Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop [Paperback]

Adam Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2009

If asked to list the greatest innovators of modern American poetry, few of us would think to include Jay-Z or Eminem in their number. And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting developments in verse today. The media uproar in response to its controversial lyrical content has obscured hip hop’s revolution of poetic craft and experience: Only in rap music can the beat of a song render poetic meter audible, allowing an MC’s wordplay to move a club-full of eager listeners.

Examining rap history’s most memorable lyricists and their inimitable techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today. Book of Rhymes explores America’s least understood poets, unpacking their surprisingly complex craft, and according rap poetry the respect it deserves.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Boston Globe
“[Bradley] lays out a nuanced, academically rigorous argument that the best hip-hop deserves attention as genuine artistry…He traces the word rhythm from the Greek rheo, or flow. Biggie had flow; Jay-Z has flow. For an English professor, Adam Bradley got some flow of his own.”

Dallas Morning News
“Excellent…Where so many hip-hop studies lean heavily on politics and sociology, Book of Rhymes is a welcome and thorough exploration of rap aesthetics that isn’t afraid to be learned.”

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
“As comfortable in the company of Jay-Z as he is with John Donne, Adam Bradley is a visionary critic, skillful and wise. His Book of Rhymes is a tour de force, brilliantly renovating hip hop criticism as he rescues the forgotten vanguard of American poetry.”

Cornel West
“Adam Bradley’s Book of Rhymes is a marvelous exploration into the poetic genius of rap and the cultural gravity of Hip Hop. His analysis is subtle, sophisticated, and soulful!”

Jeff Chang, editor, Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop
“Where some hear noise, Adam Bradley hears the past and future of poetics. With taste, precision, and style, Book of Rhymes explains the art of rap in ways as bold, lyrical, and imaginative as the art form itself. Heads and theorists will find much to love and argue with in this fine work.”

Schoolly D
“All I can say is wow—it was like somebody was reading my mind. So many books have been written about hip hop's history—that time and that magic—but if you don't get it from reading Book of Rhymes, then you're just not going to get it.”

Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“Bradley delivers the intellectual dynamite with this astonishingly researched, passionately argued glove-across-the-face challenge to traditional hip hop scholarship. Superb on every level, a revelation and a joy to read.”

ColorLines
“Bradley’s book is ultimately successful, with a readable text that can engage diehard hip-hop heads, conventional poetry buffs or any combination of the two.”

About the Author

Adam Bradley, a Harvard PhD, is Assistant Professor of English Literature at Claremont McKenna College. He lives in Claremont, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books (February 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465003478
• ISBN-13: 978-0465003471
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > History & Criticism

More About the Author

Adam Bradley is a scholar of African American literature and a writer on black popular culture. His commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal as well as on PBS, NPR, and C‐SPAN.

Adam is the author or editor of several books, including Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, The Anthology of Rap, Ralph Ellison's Three Days Before the Shooting. . ., and Ralph Ellison in Progress. Most recently, he collaborated with the rapper and actor Common on Common's memoir, One Day It'll All Make Sense.

Presently Adam is at work on several projects, including a book exploring the poetics of popular song. What unites Adam's work is his belief that the most powerful cultural expressions are equally the product of tradition and innovation. This vernacular process of fusing the inherited or even the imposed with the imagined helps explain the beauty we find in everything from a classical symphony to a gutbucket blues, from an epic poem to a rap freestyle.

Adam's work has garnered significant attention from scholars, critics, and readers alike. The New England Book Festival, the San Francisco Book Festival, and the Book of the Year Awards all honored The Anthology of Rap as one of the best anthologies of 2010. Both New York magazine and the Village Voice named it a Best Book of the Year. Three Days Before the Shooting. . . was named a Book to Watch For by Oprah's O Magazine, a Best Book of 2010 by The Root, and one of the year's best works of outsider fiction by NPR.

Adam was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and was home‐schooled by his grandparents until high school. He earned his BA at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where he began working on Ralph Ellison's papers as a nineteen-year-old assistant to Ellison's literary executor, John Callahan. Adam earned his Ph. D. in English from Harvard University, studying with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West. He is currently an associate professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder where he teaches courses in African American literature and culture. He lives in Boulder with his wife and daughter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine pick for any collection strong in contemporary music or poetry discussions, June 14, 2009

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop (Paperback)

Hip hop is poetry regardless of its beat and music connections: here a literary scholar and hip hop expert makes the case for the artistic seriousness of hip hop poetry, contending that rap may be the most revolutionary development in poetry since hip hop's birth in the South Bronx over thirty years ago. It argues the case for rap as a distinct literary tradition and makes for a fine pick for any collection strong in contemporary music or poetry discussions.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book!!!!, July 21, 2009

By 

Sam White "Sam" (Springfield MO) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop (Paperback)

This book is really great. Hip-hop fans will love it because Adam Bradley does a great job conveying his love of the music and its artistry. One really nice thing about the book is that Bradley covers a wide range of hip-hop styles and sub-genres. Folks who don't much about hip-hop will also love it because Bradley uses traditional literary categories to explain the creativity of hip-hop artists and the meaning of their songs. I think that this book could easily work in an introduction to literature class too because it shows how hip-hop illustrates many of the same traits as poetry. What is really cool about this book is that you learn a lot about poetry even though it does not really come across as an academic or scholarly book.

Whie the book is great, readers interested in the social and historical context of hip-hop will need to look to Jeff Chang's Can't Stop, Won't Stop, Tricia Rose's Black Noise, and other books. Nonetheless, I recommend this book highly. You will love it.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good read, October 28, 2009

By 

Cameron Conley Work "ScrillaCam" (Oklahoma City, OK USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop (Paperback)

I'm stll reading it but what I have read so far has showed me more about how certain emcees structure their rhymes. You'll get more understanding out of listening to Hip Hop when you read this.