NaS Lost is the Nas book only Byron Crawford could write, and not just due to literacy issues in the hip-hop community. Billed as a tribute to the little homey, it is in fact a tribute, but not in the way that an article in XXL magazine is a tribute to a rapper. NaS Lost considers the artist's career in its totality, from its amazing highs to its crushing lows -- and some of everything in between. Discussed in NaS Lost: The 2001 beef with Jay-Z. What really led to this dispute? Nas and Jay-Z as Eskimo brothers. How the two of them became related in a sense. Nas' albums. Is it true what Jay-Z said, that Nas has a one hot album every 10 year average? Illmatic's five mic review in The Source. Was it really the best album of its era? The dreaded n-word. If KKKramer can say it, why can't Nas? Ghostwriting allegations. Can anything dream hampton says on Twitter be believed? The Virginia Tech controversy. What is the real cause of most school shootings? The hostage situation in Africa. Who was to blame there, Nas, the promoters, or the continent of Africa? Nas' marriage to Kelis. Bad idea, or worst idea of all time? Nas as a parent. Why is his teenage daughter posting her birth control on Instagram? Cultural tourism. Why is it that SPIN magazine likes a Chief Keef album more than Life Is Good?

Dr. Dre. Snoop Dogg. Ice Cube. Some of the biggest stars in hip hop made their careers in Los Angeles. And today there is a new generation of young, mostly black, men busting out rhymes and hoping to one day find themselves "blowin' up"--getting signed to a record label and becoming famous. Many of these aspiring rappers get their start in Leimart Park, home to the legendary hip hop open-mic workshop Project Blowed. In Blowin' Up, Jooyoung Lee takes us deep inside Project Blowed and the surrounding music industry, offering an unparalleled look at hip hop in the making. While most books on rap are written from the perspective of listeners and the market, Blowin' Up looks specifically at the creative side of rappers. As Lee shows, learning how to rap involves a great deal of discipline, and it takes practice to acquire the necessary skills to put on a good show. Along with Lee--who is himself a pop-locker--we watch as the rappers at Project Blowed learn the basics, from how to hold a microphone to how to control their breath amid all those words. And we meet rappers like E. Crimsin, Nocando, VerBS, and Flawliss as they freestyle and battle with each other. For the men at Project Blowed, hip hop offers a creative alternative to the gang lifestyle, substituting verbal competition for physical violence, and provides an outlet for setting goals and working toward them. Engagingly descriptive and chock-full of entertaining personalities and real-life vignettes, Blowin' Up not only delivers a behind-the-scenes view of the underground world of hip hop, but also makes a strong case for supporting the creative aspirations of young, urban, black men, who are often growing up in the shadow of gang violence and dead-end jobs.

Lobotomy is a lurid and unlikely temperance tract from the underbelly of rock 'n' roll. Taking readers on a wild rollercoaster ride from his crazy childhood in Berlin and Munich to his lonely methadone-soaked stay at a cheap hotel in Earl's Court and newfound peace on the straight and narrow, Dee Dee Ramone catapults readers into the raw world of sex, addiction, and two-minute songs. It isn't pretty. With the velocity of a Ramones song, Lobotomy rockets from nights at CBGB's to the breakup of the Ramones' happy family with an unrelenting backbeat of hate and squalor: his girlfriend ODs; drug buddy Johnny Thunders steals his ode to heroin, "Chinese Rock"; Sid Vicious shoots up using toilet water; and a pistol-wielding Phil Spector holds the band hostage in Beverly Hills. Hey! Ho! Let's go!

Now a global and transnational phenomenon, hip hop culture continues to affect and be affected by the institutional, cultural, religious, social, economic and political landscape of American society and beyond. Over the past two decades, numerous disciplines have taken up hip hop culture for its intellectual weight and contributions to the cultural life and self-understanding of the United States. More recently, the academic study of religion has given hip hop culture closer and more critical attention, yet this conversation is often limited to discussions of hip hop and traditional understandings of religion and a methodological hyper-focus on lyrical and textual analyses. Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the Terrain provides an important step in advancing and mapping this new field of Religion and Hip Hop Studies. The volume features 14 original contributions representative of this new terrain within three sections representing major thematic issues over the past two decades. The Preface is written by one of the most prolific and founding scholars of this area of study, Michael Eric Dyson, and the inclusion of and collaboration with Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman fosters a perspective internal to Hip Hop and encourages conversation between artists and academics.

A selection of written rhymes from a youth poet influenced by hip hop and school life.

They have become known around the world as the ultimate pop-culture power couple. Favourites of the paparazzi, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are both worth millions in their own right. She is the queen of reality TV and an all-around business mogul, he's a rapper, fashion designer and outspoken award show favourite. Together they are Kimye - glitzy, globetrotting icons and parents of one very stylish kid, North West. Without question they are the biggest news in entertainment today, making headlines around the world on a daily basis. America's 'other' first couple were friends before they hooked up, although Kanye admitted to holding a torch for Kim for years. They may have their share of haters, and Kim came under fire when she filed for divorce from Humphries less than three months after their wedding. But in a recent lavish Italian ceremony fit for royalty, she and Kanye tied the knot, cementing their superstar status once and for all. Nadia Cohen's brilliant, unauthorised biography traces the rise of Kimye, the world's most glamorous couple.

On August 11 1973 the first Hip Hop party was held in the rec room of 1520 Sedgwick Ave in the Bronx, NY. On that day a young man named DJ Kool Herc would become a legend. Many other individuals were instrumental in making the DJ an artist and not just a person who played records. This book will teach children of all ages the origins of the DJ, one of the five elements of Hip Hop.

The follow-up to the critically acclaimed debut, 'The Hip-Hop 10, ' this edition delves deeper into the music that has defined and influenced a generation. What is the great video in hip-hop history? Who is the best storytelling MC? Who is the greatest female rapper? What if Jay-Z had signed a record contract instead of co-founding Roc-A-Fella Records? What if 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. had not been killed? All of those questions - and more - are examined in this book.