All Music Guide Required Listening Series: Old School Rap (All Music Guide Required Listening Old School Rap and Hip-Hop) (Paperback)

by VARIOUS (Author), Chris Woodstra (Editor), John Bush (Editor), Stephen Thomas Erlewine (Editor)
Key Phrases: cosmic slop, dirty mind, human beat box, West Coast, New York, James Brown (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
With more than 500 reviews plus artist bios and the true tales of the birth of the art form, this is without a doubt the one book every hip-hop fan and would-be rapper needs.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: BACKBEAT BOOKS (February 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879309164
• ISBN-13: 978-0879309169
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #691,010 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't support publishers/authors like this., June 5, 2009

By	Adam Wroblewski (Milwaukee, WI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Do you love hip hop? Do you love hip hop history? If you answered yes, this book is not for you.

Not only is it supposed to be "Old School", which it mostly isn't, it takes it upon itself to just redefine hip hop culture's history.

Perhaps the authors should have researched the topic, rather than just coming up with their own timeline. Run DMC was the FIRST "new school" group, everything previous dating back to 1972-1973 is "Old School".

Golden Age is part of the New School, from the late 80s to the early 90s.

With the histories of other genres of music, such as Blues, Jazz, Classical, etc., being taught, studied and defined, the lack of historical respect for Hip Hop (in a musical sense) by not only its own artists and fans, but outsiders as well, will do great harm in solidifying its place in American & World History.

Every musical genre has had movements and eras, and they are well defined. Talk to someone that knows Rock music, if you say "When was the New Wave movement going on?", they surely won't say, "I don't know...the 1960's?" Talk to jazz musician...if you say, "When was the Bebob thing really emerging?", they won't say, "I think the 80's..." They know their stuff because there's a solid, traceable history there. But talk to someone who says they know hip hop...chances are, they'll say Old School is whatever they perceive to be old.

If Hip Hop's history is to be left up to each individual to define their own terms, and therefore propagating their own terms and timelines to "outsiders" (which is happening widespread now), Hip Hop's history will be A) Lost and forgotten or B) Never taken seriously because it's own members don't take it seriously.

This is speaking of the majority of people, there's obvious exceptions of young cats today knowing the connections of their past, and outsiders knowing the basic history going back to the early 70s.

Hip Hop should never be "stuck in the past", it should be progressive, as should every musical movement...but if eras are not defined, history is not known (not even on a base level), and the art is not respected, the genre's progression will halt, and settle to a level of plain mediocrity, as Hip Hop has by and large done.

I'm not saying today's artists need to memorize every Tribe Called Quest album and be able to name Treacherous 3's DJ, but they should at least know they were in two different, but important, eras in hip hop's culture.

Much of the (oblivious) confusion occurs because the term "old school" as pertaining to things outside of hip hop, denotes the older fashioned (or more traditional way) of doing something. If someone plays baseball and bats with no gloves on, they say, "Ah, that's old school!"

Therein lies the dilemma...if hip hop had named its eras differently, we would not have this problem...but they used a term that means one thing in hip hop (a defined historical era) and another, wider meaning outside of hip hop culture.

If books like this, with minimal research done, are taken as truth, the cultures history will be made even more diluted.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Overview Of The Roots Of Hip Hop, November 20, 2008

By	Thomas Magnum (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

All Music Guide is one of the go to places for ratings and reviews of albums and this compilation of old school hip-hop is no exception. While they don't dole out a one to five star rating as they do on their website, AMG selected a nice cross section of the genre from heavyweight acts like The Notorious B.I.G., Ice Cube, Public Enemy & A Tribe Called Quest to lesser known ones like Main Source & The Jungle Brothers. They also sprinkle artists who obtained some mass appeal like Kriss Kross who aren't exactly thought of a old school hip hop. There is also a section on soul & jazz artists whose music is notably and heavily sampled.