When Wax Poetics debuted in 2001, many magazines were covering the artists of the day, but coverage on classic material was noticeably lacking. This second volume of Wax Poetics Anthology continues in the magazine’s tradition of bridging the gap. From jazz pioneers like Eugene McDaniels, Sun Ra, and Joe Zawinul to influential Hip Hop artists like DJ Premier and the Beastie Boys, Wax Poetics Anthology, Volume 2 presents a diverse array of musical puzzle pieces and gives readers the opportunity to make the connections themselves.

    Before it hits the wall, graffiti is often planned out in a black book - a common artist's sketchbook sometimes called a "piece book" - "piece" being short for "masterpiece." Well-worn and dog-eared, these books are used to develop and trade ideas with other graffiti writers, and they may end up being passed along from artist to artist, becoming unique records of creative expression. "Piecebook: The Secret Drawings of Graffiti Writers" chronicles the evolution of graffiti via images that weren't intended for everyday people to see, focusing on the works of Germany City writers active from 1970s until the mid-1980s. Bold works from graffiti history's most important sources or "seeds" - Zephyr, Dondi, Daze, CRASH, Lady Pink, T-Kid, CAP, and Ghost, among others - represent a dizzying array of techniques and styles.

    Focusing closely on language, these scholars of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, cultural studies, and critical pedagogies offer linguistic insights to the growing scholarship on Hip Hop Culture, while reorienting their respective fields by paying closer attention to processes of globalization and localization.The book engages complex processes such as transnationalism, (im)migration, cultural flow, and diaspora in an effort to expand current theoretical approaches to language choice and agency, speech style and stylization, codeswitching and language mixing, crossing and sociolinguistic variation, and language use and globalization. Moving throughout the Global Hip Hop Nation, through scenes as diverse as Hong Kong's urban center, Germany's Mannheim inner-city district of Weststadt, the Brazilian favelas, the streets of Lagos and Dar es Salaam, and the hoods of the San Francisco Bay Area, this global intellectual cipha breaks new ground in the ethnographic study of language and popular culture.

    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.

    Beginning with seminal works by such writers as Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim and culminating in contemporary fiction, autobiography, and poetry, Hip Hop literature is exerting the same kind of influence as Hip Hop music, fashion, and culture. Through more than 180 alphabetically arranged entries, this encyclopedia surveys the world of Hip Hop literature and places it in its social and cultural contexts. Entries cite works for further reading, and a bibliography concludes the volume.Coverage includes authors, genres, and works, as well as on the musical artists, fashion designers, directors, and other figures who make up the context of Hip Hop literature. Entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia concludes with a selected, general bibliography. Students in literature classes will value this guide to an increasingly popular body of literature, while students in social studies classes will welcome its illumination of American cultural diversity.

    The intensity and extent of the devastation permeated the landscape. It was an awesome mess, not just another neighborhood, but another realm, visible but incomprehensible. The Bronx came undone in a confluence of unfortunate circumstances: the life cycle of community, rampant city planning, economic change, racism, poverty, failed hopes, drugs, crime, abandonment, counterproductive government response. It was destroyed for profit. The entire story has yet to be told. A friend suggested to photographer Lisa Kahane that she record it for a time when it would be a memory, which was then impossible to imagine. The ruins of the immediate past overwhelmed any idea of a future. Ironically, Kahane had a good time in the Bronx. People smiled and said, “Throw me a photo!” Few objected to having their picture taken and no one tried to take her camera away. They wanted their story told. Any discomfort the camera might inflict was nothing compared to what they’d endured. The result, Do No Give Way to Evil: Photographs of the South Bronx, 1979–1987 , is an extraordinary document of devastation and rejuvenation, as Kahane records the first seeds of rebuilding. Throughout this desolate world, the people live alongside abandoned buildings and debris-strewn lots, carrying on their business with civic pride. Though the buildings may be ghosts of their former selves, the spirit of the people holds strong. With an essay by Peter Frank and text by the photographer, John Ahearn, CRASH, DAZE, Jane Dickson, Stefan Eins, John Fekner, Joe Lewis, SHARP, Rigoberto Torres.