Click to Buy
NowThe Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My
Beats
by Grandmaster Flash and David Ritz
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Broadway (June 10, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0767924754
A no-holds-barred memoir from the primary architect of hip hop and one of the
culture's most revered music icons—both the tale of his life and legacy and a
testament to dogged determination.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five fomented the musical revolution known as
hip hop. Theirs was a groundbreaking union between one DJ and five rapping MCs.
One of the first hip hop posses, they were responsible for such masterpieces as
“The Message” and “Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel.”
In the 1970s Grandmaster Flash pioneered the art of break-beat DJing—the process
of remixing and thereby creating a new piece of music by playing vinyl records
and turntables as musical instruments. Disco-era DJs spun records so that people
could dance. The original turntablist, Flash took it a step further by cutting,
rubbing, backspinning, and mixing records, focusing on “breaks”—what Flash
described as “the short, climactic parts of the records that really grabbed
me”—as a way of heightening musical excitement and creating something new.
Now the man who paved the way for such artists as Jay-Z, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs,
and 50 Cent tells all—from his early days on the mean streets of the South
Bronx, to the heights of hip hop stardom, losing millions at the hands of his
record label, his downward spiral into cocaine addiction, and his ultimate
redemption with the help and love of his family and friends. In this powerful
memoir, Flash recounts how music from the streets, much like rock ’n’ roll a
generation before, became the sound of an era and swept a nation with its funk,
flavor, and beat.
Click to Learn More
The Message: 100 Life Lessons from Hip-Hop's
Greatest Songs
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Thunder's Mouth/Running Press (October 7, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1568583354
By Felicia Pride
Who would have thought that you could get deep life lessons from hip-hop?
Learn to deal with regrets by jamming to Jay-Z? Foster self-esteem listening to
Mos Def? Exert your self-worth based on cues from a Queen Latifah song? Get
career advice from an Ice-T rhyme? Reflect on spirituality through a Kanye West
tune?
In her new book The Message: 100 Life Lessons from Hip-Hop's Greatest Songs
(Thunder’s Mouth Press/October 2007/$15.95), Felicia Pride extracts empowering
lessons embedded within the genre’s most popular songs. Growing up with hip-hop,
she has come to realize the way it shaped how she thinks, writes, and reacts,
making her the person she is today. In The Message, she uses short essays, aptly
titled after a hip-hop song, and written in the language of the culture, to
explore the themes of spirituality, success, business, and love. Incorporating
her own experiences and reflections with the rapper’s message, Pride goes on to
share the wisdom she has learned from hip-hop and focuses on the positive
influence the music has on its audience.
The Message turns the often negative perceptions of hip-hop completely around,
offers a fresh perspective on why the culture is loved worldwide, and
simultaneously provides motivational material for the hip-hop generation culled
from its own unique artistic expression. In the introduction she writes, “This
book is about searching for the power within and using motivational aspects of
hip-hop music to help us successfully maneuver our worlds.”
The Message unleashes the power in the music and leaves readers with a
compendium of wisdom to incorporate in their own lives, proving in Pride’s words
that “we can learn from hip-hop.”
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Planet B-Boy
(2007)
Unrated
Running time: 101 minutes
Studio: Elephant Eye Films
Film Review by Kam Williams
Excellent (3.5 stars)
Back in the Seventies, when black and Latino teenagers from the Bronx first
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the street fad to last. But breakdancing has not only flourished, but it has
spread around the planet like wildfire, finding even greater acceptance in
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Universal Zulu Nation
Required Reading Page
http://www.zulunation.com/required.html
Chuck D: Lyrics of a Rap Revolutionary
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 0974948411
Pub. Date: January 2007
Format: Paperback, 364pp
Publisher: Off Da Books
by Chuck D, Yusuf Jah
Book Description
The power is in the mic, and the power has been
unleashed in clubs, arenas, stadiums, stages,
and parks all over the planet. MC’s are able to
connect with its audience in a way that the
music alone cannot. Hip Hop, via the MC, has
undoubtedly become the voice of a new
generation. Much attention has been paid to the
staggering impact hip hop music and culture has
had on the greater American and world cultures;
its influence on fashion, television,
advertising, and the attitudes of the world’s
youth. However, not nearly as much attention has
been paid to the social and political impact
that the art form and its artists have had.
Lyrics of a Rap Revolutionary is designed to
transcend rap and venture into the realm of
offering commentary and analysis into some of
the deeper aspects of life itself. As one of
rap’s preeminent political and social groups of
all time, front man Chuck D offers direct
explanations and interpretations of what his
lyrics are about as a tool to help set minds
free in this "hustle and flow and get rich or
die tryin’ times’." Chuck delves into the
inspiration and writing of such rap classics as
"Fight the Power," "Don’t Believe The Hype,"
"Can’t Truss It," and "Welcome to the Terrordome."
As Chuck D explains, "We must remain mindful
that there’s a road to freedom, and resist the
embarrassingly popular trend that ignorance and
a ghetto mentality, which is cast upon us, is
our only food for thought or food for
non-thought. As MC’s we must become more
responsible and revolutionary in our approach,
because we have young people around the globe
listening to our every word and watching our
every step."
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Method Man
by Method Man & David Atchison Sanford Greene
(Illustrator)
Paperback: 96 pages
Grand Central Publishing (July 23, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446699721
An ancient evil of unfathomable power plots the
unspeakable--the destruction of the mortal realm
and beyond. Man's only hope lies in Peerless
Poe, a hard-luck private eye with a taste for
booze and a magnetic attraction to danger. A
former member of the clandestine Order of the
Sacred Method, Poe must forge an uneasy alliance
with those who exploited him against enemy bent
on global annihilation. This unholy threat wears
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scarred. Poe is transformed. Poe is . . . Method
Man.
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Born in the Bronx:
A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop
9 X 11 inches / 200 illustrations
HC ISBN: 978-0-7893-1540-3
$45.00 US / $57.00 Can / £25.00 UK
Rizzoli New York
Release date: November 9th, 2007
Edited by Johan Kugelberg
Photographs by Joe Conzo
Foreword by Afrika Bambaataa
Original Flyer Art by Buddy Esquire
Timeline by Jeff Chang
Born in the Bronx is a striking anthology of Hip
Hop's baby steps. Not only does it capture the
emergence of a burgeoning culture but also the
fashion and character of the surrounding
community. From rare photographs of MC's and DJs
to records, flyers, and other ephemera, writer
Johan Kugelberg has pulled together the
scattered remains of a movement that never has
its eye on posterity. The book includes the
improvisational artwork of previously
unpublished street flyers of the era, Polaroids
buried for decades in basements across the
Bronx, and testimonials from the most scholarly
historians of Hip Hop culture - the legends and
pioneers who lived it! Through Born in the
Bronx, Joe Conzo (described by The New York
Times as "the chronicler who took hip hop's baby
pictures") presents a unique cross-section of an
explosive and experimental time in music
history.
- Hip Hop's first photographer, Joe Conzo
provides the majority of images of legends and
urban scenes from 1977-1982. Additional photos
were contributed by fellow pioneering
documentarians Charlie Ahearn and Henry Chalfant.
- Photos feature The Cold Crush Brothers,
Treacherous 3, Afrika Bambaataa, Busy Bee, Run
DMC, Wayne "The Hip Hop Ventriliquist" &
Charlie, Fantastic Romantic, Grandmaster Flash &
the Furious Five, Funky Four + 1, Kool DJ AJ
Scratch, GrandWizzard Theodore and more.
- Flyers created by Buddy Esquire feature Hip
Hop jams from 1978-1985. Obscure flyers
advertise early Hip Hop jams in Brooklyn, Queens
and even Connecticut!
- Essays were contributed by legends:
GrandMaster Caz, JDL, Joe Conzo, Mare 139,
GrandWizzard Theodore, LA Sunshine and Jorge "Fabel"
Pabon plus a poem by DJ Disco Wiz and an
interview with Buddy Esquire.
- The hard cover is embossed. The dust cover
unfolds to reveal a poster: "The Hip Hop Map of
the Bronx" by Joe Conzo and Tony Tone.
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