Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture

New York in the 1970s was a place of great social discord and fragmentation, but also of incredible musical and cultural diversity. Studio 54 was where disco began, the punk scene found a home at CBGB's, and hip hop traces it roots to the streets and block parties of South Bronx. Mickey Hess and his fellow contributors sketch the path and “unique contributions” of hip hop from its earliest days (1973), starting with acknowledged founding fathers, Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash, and bringing us right up to date with Jay‐Z and Kanye West, two hugely popular mainstream performers (2007). Hess...