Surviving in Hell), subsequently changing the hip-hop scene in Sao Paulo and firmly establishing itself as the point of reference for youth across Brazil. In an era when rappers needed to defend the very idea that their work was indeed music and a time when neighborhoods such as Capao Redondo, from where Racionais frontman Mano Brown hailed, often topped homicide statistics, Sobrevivendo empowered as it provoked. As one journalist noted, "the underworld of Sao Paulo's working-class suburbs is dominated by cheap thrills and provides little space for representation." Sobrevivendo changed all of that; a brutal but invigorating imagination was born. The lure of Sobrevivendo is the particular combination of word and sound that powerfully involves listeners, especially those millions of young Brazilians who live in the neighborhoods on the periphery of Brazil's megacities. This book celebrates the 25-year anniversary of Sobrevivendo by representing the album's power not only within the hip-hop community but also in other cultural domains such as cinema and literature. The author also provides his own narrative spins on the sentiment of Sobrevivendo, thus making the book a creative mix of cultural analysis and inspired testimony.

'One of the most rewarding pieces of hip-hop criticism ever written' Jeff Chang 'Brilliant' Giles Peterson 'Will Ashon's dazzling study gets to the heart of hip hop, pop culture and the history of contemporary America. Essential' Matt Thorne 'Each of these chambers contains wonders of history, destiny and mythology' Margo Jefferson Will Ashon tells, in 36 interlinked 'chambers', the story of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and how it changed the world. As unexpected and complex as the album itself, Chamber Music ranges from provocative essays to semi-comic skits, from deep scholarly analysis to satirical celebration, seeking to contextualise, reveal and honour this singularly composite work of art. From the FBI's war on drugs to the porn theatres of 42nd street, from the history of jazz to the future of politics, Chamber Music is an explosive and revelatory new way of writing about music and culture.

Fernandes brilliantly captures the moment when a global generation curved toward a unifying language and culture and found something that was both much more and much less than what it was searching for. Close to the Edge is a beautifully told tale of the collective and the personal, the cultural and political a classic of hip hop writing and a poignant tribute to urban youth. Jeff Chang, author of Can t Stop Won t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation

At its rhythmic, beating heart, Close to the Edge asks whether hip hop can change the world.

Hip hop rapping, beat-making, b-boying, deejaying, graffiti captured the imagination of the teenage Sujatha Fernandes in the 1980s, inspiring her and politicizing her along the way. Years later, armed with mc-ing skills and an urge to immerse herself in global hip hop, she embarks on a journey into street culture around the world. From the south side of Chicago to the barrios of Caracas and Havana and the sprawling periphery of Sydney, she grapples with questions of global voices and local critiques, and the rage that underlies both.

An engrossing read and an exhilarating travelogue, this punchy book also asks hard questions about dispossession, racism, poverty and the quest for change through a microphone.

What resonated about "Endtroducing" when it was released in 1996, and what makes it still resonate today, is the way in which it loosens itself from the mooring of the known and sails off into an uncharted territory that seems to exist both in and out of time. Josh Davis is not only a master sampler and turntablist supreme, he is also a serious archaeologist with a world-thirsty passion (what "Cut Chemist" refers to as Josh's "spidey sense") for seeking out, uncovering and then ripping apart the discarded graces of some other generation - that "pile of broken dreams" - and weaving them back together into a tapestry of chronic bleakness and beauty. Over the course of several long conversations with Josh Davis (DJ Shadow), we learn about his early years in California, the friends and mentors who helped him along the way, his relationship with Mo'Wax and James Lavelle, and the genesis and creation of his widely acknowledged masterpiece, "Endtroducing."

On the tenth anniversary of his death, The Dirty Version is the first biography of hip hop superstar and founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, Ol' Dirty Bastard, to be written by someone from his inner circle: his right-hand man and best friend, Buddha Monk. Ol' Dirty Bastard rocketed to fame with the Wu-Tang Clan, the raucous and renegade group that altered the world of hip hop forever. ODB was one of the Clan's wildest icons and most inventive performers, and when he died of an overdose in 2004 at the age of thirty-five, millions of fans mourned the loss. ODB lives on in epic proportions and his antics are legend: he once picked up his welfare check in a limousine; lifted a burning car off a four-year-old girl in Brooklyn; stole a fifty-dollar pair of sneakers on tour at the peak of his success. Many have questioned whether his stunts were carefully calculated or the result of paranoia and mental instability. Now, Dirty's friend since childhood, Buddha Monk, a Wu-Tang collaborator on stage and in the studio, reveals the truth about the complex and talented performer. From their days together on the streets of Brooklyn to the meteoric rise of Wu-Tang's star, from bouts in prison to court-mandated rehab, from Dirty's favorite kind of pizza to his struggles with fame and success, Buddha tells the real story-The Dirty Version-of the legendary rapper.

As immediately believable as they were cartoonish, as much an inner city cipher as a suburban boys gang, the foursome that made up the Pharcyde were the most relatable MCs to ever pass the mic. On their debut and magnum opus Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, they created a record almost overstuffed with possibility, the sound of four restless man-children fresh out of their teens, finding a perfect outlet in a form of music that was just as young and fertile. And like the product of any adolescent, Bizarre Ride wears its contrarianism and contradictions on its sleeve. It's a party album about shyness and unrequited love. A swirl of jubilant L.A. psychedelia recorded in the midst of the Rodney King trial. A blast of black consciousness that still makes room to poke fun at Public Enemy and reference the Pixies. A dense, sophisticated sonic stew punctuated by yo mama jokes and prank calls. While hip-hop was already calcifying its tropes of steely machismo and aspirational fantasy, Bizarre Ride was a pure distillation of the average hip-hop listener's actual lifestyle-the joys and sorrows of four guys who were young, broke, sexually frustrated, and way too clever for their own good. A touchstone for Kanye West, Drake, Lil B and a whole generation of off-center MCs, Bizarre Ride sketched out a whole strata of emotions that other rappers hadn't yet dared to tackle, and to a certain extent, still haven't.

To celebrate the resounding critical and commercial success of the first two volumes of Ed Piskor s unprecedented history of Hip Hop, we are offering the two books in a mind-blowingly colorful slipcase, drawn and designed by the artist. As if that s not enough, in addition to the two books and the slipcase itself, Piskor has drawn a 24-page comic book Hip Hop Family Tree #300 specifically for this boxed set that elegantly reflects the confluence of hip hop and comics, which was never more apparent in the early 1990s than with the famous Spike Lee-directed Levi Jeans commercial starring Rob Liefeld, who went on to create Youngblood and co-found Image Comics, not to mention ending up on the radar of gangster rapper Eazy E. Piskor tells this story as a perfect parody/pastiche/homage to 90s Image comics."

Rhyme Book is a durable cloth-covered notebook, silkscreened with the design of the iconic composition book favored by hip-hop lyricists. Whether you aspire to write rhymes or are just a fan of the craft, this is the notebook that you need when inspiration strikes. Throughout its ruled pages, it contains thirty pages of content, including playlists, hip-hop infographics, factoids, rhyming lists, and more. Conceived by Eric and Jeff Rosenthal (collectively known as ItsTheReal), Rhyme Book will help you gather your ideas for just about anything while also providing you with insight into what it takes to spit fire!

Formed as a New York City hardcore band in 1981, Beastie Boys struck an unlikely path to global hip hop superstardom. Here is their story, told for the first time in the words of the band. Adam "AD-ROCK" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond offer revealing and very funny accounts of their transition from teenage punks to budding rappers; their early collaboration with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin; the almost impossible-to-fathom overnight success of their debut studio album Licensed to Ill; that album's messy fallout; their break with Def Jam, move to Los Angeles, and rebirth as musicians and social activists, with the genre-defying masterpiece Paul's Boutique. For more than twenty years, this band has had a wide-ranging and lasting influence on popular culture.

With a style as distinctive and eclectic as a Beastie Boys album, Beastie Boys Book upends the typical music memoir. Alongside the band narrative you will find rare photos, original illustrations, a cookbook by chef Roy Choi, a graphic novel, a map of Beastie Boys' New York, mixtape playlists, pieces by guest contributors, and many more surprises.

An inside look at women graffiti artists around the world Since the dawn of Hip Hop graffiti writing on the streets of Philadelphia and New York City in the late 1960s, writers have anonymously inscribed their tag names on trains, buildings, and bridges. Passersby are left to imagine who the author might be, and, despite the artists' anonymity, graffiti subculture is seen as a "boys club," where the presence of the graffiti girl is almost unimaginable. In Graffiti Grrlz, Jessica Nydia Pabon-Colon interrupts this stereotype and introduces us to the world of women graffiti artists. Drawing on the lives of over 100 women in 23 countries, Pabon-Colon argues that graffiti art is an unrecognized but crucial space for the performance of feminism. She demonstrates how it builds communities of artists, reconceptualizes the Hip Hop masculinity of these spaces, and rejects notions of "girl power." Graffiti Grrlz also unpacks the digital side of Hip Hop graffiti subculture and considers how it widens the presence of the woman graffiti artist and broadens her networks, which leads to the formation of all-girl graffiti crews or the organization of all-girl painting sessions. A rich and engaging look at women artists in a male-dominated subculture, Graffiti Grrlz reconsiders the intersections of feminism, hip hop, and youth performance and establishes graffiti art as a game that anyone can play.