The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop

Description

It has been more than thirty-five years since the first commercial recordings of hip-hop music were made. This Companion, written by renowned scholars and industry professionals reflects the passion and scholarly activity occurring in the new generation of hip-hop studies. It covers a diverse range of case studies from Nerdcore hip-hop to instrumental hip-hop to the role of rappers in the Obama campaign and from countries including Senegal, Japan, Germany, Cuba, and the UK. Chapters provide an overview of the 'four elements' of hip-hop - MCing, DJing, break dancing (or breakin'), and graffiti - in addition to key topics such as religion, theatre, film, gender, and politics. Intended for students, scholars, and the most serious of 'hip-hop heads', this collection incorporates methods in studying hip-hop flow, as well as the music analysis of hip-hop and methods from linguistics, political science, gender and film studies to provide exciting new perspectives on this rapidly developing field.

Justin A. Williams is Lecturer in Music at the University of Bristol, and the author of Rhymin and Stealin: Musical Borrowing in Hip-hop (2013). He has taught at Leeds College of Music, Lancaster University and Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and has been published in Popular Music, Popular Music History, and The Journal of Musicology. As a professional trumpet and piano player in California, he ran a successful jazz piano trio and played with the band Bucho! which won a number of Sacramento Area Music Awards and were signed to two record labels. He has co-written (with Ross Wilson) an article on digital crowd funding for The Oxford Handbook to Music and Virtuality and is co-editor, with Katherine Williams, of The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter (2016).

'... The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop provides a powerful account of what it presents, persuasively, as the most revolutionary music since rock'n'roll.' Andrew Warnes, The Times Literary Supplement 'For those new to the scene as well as hip-hop heads looking to broaden their understanding and appreciation of this complex and often misappropriated culture, Justin A. Williams's The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop stands out as a valuable addition to one's library. ... Justin A. Williams has succeeded in his aim to bring a comprehensive, globally aware and culturally situated exploration of hip-hop to light.' Patrick K. Cooper, Journal of Popular Music Education