Hip-Hop Is History
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This is a book only Questlove could have written: a perceptive and personal reflection on the first half-century of hip-hop.
When hip-hop first emerged in the 1970s, it wasn't expected to become the cultural force it is today. But for a young Black kid growing up in a musical family in Philadelphia, it was everything. He stayed up late to hear the newest songs on the radio. He saved his money to buy vinyl as soon as it landed. He even started to make his own songs. That kid was Questlove.
Now, in this landmark book, Questlove traces the creative and cultural forces that made and shaped hip-hop, highlighting both the forgotten but influential gems and the undeniable chart-topping hits-and weaves it all together with the stories no one else knows. It is at once an intimate, sharply observed story and a sweeping theory of the evolution of the great artistic movement of our time. Questlove approaches it with both the encyclopedic fluency of an obsessive fan and the unique expertise of an innovative participant. Hip-hop is history, and also his history.
Questlove
Questlove is an Academy Award‒winning and Emmy-nominated filmmaker, drummer, DJ, producer, director, culinary entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, and as co-founder of the Roots, the unmistakable heartbeat of Philadelphia's most influential hip-hop group. He is the musical director for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where the Roots serves as the house band. Questlove made his directorial debut with the Academy Award‒winning feature documentary Summer of Soul. He has written multiple books, including the New York Times bestsellers Mo' Meta Blues, Creative Quest, Music Is History, Hip Hop is History, his picture book The Idea In You, and his first children's book, The Rhythm of Time. He is the publisher of AUWA Books, an imprint of MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
More by Questlove
Ben Greenman
Ben Greenman is an editor at The New Yorker. He is the author of the story collections What He's Poised to Do; Superbad; and A Circle Is a Balloon and Compass Both: Stories About Human Love, and the novels Superworse and Please Step Back. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.
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