Hip Hop. The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. 1st Edition. Small quarto, publisher's illustrated stiff paper wraps.
Counterculture chronicler, marijuana activist, and hip hop scholar Steven Hager’s seminal history of the early days of hip hop. An amateur anthropologist, Hager began researching the movement in the South Bronx while working as a freelance reporter in the late 1970s. After publishing a profile of DJ and rapper Afrika Bambaataa in the Village Voice in 1982—notably the first appearance of the term hip-hop in print—Hager began work on what would become the first history of the burgeoning subculture. Beginning with movement’s development from the late 60s when street gangs dominated the Bronx, Hager’s survey charts the history of the musical style, along the way delineating the evolution of the art, dance, and fashion born of the inner city. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white photos, drawings, and reproductions, including photos by Sylvia Plachy and Eric Kroll, archival photos by Charles Ahearn and Martha Cooper, and a section of illustrations charting the development of hip hop fashion by jazz saxophonist Richard Lee Sisco; with slang dictionary and selected discography. Light rubbing to edges, small abrasion to lower wrap. Near fine. Scarce. Item #12285
$500.00