Hip hop America
By: by Nelson George
Publisher: Viking
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 226
ISBN-13: 9780670871537
Subjects: Rap (Music); Music; Hip-Hop; Popular culture; History and criticism; Hip-hop; Geschichte
Description: Nelson George has been part of the hip hop world since day one, and he offers an insider's tour through a multimedia phenomenon of which rap music is only the audible manifestation - from the Sugar Hill Gang through Public Enemy, Sister Souljah, and C. Delores Tucker to Puff Daddy. His themes reflect those of hip hop itself - drugs, fashion, incarceration, basketball, entrepreneurship, technology, language.

He recounts the troubling way in which Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Wall Street followed the leads of beverage companies and sports promoters who embraced hip hop in their bid to reach not just young black consumers but all young people. He looks at the motifs of violence and misogyny for which it is condemned, at the myths and realities of crossover, and at accusations that hip hop is merely the newest form of blaxploitation.

George turns hip hop over and looks at it as a music, a style, a language, a business, a myth and a moral force, and when he's done it's clear why this book is not called The Death of Rhythm & Rap. Far from being the most marketable pathology in the world, as its critics have feared and sneered, hip hop has a dynamic energy and a message that plays directly across the map of the mainstream - which is why it has held its steady grip on American popular culture against all odds for over twenty years.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [213]-215) and index.
Table of contents: title: Post-Soul --; title: Hip Hop Wasn't Just Another Date --; title: Gangsters--Real and Unreal --; title: The "I" of Me --; title: Black Owned? --; title: The Permanent Business --; title: Sample This --; title: Where My Eyes Can See --; title: New Jack Swing to Ghetto Glamour --; title: National Music --; title: The Sound of Philadelphia--Dunking --; title: Capitalist Tool --; title: Too Live --; title: Skills to Pay the Bills --; title: Funk the World --; title: "Da Joint!" and Beyond.