by Nelson George
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Product Description
Now with a new introduction by the author, Hip Hop America is the definitive account of the society-altering collision between black youth culture and the mass media.
Amazon.com Review
Although it's been part of the cultural soundscape for over 25 years, hip-hop has been the focus of very few books. And when those books do pop up, they tend to be either overtly scholarly, as if the writer in question has just landed on some alien planet, or a bit too much like a fanzine. If there's anyone qualified to write a solid, informative, and entertaining tome on the culture, politics, and business of hip-hop, it's Nelson George. A veteran journalist, George is one of the smartest and most observant chroniclers of African American pop culture. Much as he broke down and illuminated R&B with his acclaimed book The Death of Rhythm and Blues, George now tackles hip-hop with the clarity of a reporter and the enthusiasm of a fan--which is fitting, because George is both. A Brooklyn native, he began writing about rap back in the late 1970s, when the beats and the lifestyle were not only foreign to most white folks, they were still underground in the black communities. Hip Hop America is filled with George's memories of the scene's nascent years, and it tells the story of rap both as an art form and a cultural and economic force--from the old Bronx nightclub the Fever to the age of Puffy. Highlighting both the major players and some of the forces behind the scenes, George gives rap a historical perspective without coming off as too intellectual. All of which makes Hip Hop America a worthwhile addition to any fan's collection. --Amy Linden
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 Music For the Masses in America Hit It Big., 2006-11-26
The musical scene in the Sixties and the Eighties was hip-hop for all races and religions in the USA. The Seventies was devoted mostly to folk music. In the Ninties it was more rap and contemporary and also country music hit it big in the whole country and not just Nashville, Tennessee.
Who Takes The Blame?, August 13, 2006
Reviewer: Betty Burks (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews
In February, 1969, a study titled "Black-White Contact in Schools: Its Social and Academic Effects" was published by Purdue University sociologist Martin Patchen. In it, he concludes "Available evidence indicates that interracial contact in schools does not have consistent positive effects on students' racial attitudes and behavior or on the academic prformance of minority students." In March, it was declared that the AIDS virus started in Africa and on the Caribbean island, Haita and spread to the United States via tourists. Get this! Susan Sontag decided in 1988 that "the virus was sent to Africa from the U.S. as an act of bacteriological warfare" as a conspiracy.
July, 1985, a survey conducted in New York City using the HIV antibody test finds that of frequent drug users, 87 percent carried the infection. The majority of the addicts were black and Hispanic. In August 1988, on Zachary's birthday, Jean-Michael Basquiat died in New York village of a heroin overdose at the age of 27 (Zach was 26 then). He was a graffiti artist whose pieces sold for $50,000 at the time of his death. There was a lot of debate about his artistic worth.
This book traverses the years 1979 to 1989 in America and is mostly about the singers and groups in the entertainment area but also writers which proliferated during that time. It is the time of affirmative action and Clarence Thomas who was married to a Causcasian woman but courted the office girls and almost lost his nomination. I watched it all on t.v. The girl took all the blame, and she was honest and above-board, blameless. The results of overcompensation has caused much turmoil for us all in America and some are deceitful by trying to pull the wool ober the eyes of political figures to the detriment of everybody.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Excellent Overview, 2006-09-28
Nelson George has written several books on Hip Hop and African-American popular culture, all of which are worth reading. This book is particularly good for the clarity of thought evident in the writing. It is an assessment of the overall position of Hip Hop as an American cultural phenomenon branching out to the rest of the world.
It provides a neat and insightful stock take of what Hip Hop was about in the late nineties for academic purposes, but is written in an easy to digest style that suits readers of a non academic background too. It is a good book to read to get a good idea of how Hip Hop evolved from a localised phenomena to a wider cultural movement. It is enlivened by the author explaining his viewpoint, and not just presenting a dry account of facts.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
excellent overview & inclusion of broader culteral impact but don't expect exhaustive material on all the big players, 2006-08-30
I am currently writing an entry about Grandmaster Flash for the forthcoming Icons of Hip-Hop (Greenwood Press). First of all, Nelson George is one of the most experienced, respected and eloquent hip-hop journalists alive, and he maintains his reputation in this book. He grew up in the middle of the birth of this artistic-come-cultural phenomenon, and tells the story as both insider and critic. Though there wasn't much specific material about Flash (which I didn't expect), George paints a genuine, if disarming or infuriating, portrait of the rise and continued influence of hip-hop through elegant and sometimes even poetic language and virtually unsurpassed insight. The latter observation comes, in part, from his willingness to explore the broader picture that this culture informs and is controlled by. He raises political and socioeconimic questions, takes on the task of discussing the record industry and how its desire for hit records over individual talent promotes a homogenous selection of 'rap artists', and is unafraid to question the roles society has played to transform hip-hop almost completely from what it was in its nascent form. Some people complain, with regard to hip-hop reference books, that the author obviously has no real authority. No one can make that claim about George. After all, he is respected enough to be able to interview GM Flash, Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa (considered the 'Holy Trinity'/founding fathers of hip-hop) in the same place at the same time. [For those of you who don't understand the significance here, no one has ever been able to get these three guys together, because of past rivalry among other things, and Kool Herc had not discussed hip-hop publicly for about thirty years prior to this interview.] So, George gives an authoritative, articulate, thoughtful and insightful account of the rise of hip-hop and the consequences of its appearance in mainstream society (which basically transformed it completely, so that the only true-to-its-roots subculture is underground hip-hop). Buy this book - but don't expect an in-depth discussion of the major players because that isn't what the book is supposed to be anyway.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
STILL USEFUL, 2005-07-10
I read this book when it first came out, and from the onset I realized the book was flawed by Mr. George's ego. Mr. George has great thoughts and opinions, but unfortunately, he allows personal biases to mar how presents them to his readers. Like one of the other reviewers, I didn't agree with a lot of what he wrote, but it is still useful for information about the early days of hip hop.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Especially good on the early days of hip hop, 2003-11-18
I read this book for an African-American Studies class at UNC. At first I did not like it at all. I did not connect with George's choice of language, which seemed outdated and out of touch with current hip hop lingo.But as I got into the book, I realized that this outdated language was not George's fault. After all, as George himself points out in a section about hip hop movies, trends and lingo in hip hop change too quickly for anyone to keep up without a very detailed scorecard. So if you can get past him using somewhat outdated language, this is a great book. George manages to discuss a wide array of topics, from graffiti to break dancing to production and distribution of records to hip hop themed movies to hip hop lingo to the proliferation of hip hop around the world. Despite the very diverse topics, George manages to tie everything to a common theme, the impact of hip hop on American culture. If I had to pick one aspect of the book that was especially good, I would have to choose his discussion of the roots of hip hop and its early days. As a native of New York during hip hop's formative years, George is very well informed on the topic and indeed was a witness to many key events in the early days of hip hop. He also has connections with many key figures, throughout the time period covered in the book, and he is able to recall these connections to tell unique stories you cannot find anywhere else. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of hip hop. It is a quick, enjoyable, and informative read.
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