HipHopdom

Whitbread prize winner Patrick Neate is a writer and journalist best known for his articles published by the British media including The Guardian and The Independent, newspaper in which his story about Afro Reggae, A Rio’s hip-hop band, caught the eye of the society who learned how young musicians are involved in social movements, by the time when this Latin American musicians visited Manchester.

However, Patrick’s interest in hip hop led him to jot down a list of ten books that he considers key reading for anyone wanting to understand a little bit more what the hip-hop culture means and how it influences the new generations.

Patrick Neate’s top ten hip-hop list include some of the best classic books on the genre:

1. The White Boy Shuffle, by Paul Beatty, published by Picador (2001)
2. Hip Hop America by Nelson George, published by (Non-Classics) Penguin (1999)
3. Westsiders by William Shaw, published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (2001)
4. Egotrip’s Book Of Rap Lists, published by Griffin (1999)
5. Six Out Seven by Jess Mowry, published by Anchor (1994)
6. The Art Of War by Sun-Tzu, originally published by Oxford University Press (1971)
7. Rap Attack: African Rap To Global Hip Hop by David Toop, published by Medientrum (1984)
8. Pimp by Iceberg Slim., published by Holloway House (1987)
9. No Logo by Naomi Klein, published by Picador (2000)
10. Black Noise: Rap Music And Black Culture In Contemporary America by Tricia Rose, published by Wesleyan (1994)

Besides the good recommendation for reading, a visit to Patrick Neate’s website will sure surprise you.

Although Nas is one of the top rappers in the hip-hop music scene, he is mostly known for his hard-die opinions bringing to people’s attention facts that he likes, dislikes or simply are out of curiosity from his very personal point of view.

This time Nas is protesting after watching Fox News coverage of Barack Obama activities confirming what all people know from coast to coast; Fox is a racist-oriented network. Joining in New York City with activist groups ColorofChange and MoveOn, Nas is heading the delivering of over 600,000 petitions to the TV network, headquartered in this city.

In Nas’ own words, “Fox poisons the country with racist propaganda and tries to call it news.” Fox News has been broadcasting what a producer defined as a “poor judgement” after the network referred to Michelle Obama derogatorily past month.

Despite Fox apologized saying that “Fox News believes in all protesters exercising their right to free speech including Nas who has an album to promote,” this comment was considered by some people as a personal attack against Nas after his non-named album released the past week in which the song “Sly Fox” is targeting Fox Network “poisoning” activities.

Either way, Fox News is aware that if Barack Obama takes office as the next President of the United States, the future of the network can be put, if not at risk, in a very hard situation so as a way to “demonstrate” they have not racial prejudices, Bill Hemmer will be interviewing Obama on weekend.

Now let’s wait for Nas versus Fox, what will he be doing next?

Download Nas New Album

Chicano Rap is the name of a new book exploring Latino hip-hop feelings in lyrics, beat, singing and dancing back in the early 1980s when hip-hop culture also hit several other ethnic groups.

In America, Texas, Chicago, the Mid-West, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and northern California are the places where Chicano culture predominates and the book Chicano Rap discusses the historical, political, economic and cultural context of the young rappers emerged from these areas.

Chicano Rap was written by Assistant Professor Pancho McFarland at the Sociology faculty of Chicago State University, and analyzes 70 representative Chicano rappers and the lyrics of about 500 hip-hop songs in which misogyny and violence are common topics.

Introducing the book as a hip-hop project, McFarland takes you through the following chapters, Reading Chicano Rap: The Patriarchal Dominance Paradigm in the Postindustrial Barrio, Chicano Rap Primer: A Guide to Artists and Genres, Machos y Malas Mujeres: The Gendered Image, Sexual Agency in Chicana Rap: JV Versus Ms. Sancha, Violence and Chicano Rap: Mirror of a Belligerent Society, Chicano Rap on Globalization, and Confronting Dominance and Constructing Relationships with Young People.

Questioned about the term “Chicano”, Professor McFarland explained, “I prefer the term ‘Chicano’ as opposed to other ethnic identifiers for several reasons. First, often the rappers of Mexican and Mexican American descent in the United States on whom I focus here use ‘Chicano’ as their central racial/ethnic identifier.”

Even though, hip-hop is still heavily rooted in the African American culture or, can you name a few Chicano rappers or Chicano hip-hop acts that you remember?

Many of you may remember Alan Lawrence Sitomer being named California’s Teacher of the Year back in 2007, but he is mostly known by his novels, HomeBoyz, The Hoopster, and its sequel Hip-Hop High School, urban trilogy published by Disney.

About this book, Nancy Mendez, a high school student said,  ”Hip Hop High School is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. It has many of the issues that teenagers face in their present day life. It even allows those who don’t face these situations realize what’s going on in our society. I only hope that many more people read this book, it can perhaps lead to a great change in their life.”

As a writer, Alan wants young adult readers engaged with the topics of his books speaking about every day issues they can see around as part of their own environment and not like a somewhat fairy tales when it comes to reading the classic of Literature.

Nonetheless, Alan Lawrence Sitomer was also named Teacher of the Year by California Literacy in 2003, and his book  Hip-Hop Poetry and The Classics is a classroom text reading across in most high schools nationwide.

Popularly known as Mr. Alan by his students, this talented writer lives in Los Angeles with his wife, daughter and pet, working as inner-city high school English teacher and professor in the Graduate School of Education at the closer Loyola Marymount University.

About his work as an author, Mr. Alan says “Sometimes I use real people as the basis for characters and sometimes I make up characters and try to fashion them into real people.” Either way, young people feel identified with his stories and that is the clue of his success. 

RIP

Not Hip-Hop related? I think mafia flicks and video games very relate to hip-hop, especially when this is combination of both. GTA series are ones of the best video games, San Andreas was my shit… and it still is. GTA IV also looks promising.

There are a lot of discussions going on these two rappers. So let’s get this straight. Vote & Discuss!

Lyrics: Black Republican | Success

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That’s not even funny. What he said, Lambo don’t care about the race? It don’t care about looks either. Cam lost…

As you know Killa had to show up in front of Apollo Theatre yesterday, but there was no sign of Cam’ron. So basically Cam just giving interviews and not showing up in the public. Video from Ill Doctrine.

P.S. If you still haven’t Public Enemy #1, download it at Killa’s Myspace.