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Product Description
The Metro, March 2007
(Total Chaos) is a lively anthology of essays from the front line
of hip hop, reflecting the staggering impact of the genre on art, dance,
literature, film and virtually every other artistic medium."
of hip hop, reflecting the staggering impact of the genre on art, dance,
literature, film and virtually every other artistic medium."
Product Description
The most innovative and provocative voices in hip-hop assess the future of the most important cultural movement of our time. Music journalist and award-winning author, Jeff Chang presents a stunning and incisive look at hip-hop in the voices of those most intimately involved - prominent artists, writers, musicians and performers, who consider not simply where hip-hop has been but where its going. Essays include: acclaimed actor, playwright and performance artist Danny Hoch on how hip-hop defined the aesthetics of a generation; Rock Steady Crew b-boy turned celebrated visual artist DOZE on the uses and limits of a "hip-hop" identity; Def Poetry Jam's Suheir Hammad on the urgent intersection between arts and activism after Hurricane Katrina; and cultural critics Greg Tate, Mark Anthony Neal, Brian "B+" Cross and Vijay Prashad in a roundtable examination of aesthetics after the decline of the 1980s Multiculturalism movement. Infused with the movement's grit, funk and brutal honesty, "Total Chaos" is a unique and indispensable survey of the hip-hop generation's contribution to the arts.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The title is misleading - "the art and aesthetics of Hip Hop"... it barely touches on the 4 elements of Hip Hop (MCing, DJing, B-Boying, graffiti), and instead talks about 'Hip Hop' literature, theater, and other non-central aspects.
A book actually sticking to the title and breaking down the art and aesthetics of the 4 elements of Hip Hop would have been a great book - this book should have been called "some bits about b-boying and graffiti and then a lot of random things which I pulled out of a hat and are sort of related to Hip Hop" (though not the catchiest title, I agree).
Jeff Chang's intro made me laugh where he begins, "what you hold in your hands is not another book about rap music. This is about hip-hop".
This is funny on two levels - a) as I've just mentioned it doesn't cover the elements of Hip Hop solidly in the first place and b) it makes it sound like we're swamped with books on rap music.
I can count the number of books that actually properly focus on the music on a single hand - the majority of supposed Hip Hop books are academic dissertations on multiculturalism, race, politics, feminism, and so on... and this book seems to mostly be adding to that huge stack of not-particularly-Hip-Hoppy 'Hip Hop' books.
It's not so much that this is a terrible book, because there are some interesting parts, it's just that it needed a lot more focus to bring it in line with the awesome idea of the title. If you took maybe the interviews with the b-boys and graffiti guys, and then cut it down to just the bits dealing with their aesthetics, and then you added sections on DJing and MCing, and tied it all together, you'd have a book that did what it says on the front.
As it is, the different contributors are simply left to wander through their own spheres, mostly rambling, and most Hip Hop fans will be wondering when they can actually read about something that seems relevant.
A book actually sticking to the title and breaking down the art and aesthetics of the 4 elements of Hip Hop would have been a great book - this book should have been called "some bits about b-boying and graffiti and then a lot of random things which I pulled out of a hat and are sort of related to Hip Hop" (though not the catchiest title, I agree).
Jeff Chang's intro made me laugh where he begins, "what you hold in your hands is not another book about rap music. This is about hip-hop".
This is funny on two levels - a) as I've just mentioned it doesn't cover the elements of Hip Hop solidly in the first place and b) it makes it sound like we're swamped with books on rap music.
I can count the number of books that actually properly focus on the music on a single hand - the majority of supposed Hip Hop books are academic dissertations on multiculturalism, race, politics, feminism, and so on... and this book seems to mostly be adding to that huge stack of not-particularly-Hip-Hoppy 'Hip Hop' books.
It's not so much that this is a terrible book, because there are some interesting parts, it's just that it needed a lot more focus to bring it in line with the awesome idea of the title. If you took maybe the interviews with the b-boys and graffiti guys, and then cut it down to just the bits dealing with their aesthetics, and then you added sections on DJing and MCing, and tied it all together, you'd have a book that did what it says on the front.
As it is, the different contributors are simply left to wander through their own spheres, mostly rambling, and most Hip Hop fans will be wondering when they can actually read about something that seems relevant.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
The anthology includes interviews, first-person experience and analysis
4 Mar 2007
Format:Paperback
Most books on hip hop fall into the music category: not so TOTAL CHAOS: THE ART AND AESTHETICS OF HIP-HOP, compiled and edited by Jeff Chang whose contributors informatively and thoughtful consider the evolution, presence, and impact of hip-hop as a cultural expression and social commentary. From its commercial world to its cultural and artistic roots, TOTAL CHAOS offers students of sociology an excellent survey that runs the gamut from gender issues to artistic conflicts within the hiphop environment. The anthology includes interviews, first-person experience and analysis yet is lively enough for the general-interest library, as well.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Total Chaos
14 Oct 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Great book. Everything you would want in an academic book. Highly recommend it to your friends
0 of 76 people found the following review helpful
Total Stupidity
25 Oct 2008
Format:Paperback
A book written by morons for morons. There is no aesthetics in hip hop. There is, however, in Debussy, Ravel, Chopin, Mozart.
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