Chamber Music: About the Wu-Tang (in 36 Pieces)

The Wu-Tang Clan is American hip-hop royalty. Rolling Stone called them the ‘best rap group ever’ and their debut album is considered one of the greatest of all time. Since 1992, they have released seven gold and platinum studio albums with sales of more than 40 million copies. So how did nine kids from the […]

Formed as a New York City hardcore band in 1981, Beastie Boys struck an unlikely path to global hip hop superstardom. Here is their story, told for the first time in the words of the band. Adam “AD-ROCK” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond offer revealing and very funny accounts of their transition from teenage […]

In 2008, with help from Jay-Z and Puff, Obama got the hip-hop vote, and became the first African American to be elected president. For a brief moment the “Audacity of Hope” seemed attainable. Yet only months ago the Ferguson riots brought an abrupt end to that hope, making emerging hip-hop artists, such as J Cole […]

The Rap Year Book takes readers on a journey that begins in 1979, widely regarded as the moment rap as a genre became recognised as part of music’s landscape and comes right up to the present. Shea Serrano deftly pays homage to the most important song of each year. Serrano also examines the most important […]