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Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop
It's not just rap music. Hip-hop has transformed theater, dance, performance, poetry, literature, fashion, design, photography, painting, and film, to become one of the most far-reaching and transformative arts movements of the past two decades.American Book Award-winning journalist Jeff Chang, author of the acclaimed Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, assembles some of the most innovative and provocative voices in hip-hop to assess the most important cultural movement of our time. It's an incisive look at hip-hop arts in the voices of the pioneers, innovators, and mavericks.With an introductory survey essay by Chang, the anthology includes: Greg Tate, Mark Anthony Neal, Brian “B+” Cross, and Vijay Prashad examining hip-hop aesthetics in the wake of multiculturalism. Joan Morgan and Mark Anthony Neal discussing gender relations in hip-hop. Hip-hop novelists Danyel Smith and Adam Mansbach on "street lit" and "lit hop". Actor, playwright, and performance artist Danny Hoch on how hip-hop defined the aesthetics of a generation. Rock Steady Crew b-boy-turned-celebrated visual artist DOZE on the uses and limits of a "hip-hop" identity. Award-winning writer Raquel Cepeda on West African cosmology and "the flash of the spirit" in hip-hop arts. Pioneer dancer POPMASTER FABEL's history of hip-hop dance, and acclaimed choreographer Rennie Harris on hip-hop's transformation of global dance theatre. Bill Adler's history of hip-hop photography, including photos by Glen E. Friedman, Janette Beckman, and Joe Conzo. Poetry and prose from Watts Prophet Father Amde Hamilton and Def Poetry Jam veterans Staceyann Chin, Suheir Hammad, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Kevin Coval. Roundtable discussions and essays presenting hip-hop in theatre, graphic design, documentary film and video, photography, and the visual arts. “Total Chaos is Jeff Chang at his best: fierce and unwavering in his commitment to document the hip-hop explosion. In beginning to define a hip-hop aesthetic, this gathering of artists, pioneers, and thinkers illuminates the special truth that hip-hop speaks to youth around the globe.” (Bakari Kitwana, author of The Hip-Hop Generation)
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 8, 2007
13 people are currently reading
703 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Chang
21 books405 followersJeff Chang is a writer, host, and a cultural organizer known for his work in culture, politics, the arts, and music.
His cultural biography of Bruce Lee called Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America (Mariner) will be published on September 23, 2025. He is the host of the Signal Award-winning podcast on artists and ideas, Edge of Reason, produced by Atlantic: Rethink and Hauser & Wirth, and of Notes From the Edge, produced by KALW Public Media.
His first book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, garnered many honors, including the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award. Slate named it one of the best nonfiction books of the past 25 years. Powell’s’ Books chose it as one of their 50 most important books of the past 50 years. A revised and updated Young Adult edition—co-written with legendary hip-hop journalist Dave “Davey D” Cook—was published in 2021.
Who We Be: The Colorization of America (St. Martin’s Press) was released on October 2014, to critical acclaim. It was published in paperback in January 2016 under the new title, Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post Civil Rights America (Picador). The book won the Ray + Pat Browne Award for Best Work in Popular Culture and American Culture and shortlisted for the NAACP Image Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Books For A Better Life Award.
We Gon' Be Alright: Notes On Race and Resegregation (Picador), was published in September 2016, was named a Book of the Year by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. The Washington Post declared it “the smartest book of the year.” He also edited the book, Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop (Basic Civitas, 2006) and Freedom Moves: Hip-Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures (University of California Press, 2023).
(You can find a list of all his books in print here.)
Jeff has been a USA Ford Fellow in Literature and a Lucas Artist Fellow. He was named by The Utne Reader as one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World,” by KQED as an Asian Pacific American Local Hero, and by the Yerba Buena Center for The Arts to its YBCA 100 list of those “shaping the future of American culture.” He was named to the Frederick Douglass 200, as one of “200 living individuals who best embody the work and spirit of Douglass.”
In May 2019, he and director Bao Nguyen created a four-episode digital adaptation of We Gon Be Alright for PBS Indie Lens Storycast. Jeff has been featured in the PBS documentary series, Asian Americans, Bao Nguyen’s movie, “Be Water”, and Lisa Ling’s show, “This Is Life.”
His bylines have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as Slate, Mother Jones, The Nation, n+1, and The Believer. He was a winner of the North Star News Prize for his cultural and political journalism. With H. Samy Alim, he received the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award at Stanford University.
A national leader in narrative and cultural strategy and a recognized advocate for cultural justice, Jeff co-founded CultureStr/ke (now the Center for Cultural Power) and the Webby-nominated May 19th Project. He led the Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy and the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University. He helped to write the Cultural New Deal alongside a number of artists and culture bearers.
He was a founding member of the SoleSides Crew, a hip-hop collective that included DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, Lateef the Truthspeaker, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Joseph Monish Patel.
He began his journey working at college radio stations KALX and KDVS, organizing for the Center for Third World Organizing, California State Student Association, and the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, and writing and editing for magazines like URB, Rap Pages, The Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine, Vibe,
His cultural biography of Bruce Lee called Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America (Mariner) will be published on September 23, 2025. He is the host of the Signal Award-winning podcast on artists and ideas, Edge of Reason, produced by Atlantic: Rethink and Hauser & Wirth, and of Notes From the Edge, produced by KALW Public Media.
His first book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, garnered many honors, including the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award. Slate named it one of the best nonfiction books of the past 25 years. Powell’s’ Books chose it as one of their 50 most important books of the past 50 years. A revised and updated Young Adult edition—co-written with legendary hip-hop journalist Dave “Davey D” Cook—was published in 2021.
Who We Be: The Colorization of America (St. Martin’s Press) was released on October 2014, to critical acclaim. It was published in paperback in January 2016 under the new title, Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post Civil Rights America (Picador). The book won the Ray + Pat Browne Award for Best Work in Popular Culture and American Culture and shortlisted for the NAACP Image Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Books For A Better Life Award.
We Gon' Be Alright: Notes On Race and Resegregation (Picador), was published in September 2016, was named a Book of the Year by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. The Washington Post declared it “the smartest book of the year.” He also edited the book, Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop (Basic Civitas, 2006) and Freedom Moves: Hip-Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures (University of California Press, 2023).
(You can find a list of all his books in print here.)
Jeff has been a USA Ford Fellow in Literature and a Lucas Artist Fellow. He was named by The Utne Reader as one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World,” by KQED as an Asian Pacific American Local Hero, and by the Yerba Buena Center for The Arts to its YBCA 100 list of those “shaping the future of American culture.” He was named to the Frederick Douglass 200, as one of “200 living individuals who best embody the work and spirit of Douglass.”
In May 2019, he and director Bao Nguyen created a four-episode digital adaptation of We Gon Be Alright for PBS Indie Lens Storycast. Jeff has been featured in the PBS documentary series, Asian Americans, Bao Nguyen’s movie, “Be Water”, and Lisa Ling’s show, “This Is Life.”
His bylines have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as Slate, Mother Jones, The Nation, n+1, and The Believer. He was a winner of the North Star News Prize for his cultural and political journalism. With H. Samy Alim, he received the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award at Stanford University.
A national leader in narrative and cultural strategy and a recognized advocate for cultural justice, Jeff co-founded CultureStr/ke (now the Center for Cultural Power) and the Webby-nominated May 19th Project. He led the Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy and the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University. He helped to write the Cultural New Deal alongside a number of artists and culture bearers.
He was a founding member of the SoleSides Crew, a hip-hop collective that included DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, Lateef the Truthspeaker, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Joseph Monish Patel.
He began his journey working at college radio stations KALX and KDVS, organizing for the Center for Third World Organizing, California State Student Association, and the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, and writing and editing for magazines like URB, Rap Pages, The Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine, Vibe,
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 24, 2012
Jeff Chang compiles a completely thorough, almost anthropological discourse between the origins of hip-hop and its creative brainchildren. I almost treat this as my cultural bible, my go-to book for approaching my own work as a visual artist. It's important to me to remind myself of where I come from musically and culturally, that I often get lost through the cracks, worrying that I had no absolute foundation. This book provides a lot of historical evidence, that hip-hop isn't just a money-making scheme for pseudo-disenchanted youth. It actually has several solid layers found in every major culture on Earth, that is rich of language, tradition, inspirational people, scholars, movements, and memes. To add to the credibility: my dear friend, Tanya Suzuki, is a progressive, radical, post-modern educator in several academic institutions across Los Angeles (particularly, charter schools and community colleges) that she will be designing a college-level course based on this book. That is remarkable and very inspiring. It feeds onto itself, digests the good energy, and re-births brain diamonds more valuable than a Wall Street stock-portfolio can ever produce.
September 30, 2016
I had to read this book for my History of Jazz class and it was surprising interesting. The discussions, the papers, the different topics covered really interested me.
January 19, 2013
Hip-hop is often categorized with rap music. In the past two decades, hip-hop has transformed dance, theatre, poetry, literature, fashion, photography, film, and more, to become one of the most innovative and transformative arts movements. In Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop, Jeff Chng, an American Book Award-winning journalist, assembles some of the most influential voices in hip-hop to evaluate the most important cultural movement of our time. His anthology includes: Greg Tate, Mark Anthony Neal, Adrian “B+” Cross, and Vijay Prashad, who examine hip-hop aesthetics in the rising of multiculturalism. Chang includes pieces documenting hip-hop’s sociopolitical influence in Cuba and South Africa Capetown natives Shaheen Ariefdien, who is a performer and anthropologist, and Nazli Abrahams, an educator.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Multiple definitions of hip-hop emerged; ideas and values were varied and contradictory to critically analyze hip-hop in context. Topics, such as the aesthetics behind hip-hop photography and graffiti, offers an informative history of hip-hop dance and reviews hip-hop’s effects on literature and theater. The novel also pursues debates about identity sexuality, and homophobia. There was a lot of discussion about “keeping it real.” I am an avid fan of hip-hop, trying to learn more and more about it. Like Michael Crichton once said, “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.” I want to learn as much about hip-hop as possible, along with other people’s opinions. Hip-hop has changed and developed in positive and negative ways since its origination. Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop is the quintessential book to learn more about hip-hop; it was organized, informative, developed, and well written.
Ghostface Killah said in an interview, “Hip hop definitely changed. It’s not the same no more. I don’t think it changed for the best. I think a lot of artists got lazy, and a lot of these new artists don’t know their history. You know what I mean? They’re just making music… It seems like it’s not from the heart, like it’s from the brain. If you don’t know your history, then you don’t know where you’re going. Once you don’t know the Kool G Raps and the Big Daddy Kanes and Chubb Rocks and Brand Nubians and De La Soul and Slick Rick, then you don’t really know shit.” Know your history.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Multiple definitions of hip-hop emerged; ideas and values were varied and contradictory to critically analyze hip-hop in context. Topics, such as the aesthetics behind hip-hop photography and graffiti, offers an informative history of hip-hop dance and reviews hip-hop’s effects on literature and theater. The novel also pursues debates about identity sexuality, and homophobia. There was a lot of discussion about “keeping it real.” I am an avid fan of hip-hop, trying to learn more and more about it. Like Michael Crichton once said, “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.” I want to learn as much about hip-hop as possible, along with other people’s opinions. Hip-hop has changed and developed in positive and negative ways since its origination. Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop is the quintessential book to learn more about hip-hop; it was organized, informative, developed, and well written.
Ghostface Killah said in an interview, “Hip hop definitely changed. It’s not the same no more. I don’t think it changed for the best. I think a lot of artists got lazy, and a lot of these new artists don’t know their history. You know what I mean? They’re just making music… It seems like it’s not from the heart, like it’s from the brain. If you don’t know your history, then you don’t know where you’re going. Once you don’t know the Kool G Raps and the Big Daddy Kanes and Chubb Rocks and Brand Nubians and De La Soul and Slick Rick, then you don’t really know shit.” Know your history.
February 7, 2012
Disclaimer: I only read the roundtable on multiculturalism and the conversation on feminism.
I love that the topics were discussed rather than spoken from the perspective of just one person.
This was essential to the themes of both pieces I read because they deal with complexities within hip-hop. For example, in the essay on feminism, the discussion addresses what it feels like to be a black male feminist, what it feels like, as a woman, to love dancing to a song with sexist lyrics, whether the consumption of black female sexuality affirms black female sexuality or objectifies black female bodies, and why prominent black males accused of rape by black women get sympathy in the name of the cause.
This book deals with hip-hop and artistic expression and voice from many angles, though all interior to hip-hop, and each angle is further nuanced through its roundtable presentation. The scope and complexity of hip-hop is aptly highlighted.
I love that the topics were discussed rather than spoken from the perspective of just one person.
This was essential to the themes of both pieces I read because they deal with complexities within hip-hop. For example, in the essay on feminism, the discussion addresses what it feels like to be a black male feminist, what it feels like, as a woman, to love dancing to a song with sexist lyrics, whether the consumption of black female sexuality affirms black female sexuality or objectifies black female bodies, and why prominent black males accused of rape by black women get sympathy in the name of the cause.
This book deals with hip-hop and artistic expression and voice from many angles, though all interior to hip-hop, and each angle is further nuanced through its roundtable presentation. The scope and complexity of hip-hop is aptly highlighted.
September 14, 2008
There's some interesting stuff in this anthology, but the lack of a strong authorial voice (despite the cover, Chang only edited the book) and some obscure and over-academicized material weakens it overall.
July 23, 2007
Great comprehensive look at the realms hip hop has exploded into in the past thirty years.
Want to read
August 19, 2007I want to read it because I enjoyed
Can't Stop Won't Stop
so much.
November 29, 2007
Good read, not great.
February 25, 2010
(six word reviews #15) Mr.Chang, me for the next anthology.
Read
May 1, 2015700.905 T7171 2006
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews