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

A collectible, four-color illustrated A-Z treasury of gangster rappers, the hip-hop high-life, and notorious pop culture history, told through a series of graphic doodles on 3" x 3" sticky notes. Four years ago, a Post-it (R) note changed Marlon Sassy's life. Using office supplies "borrowed" from his admin job, Sassy began creating colorful sketches of rappers in highlighter, Sharpie, and pen. He made his debut posting his rendition of Snoop on Tumblr under the pseudonym "Gangster Doodles." Next was Bart Simpson and Biggie, then Yams and Yeezy. Soon, he had amassed a cult following of fans who clamored for his next artistic interpretation. Gangster Doodles brings together more than 400 of his most popular illustrations with thirty never-before-seen pieces. An impressive and comprehensive A-Z compendium, it features everyone from Black Jesus to Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar to LeBron James, Jean-Michel Basquiat to Young Thug, and Kermit the Frog to Action Bronson. This is the ultimate gift for rap fanatics and pop culture addicts alike.

The most entertaining, well thought out collaboration Hip-Hop Quotes for hip-hop enthusiasts that will not only keep you entertained but remind you of some of the best times in your life and in Hip-Hop Cop a copy today

Infinite Crab meats is an all you can eat buffet of probing, insightful hip-hop journalism. It's like Crab Legs Night at an actual Chinese buffet, except you don't have to wrestle with rednecks in order to make sure you get a plate. Have as much as you'd like. Pretend you're Rick Ross.

Discussed in Infinite Crab Meats: The author's beef with controversial, venture capital-funded rap lyrics website Rap Genius, as discussed in the New York Times Rick Ross' love of decadent seafood, and its health consequences The emergence of a cottage industry built around collecting pictures of teenage girls with extremely large breasts Allegations that Chief Keef was involved in the gang-related murder of fellow young Chicago rapper Lil JoJo The campaign to have XXL editor in chief Vanessa Satten fired for posting a controversial Too Short video Hot 97 refusing to play local New York artists, like Sean Price, and calling them "minor league rappers" Kreayshawn's occasional racist outburst on Twitter Sexual assault allegations against Indian-American hipster rap group Das Racist, and Indian sexual behavior more generally Brian B.Dot Miller's intense debate with SPIN magazine's Jordan Sargent on whether or not white people should be allowed to write about rap music

Some of the many things you'll learn: Why it's impossible to subsist on a steady diet of ramen noodles What Geek Squad really does with your computer The importance of occasionally looking up at a woman's face How much it would cost to fap to completion using the Internets at FedEx Office Why Totinos pizza rolls are superior to Totinos frozen pizza The origin of the term Black People Twitter At least two different ways to commit wire fraud The best way to talk a girl into letting you "drop a digit" on her Why a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell is more of a Taco Bell than a Pizza Hut

"Hypnotic Music Secrets" is written by Grammy award-winning engineer/producer Khaliq Glover also known as Khaliq-O-Vision based on his vast experience of working with the world's top recording artists. Some of his clients include Michael Jackson, Prince, Herbie Hancock, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Marcus Miller, Jeffrey Osborne, and more. See how a young kid went from Pittsburgh's St. Clair Village Projects, and other poor neighborhoods, and was able to make his way to California and end up working side-by-side with the music industry's top elite recording artists. Khaliq explains why music is irresistible to everyone from around the world, no matter what language they speak, or what culture they come from. In this book you will learn some of the secrets used by the world's top recording artist to make their music irresistible. SOME OF THE THINGS YOU WILL LEARN... * The elements that make a song a hit * What advertising and the music industry have in common * Tips from interviews with recording legends * Lessons learned from Michael Jackson doing "We Are The World" * Why hip-hop is hypnotic * Why the vocal is always King (or Queen) * How subliminal suggestion is used in hit music * Resources to help further your music career

Detroit, MIchigan, has long been recognized as a center of musical innovation and social change. Rebekah Farrugia and Kellie D. Hay draw on seven years of fieldwork to illuminate the important role that women have played in mobilizing a grassroots response to political and social pressures at the heart of Detroit's ongoing renewal and development project. Focusing on the Foundation, a women-centered hip hop collective, Women Rapping Revolution argues that the hip hop underground is a crucial site where Black women shape subjectivity and claim self-care as a principle of community organizing. Through interviews and sustained critical engagement with artists and activists, this study also articulates the substantial role of cultural production in social, racial, and economic justice efforts.

Few pioneers are philosophical, liberal, intelligent and violent all at the same time - but then there is only one Ice Cube. Rapper, actor, industry mogul and entrepreneur, the LA-born gangsta-rap founder has risen from the ranks of NWA - the 'most dangerous band in the world', as those who feared them claimed - to forge a solo career unlike any other. Cube is an outspoken critic of American society and government, and in his earliest, still-shocking hit with NWA (the infamous 'F**k Tha Police') and his many solo hits, the rapper has never been afraid to voice his opinion. It's an unpredictable, epic tale and one which Ice Cube: Attitude explores to the limit.

First an expression of black urban youth, Hip Hop music continues to expand as a cultural expression of youth and, now, young adults more generally. As a cultural phenomenon, it has even become integral to the worship experience of a growing number of churches who are reaching out to these groups. This includes not just African American churches but churches of all ethnic groups. Once seen as advocating violence, Hip Hop can be the Church s agent of salvation and praise to transform society and reach youth and young adults in greater numbers. After looking at Hip Hop s socio-historical context including its African roots, Wake Up shows how Hip Hop has come to embody the worldview of growing numbers of youth and young adults in today s church. The authors make the case that Hip Hop represents the angst and hope of many youth and young adults and that by examining the inherent religious themes embedded in the music, the church can help shape the culture of hip-hop by changing its own forms of preaching and worship so that it can more effectively offer a message of repentance and liberation. "

Message in the Music brings together wide-ranging, critical, and detailed essays that examine Hip Hop as one of the most influential cultural phenomena of the past half-century. Written by historians, social scientists, literary critics, and educators, the essays examine the current state of Hip Hop, investigate its historical and philosophical linkages to previous African American social and cultural movements, and explore the ways it may be employed as an emancipatory pedagogy for youth in the United States and around the world. By re-engaging ongoing debates in Hip Hop while offering fresh insights from young scholars across a variety of disciplines and perspectives, this collection has much to offer academics, students, teachers, and parents.

"The Beat " was the first book to explore the musical, social, and cultural phenomenon of go-go music. In this new edition, updated by a substantial chapter on the current scene, authors Kip Lornell and Charles C. Stephenson, Jr., place go-go within black popular music made since the middle 1970s--a period during which hip-hop has predominated. This styling reflects the District's African American heritage. Its super-charged drumming and vocal combinations of hip-hop, funk, and soul evolved and still thrive on the streets of Washington, D.C., and in neighboring Prince George's County, making it the most geographically compact form of popular music.

Go-go--the only musical form indigenous to Washington, D.C.--features a highly syncopated, nonstop beat and vocals that are spoken as well as sung. The book chronicles its development and ongoing popularity, focusing on many of its key figures and institutions, including established acts such as Chuck Brown (the Godfather of Go-Go), Experience Unlimited, Rare Essence, and Trouble Funk; well-known DJs, managers, and promoters; and filmmakers who have incorporated it into their work. Now updated and back in print, "The Beat " provides longtime fans and those who study American musical forms a definitive look at the music and its makers.

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.

In "Buena Vista in the Club," Geoffrey Baker traces the trajectory of the Havana hip hop scene from the late 1980s to the present and analyzes its partial eclipse by reggaeton. While Cuban officials initially rejected rap as "the music of the enemy," leading figures in the hip hop scene soon convinced certain cultural institutions to accept and then promote rap as part of Cuba's national culture. Culminating in the creation of the state-run Cuban Rap Agency, this process of "nationalization" drew on the shared ideological roots of hip hop and the Cuban nation and the historical connections between Cubans and African Americans. At the same time, young Havana rappers used hip hop, ""the music of urban inequality "par excellence," to critique the rapid changes occurring in Havana since the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell, its subsidy of Cuba ceased, and a tourism-based economy emerged. Baker considers the explosion of reggaeton in the early 2000s as a reflection of the "new materialism" that accompanied the influx of foreign consumer goods and cultural priorities into "sociocapitalist" Havana. Exploring the transnational dimensions of Cuba's urban music, he examines how foreigners supported and documented Havana's growing hip hop scene starting in the late 1990s and represented it in print and on film and CD. He argues that the discursive framing of Cuban rap played a crucial part in its success.

An extraordinary collection of lyrics showcasing rap's poetic depth and diversity From the school yards of the South Bronx to the tops of the Billboard charts, rap has emerged as one of the most influential musical and cultural forces of our time. In The Anthology of Rap, editors Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois explore rap as a literary form, demonstrating that rap is also a wide-reaching and vital poetic tradition born of beats and rhymes. This pioneering anthology brings together more than three hundred rap and hip-hop lyrics written over thirty years, from the "old school" to the "golden age" to the present day. Rather than aim for encyclopedic coverage, Bradley and DuBois render through examples the richness and diversity of rap's poetic tradition. They feature both classic lyrics that helped define the genre, including Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" and Eric B. & Rakim's "Microphone Fiend," as well as lesser-known gems like Blackalicious's "Alphabet Aerobics" and Jean Grae's "Hater's Anthem." Both a fan's guide and a resource for the uninitiated, The Anthology of Rap showcases the inventiveness and vitality of rap's lyrical art. The volume also features an overview of rap poetics and the forces that shaped each period in rap's historical development, as well as a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and afterwords by Chuck D and Common. Enter the Anthology to experience the full range of rap's artistry and discover a rich poetic tradition hiding in plain sight.

"A thug is someone who stands on his own. He lives by the decisions he makes and accepts the consequences. A thug is comfortable in his own skin. I wear mine like a glove."
Trick Daddy was born a thug--just a stone's throw from downtown Miami, yet a world away from its dazzling beauty and sparkling wealth. Where grinding poverty, deadly crime, and devastating racial tension taught kids to live by the 'hood rules. Remarkably, Trick came from nothing and made it big just when his chances had run out.
Magic City is the extraordinary tale of a boy whose father was a pimp, who learned to hustle to survive, and whose only role model was his brother, the drug dealer he watched plying his trade on the block. It's the untold truth behind the cult movie "Scarface," of the drug money that transformed the city into a shining mecca for the rich and famous while turf wars between smalltime pushers claimed countless lives. It's also the incredible story of how that potent mixture of extremes--the electric pulse and glittering abundance of South Beach and the crime, corruption, and despair in its shadows--gave rise to the most dominant sound in hip-hop today. "Magic City "is an ode to Miami, a riveting tale of a paradise lost and a native son determined to infuse it with new life.

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."

"A strong and timely book for the new day in hip-hop. Don't miss it!"--Cornel West

For many African Americans of a certain demographic the sixties and seventies were the golden age of political movements. The Civil Rights movement segued into the Black Power movement which begat the Black Arts movement. Fast forward to 1979 and the release of Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight." With the onset of the Reagan years, we begin to see the unraveling of many of the advances fought for in the previous decades. Much of this occurred in the absence of credible, long-term leadership in the black community. Young blacks disillusioned with politics and feeling society no longer cared or looked out for their concerns started rapping with each other about their plight, becoming their own leaders on the battlefield of culture and birthing Hip-Hop in the process. In "Som""e""body Scr""e""am," Marcus Reeves explores hip-hop music and its politics. Looking at ten artists that have impacted rap--from Run-DMC (Black Pop in a B-Boy Stance) to Eminem (Vanilla Nice)--and puts their music and celebrity in a larger socio-political context. In doing so, he tells the story of hip hop's rise from New York-based musical form to commercial music revolution to unifying expression for a post-black power generation.

Everyone wants to know the truth about their favorite celebrities' heart's desire. Within the masculine culture of Hip Hop and Hollywood, there is a well-known gay subculture that industry insiders are keenly aware of but choose to hide. Terrance Dean worked his way up for more than ten years in the entertainment industry from intern to executive, and has lived the life of glitz and bling along with Hollywood and Hip Hop's most glamorous. With a family full of secrets and working in an industry founded on maleness -- where one's job, friendships, and reputation all depend on remaining on the down low and in hiding -- Dean writes a revealing account of the journey of coming out from hiding.

Full of startling anecdotes and incredible true stories, "Hiding in Hip Hop" is not a traditional tell-all. A personal and poignant memoir, it is also one of the most provocative and honest looks at stardom and sexuality.

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.

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.

He has recorded with the biggest stars in the music business. He wrote many of the hits that made Sean 'Puffy' Combs one of the richest men alive. On the surface, the multi-million dollar empire that Puff built looks like the stuff of dreams. But after working with Puff for a decade, Curry discovered that Bad Boy Entertainment is not, as Puff promised, a place where dreams come true. No, rather it is a shell game comprised of contracts designed to rob artists of their time, dreams and publishing rights. "Dancing With the Devil" reveals startling new details about key events in the fast paced, controversial (and sometimes deadly) world of Hip-Hop. In revealing the dark side of the industry, Curry hopes to provide a road map for reforms necessary to prevent artists ending up in poverty, in prison or in the grave.

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.