The definitive account of rap and hip hop as forms of American poetry Bradley is a visionary critic, skillful and wise....
Examining rap history\'s most memorable lyricists and their inimitable techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argue.
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.
And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting developments in verse today.
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.
Book of Rhymes explores America\'s least understood poets, unpacking their surprisingly complex craft, and according rap poetry the respect it deserves.
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.
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.
And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting developments in verse today.
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.
Updated to reflect nearly a decade of the genre\'s evolution, Book of Rhymes remains the definitive work on the poetry of hip hop.
Examining the language and techniques of hip hop\'s most memorable artists, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that a new world of rhythm and rhyme awaits us if we put aside preconceptions and encounter rap with new ears and new eyes.
Book of Rhymes explores America\'s least-understood poets by unpacking their complex craft and according them the respect they deserve as lyricists.
Often overshadowed by the beat, bluster, and hype surrounding the music, lyrics are the heart of hip hop.
Rap may be the most revolutionary development in poetry over the past forty years, yet its originality is hidden in plain sight. --Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Book of Rhymes is a tour de force, brilliantly renovating hip hop criticism as lit] rescues the forgotten vanguard of American poetry.
The definitive account of rap and hip hop as forms of American poetry Bradley is a visionary critic, skillful and wise...
