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
How hip hop shapes our conversations about race -- and how race influences our consideration of hip hop Hip hop is a distinctive form of black art in America-from Tupac to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Kendrick Lamar, hip hop has long given voice to the African American experience....
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 . ....
Chuck D Presents This Day in Rap and Hip-Hop History
Chuck D
Paper Book
A one-of-a kind survey of rap and hip hop history from 1973 to today by Chuck D, arguably the most influential rapper in the world. In the more than 40 years since the days of DJ Kool Herc and "Rapper's Delight," hip hop and rap have become a billion-dollar worldwide phenomenon....
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...
3 Kings: Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, and Hip-Hop's Multibillion-Dollar Rise
Zack O'Malley Greenburg
Paper Book
Tracing the careers of hip-hop's three most dynamic stars, this deeply reported history brilliantly examines the entrepreneurial genius of the first musician tycoons: Diddy, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z. Being successful musicians was simply never enough for the three kings of hip-hop....
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...
Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop
Adam Bradley
Paper Book
If asked to list the greatest innovators of modern American poetry, few of us would think to include Jay-Z or Eminem in their number. And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting developments in verse today. The media uproar in response to its controversial lyrical content has obscured...
Chamber Music: Wu-Tang and America (in 36 Pieces)
Will Ashon
Paper Book
Each of these chambers contains wonders of history, destiny, and mythology. Chamber Music is hip hop as race and class politics, as music and as poetry on the move. Through Ashon's vibrant textured prose we watch in awe as these young men seize on whatever the culture has to offer, sampling...
Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies
Brian Coleman
Paper Book
A Tribe Called Quest . Beastie Boys . De La Soul . Eric B. & Rakim . The Fugees . KRS-One . Pete Rock & CL Smooth . Public Enemy . The Roots . Run-DMC . Wu-Tang Clan . and twenty-five more hip-hop immortals It's a sad fact- hip-hop album liners have always been reduced to a list of...
Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop
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...
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
In this fresh, funky, and irreverent book, a new voice of the post-Civil Rights, post-feminist, post-soul generation has emerged in Joan Morgan: a groundbreaking and unflinching author who probes the complex issues facing African-American women today. "When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost" is a...
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
Paper Book
The author explores the evolution of hip hop and the backlash against it, from Detroit Mayer Kwame Killpatrick, the nation's first hip hop mayor, to the reception of the music on college campuses, where debates over its misogyny thrive.

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