As the years pass by, reflections on the early years of hip hop in literature have started to become commonplace in your local book shop. From the creator of Wild Style, we have Charlie Ahearn's offering, Yes Yes Y'all, which is a seriously good read littered with copious amounts of photos of many ghetto celebrities of yesteryear as well as rare flyers of jams back in the day. The accounts are taken from interviews with people such as KK Rockwell, Lisa Lee, DJ Breakout, Bam, Afrika Islam, Henry Chalfont, Frosty Freeze (RIP), Lovebug Starski and many, many more.
The Birth of Graffiti by Jon Naar is a great book for real graffiti heads. This is a follow up to his previous The Faith of Graffiti (1974) which bypasses the usual route of books of this style whereas there are is no emphasis on big burners, masterpieces or any of the main 'stars' of graffiti. Instead Naar focuses on the early days of NYC writing (most of the photos were surplus to his original book so are from the same era) and presents the reader with shots of New York in the early Seventies and lets you breathe in and just soak up the decay and beauty of the city in fine detail.
Just out recently is Grandmaster Flash's The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats - A Memoir which "offers a firsthand look at the early days of the hip hop revolution and documents his own musical journey, detailing his rise to stardom, financial disaster and cocaine addiction, and redemption with the love of family and friends".
The Birth of Graffiti by Jon Naar is a great book for real graffiti heads. This is a follow up to his previous The Faith of Graffiti (1974) which bypasses the usual route of books of this style whereas there are is no emphasis on big burners, masterpieces or any of the main 'stars' of graffiti. Instead Naar focuses on the early days of NYC writing (most of the photos were surplus to his original book so are from the same era) and presents the reader with shots of New York in the early Seventies and lets you breathe in and just soak up the decay and beauty of the city in fine detail.
Just out recently is Grandmaster Flash's The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats - A Memoir which "offers a firsthand look at the early days of the hip hop revolution and documents his own musical journey, detailing his rise to stardom, financial disaster and cocaine addiction, and redemption with the love of family and friends".
Also available is Back in the Days by Jamel Shabazz, The Breaks: Stylin' and Profilin' 1982-1990 by Janette Beckman, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-hop Generation by Jeff Chang and Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979-1984 by Martha Cooper to name just some.
I'd love to what books you've read, good or bad. Or are you waiting in anticipation of a particular figure to drop his autobiography?
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