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Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song that Changed American Music Forever
Edgers, Geoff
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.00 Our Price: $8.79
Washington Post national arts reporter Geoff Edgers takes a deep dive into the story behind “Walk This Way,” Aerosmith and Run-DMC's legendary, groundbreaking mashup that forever changed music.The early 1980s were an exciting time for music. Hair metal bands were selling out stadiums, while clubs and house parties in New York City had spawned a new genre of music. At the time, though, hip hop's reach was limited, an art form largely ignored by mainstream radio deejays and the rock-obsessed MTV network.But in 1986, the music world was irrevocably changed when Run-DMC covered Aerosmith's hit “Walk This Way” in the first rock-hip hop collaboration. Others had tried melding styles. This was different, as a pair of iconic arena rockers and the young kings of hip hop shared a studio and started a revolution. The result: Something totally new and instantly popular. Most importantly, "Walk This Way" would be the first rap song to be played on mainstream rock radio. In Walk This Way, Geoff Edgers sets the scene for this unlikely union of rockers and MCs, a mashup that both revived Aerosmith and catapulted hip hop into the mainstream. He tracks the paths of the main artists - Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Joseph “Run” Simmons, and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels - along with other major players on the scene across their lives and careers, illustrating the long road to the revolutionary marriage of rock and hip hop. Deeply researched and written in cinematic style, this music history is a must-read for fans of hip hop, rock, and everything in between.
Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture
Aidi, Hisham
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.95 Our Price: $6.09
In this pioneering study, Hisham Aidi--an expert on globalization and social movements--takes us into the musical subcultures that have emerged among Muslim youth worldwide over the last decade. He shows how music--primarily hip-hop, but also rock, reggae, Gnawa and Andalusian--has come to express a shared Muslim consciousness in face of War on Terror policies.This remarkable phenomenon extends from the banlieues of Paris to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, from the park jams of the South Bronx to the Sufi rock bands of Pakistan. The United States and other Western governments have even tapped into these trends, using hip hop and Sufi music to de-radicalize Muslim youth abroad. Aidi situates these developments in a broader historical context, tracing longstanding connections between Islam and African-American music. Thoroughly researched, beautifully written, Rebel Music takes the pulse of a revolutionary soundtrack that spans the globe.
Raw: My Journey into the Wu-Tang
Hawkins, Lamont
(Paperback)
List Price: $18.00 Our Price: $4.99
The explosive, never-before-told story behind the historic rise of the Wu-Tang Clan, as told by one of its founding members, Lamont "U-God" Hawkins.
Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap
Kennedy, Gerrick D.
(Hardcover)
List Price: $26.00 Our Price: $3.99
Discover the stunning rise, fall, and legacy of N.W.A, one of America’s most revered and iconic enduring music groups, who put their stamp on pop culture, black culture, and who changed hip-hop music forever in this comprehensive and authoritative work of music journalism.Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella caused a seismic shift in hip-hop when they decided to form N.W.A in 1986. Suddenly rap became gangsta and relevant on the West Coast. With their hard-core image, bombastic sound, and lyrics that were equal parts poetic, lascivious, conscious, and downright in-your-face, N.W.A spoke the truth about life on the streets of Compton, California—then a hotbed of poverty, drugs, gangs, and unemployment.Their ’hood tales offered a sharp contrast from the cozy, comfortable images of thriving middle-class life emanating from television screens across America. For the group, making music was not about being nice or projecting a false reality. It was all about expressing themselves.Going beyond the story portrayed in the 2015 blockbuster movie Straight Outta Compton, through firsthand interviews, extensive research, and top-notch storytelling, Los Angeles Times music reporter Gerrick Kennedy transports you back in time and offers a front-row seat to N.W.A’s early days and the drama and controversy that followed the incendiary group as they rose to become multiplatinum artists.A riveting and illuminating work of music journalism, Parental Discretion Is Advised captures a special moment in rap music, when N.W.A made it altogether social, freaky, enterprising, and gangsta. They forced us all to take notice. For that alone, their story must be told.
My Voice
Martinez, Angie
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Our Price: $6.09
In her nearly twenty years behind the mic at New York City's two biggest hip-hop stations - Hot 97 and Power 105.1 - Angie Martinez has become an entertainment legend. From onetime presidential hopeful Barack Obama to Jay Z and Beyoncé to postprison Tupac, her intimate and candid interviews with the leading names in the music business, hip-hop culture, and beyond have grabbed headlines and changed the conversation.In the same no-holds-barred style of her radio show, Angie shares stories from behind the scenes of her most controversial interviews, opens up about her personal life, and reflects on her climb to become the voice of New York.
The History of Gangster Rap: From Schoolly D to Kendrick Lamar, The Rise of a Great American Art Form
Baker, Soren
(Softcover)
List Price: $24.99 Our Price: $9.89
The History of Gangster Rap is a deep dive into one of the most fascinating subgenres of any music category to date. Sixteen detailed chapters, organized chronologically, examine the evolution of gangster rap, its main players, and the culture that created this revolutionary music. From still-swirling conspiracy theories about the murders of Biggie and Tupac to the release of the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton, the era of gangster rap is one that fascinates music junkies and remains at the forefront of pop culture. Filled with interviews with key players such as Snoop Dogg, Ice-T, and dozens more, as well as breakout bios of notorious characters, lists, and more, The History of Gangster Rap is the be-all-end-all book that contextualizes the importance of gangster rap as a cultural phenomenon.
Grime Kids: The Inside Story of the Global Grime Takeover
Target, DJ
(Softcover)
List Price: $15.99 Our Price: $6.09
A group of kids in the 90s had a dream to make their voice heard - and this book documents their seminal impact on today's pop culture.DJ Target grew up in Bow under the shadow of Canary Wharf, with money looming close on the skyline. The 'Godfather of Grime' Wiley and Dizzee Rascal first met each other in his bedroom. They were all just grime kids on the block back then, and didn't realise they were to become pioneers of an international music revolution. A movement that permeates deep into British culture and beyond. Household names were borne out of those housing estates, and the music industry now jumps to the beat of their gritty reality rather than the tune of glossy aspiration. Grime has shaken the world and Target is revealing its explosive and expansive journey in full, using his own unique insight and drawing on the input of grime's greatest names.
God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop
Iandoli, Kathy
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.99 Our Price: $10.89
Every history of hip-hop previously published, from Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop to Shea Serrano’s The Rap Yearbook, focuses primarily on men, glaringly omitting a thorough and respectful examination of the presence and contribution of the genre’s female artists. For far too long, women in hip-hop have been relegated to the shadows, viewed as the designated “First Lady” thrown a contract, a pawn in some beef, or even worse. But as Kathy Iandoli makes clear, the reality is very different. Today, hip-hop is dominated by successful women such as Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, yet there are scores of female artists whose influence continues to resonate.God Save the Queens pays tribute to the women of hip-hop—from the early work of Roxanne Shante, to hitmakers like Queen Latifah and Missy Elliot, to the superstars of today. Exploring issues of gender, money, sexuality, violence, body image, feuds, objectification and more, God Save the Queens is an important and monumental work of music journalism that at last gives these influential female artists the respect they have long deserved.
From Pieces to Weight
50 Cent
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Our Price: $6.09
This violent and introspective memoir reveals not only 50 Cent's story but also the story of a generation of youth faced with hard choices and very few options. It is a tale of sacrifice, transformation, and redemption, but also one of hope, determination, and the power of self. Told in 50's unique voice, the narrative drips with the raw insight, street wisdom, and his struggle to survive at all costs -- and behold the riches of the American Dream.
The Emperor of Sound
Chambers, Veronica
(Paperback)
List Price: $14.99 Our Price: $4.99
Hailed by the New Yorker as “the eminence grise behind half of what is great in the Top Forty these days,” world-renowned producer Timbaland has been a fixture on the pop charts, with more top-ten hits than Elvis or the Beatles. An artist whose fans are multi-racial and multi-generational, Timbaland works with the hottest artists, from Mariah Carey and Missy Elliott to Justin Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, Madonna, and his childhood friend, Pharrell Williams. Yet this celebrity is a uniquely private man who shuns parties, stays out of gossip columns, and rarely gives interviews. Deliberately choosing to tour by bus and conspicuously bling-free, he maintains a low-key lifestyle. If he’s not at the recording studio, he is at home with his family.In The Emperor of Sound, Timbaland offers fans an unprecedented look into his life and work. Completely uncensored and totally honest, he reveals the magic behind the music, sharing the various creative impulses that arise while he’s producing, and the layering of sounds that have created dozens of number one hits. Cinematically written, full of revealing anecdotes and reflections from today’s most popular music icons, The Emperor of Sound showcases this master’s artistry and offers an extraordinary glimpse inside this great musical mind.
E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX
DMX
(Softcover)
List Price: $15.95 Our Price: $7.89
Raised in the ghetto, abandoned as a child, addicted to drugs and women all his life but still able to produce four consecutive #1 hip-hop albums in a row - this is the life and times of the darkest and most dangerously introspective hip-hop artist ever, written at the height of his career and completely uncensored.
Dead Precedents: How Hip-Hop Defines the Future
Christopher, Roy
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.95 Our Price: $7.19
This book is about is the many ways that the foundations of hip-hop appropriation--allusions and creative language use, as well as technology and sampling--inform the new millennium.Dead Precedents: How Hip-Hop Defines the Future, uses the concerns and conceits of cyberpunk to thoughtfully remap hip-hop's spread from around the way to around the world. Its central argument is that the cultural practices of hip-hop culture are the blueprint to the 21st century, and that an understanding of its appropriation of language and technology is an understanding of the now.
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Chang, Jeff
(Paperback)
List Price: $19.00 Our Price: $8.79
Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop has been a generation-defining global movement. In a post-civil rights era rapidly transformed by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop gave voiceless youths a chance to address these seismic changes, and became a job-making engine and the Esperanto of youth rebellion. Hip-hop crystallized a multiracial generation's worldview, and forever transformed politics and culture. But the epic story of how that happened has never been fully told . . . until now.
The Autobiography of Gucci Mane
Mane, Gucci
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Our Price: $7.69
For the first time Gucci Mane tells his extraordinary story in his own words. It is “as wild, unpredictable, and fascinating as the man himself” (Complex).The platinum-selling recording artist began writing his remarkable autobiography in a federal maximum security prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive—a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past.A critically acclaimed classic, The Autobiography of Gucci Mane “provides incredible insight into one of the most influential rappers of the last decade, detailing a volatile and fascinating life...By the end, every reader will have a greater understanding of Gucci Mane, the man and the musician” (Pitchfork).
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