(Part 3) Best books about rap music according to redditors

In his well-written autobiography, Prof. Green tells that when he did Buzzcocks with Boyle as guest host, the BBC had a lawyer present to censor everything from Frankie. Green says that the lawyer was not present at other recordings he attended.

Ill just make a list of some hip hop books ive read and enjoyed for those interested:
Tupac Shakur: The Life and Times of an American Icon

Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree Vol. 1, Vol 2 , and Vol 3

Jay Z's Decoded

2Pac Vs Biggie

Born To Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic

Eminem's The Way I Am

The Legends of Hip Hop

Prodigy's My Infamous Life

I've spent a lot of time thinking about why stuff like this happens. The answer I've come to is that it's not just one thing that makes lyrics bad: it's a lot of little things that are all bad in not-very-noticeable ways. You can find the list of things that I've come up with here, but you can also refer to the How to Rap book series, as it's the most-impressive resource I've come across for listing the different aspects of writing rap lyrics.

But just to list some of the major mistakes / problems I see in bad rap:

1. Good rap makes the listener feel some strong emotion: laughter, sadness, feelings of power, etc. Bad rap tends to not make the listener feel anything.
   
   
2. Good rap often tends to exaggerate the reality of the rapper in the same way that comedians do and movies do. Bad rap tends to stick to reality.
   
   
3. Good rap has the rapper's syllables timed to the beat (usually the duration of a 16th note, with double-time rap being 32nds and longer-duration syllables being held for 8th or quarter notes). Bad rap has the rapper often squeezing too many syllables into a particular duration of time and otherwise having their syllables not in time to the 16ths.
   
   
4. Good rap tends to do something that the listener has never heard before. Bad rap tends to retread ideas / techniques that the listener has already heard many times.
   
   
5. Good rap is performed well. The rapper speaks clearly and varies their delivery. Bad rap tends to have the same tone of voice throughout the song and has the rapper not articulating their syllables, so it's hard to understand what they're saying.
   
   Disclaimer: I'm not a rapper, but I like listening to rap and thinking about what separates good rap from bad rap, and I'm working on a web app (Rhymecraft) that aims to help people write better rap lyrics.

He seems to have been published in this book which looks interesting all together.

While hip hop definitely has it's issues with things like sexism and homophobia, etc. ... I don't think you'll ever find such self criticism from any other genre like hip hop tends to self criticize. Gotta love it for that.

you know what to do boys

https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Impact-Kanye-West/dp/1137574259/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=

It costs around $30 for new Paperback.

Some of these themes are treated in the book The Next Next Level, which is both about Juiceboxxx and about a journalist fan/friend of his. It's basically about what art, success, failure, ambition, etc. really mean.

Funny you mentioned "nursery rhyme dogshit", when the technique exhibited in rhyme in this passage is polysyllabic, with the rhymes averaging three syllables in length. At the beginning, we see rhymes extended to three words as the artist warps the delivery of the words to make them rhyme:

You're so fine / blow my mind
"So" and "my" usually don't rhyme, but if you pronounce them as "saw" and "mah" or "suh" and "muh", they do.

Art is subjective, and the greatest tragedy of ignorance of this nature is that no substantive demonstration of complex technique and measurable talent penetrates a closed mind. Try telling any rap hater that Lil Wayne is a literary genius.

Full movie here. Ive never seen this and based on this trailer I think it looks 'meh'. The title reminded me of "Bomb the Suburbs" which is a book that outdates this movie and is amazing.

> They transformed music piracy into a legitimate business model, successfully pulling people away from piracy by providing the service consumers were looking for.

This is basically what the Pirates Dilemma is about.

It argues we should stop fighting pirates in court, and instead compete against them in business. And it shows how throughout history this is always how businesses successfully beat pirates.

http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Wu-RZA/dp/B003F76C70/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301549616&sr=8-1

Here is the link to purchase: Amazon -$12.04

NPR article about it

Even Pitchfork loved it

Book Description:

> How does one pay homage to A Tribe Called Quest? The seminal rap group brought jazz into the genre, resurrecting timeless rhythms to create masterpieces such as The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders. Seventeen years after their last album, they resurrected themselves with an intense, socially conscious record, We Got It from Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service, which arrived when fans needed it most, in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib digs into the group’s history and draws from his own experience to reflect on how its distinctive sound resonated among fans like himself. The result is as ambitious and genre-bending as the rap group itself.

> Abdurraqib traces the Tribe's creative career, from their early days as part of the Afrocentric rap collective known as the Native Tongues, through their first three classic albums, to their eventual breakup and long hiatus. Their work is placed in the context of the broader rap landscape of the 1990s, one upended by sampling laws that forced a reinvention in production methods, the East Coast–West Coast rivalry that threatened to destroy the genre, and some record labels’ shift from focusing on groups to individual MCs. Throughout the narrative Abdurraqib connects the music and cultural history to their street-level impact. Whether he’s remembering The Source magazine cover announcing the Tribe’s 1998 breakup or writing personal letters to the group after bandmate Phife Dawg’s death, Abdurraqib seeks the deeper truths of A Tribe Called Quest; truths that—like the low end, the bass—are not simply heard in the head, but felt in the chest.

• The Accidental Billionaires - Ben Mezrich The story of Facebook, basically the book of The Social Network.
  
  
• Empire State of Mind - Zack O' Malley Greenburg The story of Jay-Z, focusing on the economic side. More focused on his business ways than his own autobigraphy.

Death Rap Tupac: A Life

what about this one any good? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Story-Eminem-Updated-Hasted/dp/1849384584/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4RSQDSYHGBRBT0YMTAW1

& a must own hardcover my guy phade is a legend, https://www.amazon.com/Shirt-Kings-Pioneers-Hip-Fashion/dp/9185639575 bless.

Have you read [Back In The Day, My Life and Times with Tupac Shakur] (http://www.amazon.com/Back-Day-Times-Tupac-Shakur-ebook/dp/B00ATLA8IO/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398633734&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=back+in+the+day+my+lfe+and+times+with+tupac+shakur) by Darrin Keith Bastfield? If not I highly recommend it for anyone big Tupac fan. Its written by a guy that went to Baltimore School of the Arts with Tupac, recorded raps with him, and briefly lived with him. It's a great insight into what Tupac was like as a young teenager.

source: https://www.amazon.com/Boston-Celtics-Auerbach-Legends-Moments/dp/1683581970/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=john+havlicek+book&qid=1556299804&s=gateway&sr=8-7


and i'm not a child so i don't "flair up"