Ky-Mani Marley’s starring role in 2002’s “Shottas” seemed like an unbelievable story of glorified gangsterism and cartoonish urban masculinity. As a son of the biggest reggae artist in the world who became famous for his ideals about humanity, it would seem impossible that he would know anything about economic struggles, street violence and clan conflict. [...]
How To Rap: The Art And Science Of The Hip-Hop MC is a book of anecdotes from a wide survey of rappers who explain their praxis to author Paul Edwards. The book writes itself in the words of each rapper’s personal prose on the approach to content, flow, the creative process and 11 other mercury- [...]
Twenty-six years of gangsta rap promoting alpha males from the street meant everything about him and around him was hard, straight and untainted by the feyness of homosexuality, the scourge of hip-hop. Misogyny did not transfer to an intimate love of one’s brother and homophobia kept fake gay male hip-hop wannabes from attempting to pollute [...]
Hip-Hop’s transformation from an organic folk culture bred in the Bronx with roots in Afro-diasporic cultural practices into a commercially-successful zeitgeist of cool has put a lot of the artform’s core values at stake. After 30 years of popping, scratching, emceeing, tagging, Phat Farm, Def Jam, BET and The Source questions of hip-hop’s death, authenticity [...]
