Hip Hop Hits

Books about hip hop and by hip hop artists.
Updated September 19, 2022
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Mo' meta blues : the world according to Questlove
Questlove
Paper Book
"You have to bear in mind that [Questlove] is one of the smartest motherf*****s on the planet. His musical knowledge, for all practical purposes, is limitless." --Robert Christgau A punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone's Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of...
The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters
Tricia Rose
Paper Book
Hip-hop is in crisis. For the past dozen years, the most commercially successful hip-hop has become increasingly saturated with caricatures of black gangstas, thugs, pimps, and 'hos. The controversy surrounding hip-hop is worth attending to and examining with a critical eye because, as scholar and...
Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest
Hanif Abdurraqib
Paper Book
A New York Times Best Seller 2019 National Book Award Longlist, Nonfiction 2019 Kirkus Book Prize Finalist, Nonfiction A February IndieNext Pick Named A Most Anticipated Book of 2019 by Buzzfeed, Nylon,...
Decoded
Jay-Z
Paper Book
Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time. Praise for Decoded "Compelling . ....
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Jeff Chang
Paper Book
The American Book Award winner, now completely adapted for a young adult audience! From award-winning author Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop is the story of hip-hop, a generation-defining movement and the music that transformed American politics and culture forever....
Beastie Boys Book
Michael Diamond
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A panoramic experience that tells the story of Beastie Boys, a book as unique as the band itself--by band members ADROCK and Mike D, with contributions from Amy Poehler, Colson Whitehead, Wes Anderson, Luc Sante, and more. The...
The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop
Dan Charnas
Paper Book
The Big Payback takes us from the first $15 made by a "rapping DJ" in 1970s New York to the recent multi-million-dollar sales of the Phat Farm and Roc-a-Wear clothing companies in 2004 and 2007. On this four-decade-long journey from the studios where the first rap records were made to the...
Contact High
Vikki Tobak
Paper Book
ONE OF AMAZON'S BEST ART & PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS 0F 2018 AN NPR AND PITCHFORK BEST MUSIC BOOK OF 2018 PICK ONE OF TIME'S 25 BEST PHOTOBOOKS OF 2018 NEW YORK TIMES, ASSOCIATED PRESS,WALLSTREET JOURNAL, ROLLING STONE,AND...
Hip Hop Raised Me
DJ Semtex
Paper Book
Hip Hop Raised Me is the definitive volume on the essence, experience, and energy that is hip hop, and its massive and enduring impact over the last forty years. It's packed with contact sheets, outtakes, and glory shots of artists, collectives, and fans from iconic photographers including Martha...
My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep's Prodigy
Prodigy
Paper Book
From one of the greatest rappers of all time, a memoir about a life almost lost and a revealing look at the dark side of hip hop's Golden Era . . . In this often violent but always introspective memoir, Mobb Deep's Prodigy tells his much anticipated story of...
Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap
Ben Westhoff
Paper Book
"Raw, authoritative, and unflinching ... An elaborately detailed, darkly surprising, definitive history of the LA gangsta rap era." -- Kirkus, starred review A monumental, revealing narrative history about the legendary group of artists at the forefront of West Coast...
The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed
Shea Serrano
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller - Washington Post Bestseller - Pitchfork Book Club selectionThe Rap Year Book takes readers on a journey that begins in 1979, widely regarded as the moment rap became recognized as part of the cultural and musical landscape, and comes right up to the present. Shea Serrano...
When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down
Joan Morgan
Paper Book
"Morgan has given an entire generation of Black feminists space and language to center their pleasures alongside their politics." --Janet Mock, New York Times bestselling author of Redefining Realness "All that and then some, Chickenheads informs and...
Yes Yes Y'All: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop's First Decade
Jim Fricke
Paper Book
A brilliantly different, sweeping, and stylish history of the other superpower of the twentieth century, written by a superb narrator of the twentieth-century European story"-Washington Times "Fascinating and immensely readable" is the way one British newspaper described A History in Fragments. With...
Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement
S. Craig Watkins
Ebook
From its humble beginnings in the Bronx to its transformation into a multibillion-dollar global industry, hip hop has stirred constant and contentious debate. Avoiding the simple caricatures that either celebrate or condemn this powerful movement, S. Craig Watkins produces one of the most thorough...
The Tao of Wu
RZA
Paper Book
The RZA, the Abbot of the Wu-Tang Clan and hip-hop culture's most dynamic genius, imparts the lessons he learned on the journey that took him from the Staten Island projects to international superstardom, all the while a devout student of knowledge in every form he's found it - on the streets, in...

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