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The Vibe History of Hip Hop
Music, fashion, dance, graffiti, movies, videos, and business: it's all in this brilliant tale of a cultural revolution that spans race and gender, language and nationality. The definitive history of an underdocumented music genre, The VIBE History of Hip Hop tells the full story of this grassroots cultural movement, from its origins on the streets of the Bronx to its explosion as an international phenomenon. Illustrated with almost 200 photos, and accompanied by comprehensive discographies, this book is a vivid review of the hip hop world through the eyes and ears of more than 50 of the finest music writers and cultural critics at work today, including Danyel Smith, Greg Tate, Anthony deCurtis, dream hampton, Neil Strauss, and Bönz Malone.
"A history? No. A story, really. A tale from the dark side. In this book, hip hop is all. It's always there. Like hip hop, this book is about the intense kind of aspiration that comes from having little. About holding and rhyming into a microphone. Mixing and scratching. Guns pain blood. Desire desperation truth true love. Art and mystery and metaphor. The singularity of voice. The magnificence of ingenious sampling. The glory of a beat. This book is that story."
-- From the Preface by Danyel Smith, editor-in-chief of VIBE, the voice of the hip hop generation, presents the essence of hip hop.
"A history? No. A story, really. A tale from the dark side. In this book, hip hop is all. It's always there. Like hip hop, this book is about the intense kind of aspiration that comes from having little. About holding and rhyming into a microphone. Mixing and scratching. Guns pain blood. Desire desperation truth true love. Art and mystery and metaphor. The singularity of voice. The magnificence of ingenious sampling. The glory of a beat. This book is that story."
-- From the Preface by Danyel Smith, editor-in-chief of VIBE, the voice of the hip hop generation, presents the essence of hip hop.
432 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1999
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291 people want to read
About the author
Alan Light
26 books72 followersA veteran music journalist, Alan Light is the author of The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah" and Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain. Light was previously the editor-in-chief of Vibe and Spin and a senior writer for Rolling Stone. He is also a frequent contributor to the New York Times.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 26, 2024
INTERVIEWS AND ESSAYS COVERING THE FIRST 20 YEARS OF HIP HOP
Editor Alan Light notes, in his Introduction to this 1999 book, “Six years ago, VIBE was launched to document the urban culture that had exploded during the previous decade. I have been fortunate enough to be part of that magazine ever since its creation, and to watch it grow to its current status as the definitive voice of its generation. It has been a dream of mine to put together a complete history of hip hop, to trace the music from its roots to its future. The twentieth anniversary of ‘Rapper’s Delight’… seemed the perfect opportunity to compile such a book. This is not a story that any single person can tell, so this book brings together more than fifty of today’s finest writers weighing in on the artists, scenes, and movements that comprise hip hop’s epic history.”
Sia Michel notes in her section on LL Cool James, “Nearly 15 years after he first declared ‘I Need a Beat,’ James Todd Smith had a bite of everything a rap mogul wants in the age of make-‘em-say-diversification, not to mention a wife, three kids, and a Reformed Role Model persona. He was Ladies Love Cool James, a bankable brand name. All he lacked was street cred. And his hair.” (Pg. 81) She adds, “Apolitical and Everyman but always black-identified, he never threatened whitey, although the occasional lunch-with-Tipper debacle earned him sell-out… status before selling out was trendy.” (Pg. 83)
Matt Diehl observes, “When African-Americans complained about white rappers’ cultural imperialism, Vanilla Ice made it painfully obvious, from his stiff rhyme flow and awkward use of rap slang (at one point he boasted how he strapped on his jimmy, thinking jimmy meant ‘condom’ instead of ‘penis’) to his appropriate of African-America college chants for ‘Ice Ice Baby’s’ chorus. Following pop rap tradition, Ice also bit the song’s hook wholesale off a huge hit---in this case, Queen and David Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure.’” (Pg. 124)
He continues, “Hammer exemplified one key difference between East Coast and West Coast rap: just as New York is the home of edgy independent movies and Hollywood that of slick entertainments, Cali rappers aimed to please the largest possible audience while the jazzbo-virtuoso New York rhymers were often more interested in demonstrating skills to their peers more than anything else.” (Pg. 128)
Gabriel Alvarez observes, “As long as the dough is rolling, the gangsta formula stays the same. Westside Connection went platinum in 1996 on some ol’ gangsta s__t. Cube’s man, Mack 10, is representing game his mentor kicked a decade ago…and going gold. And although the old school can be credited as the fathers of the playa movement that’s so prevalent today, smart gangsta rappers never did dirt just for the sake of doin’ dirt. Instead they endorsed upward mobility, knowing that street crime was merely a way of paying dues until one could parlay into a more lush lifestyle. Ice-T, for instance, always considered himself a hustler, not a gangbanger.” (Pg. 293)
Less a “history” than a lavishly-photographed overview with abundant interviews and essays, this book will be of great interest to fans of hip hop and Rap.
Editor Alan Light notes, in his Introduction to this 1999 book, “Six years ago, VIBE was launched to document the urban culture that had exploded during the previous decade. I have been fortunate enough to be part of that magazine ever since its creation, and to watch it grow to its current status as the definitive voice of its generation. It has been a dream of mine to put together a complete history of hip hop, to trace the music from its roots to its future. The twentieth anniversary of ‘Rapper’s Delight’… seemed the perfect opportunity to compile such a book. This is not a story that any single person can tell, so this book brings together more than fifty of today’s finest writers weighing in on the artists, scenes, and movements that comprise hip hop’s epic history.”
Sia Michel notes in her section on LL Cool James, “Nearly 15 years after he first declared ‘I Need a Beat,’ James Todd Smith had a bite of everything a rap mogul wants in the age of make-‘em-say-diversification, not to mention a wife, three kids, and a Reformed Role Model persona. He was Ladies Love Cool James, a bankable brand name. All he lacked was street cred. And his hair.” (Pg. 81) She adds, “Apolitical and Everyman but always black-identified, he never threatened whitey, although the occasional lunch-with-Tipper debacle earned him sell-out… status before selling out was trendy.” (Pg. 83)
Matt Diehl observes, “When African-Americans complained about white rappers’ cultural imperialism, Vanilla Ice made it painfully obvious, from his stiff rhyme flow and awkward use of rap slang (at one point he boasted how he strapped on his jimmy, thinking jimmy meant ‘condom’ instead of ‘penis’) to his appropriate of African-America college chants for ‘Ice Ice Baby’s’ chorus. Following pop rap tradition, Ice also bit the song’s hook wholesale off a huge hit---in this case, Queen and David Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure.’” (Pg. 124)
He continues, “Hammer exemplified one key difference between East Coast and West Coast rap: just as New York is the home of edgy independent movies and Hollywood that of slick entertainments, Cali rappers aimed to please the largest possible audience while the jazzbo-virtuoso New York rhymers were often more interested in demonstrating skills to their peers more than anything else.” (Pg. 128)
Gabriel Alvarez observes, “As long as the dough is rolling, the gangsta formula stays the same. Westside Connection went platinum in 1996 on some ol’ gangsta s__t. Cube’s man, Mack 10, is representing game his mentor kicked a decade ago…and going gold. And although the old school can be credited as the fathers of the playa movement that’s so prevalent today, smart gangsta rappers never did dirt just for the sake of doin’ dirt. Instead they endorsed upward mobility, knowing that street crime was merely a way of paying dues until one could parlay into a more lush lifestyle. Ice-T, for instance, always considered himself a hustler, not a gangbanger.” (Pg. 293)
Less a “history” than a lavishly-photographed overview with abundant interviews and essays, this book will be of great interest to fans of hip hop and Rap.
Read
June 7, 2016This book was very interesting with history. My dad has a lot of these singers albums and listened to them. Which was very cool to me. I like and know some of these singers too even though they are much older than me. I see this as an art not a crime or junk music. This shaped music there will be nothing ever in the future that can replace this old school hip hop.
September 3, 2007
this is not that good. the pieces are too short. ha ha, too short!
October 5, 2008
Love Vibe. It Keeps Me Informed On Dates Important to The Black Community
September 16, 2010
Half of what this Hip Hop Scholar knows
Currently reading
July 10, 2011I really want that one on ebay for $150 by jaysm 12 because it was to be one of the very first 10 made and had bonus thing in it but who ever gets it is going to be lucky.
November 19, 2014
nicely put together
September 18, 2024
I read this maybe twenty years ago but I remember it being just what the title implies: a clear and comprehensive history of hip hop.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews