Jeff Chang

Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop has been a generation-defining global movement. In a post-civil rights era rapidly transformed by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop gave voiceless youths a chance to address these seismic changes, and became a job-making engine and the Esperanto of youth rebellion. Hip-hop crystallized a multiracial generation's worldview, and forever transformed politics and culture. But the epic story of how that happened has never been fully told . . . until now.

A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

Can't Stop Won't Stop

Michael Springer

I'm not going to write a full review here because of time, but just a quick note on this book: It is an excellent read if you are curious about the political and sociological forces that were relevant in the development of hip hop as a culture and as a music. 

I found this quite fascinating for what it was, but I also felt a little disappointed that hip hop MUSIC wasn't discussed in more depth. You hear a lot about a few early hip hop artists like Public Enemy, N.W.A., and obviously the early DJ's like DJ Kool Herc that created hip hop. But after this early period, you get a cursory mentioning of specific artists or later hip hop stylings at best. The development of Southern hip hop is not even mentioned, and Tupac's mother is discussed more than Tupac himself (due to her work with the Black Panthers). 

It's actually right there in the name of the book, so I can't fault it too much. . . but now I want to find a book about hip hop that focuses on the development of the music, and how artists influenced the sound of hip hop. As an avid music listener, there were no musicians or important recordings mentioned here I didn't already know about.

Can't Stop Won't Stop A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

Reviews