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?

Why is the battle between good and evil a recurring theme in rap lyrics? What role does the devil play in hip hop? What exactly does it mean when rappers wear a diamond-encrusted "Jesus" around their necks? Why do rappers acknowledge God during award shows and frequently include prayers in their albums? Rap and Religion: Understanding the Gangsta's God tackles a sensitive and controversial topic: the juxtaposition-and seeming hypocrisy-of references to God within hip hop culture and rap music. This book provides a focused examination of the intersection of God and religion with hip hop and rap music. Author Ebony A. Utley, PhD, references selected rap lyrics and videos that span three decades of mainstream hip hop culture in America, representing the East Coast, the West Coast, and the South in order to account for how and why rappers talk about God. Utley also describes the complex urban environments that birthed rap music and sources interviews, award acceptance speeches, magazine and website content, and liner notes to further explain how God became entrenched in hip hop.

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.

Exclusive Interviews from Model Tygeria. Also articles on Keyshia Cole, Queen Latifah, Timbaland, 10 Valentine's Day or any day suggestions and more. Mature Content.

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.

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

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.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s original, groundbreaking study explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature, elaborating a new critical approach located within this tradition that allows the black voice to speak for itself. Examining the ancient poetry and myths found in African, Latin American, and Caribbean culture, and particularly the Yoruba trickster figure of Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey whose myths help articulate the black tradition's theory of its literature, Gates uncovers a unique system of interpretation and a powerful vernacular tradition that black slaves brought with them to the New World. His critical approach relies heavily on the Signifying Monkey--perhaps the most popular figure in African-American folklore--and signification and Signifyin(g). Exploring signification in black American life and literature by analyzing the transmission and revision of various signifying figures, Gates provides an extended analysis of what he calls the "Talking Book," a central trope in early slave narratives that virtually defines the tradition of black American letters. Gates uses this critical framework to examine several major works of African-American literature--including Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo--revealing how these works signify on the black tradition and on each other. The second volume in an enterprising trilogy on African-American literature, The Signifying Monkey--which expands the arguments of Figures in Black--makes an important contribution to literary theory, African-American literature, folklore, and literary history.

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.