December 1, 2008
The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop–and Why It Matters
by Tricia Rose
Available December 2008
Hip-hop is in crisis. For the past dozen years, the most commercially successful hip-hop has become increasingly saturated with caricatures of black gangstas, thugs, pimps, and ‘hos. The controversy surrounding hip-hop is worth attending to and examining with a critical eye because, as scholar and cultural critic Tricia Rose argues, hip-hop has become a primary means by which we talk about race in the United States. In The Hip-Hop Wars, Rose explores the most crucial issues underlying the polarized claims on each side of the debate: Does hip-hop cause violence, or merely reflect a violent ghetto culture? Is hip-hop sexist, or are its detractors simply anti-sex? Does the portrayal of black culture in hip-hop undermine black advancement? A potent exploration of a divisive and important subject, The Hip-Hop Wars concludes with a call for the regalvanization of the progressive and creative heart of hip-hop. What Rose calls for is not a sanitized vision of the form, but one that more accurately reflects a much richer space of culture, politics, anger, and yes, sex, than the current ubiquitous images in sound and video currently provide.
July 4, 2008
Take Back Your Family
A Challenge to America’s Parents
Rev. Run – Author
Justine Simmons – Author
Available August 2008
The stars of MTV’s top-rated Run’s House—dubbed “the new Cosby family”—offer a vital rescue manual for modern parenting.
An icon of hip-hop, a father of six, and an ordained minister, Rev Run has developed a parenting style that is in a class by itself. With his wife, Justine, he launched the blockbuster reality series Run’s House on MTV, now filming its fifth season. The show has proven wildly popular in large part due to the way the Simmons family responds to very twenty-first-century issues. Emphasizing firm boundaries, noble values, discipline, and faith in an age marked by shallow materialism and fragmented families, Rev Run now shares the proven principles that have given his children a firm foundation, including:
- Run your family as the COEs: Chief Officers of Everything.
- Understand that you can never correct what you don’t confront.
- Lead by example, not by preaching: Hypocrisy and parenting are a destructive combination.
- Today’s fast-paced world can often make children feel small; your job is to help them feel large.
- Older children need more rules and parental involvement, not less.
Reaching an average weekly audience of 4.1 million viewers, Run’s House speaks to America’s fascination with high-profile parents. Take Back Your Family brings home the behind-the-scenes wisdom of hip-hop’s first family to everyone seeking solid guidance for raising a new generation.
July 4, 2008
All about the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America
John McWhorter – Author
Available June 2008
Hip-hop is often extolled as an urgent “political” message to mainstream America about the realities of life in black communities. But is there really any meaningful connection between hip-hop and politics? Could there actually be a hip-hop revolution?
In All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America, bestselling author John McWhorter argues that the vast majority of hip-hop music—despite claims to the contrary—has nothing real or significant to offer black America in terms of political activism that can make a meaningful difference.
In this measured, impassioned work, McWhorter maintains that hip-hop, while infectious and finely-crafted music, is overly inflated with a sense of social and political importance. He argues that activism and acting up aren’t the same thing, that hip-hop politics often amount to an upturned middle finger—which is different from really working on how to help people. “A hundred years from now, what will interest people about us today is how we solved our problems, not how eloquently we complained about what caused them,” writes McWhorter.
All About the Beat is not about putting hip-hop down for the violence and misogyny it extols. Instead, McWhorter calls for a new politics for black America, one not based on the false hope that a form of music—no matter how good or inspiring— can lead blacks to advancement.
June 13, 2008
Hip Hop Speaks to Children
by Nikki Giovanni
Publication Date: October 2008
Hip Hop Speaks to Children is a celebration of poetry with a beat. Like Poetry Speaks to Children, the classic book and CD that started it all, it’s meant to be the beginning of a journey of discovery. Readers can immerse themselves in 51 selections from 42 poets and performers, and 30 performances on the audio CD, many recorded especially for this collection.
Some tracks on the CD are performed by the artists who created them, others are unique interpretations by admiring poets and artists. Hear a musical interpretation of Sterling Brown’s poem “Long Track Blues” and a youth performance of Elizabeth Swados’s poem “Me” plus much more!
The audio CD also includes contributions from:
* Nikki Grimes
* Queen Latifah
* Langston Hughes
* Sugarhill Gang
* Charles R. Smith, Jr.
* Stetsasonic
* James Berry
* A Tribe Called Quest
* Gary Soto
* Eloise Greenfield
About the Author
National Book Award nominee, Spoken Word Grammy nominee and New York Times best-selling author Nikki Giovanni leads an advisory board comprised of leading hip hop poet Willie Perdomo, Howard University professor Tony Medina, and music specialist Michele Scott.
