Customer Reviews

Tha Global Cipha: Hip Hop Culture and Consciousness

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This has to be the best treatments I've seen on hip hop as a world cultural movement. The style and presentation are remarkable, matched only by the hip hop trilogy Nation Conscious Rap, Twisted Tales, and Street Conscious Rap, which presented us with hiphography as a way of researching cultural and social movements. The authors more than fulfill the path blazed by Sterling Brown, Lewis Jones, and others in their studies of Black music and culture in the deep South in the 1930s and 40s, which brought us the rich reservoir of research on the blues. Now, thanks to this project, we have the right corollary for hip hop culture and music.

Once in a while a book is born that is one in a million. You don't just read what's in it, you read what's in yourself as well. Tha Global Cipha is definitely one of those books. Experts don't do the talking in this book, it's the artists and each one challenges your idea of hiphop. I've seen Tha Global Cipha described as an encyclopedia...if so, it is perhaps the most refreshing example of the encyclopedic concept I've ever seen! The artists interviewed speak for themselves about their worldview and their passion: hiphop. They cover everything from history of hiphop to the language of hiphop, to art history, to personal histories, to religion and spirituality, to local and world politics. Another encyclopedia on the same subject would probably have had all these topics written up in dry stand-alone chapters with an authoritarian third person voice, but here you have each artist's authoritative voice drawing you to think of what's been said in the other interviews and providing you with different pieces of the ever-changing and growing tapestry that is hiphop. Simply put, while the book is cohesive the voices from its pages can easily drive you to ask more questions about hiphop. That's when you know you've been "hit wit it!"

Some of my favorite interviews in here were the ones with Sonia Sanchez, Beanie Sigel, Youcef, Les Nubians...It's hard to say I have favorites though, because each interview is outstanding on its own. Some of the interviews are one-on-one while others are with a group so you not only have the method of the interview as the source of information but group interviews as well-- a multiplicity of voices discussing hiphop, philosophizing about hiphop, describing it, defining it, even arguing about it! I also really appreciated the pictures that the authors included along with each interview.

I believe this book is going to increase in value over time. While hiphop is constantly developing all over the world, this book will serve as a living testimony to how some of the greatest thought of it in our current day and time. While I wish I had a tiny bit more information about the interviews like when each one took place, the book overall is exquisite and proves that hiphop is not something experts can sit back and decontextualize to death....it's a living phenomena that forces you to look deeper and look to its source. I cannot thank the authors enough for it. I cannot recommend it enough.

I am amazed by this book (as all of the other books by Spady and Alim). No series has so brilliantly addressed the sociopolitical context of the hip hop community from the perspectives of the artists themselves.

This latest book, Tha Global Cipha, expands this analysis to the international landscape, further and expertly challenging deeply-settled myths about the role of hip hop in popular culture, and about the African American contribution to social thought beyond the United States. I loved how the conversations included valuable information and insight about reggaeton in Latin America, dancehall in the Caribbean, and Hip Hop all over the US, and places like Senegal, France, Egypt, etc., etc.

It's defiitely worth checking out!

This is the second book by Spady that I have read and I have been consistently impressed with his maverick in-depth interviews. While most interviews you read out there consist of shameless self promotion and questions that reveal little insight and respect for rap artists, Spady shows us a nuanced understanding of the rapper's point of view that really allows the artists to express themselves.

Like Street Conscious Rap, this book offers a plethora of interviews with hip-hop royalty. This book, however, covers hip hop from all over globe, covering more spheres of rap than most headz know exist. My friend from the French speaking part of Switzerland even bought this because he loves the French rappers interviewed in this book.

Whether you are into commercial, underground, old school, true school, or whatever rap, this book has something for you.

This is one of the best books on hip-hop yet...