This book offers an interdisciplinary study of hip-hop music written and performed by rappers who happen to be out black gay men. It examines the storytelling mechanisms of gay themed lyrics, and how these form protests and become enabling tools for (black) gay men to discuss issues such as living on the down-low and HIV/AIDS. It considers how the biased promotion of feminised gay male artists/characters in mainstream entertainment industry has rendered masculinity an exclusively male heterosexual property, providing a representational framework for men to identify with a form of "homosexual masculinity" - one that is constructed without having to either victimise anything feminine or necessarily convert to femininity. The book makes a strong case that it is possible for individuals (like gay rappers) to perform masculinity against masculinity, and open up a new way of striving for gender equality.

Author Al Patterson started collecting vinyl in elementary school. He's since amassed a serious collection and deep knowledge of instrumental-only hip hop records. Some are 'performance' records that were pressed in very small numbers for use exclusively by the MC or group's DJ during live shows, while others were commercially released. These instrumental records, whether from the obscure depths of the underground or well-known hip hop acts, are cataloged alphabetically by artists and accompanied by a photograph of the record's label. Each entry specifies the artist, title, format, producer, label, year, and catalog number as well as notes and anecdotes about the disc.

For a long time, rappers and other artists in the world of Hip Hop have led dual lives: loved and adored by public audiences globally, but largely passed over, if not ignored, by those who might seek to academically understand how and how such music works in the first place. Although rappers' skills are appreciated by millions of fans worldwide, the methods that are used to understand those same talents have not kept pace with the staggering genius of these artists themselves. A thorough explanation of the music genre of rap that updates traditional musical principles in a natural and fitting way is exactly what's needed to correct these differences between public and scholarly opinion. In here introducing such reinventions of well-established tools, like a rethinking of music notation's true purpose, the author poses challenging questions to the public understanding of rap music with an analytical foundation that's firmly built on a corpus of 135 songs from a group of over 50 artists like Eminem, Kanye West, and Jean Grae. Building off of Martin Connor's decade of experience in both the journalism and scholarly arena, the answers that Connor arrives at are likely to be the motivating factors behind any ongoing discourse that tries to explain and describe rap, if not the shaper of such conversations.

Ja Rule, actor, singer, songwriter, and one of the most multi-dimensional rap artists of his time, tells his compelling story-from his youth to his rise to international fame to his transformative two years in Federal prison-and reveals the man beneath the legend. Unruly is two stories that offer one complete picture of a man and his world: the angry, fatherless rapper, Ja Rule who was "raised by the streets"; and Jeffrey Atkins, the insightful, reflective father and loyal husband who learned the hard way how to be a good man. Filled with never-before-revealed anecdotes and sixteen pages of black-and-white photos, Unruly shows the determination that it takes to become a man in today's society. Ja Rule considers the lack of role models for many young black men today-a void that leads to bad choices and the wrong paths. Recalling his youth, he illuminates the seductive pull of the streets and the drug dealers who were his earliest role models. Jeffrey Atkins offers practical wisdom-reflection, growth and hope learned first-hand as an inmate, father, husband, and community role model. He speaks fondly of men who inspired Unruly-the inmates he met in prison whose misguided ideas of masculinity landed them behind bars-and Louis Farrakhan who mediated the televised encounter with Ja Rule's adversary, 50 Cent. Unruly is a compelling, personal look at the duality and conflicts that arise in the African-American male psyche from a man who has enjoyed breathtaking fame and suffered heartbreaking misfortune.

**WINNER OF THE NME BEST BOOK AWARD** 'This book is going to try and get as close as possible to the full story of what informed the noise of The Streets. Obviously that's something I should be fairly well-qualified to know about, and I'm going to be as honest as the publisher's lawyers will allow.' With the 2001 release of The Streets' debut single 'Has It Come To This?' the landscape of British popular music changed forever. No longer did homegrown rappers have to anxiously defer to transatlantic influences. Mike Skinner's witty, self-deprecating sagas of late-night kebab shops and skunk-fuelled Playstation sessions showed how much you could achieve simply by speaking in your own voice. In this thoroughly modern memoir, the man the Guardian once dubbed 'half Dostoevsky . . . half Samuel Pepys' tells a freewheeling, funny and fearlessly honest tale of Birmingham and London, ecstasy and epilepsy, Twitter-fear and Spectrum joysticks, spread-betting and growing up. He writes of his musical inspirations, role models and rivals, the craft of songwriting and reflects on the successes and failures of the decade-long journey of The Streets.

Barack Obama flipped the script on more than three decades of conventional wisdom when he openly embraced hip hop-often regarded as politically radioactive-in his presidential campaigns. Just as important was the extent to which hip hop artists and activists embraced him in return. This new relationship fundamentally altered the dynamics between popular culture, race, youth, and national politics. But what does this relationship look like now, and what will it look like in the decades to come? The Hip Hop & Obama Reader attempts to answer these questions by offering the first systematic analysis of hip hop and politics in the Obama era and beyond. Over the course of 14 chapters, leading scholars and activists offer new perspectives on hip hop's role in political mobilization, grassroots organizing, campaign branding, and voter turnout, as well as the ever-changing linguistic, cultural, racial, and gendered dimensions of hip hop in the U.S. and abroad. Inviting readers to reassess how Obama's presidency continues to be shaped by the voice of hip hop and, conversely, how hip hop music and politics have been shaped by Obama, The Hip Hop & Obama Reader critically examines hip hop's potential to effect social change in the 21st century. This volume is essential reading for scholars and fans of hip hop, as well as those interested in the shifting relationship between democracy and popular culture.

In Breaks in the Air John Klaess tells the story of rap's emergence on New York City's airwaves by examining how artists and broadcasters adapted hip hop's performance culture to radio. Initially, artists and DJs brought their live practice to radio by buying time on low-bandwidth community stations and building new communities around their shows. Later, stations owned by New York's African American elite, such as WBLS, reluctantly began airing rap even as they pursued a sound rooted in respectability, urban sophistication, and polish. At the same time, large commercial stations like WRKS programmed rap once it became clear that the music attracted a demographic that was valuable to advertisers. Moving between intimate portraits of single radio shows and broader examinations of the legal, financial, cultural, and political forces that indelibly shaped the sound of rap radio, Klaess shows how early rap radio provides a lens through which to better understand the development of rap music as well as the intertwined histories of sounds, institutions, communities, and legal formations that converged in the post-Civil Rights era.

Taboo, Grammy Award-winning performing artist and founding member of the Black Eyed Peas, shares the inspiring story of his rise from the mean streets of East L.A. to the heights of international fame.
Few bands can ever hope to achieve the sort of global success that the record-breaking Black Eyed Peas have attained, selling more than 30 million albums since their formation in 1995. From their album "The E.N.D., "which debuted at #1 on the "Billboard "charts, to "The Beginning, "the Black Eyed Peas continue to dominate the music scene. The group recently broke the all-time record for longest successive stay at the #1 position on "Billboard"'s Hot 100 list, and their song "I Gotta Feeling" became the first single to surpass six million digital downloads in the United States. But in this revealing autobiography--the first book to emerge from the group--founding member Taboo reminds us that great accomplishments are often rooted in humble beginnings.
Born in East L.A. in an area notorious for street gangs and poverty, Taboo was haunted by that environment, which seemed certain to shape his destiny. Yet, steered by his dreams to be a performer and assisted by fate, the young Taboo was thrown a rope when he discovered the world of hip-hop, where talent and love of the music itself transcended all. Supported by his one true champion, his grandmother Aurora, Taboo chased his dreams with a relentless tenacity. He refused to surrender, regardless of what life threw at him-- including becoming a father at age eighteen.
But even after the Black Eyed Peas beat seemingly insurmountable odds and achieved stardom, it wasn't all Grammys and platinum albums. Taboo delivers a searingly honest account of his collision with fame's demons, including his almost career-ending struggle with drug addiction and alcoholism. He takes us deep into a world few of us can even imagine: a show-business heaven that became a self-made hell. But inspired by the love of his family and tapping anew into the wellspring of self-belief that had sustained him in the past, Taboo learns to keep his demons at bay, his addictions in check.
Full of intimate glances into the highest reaches of the music industry--including a visit to Sting's castle, hanging out with Bono and U2, and, at forty-one thousand feet, the high-flyingest karaoke ever--"Fallin' Up "takes readers on a revealing, personal journey through stardom--and one man's triumph over adversity times two.

From Two Live Crew's controversial comedy to Ice Cube's gangsta styling and the battle rhymes of a streetcorner cypher, rap has always drawn on deep traditions of African American poetic word-play, In Talking 'Bout Your Mama, author Elijah Wald explores one of the most potent sources of rap: the viciously funny, outrageously inventive insult game known as "the dozens."
So what is the dozens? At its simplest, it's a comic chain of "yo' mama" jokes. At its most complex, it's an intricate form of social interaction that reaches back to African ceremonial rituals. Wald traces the tradition of African American street rhyming and verbal combat that has ruled urban neighborhoods since the early 1900s. Whether considered vernacular poetry, aggressive dueling, a test of street cool, or just a mess of dirty insults, the dozens is a basic building block of African-American culture. A game which could inspire raucous laughter or escalate to violence, it provided a wellspring of rhymes, attitude, and raw humor that has influenced pop musicians from Jelly Roll Morton and Robert Johnson to Tupac Shakur and Jay Z.
Wald goes back to the dozens' roots, looking at mother-insulting and verbal combat from Greenland to the sources of the Niger, and shows its breadth of influence in the seminal writings of Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston; the comedy of Richard Pryor and George Carlin; the dark humor of the blues; the hip slang and competitive jamming of jazz; and in its ultimate evolution into the improvisatory battling of rap. From schoolyard games and rural work songs to urban novels and nightclub comedy, and pop hits from ragtime to rap, Wald uses the dozens as a lens to provide new insight into over a century of African American culture.
A groundbreaking work, Talking 'Bout Your Mama is an essential book for anyone interested in African American cultural studies, history and linguistics, and the origins of rap music.

Eminem is the best-selling musical artist of the 21st century. He is also one of the most contentious and most complex artists of our time. His verbal dexterity ranks him among the greatest technical rappers ever. The content of his songs combines the grotesque and the comical with the sincere and the profound, all told through the sophisticated layering of multiple personae. However one finally assesses his contribution to popular culture, there's no denying his central place in it. This collection of essays gives his work the critical attention it has long deserved. Drawing from history, philosophy, sociology, musicology, and other fields, the writers gathered here consider Eminem's place in Hip Hop, the intellectual underpinnings of his work, and the roles of race, gender and privilege in his career, among various other topics. This original treatment will be appreciated by Eminem fans and cultural scholars alike.

The Rap Year Book takes readers on a journey that begins in 1979, widely regarded as the moment rap as a genre became recognised as part of music's landscape and comes right up to the present. Shea Serrano deftly pays homage to the most important song of each year. Serrano also examines the most important moments that surround the history and culture of rap music-from artists' backgrounds, to issues of race and safety, to the rise of hip-hop and the struggles among its major players-both personal and professional. Covering East Coast and West Coast, famous rapper feuds, chart toppers and show stoppers, The Rap Year Book takes an in-depth look at the last thirty-five years of the most influential genre of music to come out of the last generation. Complete with quizzes, infographics, lyric maps, hilarious and informative footnotes, portraits of the artists, and the occasional rebuttal essay by other prominent music writers, The Rap Year Book is both a narrative and illustrated guide to some of the most iconic and influential songs ever created under the umbrella of rap music. Serrano cites a variety of sources to form his arguments including biographies, magazines and documentaries, as well as his own experiences growing up at a time when hip-hop was becoming a prevalent force in the music industry. With its all-encompassing look at the ups and downs of rap music, and the landmark songs that are its tent-poles, this book will be perfect for anyone who is a fan of the genre.

For more than two decades, le hip hop has shown France's "other" face: danced by minorities associated with immigration and the suburbs, it has channeled rage against racism and unequal opportunity and offered a movement vocabulary for the expression of the multicultural difference that challenges the universalist discourse of the Republic. French hip-hoppers subscribe to black U.S. culture to articulate their own difference but their mouv' developed differently, championed by a Socialist cultural policy as part of the patrimoine culturel, instituted as a pedagogy and supported as an art of the banlieue. In the multicultural mix of "Arabic" North African, African and Asian forms circulating with classical and contemporary dance performance in France, if hip hop is positioned as a civic discourse, and hip hop dancer as legitimate employment, it is because beyond this political recuperation, it is a figural language in which dancers express themselves differently, figure themselves as something or someone else. French hip hop develops into concert dance not through the familiar model of a culture industry, but within a Republic of Culture; it nuances an "Anglo-Saxon" model of identity politics with a "francophone" post-colonial identity poetics and grants its dancers the statut civil of artists, technicians who develop and transmit body-based knowledge. This book- the first in English to introduce readers to the French mouv' -analyzes the choreographic development of hip hop into la danse urbaine, touring on national and international stages, as hip hoppeurs move beyond the banlieue, figuring new forms within the mobility brought by new media and global migration.

At its most intimate level, music heals our emotional wounds and inspires us. At its most public, it unites people across cultural boundaries. But can it rebuild a city? That's the central question posed in New Atlantis, journalist John Swenson's beautifully detailed account of the musical artists working to save America's most colorful and troubled metropolis: New Orleans. The city has been threatened with extinction many times during its three-hundred-plus-year history by fire, pestilence, crime, flood, and oil spills. Working for little money and in spite of having lost their own homes and possessions to Katrina, New Orleans's most gifted musicians-including such figures as Dr. John, the Neville Brothers, "Trombone Shorty," and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux-are fighting back against a tidal wave of problems: the depletion of the wetlands south of the city (which are disappearing at the rate of one acre every hour), the violence that has made New Orleans the murder capitol of the U.S., the waning tourism industry, and above all the continuing calamity in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (or, as it is known in New Orleans, the "Federal Flood"). Indeed, most of the neighborhoods that nurtured the indigenous music of New Orleans were destroyed in the flood, and many of the elder statesmen have died or been incapacitated since then, but the musicians profiled here have stepped up to fill their roles. New Atlantis is their story. Packed with indelible portraits of individual artists, informed by Swenson's encyclopedic knowledge of the city's unique and varied music scene-which includes jazz, R&B, brass band, rock, and hip hop-New Atlantis is a stirring chronicle of the valiant efforts to preserve the culture that gives New Orleans its grace and magic.

In the land of samba, there is another vibrant culture capturing the attention of urban youth. This compelling account argues that hip hop, while certainly a product of globalized flows of information and technology, is by no means homogenous. Using more than five years of anthropological fieldwork in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, Pardue represents "culture" as generative and thus meaningful as a set of practices. When interpreted in this manner, local hip hoppers become closer to what they claim to be - subjects rather than objects of history and everyday life. In his ethnography, the first in English to look at Brazilian hip hop, Pardue highlights the analytical categories of race, class, gender, and territory.

The World According to Questlove Mo' Meta Blues is a punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone's Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the music world. He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art, hip hop, and pop culture. Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson is many things: virtuoso drummer, producer, arranger, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader, DJ, composer, and tireless Tweeter. He is one of our most ubiquitous cultural tastemakers, and in this, his first book, he reveals his own formative experiences--from growing up in 1970s West Philly as the son of a 1950s doo-wop singer, to finding his own way through the music world and ultimately co-founding and rising up with the Roots, a.k.a., the last hip hop band on Earth. Mo' Meta Blues also has some (many) random (or not) musings about the state of hip hop, the state of music criticism, the state of statements, as well as a plethora of run-ins with celebrities, idols, and fellow artists, from Stevie Wonder to KISS to D'Angelo to Jay-Z to Dave Chappelle to...you ever seen Prince roller-skate? !? But Mo' Meta Blues isn't just a memoir. It's a dialogue about the nature of memory and the idea of a post-modern black man saddled with some post-modern blues. It's a book that questions what a book like Mo' Meta Blues really is. It's the side wind of a one-of-a-kind mind. It's a rare gift that gives as well as takes. It's a record that keeps going around and around.

Hip-hop has come a long way from its origins in the Bronx in the 1970s, when rapping and Djing were just part of a lively, decidedly local scene that also venerated break-dancing and graffiti. Now hip-hop is a global phenomenon and, in the United States, a massively successful corporate enterprise predominantly controlled and consumed by whites while the most prominent performers are black. How does this shift in racial dynamics affect our understanding of contemporary hip-hop, especially when the music perpetuates stereotypes of black men? Do black listeners interpret hip-hop differently from white fans? These questions have dogged hip-hop for decades, but unlike most pundits, Michael Jeffries finds answers by interviewing everyday people. Instead of turning to performers or media critics, Thug Life focuses on the music's fans - young men, both black and white - and the resulting account avoids romanticism, offering an unbiased examination of how hip-hop works in people's daily lives. As Jeffries weaves the fans' voices together with his own sophisticated analysis, we are able to understand hip-hop as a tool listeners use to make sense of themselves and society as well as a rich, self-contained world containing politics and pleasure, virtue and vice.

The most clearly identifiable and popular form of Japanese hip-hop, "ghetto" or "gangsta" music has much in common with its corresponding American subgenres, including its portrayal of life on the margins, confrontational style, and aspirational "rags-to-riches" narratives. Contrary to depictions of an ethnically and economically homogeneous Japan, gangsta J-hop gives voice to the suffering, deprivation, and social exclusion experienced by many modern Japanese. 24 Bars to Kill offers a fascinating ethnographic account of this music as well as the subculture around it, showing how gangsta hip-hop arises from widespread dissatisfaction and malaise.

Instant National Bestseller! Wall Street Journal bestseller; USA Today bestseller; Publishers Weekly bestseller; international bestseller. An inspirational book by self-made musical superstar, Russ, reminding you that it starts with YOU, to believe in yourself, and to get out of your own way. Twenty-seven-year-old rapper, songwriter, and producer Russ walks his own path, at his own pace. By doing so, he proved that he didn't need a major label to surpass over a billion streams on Spotify/Apple Music, get on Forbes' 2019 "30 Under 30," make the Forbes' "30 Under 30 Cash Kings" at number 20 for most earned, sell out arenas across the U.S. and around the globe, and become one of the most popular and engaged rappers right now. His method was simple: love and believe in yourself absolutely and work hard no matter what. In this memoir, Russ inspires readers to walk to their individual rhythms and beat their biggest obstacles: themselves. With chapters named after his most powerful and popular songs, IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD will reflect on the lessons he's learned from his career, family, and relationships. He'll push readers to bet on themselves, take those leaps of faith, and recognize struggles as opportunities. With illustrations throughout consistent with the brand Russ has built and his fan base loves, IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD will give readers an inside-look at the man and the motivation behind the music. A lover of books like The Alchemist and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Russ delivers a short, potent, inspirational, raw, and honest book that gives readers a way to find self-belief and unlock their potential. Fans already rely on Russ as an inspiration of confidence; now, he is taking it to the next level with this book, which will contain lyrics from his music and visuals that reflect his inimitable style.

B-boying is a form of Afro-diasporic competitive dance that developed in the Bronx, NY in the early 1970s. Widely - though incorrectly - known as "breakdancing," it is often dismissed as a form of urban acrobatics set to music. In reality, however, b-boying is a deeply traditional and profoundly expressive art form that has been passed down from teacher to student for almost four decades. Foundation: B-boys, B-girls and Hip-Hop Culture in New York offers the first serious study of b-boying as both unique dance form and a manifestation of the most fundamental principles of hip-hop culture. Drawing on anthropological and historical research, interviews and personal experience as a student of the dance, Joseph Schloss presents a nuanced picture of b-boying and its social context. From the dance's distinctive musical repertoire and traditional educational approaches to its complex stylistic principles and secret battle strategies, Foundation illuminates a previously unexamined thread in the complex tapestry that is contemporary hip-hop.

Located at the intersection of sociolinguistics and Hip Hop Studies, this cutting-edge book moves around the world - spanning Africa, Asia, Australia, the Americas and the European Union - to explore Hip Hop Cultures, youth identities, the politics of language, and the simultaneous processes of globalization and localization. Focusing closely on language, these scholars of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, (Hip Hop) cultural studies, and critical pedagogies offer linguistic insights to the growing scholarship on Hip Hop Culture, while reorienting their respective fields by paying closer attention to processes of globalization and localization. The book engages complex processes such as transnationalism, (im)migration, cultural flow, and diaspora in an effort to expand current theoretical approaches to language choice and agency, speech style and stylization, codeswitching and language mixing, crossing and sociolinguistic variation, and language use and globalization. Moving throughout the Global Hip Hop Nation, through scenes as diverse as Hong Kong's urban center, Germany's Mannheim inner-city district of Weststadt, the Brazilian favelas, the streets of Lagos and Dar es Salaam, and the hoods of the San Francisco Bay Area, this global intellectual cipha breaks new ground in the ethnographic study of language and popular culture.

This collection of three hip hop plays by Conrad Murray and his Beats & Elements collaborators Paul Cree, David Bonnick Junior and Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens, is the first publication of the critically acclaimed theatre-maker's work. The three plays use hip hop to highlight the inequalities produced by the UK's class system, and weave lyricism, musicality and dialogue to offer authentic accounts of inner-city life written by working-class Londoners. The plays are accompanied by two introductory essays: The first gives a specific social and historical context that helps readers make sense of the plays, the second positions hip hop as a contemporary literary form and offers some ways to read hip hop texts as literature. The collection also includes a foreword by leading hip hop theatre practitioner Jonzi D, interviews with the Beats & Elements company, and a glossary of words for students and international readers.

Over the past four decades, rap and hip hop culture have taken a central place in popular music both in the United States and around the world. Listening to Rap: An Introduction enables students to understand the historical context, cultural impact, and unique musical characteristics of this essential genre. Each chapter explores a key topic in the study of rap music from the 1970s to today, covering themes such as race, gender, commercialization, politics, and authenticity. Synthesizing the approaches of scholars from a variety of disciplines-including music, cultural studies, African-American studies, gender studies, literary criticism, and philosophy-Listening to Rap tracks the evolution of rap and hip hop while illustrating its vast cultural significance. The text features more than 60 detailed listening guides that analyze the musical elements of songs by a wide array of artists, from Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash to Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and more. A companion website showcases playlists of the music discussed in each chapter. Rooted in the understanding that cultural context, music, and lyrics combine to shape rap's meaning, the text assumes no prior knowledge. For students of all backgrounds, Listening to Rap offers a clear and accessible introduction to this vital and influential music.

Over the past four decades, rap and hip hop culture have taken a central place in popular music both in the United States and around the world. Listening to Rap: An Introduction enables students to understand the historical context, cultural impact, and unique musical characteristics of this essential genre. Each chapter explores a key topic in the study of rap music from the 1970s to today, covering themes such as race, gender, commercialization, politics, and authenticity. Synthesizing the approaches of scholars from a variety of disciplines-including music, cultural studies, African-American studies, gender studies, literary criticism, and philosophy-Listening to Rap tracks the evolution of rap and hip hop while illustrating its vast cultural significance. The text features more than 60 detailed listening guides that analyze the musical elements of songs by a wide array of artists, from Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash to Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and more. A companion website showcases playlists of the music discussed in each chapter. Rooted in the understanding that cultural context, music, and lyrics combine to shape rap's meaning, the text assumes no prior knowledge. For students of all backgrounds, Listening to Rap offers a clear and accessible introduction to this vital and influential music.