That's the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader - Tapa dura

"Hip-hop, like all living artistic expression, constantly regenerates, turning innovation into convention, ‘datcourse’ into discourse, vernacularisms into commodity or the precious art object. As this second edition of the groundbreaking That’s the Joint! shows, hip-hop scholarship has done the same: moving, grooving, breaking, and sampling the best ideas from an interdisciplinary community theater of writers whose insights chart a vibrant sector of the American musical landscape."

--Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music, University of Pennsylvania

"A standard bearer text in Hip Hop Studies. Sweeping in scope and rigorous in analyses."

--T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of African American Diaspora Studies and French, Vanderbilt University

"I'm going use this book when I teach US history to high school students from now on. In the past decade there's been a mania for all the music and fashions of the early 1980's, which none of the aficionados are old enough to remember. It would be wonderful for them to learn where it all originated."

--Ben Wolinsky, Blogger on Olive Branch United

This newly expanded and revised second edition of That's the Joint! brings together the most important and up-to-date hip-hop scholarship in one comprehensive volume. Presented thematically, the selections address the history of hip-hop, identity politics of the "hip-hop nation," debates of "street authenticity," social movements and activism, aesthetics, technologies of production, hip-hop as a cultural industry, and much more. Further, this new edition also includes greater coverage of gender, racial diversity in hip-hop, hip-hop’s global influences, and examines hip-hop's role in contemporary politics.

With pedagogical features including author biographies, headnotes summarizing key points of articles, and discussion questions, That's the Joint! is essential reading for anyone seeking deeper understanding of the profound impact of hip-hop as an intellectual, aesthetic, and cultural movement.