Book Posts Continue in Books 08
That's right. You'll find even more posts about books in the Books 08 category.
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Headlines to Your Site or Blog: Widgetbox MuseStorm Widget ProHipHop Network |
Hip-Hop News Plus Tupac Shakur Info |
That's right. You'll find even more posts about books in the Books 08 category.
The Vibe Q - Raw and Uncut
The Vibe Q: Raw and Uncut is a selection of interviews from Vibe magazine covering the last 15 years. What I'm seeing suggests that it may have material not in the magazine.
I'm not sure about that detail but it's Thanksgiving and no more research for me until late tonight at the earliest. I have turkey to eat with a major nap to follow!
Rolling Stone Cover to Cover - The First 40 Years
I'll definitely check The Vibe Q out as I'm gradually building a hip hop reference library to support ProHipHop and related projects. On that note, I'm hoping to be the happy recipient of Rolling Stone Cover to Cover: The First 40 Years this Christmas cause Santa is still my main man.
From the Amazon description:
Mac and PC compatible searchable software archive. One of a kind package contains searchable digital editions of every page of every issue ever published during the magazines celebrated 40-year history, all accessible with user-friendly Mac or Window compatible software platform.
Obviously this will be a rock-centric publication so maybe I'll find out what these kids have been up to in the last decade since I stopped listening to most new rock music. More importantly for my purposes Rolling Stone does have some solid rap interviews and coverage, the coverage predates and reveals the emergence of hip hop historically in the rock press and may also include the advertisements that will give one an opportunity to see when hip hop started impacting advertising in such publications.
Honestly I wish all the big hip hop magazines would put out similar editions for the first 5 to 10 years of their coverage. That would be really great.
What's doubly fun is that I'll get to check out all the 60s coverage that happened right before I started reading this kind of thing in the early 70s as a tween. That's a fascinating time period and you get to see Rolling Stone when it was a counter cultural publication on newsprint in the midst of a revolutionary situation.
Clayton M. Christensen - The Innovator's Dilemma
Rolling Stone is probably the most mentioned symbol of magazine publishing success among hip hop publishers, especially Dave Mays, who actually had a similar beginning with The Source but lost that script. Rolling Stone's beginning is even more interesting if you consider the fact that Rolling Stone's trajectory is another example of a publication that began as a disruptive innovation and then worked its way up the food chain to the top and then got to see what it's like to play defense while introducing sustaining innovations.
If you don't get that and you want to understand the current challenge to MSM, major labels, etc. by the disruptive innovations of bloggers and other lowlifes leveraging the web for the big takeover, read Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. Be sure to study the chapters on the history of the disc drive industry and the mechanical excavator industry with care. You'll totally trip when you start recognizing the same process occurring in relationship to online media.
And you'll kick ass in the New Year with your clearer, stronger vision of what is and what could be!
PS - Encouraging you to read this book is my Christmas present to you this year. On the real.
Posts at ProHipHop will mostly be delayed till sometime tomorrow because I'm finishing up a very short piece on hip hop in the Carolinas for a book from Novello Festival Press called Making Notes: Music of the Carolinas.
I was actually contacted at the last minute and am happy to be involved. However, if I had become involved earlier, I definitely would have made a strong argument for a longer section. Still it's good to see hip hop included.
Kanye West with J. Sakiya Sandifer - Thank You And You're Welcome
Kanye West and J. Sakiya Sandifer have teamed up to create a book of "Kanye-isms" titled Thank You And You're Welcome that he appears to be self publishing.
50 X 50: 50 Cent in His Own Words
Though apparently released October 2nd, we're just now hearing about the new 50 Cent "scrapbook" called 50 x 50 because 50 is just now promoting it.
Update:
Co-author Noah Callahan-Bever, editor-in-chief of Complex magazine, spoke with NPR about the book soon after its release.
Pam Pinnock - The Father Fracture
Celebrity publicist Pam Pinnock, whose clients have included Jay-Z and Ludacris, has written a memoir titled The Father Fracture focused on the effects of her father's abusive treatment and the relationships that followed. The book is being released in October because October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Best of luck to Ms. Pinnock in what is no doubt a difficult process of self-revelation.
Ghostface Killah - The World According to Pretty Toney
Ghostface has a hardback book coming out November 1st from MTV Books called The World According to Pretty Toney in which, in the guise of Pretty Toney, he shares unique advice. Here's what the pr email said:
"For all y'all smart dumb cats out there." Legendary Hip Hop artist, Ghostface Killah, settles into one of his most popular characters(Pretty Toney(and offers readers a hilariously unique perspective on life via guides to and advice on everything from sex to gambling, family to education, even how to eat on just $5 a day, better known as The Hustler's Diet. A singular twist on Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for the hip hop generation complete with illustrative photos.
Born as a series of shorts on MTV2, Pretty Toney and his musings quickly became a channel and online hit, with fans uploading the shorts on YouTube and circulating them virally.
The book will also include a CD of Ghostface reading the material, the perfect accompaniment to enjoying the book.
Actually, from what I've seen of the MTV shorts, an audiobook version of this might work really well.
My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem - Debbie Nelson
illjeezy calls it a rumor but My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem by Debbie Nelson, aka Eminem's mom, is out in the UK.
I guess if she gives up on the reconciliation we can look forward to Volume Two: My Son Slim Shady.
Jermaine Dupri on The Big Idea
Jermaine Dupri talks with Donny Deutsch on the topic "Millionaires Must Stay Hungry" as he promotes his new book Young, Rich, and Dangerous: The Making of a Music Mogul.
Dupri is a great interviewee despite what Rizoh accurately describes as "uninspired questions".
Don't know how long the video will last but it's worth a look especially for Kriss Kross fans since he discusses a bit about how he found and developed them as an act.
Gerd Leonhard, coauthor with David Kusek of The Future of Music, is releasing his new book, The End of Control, online, for free, one chapter at a time.
New Music Strategies shares some interesting misgivings about this project.
Felicia Pride - The Message
Felicia Pride's The Message: 100 Life Lessons From Hip Hop's Greatest Songs is due October 7th from Thunder's Mouth with a striking cover.
From the press release:
Felicia Pride extracts empowering lessons embedded within the genre's most popular songs. Growing up with hip-hop, she has come to realize the way it shaped how she thinks, writes, and reacts, making her the person she is today. In The Message, she uses short essays, aptly titled after a hip-hop song, and written in the language of the culture, to explore the themes of spirituality, success, business, and love. Incorporating her own experiences and reflections with the rapper's message, Pride goes on to share the wisdom she has learned from hip-hop and focuses on the positive influence the music has on its audience.
Lynne d Johnson has lots of nice things to say about Felicia Pride. Ms. Pride has both a blog and a MySpace page and is the founder of BackList among many other accomplishments.
Master P - Guaranteed Success
Master P's Guaranteed Success released earlier this month with a cover it's hard not to judge rather harshly. It looks cheap and the photo doesn't communicate anything about success except that, yes, it's Master P aka Percy Miller.
On the styling tip, you can tell this is a man who dresses himself. Honestly, he could really use a makeover now that he's getting a fresh start.
Young Doe - Welcome to the Maze Album Promo
This is a lively short promo video for Young's Doe's upcoming release Welcome to the Maze. Young Doe aka Charles Truth is out of Denver, Colorado and it turns out the album is based on a book he's self published called Welcome to the Maze: A Novel.
Charles Truth - Welcome to the Maze: A Novel
Bonus Footage:
Young Doe aka Charles Truth - Hunid Racks & Remy
Just ran into this recent video single by Young Doe aka Charles Truth, Hunid Racks & Remy.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
100 Racks/Hunid Racks Energy Drink Copromotes With Yukmouth & Messy Marv, C-Bo Albums
Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip-Hop
A book of photographs featuring the early days of hip hop in the Bronx is set for a November 9th release:
Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop was edited by Johan Kugelberg, features photographs by Joe Conzo, a foreword by Afrika Bambaataa, original flyer art by Buddy Esquire, and a detailed timeline by Jeff Chang (author of the critically acclaimed Can't Stop, Won't Stop).
The photo's contained in the tome come from Bronx bred Joe Conzo, who is regarded as "Hip Hop's first photographer." Conzo's photos span from 1977-1982...Additional art comes courtesy of flyers created by Buddy Esquire, who drew up various 1-sheets advertising early hip-hop shows between 1978-1985.
The book also features a number of essays as penned by such hip-hop legends as GrandMaster Caz, JDL, Joe Conzo, Mare 139, GrandWizzard Theodore, LA Sunshine and Jorge "Fabel" Pabon...The embossed hardcover edition will also contain a dust cover that unfolds to reveal a poster: "The Hip Hop Map of the Bronx" by Joe Conzo and Tony Tone.
Available from Amazon:
Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip-Hop
Jermaine Dupri w/Samantha Marshall - Young, Rich, and Dangerous
Jermaine Dupri and Samantha Marshall's Young, Rich, and Dangerous: The Making of a Music Mogul is set for release from Atria on October 16th.
Coauthor Samantha Marshall also worked with Kevin Liles on Make It Happen.
Via The Rap Up.
Official Site:
SimonSays.com: Young, Rich, and Dangerous
Snitch by Ethan Brown
While researching my previous post, Doing Hip Hop Business in a Hostile Environment, I came upon this awesome interview with Ethan Brown at The Smoking Section. Ethan is the author of one of the few must-reads in hip hop writing, Queens Reigns Supreme, and of the upcoming Snitch: Informers, Cooperators & the Corruption of Justice.
To show you what a total geek I've become, here's the part that got me all hot and bothered:
I did a cover story for New York Magazine in the fall of 2003 called “Got Beef?” that was about the war between Ja Rule and 50 Cent and the very beginning of the feds looking at Murder Inc. As I was researching for “Got Beef?” I was doing Lexus Nexus searches and looking at all the news clips from the 80’s about the Supreme Team and Fat Cat. I’d seen just a few things and thought that it was a vastly under covered subject in every way and that it would be a great book...
Most of the first half of the book actually came from a gigantic document dump I was able to get from the feds. I put in a request to have a look at all the case files for Fat Cat, Thomas Mickens and Supreme. I expected maybe a couple hundred pages for each person, and it turned out to be 1000’s of pages each. There was everything from file transcripts to wiretaps. I remember when I got that document dump I thought, "This is the entire book right here." I knew how valuable it was, and it was astonishing. A lot of people who have read the book say, "It seems like you were actually there in some parts." All those quotes and specific details come from 1000's of pages of documents.
Mmm, documents...
And here's the part that makes me sad because of its implication for the future not only of serious hip hop journalism but of all investigative journalism:
Anyone who does investigative journalism is not in it for the money. Investigative journalism by nature is the most work intensive kind of journalism you can take on. That’s why you see less and less investigative journalism at newspapers and magazines. No matter what you’re paid for it, you put in so many man-hours it’s one of the least lucrative aspects of journalism you can take on. I don’t want to dissuade anyone from doing this stuff, but when Queens Reigns Supreme was brought out to publishers in the spring of 2004, basically everyone passed on it. The book was published in paperback original, which is the least lucrative way to publish a book...
The amount of investigative work it takes to put together a project like this...in the end it doesn’t turn out to be some big payday. I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it to tell great stories, to talk about moments of history that are forgotten, and also to get into the nitty gritty of drug policy that you don’t really see written about anywhere else.
Queens Reigns Supreme by Ethan Brown
This interview is just too awesome and there's a whole lot more over at The Smoking Section.
Let's close with a reality check for most of the hip hop industry idiots who claim to be following the code of the streets:
I hope I can say very loud and clear to everyone in the hip hop business..you are not in the streets. You’re insane if you think you live by street rules...You’re in legitimate businesses. You can call the police if there is a problem and you should call them if there is a problem. If someone near you is attacked or killed, talk to the police. It’s crazy how these hip-hop guys have convinced themselves that they are somehow like street guys. What's even worse is they are going around like, Cam’ron did on "60 Minutes" and giving a completely distorted interpretation of what actually happens on the streets. When people say "Oh, no, no one snitches on the streets" and "There's a stop snitching code on the streets", that's absolute bullsh*t. There's no "stop snitching" anything on the streets. Everyone's snitching. If you knew anything about the streets you would know that.
This is where hip-hop has become so doomed lately, in this confusion that rappers are street guys. You are not street guys. Get out of that mentality. It’s killing hip hop creatively, and it’s killing [it] morally. I just think it’s a disaster. A big part of what my first book is about is the historical moment in which hip-hop began to adopt all these street ideas and street icons like Supreme and what the consequences were. I think now we're living with those consequences.
While I think there were many moments that preceded this one, he makes a strong case for his argument in Queens Reigns Supreme. I've often lamented the lack of both serious business coverage and investigative journalism related to hip hop. Big ups to Ethan Brown for doing it.
Hey, Ethan's got a blog!
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Ethan Brown Moves to New Orleans
No, I'm not talking about First! bloggers, I'm talking about people who claim to be the first to do something significant, like writing the first hip hop novel:
Daniel Sonnentag's recently published novel, "Slayer Player," might be in a category of its own. Sonnentag christens his book a "hip hop novel."
"Nothing has ever been done like this -- there's never been a hip hop book," he says. "To legitimize a genre, it has to be put into another genre. For me, it's trying to legitimize rap through a novel."
Both Daniel and the "journalist" (bloggers win again) should have googled hip hop novel and made it past the "Urban Fiction" that's trying to claim hip hop status by writing about poor, violent, black people and move on to novels that actually deal with hip hop themes, like Michael T. Owens' A Dream Come True, among others.
Michael Eric Dyson - Know What I Mean?: Reflections on Hip Hop
Michael Eric Dyson's Know What I Mean?: Reflections on Hip Hop releases on July 2nd and he's got some heavy built-in marketing support from Jay-Z, author of the Intro, and Nas, author of the Outro.
The above links take you to Amazon which currently has an earlier version of the cover.
You can read the ghostwritten? intro by Jay-Z on the author's website.
Simon Reyolds - Bring the Noise
Simon Reynolds' Bring the Noise: 20 Years of Writing About Hip Rock and Hip Hop was released earlier this month in the UK. Not sure about the U.S. release date.
The Socialist Worker has an interview with Reynolds that should give some context to the book. Unfortunately, you can skip the blog.
Wild Style: The Sampler by Charlie Ahearn
An exhibition and book by Charlie Ahearn, Wild Style: The Sampler, remembers an important movie from an exciting time. Coming in June.
Via Grand Good.
Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
I've been doing some work on netweed and have a lot planned, which is kind of cool cause I've been neglecting it for awhile. However, due to a variety of technical difficulties, I've gone into semifunctional mode.
That said, I thought I'd write about a business book I've found inspiring and see what that does for me since I already believe that finding out about this book will be a good thing for you.
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne is truly a remarkable book. I love the fact that it's a research based work whose case for a different way of strategizing business has visionary implications.
I hesitate to summarize much but the Blue Ocean concept rests on the idea that currently most companies function in a Red Ocean of competition in which benchmarking, tweaking for efficiencies and introducing new models passes for innovation. Rather than competing head for head in crowded marketplaces, Kim and Mauborgne advocate envisioning new markets created through value innovation and, in so doing, leaving the competition behind in their suddenly outdated mode of operation.
Kim and Mauborgne present a practical approach to visionary strategy grounded in studying companies who achieved major breakthroughs and then were able to sail freely in a Blue Ocean without serious competition, sometimes for extended periods. Apple's creation of the iPod/iTunes marketplace is an excellent example.
You'll have to check out the book to get the real concepts and it will be well worth your time. What's interesting is, though Blue Ocean Strategy is written for an audience in large corporations, it's also useful for small business strategizing, especially online where small efforts can lead to great results.
In fact, it might be quite interesting to take their ideas and see if they apply to political activities. So, there it is, an inspiring book with relevance far beyond its target market.
Update:
I forgot to mention that it's quite readable despite the heavy academic status of the authors.
I'm also happy to report that my mood has improved considerably and that the sun just broke through the clouds outside (I kid you not).
Available from Amazon:
W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne - Blue Ocean Strategy
Donda West w/Karen Hunter - Raising Kanye
Raising Kanye: Life Lessons From the Mother of a Hip-Hop Superstar drops tomorrow and you know that if sales are poor Kanye's going to take this as an attack on momma and it's going to be even worse than when he didn't win an award for that expensive Evel Knieval homage video. Who knows, it might even be worse than Katrina, no disrespect intended.
So please buy the book [via this handy Amazon Affiliate link] so we don't have to listen to Kanye cry for mommy all year.
We Regret to Announce:
Donda West, Kanye's Mom, Passes
Punk Marketing by Richard Laermer & Mark Simmons
Hear 2.0's Mark Ramsey shares the Punk Marketing Manifesto from Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons' Punk Marketing.
The book appears to use punk rock's rebellious image as a reference point without really referencing the actual subculture.
The lads used a short video of a woman stripping while narrating the text as, I assume, an illustration of their approach.
Hmmm, I'm a little dismayed to find myself losing interest as I gather this information but, it's a popular book and you may well find it of use.
Official Site:
Punk Marketing
Tom Messner has some nice things to say about Hadji Williams' book Knock The Hustle in Adweek:
The first, by former copywriter Hadji J.S. Williams, is Knock the Hustle: How to Save Your Job and Your Life From Corporate America. This is a true testament to the free enterprise system: Williams avoided the agent-publisher-editor route by starting his own publishing company, Prodigal Pen. Knock the Hustle is now in a second edition...It is the sort of book that is best read before you go into business, as it mixes the truly heroic with the truly pernicious in precisely the proportion you are likely to find in the world of commerce.
Volume 2 is due out this summer.
Official Sites:
Knock The Hustle
HustleKnockin' [the blog]
Available from Amazon:
Hadji Williams - Knock The Hustle:
How to Save Your Job and Your Life from Corporate America
Seth Godin - The Dip
Seth Godin has a new book coming out in May called The Dip and subtitled The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick). From the description:
Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point-really hard, and not much fun at all. And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you're in a Dip-a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it's really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.
According to bestselling author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts.
Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt-until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can become number one in your niche, you'll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and long-term security.
And guess what? There's a related blog.
Via Hear 2.0.
Total Chaos - Edited by Jeff Chang
I recently received a review copy of Total Chaos edited by Jeff Chang that looks at some of the places that hip hop has gone while displacing the central role of the rapper, i.e. it's a collection of essays and interviews intended to reveal certain aspects of hip hop culture beyond rap music. As such, it might be described as a multicultural resource book that is not intended to be complete but to juxtapose diverse voices in a cacophonous dialogue befitting the term chaos.
But, of course, it's also a well-organized collection of writings that are quite coherent as individual pieces and that support one of Jeff's core arguments that hip hop is much bigger than rap music and, by implication, much bigger than the African-American experience. Which, of course, it is, cause everyone's in now so the boundaries can't be drawn by a particular group's experience, no matter how much that experience defined the actual creation of the arts in question.
This approach leads to some interesting phenomena in Total Chaos. For example, though African-Americans were cut off from West African religions, forced to become Protestants and, in some cases, eventually began embracing Islam in large numbers, the one chapter that explicitly examines religion focuses on Yoruba. However, this choice does not come across as a statement about which religions are important but offers a concrete example of the unique paths taken by hip hop culture and by this anthology.
Though I certainly haven't read the whole book, it appears that the Internet is largely absent as a significant social force. It's fine that bloggers are only mentioned in passing but the fact that most of us now find out about hip hop's worldwide spread through the Internet, often directly contacting people in other countries who were previously inaccessible, makes leaving that out rather bizarre.
I dropped a note to Jeff about the religious question and also about what he's hearing about hip hop book sales so I'll update when I get that.
Available from Amazon:
Jeff Chang - Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop
Update 1:
The more I think about the missing Internet piece of the puzzle, the stranger it gets. To some degree, the introduction and general vibe I get from Total Chaos is one in which decentralized, liberatory hip hop arts are juxtaposed to big media's dominance and compartmentalization of cultural expression. That being the case, the radical undermining of big media by web publishing should be seen as a key to the changes I imagine Jeff and co. would like to see in the world. Yet, to be perfectly frank, although the focus on hip hop is relatively unique, most of what I've gotten from this anthology so far is pretty similar to what I was getting from similar politically minded radical culture anthologies of the 80s and 90s. That's not a good sign for projects with revolutionary intent.
Brian Coleman's Check the Technique
Brian Coleman has a new book coming in June called Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies:
Presenting never-before-told, behind-the-scenes histories ranging from influential ‘80s masterpieces De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising and Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back to ‘90s classics like the Fugees’ The Score and the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head, the book’s approach is one that Coleman calls Invisible Liner Notes – retracing the story of an album step by step, in collaboration with the artists themselves. Weighing in at over 500 pages, the 36-chapter book includes lively, in-depth, provocative interviews with 75 artists, DJs, producers and industry insiders.
Brian Coleman's Rakim Told Me
Coleman had previously self-published Rakim Told Me: Hip-Hop Wax Facts, Straight From the Original Artists - The '80s, in which he developed the concept of "invisible liner notes", via his own Wax Facts.
Here's some background from The Phoenix including a bit on the publishing deal for Check the Technique.
Brief Review at Hip Hop Logic:
Book: Brian Coleman's Check the Technique
Available from Amazon:
Brian Coleman - Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies
Enter the Babylon System
The Canadian release of Enter the Babylon System: Unpacking Gun Culture from Samuel Colt to 50 Cent totally slipped my mind until I was recently reminded by Vibes & Stuff.
I spoke with coauthor Rodrigo Bascunan about the research approach taken by he and Christian Pearce back when he was working on the book. Among other things, they were going into some really rough U.S. hoods, meeting people and hanging out in order to understand more about the place of guns in their daily lives.
The book should be excellent and I look forward to its U.S. release.
Ishmael Beah - A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
It turns out that Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone who tells his tale in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, is also a hip hop fan and freestyle rapper. According to Edward Guthmann:
When Ishmael Beah was 11, before the rebels reached his village, he thought of Sierra Leone's civil war as something distant and unreal. He was a bright kid, fond of reading. He was in love with rap and hip-hop.
Partial to wearing baggy jeans and soccer jerseys, he formed a rap and dance group with his brother and two buddies...
By the time he was 12, Beah's parents and two brothers were all dead. Bloodthirsty rebels, most of them kids his own age, attacked his village of Mogbwemo, killing nearly everyone...
On Friday, he dazzled a roomful of troubled teens at Alameda County Juvenile Hall in San Leandro. Young men, 16 to 18, they were wary at first but soon became fascinated by this short, boyish man with a West African accent and improbable tale of violence and redemption.
Smiling broadly, Beah spoke directly to the young men, prompting some frank questions. By the end, he was joining two of them in a freestyle rap.
Beah became a child soldier, high on cocaine and gunpowder (literally), and his tale is harsh. It's also a commercial success and a marketing coup for Starbucks:
In the past three weeks, "A Long Way Gone" has exploded: Jon Stewart lavished praise on "The Daily Show," Time and Newsweek profiled Beah, and the New York Times Magazine put him on its cover. This Sunday, the book will hit No. 2 on the Times' nonfiction best-seller list.
"A Long Way Gone" also was selected by Starbucks for its new reading program. The giant coffee-bar chain is displaying the book prominently in all of its 6,500 franchises. Two dollars from each sale goes to UNICEF to benefit child soldiers and finance educational programs for them at rehab centers.
Does the process of commercialization and marketing taint Beah's message or does it provide a variety of channels through which his work becomes a cultural influence?
Both/and, as usual.
Jason Tanz - Other People's Property
I admit I've been fairly consciously ignoring the existence of Jason Tanz's Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America, even when writing about nerdcore and glam rap. Which is kind of funny because Donnell Alexander says that Tanz starts off with nerdcore in his review of the book. The truth is, I've avoided it because I generally don't find much of interest in discussions of whiteness in rap, mainly because it rarely gets past the superficial and even more rarely goes anywhere of interest.
Don't get me wrong, I think lots of folks in hip hop are quite strong at critiquing the bad things white people do. But that's a far cry from critiquing the concept of whiteness itself, a concept that is taken for granted as a natural state of being when it is anything but.
That said, I really want to check out this book because Alexander seems to be saying that he plays around with a lot of theories and literary approaches that interested me greatly during the 90s and I have to see what he did with them.
Since this is ProHipHop, I also have to find out what he's written that led to this review from Publishers Weekly posted at Amazon:
Tanz is most successful when he lets himself get tangled up in the complicated tendons of mass culture: his chapter about hip-hop marketing and commercialization displays a keen understanding of the advertising forces at work without ever devolving into simplistic damnation.
[Snicker.]
I can't wait!
In related news, Donnnell Alexander is the coauthor of
Rollin' with Dre: An Insider's Tale of the Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of West Coast Hip Hop coming in September.
Making Fresh Diamonds in the Microwave
Reggie Osse and Gabriel Tolliver are getting into the YouTube video game to promote Bling: The Hip-Hop Jewelry Book. You may see the punchline coming but the real humor is in the process.
Their blog post about the video is currently
featured at MySpace Books.
50 Cent and K. Elliott - The Ski Mask Way
50 Cent recently appeared in New York with Nikki Turner and K. Elliott to celebrate the launch of G-Unit Books. See the press release for basic details. Noire was absent but is also part of 50's stable of ghetto fiction authors.
50 Cent and Nikki Turner - Death Before Dishonor
According to previous coverage in The Book Standard:
The series is the first of its kind for Pocket, which has been looking to increase its presence in the street-fiction genre, which took off several years ago as self-published authors, largely ignored by the mainstream book industry, sold their racy tales through non-traditional venues—including street-vendors. “It grew from the fact that many of the authors in this genre did not trust mainstream publishers,” said Louise Burke, Pocket publisher and executive vice president. “[Eventually] demand made publishers realize that this was a business.”
50 Cent and Noire - Baby Brother
Literary agent Marc Gerald, who I'm assuming is 50's agent, related to The Book Standard's Max Chafkin that:
Jackson’s young fan base, as well as the untraditional ethos of the street-fiction business, presented marketing challenges for the G-Unit series. But he added that it was also an opportunity to experiment with digital-delivery options as a way of reaching a younger audience. These digital tie-ins could include cell-phone downloads of audio and text excerpts, as well as G-Unit music. “This is an opportunity to try everything and see what you can do to get teenage boys reading,” he said.
LL Cool J's Platinum Workout
LL Cool J's been promoting his new fitness book with appearances in New York at Barnes & Noble and at Borders.
Available from Amazon:
LL Cool J - LL Cool J's Platinum Workout: Sculpt Your Best Body Ever with Hollywood's Fittest Star
Al Abrams - Waking the Dreamgirls:
The Complete Motown Press Releases, 1964-1966
Though not a hip hop book, Motown publicist Al Abrams' collection of Motown press releases is certainly a unique music marketing book that might be worth a look.
Carmen Bryan - It's No Secret
I know I'm late to this particular party but as I looked for promotional videos related to Nas and the upcoming release of Hip Hop Is Dead, a hip hop album announcing the death of hip hop not unlike the late 20th Century antifolk movement featuring musicians playing folk music, I came upon the video of Carmen Bryan promoting It's No Secret: From Nas to Jay-Z, from Seduction to Scandal--a Hip-Hop Helen of Troy Tells All and just couldn't resist.
Nas at a Hip Hop Is Dead Listening Party
Actually, in the video below, Carmen Bryan is discussing the book and using the early working title, Sex, Drugs and Hip Hop. In the spirit of the many gossip blogs that have addressed the important issues related to Carmen Bryan's activities, I've just got to point out that the chick in the video does not look like the chick on the book cover.
Carmen Bryan Promotes Her Book
John Jantsch - Duct Tape Marketing
John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing blogger, has a book coming out early next year called Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide. ProHipHop gets a sample copy and some other goodies to say this but, nevertheless, it's news worth mentioning.
Bling: The Hip-Hop Jewelry Book
On November 6th Bling: The Hip-Hop Jewelry Book will be released. I just received a cool .PDF with sample pages from the book that you can download via ShareBig [I'm also using this to test out the service].
It's a nice use of the .PDF format to present a series of graphics in a way that makes me want to check out the book and also leads me to expect a graphically exciting book in keeping with the samples.
Official Site:
BLING - the book
Available from Amazon:
Reggie Ossé & Gabriel Tolliver - Bling: The Hip-Hop Jewelry Book
Seth Godin has a preview of his upcoming book Small Is the New Big available as a free .PDF download at ChangeThis:
Polkas, Pyrotechnics and Point D's
Update:
Seth Godin interview at if!
I'm trying to get better about staying on topic but I just found out about Jon Gos's blog Starkravingblack.com (subtitled Traveling While Black), that he's begun in order to document his upcoming 3 month tour of Europe. It looks like he's off to a good start and it should be a fun read.
I hate to frame it in relationship to Driving While Black, but I couldn't help myself, even though it almost feels like I'm jinxing him.
But since racial profiling still seems to be considered a myth, I thought folks should be reminded of a book that's both a great tool for understanding the phenomenon and for dealing with it.
Back in 2000, I had the opportunity to contribute my research skills to a group that was considering bringing a racial profiling suit against the Greensboro Police Department. The stats were all there (which is all you need to f*ck the police on that tip) and we had some rad civil rights lawyers from DC who were ready to build on our community level work and who put a lot of energy into visiting and educating folks.
That case could have been won, as could a case against the UNC-Greensboro campus police, which I pointed out to the group after studying their police reports. By the way, that doesn't make me a big deal cause that level of research is available to anyone with access to online public records and the willingne
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