When sixteen-year-old Bri, an aspiring rapper, pours her anger and frustration into her first song, she finds herself at the center of a controversy.

Formed as a New York City hardcore band in 1981, Beastie Boys struck an unlikely path to global hip hop superstardom. Here is their story, told for the first time in the words of the band. Adam "ADROCK" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond offer revealing and very funny accounts of their transition from teenage punks to budding rappers; their early collaboration with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin; the debut album that became the first hip hop record...

Tupac Amaru Shakur (1971–1996) was an American rap artist, actor, and social activist. More than seventy-five million of his albums have sold worldwide, making him one of the bestselling music artists in the world. Rolling Stone magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time. Shakur also gained notoriety for his conflicts with the law and time spent in prison. Most of Tupac's songs are about growing up amid violence and hardship in ghettos,...

A documentary about hip-hop music, the people who are involved in it, and the culture surrounding it. Includes interviews with, and performances by, several artists

A cultural portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning rap superstar documents his coming-of-age as an artist, his genius as a lyricist, and his profound impact on today's racially fraught America. Moore provides a definitive account of Lamar's coming-of-age as an artist, his resurrection of jazz, his profound impact on a racially fraught America, and his emergence as the bona fide King of Rap. Through his confessional poetics, his politically charged...

"A New Yorker writer's intimate, revealing account of Tupac Shakur's life and legacy, timed to the fiftieth anniversary of his birth and twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. In the summer of 2020, Tupac Shakur's single "Changes" became an anthem for the worldwide protests against the murder of George Floyd. The song became so popular, in fact, it was vaulted back onto the iTunes charts more than twenty years after its release--making it clear that...

When a champion ping pong player gets hurt, his brother C-dub, a gansta-rapper wannabe, must face off against a devious rival player in the ping pong tournament of the year. With help from some unusual kids, C-dub just might be up to the challenge

This book "takes readers from 1979, widely regarded as the moment rap became recognized as part of the cultural and musical landscape, and comes right up to the present, with Shea Serrano ... discussing, debating, and deconstructing the most important rap song year by year. Serrano also examines the most important moments that surround the history and culture of rap music--from artists' backgrounds to issues of race, the rise of hip-hop, and the struggles...

Jimmy, known to his friends as Rabbit, is a young man trying to make his way out of the burned-out shell of inner-city Detroit. Rabbit is a white kid trying to make music in a predominantly African-American community and culture. After Rabbit freezes up in the midst of an MC battle, he's convinced he's missed his chance and that he's doomed to lead a marginal life as a factory rat for the rest of his days. With the help of his friends, and his new...