Book Cover Image of Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop (Revised) by Adam Bradley

Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop (Revised)
by Adam Bradley

    Publication Date: Jun 27, 2017
    List Price: $18.99
    Format: Paperback, 266 pages
    Classification: Nonfiction
    ISBN13: 9780465094400
    Imprint: Civitas Book Publisher
    Publisher: Hachette Book Group
    Parent Company: Lagardère Group

    Paperback Description:

    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."—Schoolly D

    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.