Hip Hop Users Guide: History

Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, Hip Hop has been a generation-defining movement. In a post-civil rights era transformed by deindustrialisation and globalisation, Hip Hop became a job-making engine and forever transformed politics and culture. Based on more than a decade of original interviews with DJs, b-boys, graffitti writers, gang members and rappers, and featuring unforgettable portraits of many of Hip Hop's forbears and mavericks, this book chronicles the rise and rise of this movement through vivid cultural criticism and detailed narrative.

That's the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader brings together the best-known and most influential writings on rap and hip-hop from its beginnings to today. Spanning nearly 25 years of scholarship, criticism, and journalism, this unprecedented anthology showcases the evolution and continuing influence of one of the most creative and contested elements of global popular culture since its advent in the late 1970s. That's the Joint presents the most important hip-hop scholarship in one comprehensive volume, addressing hip-hop as both a musical and a cultural practice. Think of it as "Hip-Hop 101."

From Morrissey and Nick Cave to The Streets and Kanye West, this book explores the links between hip-hop and rock. It focuses on two strands: white alternative rock and black street music. It identifies the strange dance of white bohemian rock and black culture, how they come together at various points and then go their own way.

The first full-scale history and analysis of  hip-hop, the most influential pop music since rock 'n'  roll. Fernando illuminates how an exuberant form  of dance music became simultaneously an expression  of social and political protest, black  nationalism, and cultural pride.

New York Puerto Ricans have been an integral part of hip hop culture since the very beginning: from 1970s pioneers like Rock Steady Crew's Jo-Jo, to recent rap mega-stars Big Punisher and Angie Martinez. Yet, Puerto Rican participation and contributions to hip hop is frequently downplayed, if not completely ignored. When their presence has been acknowledged, it is usually misinterpreted as a defection from Puerto Rican culture and identity into the African American camp. But, Rivera argues, nothing could be further from the truth. Through hip hop, Puerto Ricans have simply stretched the boundaries of Puerto Ricanness and latinidad.

Completely updated and radically expanded, the new Rough guide to Hip-Hop is the definitive guide to every aspect of the music, tracing its story from its origins in the 1970s as New York's urban folk music all the way to hip-hop's current dominance as the world's best-selling genre. Extensive biographies cover hip-hop's entire spectrum, from the millionaire players to the underground freestylers, from gangster rappers to conscious rhymers, all alongside hundreds of illustrations by top hip-hop photographers. Pioneers like Run DMC and Public Enemy, as well as global superstars of today such as Eminem and Jay Z, are all covered in detail; and each entry concludes with recommendations of the best of their recordings on CD. All the best MCs, DJs, B-Boys and graffiti-writers are here, but there are also extensive sidebars that go beyond the music to the lifestyle, describing hip-hop's fashions, films, feuds and fads.