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The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop
The essential oral history of hip-hop, from its origins on the playgrounds of the Bronx to its reign as the most powerful force in pop culture—from the award-winning journalist behind All the Pieces Matter, the New York Times bestselling oral history of The Wire
“ The Come Up is Abrams at his sharpest, at his most observant, at his most insightful.”—Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hip-Hop (And Other Things)
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Spin
The music that would come to be known as hip-hop was born at a party in the Bronx in the summer of 1973. Now, fifty years later, it’s the most popular music genre in America. Just as jazz did in the first half of the twentieth century, hip-hop and its groundbreaking DJs and artists—nearly all of them people of color from some of America’s most overlooked communities—pushed the boundaries of music to new frontiers, while transfixing the country’s youth and reshaping fashion, art, and even language.
And yet, the stories of many hip-hop pioneers and their individual contributions in the pre-Internet days of mixtapes and word of mouth are rarely heard—and some are at risk of being lost forever. Now, in The Come Up, the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Abrams offers the most comprehensive account so far of hip-hop’s rise, a multi-decade chronicle told in the voices of the people who made it happen.
In more than three hundred interviews conducted over three years, Abrams has captured the stories of the DJs, executives, producers, and artists who both witnessed and themselves forged the history of hip-hop. Masterfully combining these voices into a seamless symphonic narrative, Abrams traces how the genre grew out of the resourcefulness of a neglected population in the South Bronx, and from there how it flowed into New York City’s other boroughs, and beyond—from electrifying live gatherings, then on to radio and vinyl, below to the Mason-Dixon Line, west to Los Angeles through gangster rap and G-funk, and then across generations.
Abrams has on record Grandmaster Caz detailing hip-hop’s infancy, Edward “Duke Bootee” Fletcher describing the origins of “The Message,” DMC narrating his role in introducing hip-hop to the mainstream, Ice Cube recounting N.W.A’s breakthrough and breakup, Kool Moe Dee recalling his Grammys boycott, and countless more key players. Throughout, Abrams conveys with singular vividness the drive, the stakes, and the relentless creativity that ignited one of the greatest revolutions in modern music.
The Come Up is an exhilarating behind-the-scenes account of how hip-hop came to rule the world—and an essential contribution to music history.
“ The Come Up is Abrams at his sharpest, at his most observant, at his most insightful.”—Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hip-Hop (And Other Things)
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Spin
The music that would come to be known as hip-hop was born at a party in the Bronx in the summer of 1973. Now, fifty years later, it’s the most popular music genre in America. Just as jazz did in the first half of the twentieth century, hip-hop and its groundbreaking DJs and artists—nearly all of them people of color from some of America’s most overlooked communities—pushed the boundaries of music to new frontiers, while transfixing the country’s youth and reshaping fashion, art, and even language.
And yet, the stories of many hip-hop pioneers and their individual contributions in the pre-Internet days of mixtapes and word of mouth are rarely heard—and some are at risk of being lost forever. Now, in The Come Up, the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Abrams offers the most comprehensive account so far of hip-hop’s rise, a multi-decade chronicle told in the voices of the people who made it happen.
In more than three hundred interviews conducted over three years, Abrams has captured the stories of the DJs, executives, producers, and artists who both witnessed and themselves forged the history of hip-hop. Masterfully combining these voices into a seamless symphonic narrative, Abrams traces how the genre grew out of the resourcefulness of a neglected population in the South Bronx, and from there how it flowed into New York City’s other boroughs, and beyond—from electrifying live gatherings, then on to radio and vinyl, below to the Mason-Dixon Line, west to Los Angeles through gangster rap and G-funk, and then across generations.
Abrams has on record Grandmaster Caz detailing hip-hop’s infancy, Edward “Duke Bootee” Fletcher describing the origins of “The Message,” DMC narrating his role in introducing hip-hop to the mainstream, Ice Cube recounting N.W.A’s breakthrough and breakup, Kool Moe Dee recalling his Grammys boycott, and countless more key players. Throughout, Abrams conveys with singular vividness the drive, the stakes, and the relentless creativity that ignited one of the greatest revolutions in modern music.
The Come Up is an exhilarating behind-the-scenes account of how hip-hop came to rule the world—and an essential contribution to music history.
544 pages, Hardcover
Published October 18, 2022
183 people are currently reading
7057 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Abrams
10 books126 followersJONATHAN ABRAMS is an award-winning journalist who has covered the NBA for ESPN’s Grantland, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
October 18, 2022
This is such a mega book. Massive in scope and super impressive. Overall I was really taken by the book. A few sections were too long.
August 27, 2023
This is a history of hip-hop, written as a mosaic of snippets from interviews of both participants and observers. I have to note at the start that before I knew almost nothing about this music genre/subculture. My choice of this read is based mostly on two points: [1] it is interesting stuff I want to know more about and [2] I think I should learn to appreciate poetry and rap lyrics plus battle culture is definitely an important slice of poetry. I read it as a Buddy read at Non Fiction Book Club group.
The book outlines the history of US English-language hip-hop from its beginnings in the 1970s Bronx, and gives interesting tidbits, like the fact that mostly poor Afro-American artists of this subculture got a great boost after the Blackout of the summer of 1977, when successive lightning strikes strained the area’s overburdened power grid and plunged most of the city into pitch-blackness. The lights remained off for more than a day. In that time, more than 1,500 businesses had been vandalized. This led to a sudden abundance of turntables and other expensive sound-producing systems in the hands of street and party jockeys. This led to the appearance of the first ‘mainstream’ hip-hop hit ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by the Sugarhill Gang, which for some members of the subculture as a sanitized imitation of what they had created.
From the beginnings and pioneers, the book goes both wider (from the Bronx to other boroughs of NY, to other cities and states) and deeper (like the appearance of gansta rap after “6 ’N the Mornin’ ” by Ice-T, or unique Chicago, Memphis or New Orleans sounds) and ends roughly in our present.
I guess this is a solid history outline, which will work especially well for the fans of the subculture, because, as I understand it, all major artists are present. It also supplies titles of all important hits, even if sadly, not as a neat table, but mentioning them in the text. At the same time, I’d like to see extracts of songs themselves (which I found elsewhere on the net).
The book outlines the history of US English-language hip-hop from its beginnings in the 1970s Bronx, and gives interesting tidbits, like the fact that mostly poor Afro-American artists of this subculture got a great boost after the Blackout of the summer of 1977, when successive lightning strikes strained the area’s overburdened power grid and plunged most of the city into pitch-blackness. The lights remained off for more than a day. In that time, more than 1,500 businesses had been vandalized. This led to a sudden abundance of turntables and other expensive sound-producing systems in the hands of street and party jockeys. This led to the appearance of the first ‘mainstream’ hip-hop hit ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by the Sugarhill Gang, which for some members of the subculture as a sanitized imitation of what they had created.
From the beginnings and pioneers, the book goes both wider (from the Bronx to other boroughs of NY, to other cities and states) and deeper (like the appearance of gansta rap after “6 ’N the Mornin’ ” by Ice-T, or unique Chicago, Memphis or New Orleans sounds) and ends roughly in our present.
I guess this is a solid history outline, which will work especially well for the fans of the subculture, because, as I understand it, all major artists are present. It also supplies titles of all important hits, even if sadly, not as a neat table, but mentioning them in the text. At the same time, I’d like to see extracts of songs themselves (which I found elsewhere on the net).
October 9, 2022
Despite nearing 50 years of existence, hip-hop has very few authoritative histories, and the personal stories of the trailblazers and early innovators are at risk of being lost as many early pioneers start receiving their AARP cards. New York Times reporter Jonathan Abrams attempts to fill this gap with his new hip-hop oral history The Come Up and does a fantastic job.
I’ll get this out upfront: I’ve been reviewing books for about ten years now and I haven’t ever been as excited for an advanced copy as I was for The Come Up. I absolutely loved Abrams’ previous books Boys Among Men and All the Pieces Matter and I’m a huge hip-hop fan from Aceyalone to Zev Love X to AZ. And I’m pleased to say that Abrams delivers on this remarkably-personally-compelling premise.
The book’s foundation comes from more than 300 interviews conducted over 4 years. Abrams sits down with DJs, rappers, producers, label executives, reporters, and more, giving a full view of the history of both hip-hop music and the culture surrounding it. Like all oral histories, participation matters. Even the best writer is going to be hamstrung if they can’t get the right people with this. And thankfully Abrams is able to largely deliver on that front, with genre icons and pioneers across all eras covered. You get Kool Moe Dee, Kurtis Blow, Russell Simmons, Ice Cube, Killer Mike, Bun B, and loads more from all cities and eras. And sure, some luminaries like Chuck D and Rakim don’t make an appearance but both artists are covered well through people very close to them like Hank Shocklee from the Bomb Squad and Marley Marl. This helps ensure that no key topic gets short shrift in the narrative. I also thought it was neat how Abrams includes interviews from artists from all eras and cities to show how they influenced each other.
The Come Up proceeds in a largely chronological fashion, hitting on all of the major moments and players that you’d expect. It begins in the early 1970s and continues through roughly the early 2000s. There is some brief coverage of major events from the last 20 years like DAMN by Kendrick Lamar winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 and hip-hop becoming the top genre in the US according to Nielsen in 2017 but those passages are largely to illustrate where the genre has gone since rather than analyze recent history in-depth. If you view Eric B and Rakim’s 1987 LP Paid in Full as a dividing line between “early hip-hop” and the start of its “golden age” then about the first third of The Come Up is devoted to that early, pre-1987 era when the rhymes and production were generally simpler. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of early releases from artists like Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, and the Sugarhill Gang (especially the latter), compared those who followed, but it’s still fascinating to learn about the genre’s roots and early stages when there was so much freewheeling innovation going on and no codified “rules.”
The remaining two-thirds of the book feature Abrams hopscotching across boroughs and regions to illustrate the genre’s spread, still largely chronologically. Some major luminaries like Russell Simmons/Def Jam get entire chapters devoted to them that cover longer timeframes, but it never comes off as disorienting. The book is well-structured overall. Abrams intersperses helpful context between many passages and the reading experience flows very smoothly and Abrams never overshadows the interviews. There are also no awkward transitions or interview non sequiturs that plague some oral histories. Everything fits together like a perfect mosaic, not too dissimilar from the production on Paul’s Boutique or 3 Feet High and Rising (before sample sources got extra litigious). Abrams’ focus extends beyond the music to hip-hop as a cultural phenomenon, with extended coverage of films like Wild Style and the controversies surrounding 2 Live Crew and Ice T that also helped mold all aspects of the genre.
While there haven’t been any oral histories of hip-hop at the scale of The Come Up, the book is going to cover some stories and moments that a fan of the genre will be familiar with. Outside of some southern rappers (I’m not hugely into the Houston scene, mea culpa) I had at least passing familiarity with every artist/album/event that garnered a decent amount of mentions. But, I acknowledge I’m in my early 30s now and have devoted over half my life to inhaling every possible shred of content about hip-hop, and Abrams unearths some entertaining new insights about material I was quite familiar with and fond of. Case in point: I’ve listened to Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest billions of times but I had no idea that their record label Jive were so amused by Industry Rule #4080 (record company people are shady) from the song Rap Promoter that they created their own t-shirts celebrating it.
There are way more interesting nuggets like that, such as how legendary producer Pete Rock’s poorly-scheduled barber appointment nearly scuppered a recording session with Will Smith. And how Peanut Butter Wolf (founder of the legendary underground label Stones Throw Records) opened for a young Jay-Z and predicted Hov would never amount to anything. And how Q-Tip got his name, and how Chuck D wrote much of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back on the Long Island Expressway going back and forth from the studio, how (the apparently super-elusive?) Pete Rock flat-out missed recording with Shaquille O’Neal because he just wasn’t home when they came to his house and couldn’t be found anywhere. And and and.
If I haven’t made it abundantly clear how much I liked this book, then I should just hang up my reviewing keyboard and give it up. But yes, I really enjoyed this. It is one of the top 3 (out of many, many, many) books about hip-hop that I’ve ever read. I don’t have any big quibbles with it. I would have appreciated a bit more of a focus on production throughout (though there is a late chapter going into some dedicated detail on the craft of beatmaking), I’m a bit bummed that some of my favorites like De La Soul didn’t participate (but again, the roster of participants is massive and very strong), and I thought the Roots probably warranted more than about half a page (but they’ve always been a sorta self-contained group that is hard to link to other artists/cities outside of I guess the brief-lived Soulquarians) but those are tiny nits that all have parenthetical caveats. If you have no interest in hip-hop whatsoever I guess you won’t get a ton out of The Come Up. But you also wouldn’t have read this far if that was the case, or read this review at all. Simply put, if you like hip-hop at all you owe it to yourself to check this out and you should find it to be outstanding.
9/10
I’ll get this out upfront: I’ve been reviewing books for about ten years now and I haven’t ever been as excited for an advanced copy as I was for The Come Up. I absolutely loved Abrams’ previous books Boys Among Men and All the Pieces Matter and I’m a huge hip-hop fan from Aceyalone to Zev Love X to AZ. And I’m pleased to say that Abrams delivers on this remarkably-personally-compelling premise.
The book’s foundation comes from more than 300 interviews conducted over 4 years. Abrams sits down with DJs, rappers, producers, label executives, reporters, and more, giving a full view of the history of both hip-hop music and the culture surrounding it. Like all oral histories, participation matters. Even the best writer is going to be hamstrung if they can’t get the right people with this. And thankfully Abrams is able to largely deliver on that front, with genre icons and pioneers across all eras covered. You get Kool Moe Dee, Kurtis Blow, Russell Simmons, Ice Cube, Killer Mike, Bun B, and loads more from all cities and eras. And sure, some luminaries like Chuck D and Rakim don’t make an appearance but both artists are covered well through people very close to them like Hank Shocklee from the Bomb Squad and Marley Marl. This helps ensure that no key topic gets short shrift in the narrative. I also thought it was neat how Abrams includes interviews from artists from all eras and cities to show how they influenced each other.
The Come Up proceeds in a largely chronological fashion, hitting on all of the major moments and players that you’d expect. It begins in the early 1970s and continues through roughly the early 2000s. There is some brief coverage of major events from the last 20 years like DAMN by Kendrick Lamar winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 and hip-hop becoming the top genre in the US according to Nielsen in 2017 but those passages are largely to illustrate where the genre has gone since rather than analyze recent history in-depth. If you view Eric B and Rakim’s 1987 LP Paid in Full as a dividing line between “early hip-hop” and the start of its “golden age” then about the first third of The Come Up is devoted to that early, pre-1987 era when the rhymes and production were generally simpler. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of early releases from artists like Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, and the Sugarhill Gang (especially the latter), compared those who followed, but it’s still fascinating to learn about the genre’s roots and early stages when there was so much freewheeling innovation going on and no codified “rules.”
The remaining two-thirds of the book feature Abrams hopscotching across boroughs and regions to illustrate the genre’s spread, still largely chronologically. Some major luminaries like Russell Simmons/Def Jam get entire chapters devoted to them that cover longer timeframes, but it never comes off as disorienting. The book is well-structured overall. Abrams intersperses helpful context between many passages and the reading experience flows very smoothly and Abrams never overshadows the interviews. There are also no awkward transitions or interview non sequiturs that plague some oral histories. Everything fits together like a perfect mosaic, not too dissimilar from the production on Paul’s Boutique or 3 Feet High and Rising (before sample sources got extra litigious). Abrams’ focus extends beyond the music to hip-hop as a cultural phenomenon, with extended coverage of films like Wild Style and the controversies surrounding 2 Live Crew and Ice T that also helped mold all aspects of the genre.
While there haven’t been any oral histories of hip-hop at the scale of The Come Up, the book is going to cover some stories and moments that a fan of the genre will be familiar with. Outside of some southern rappers (I’m not hugely into the Houston scene, mea culpa) I had at least passing familiarity with every artist/album/event that garnered a decent amount of mentions. But, I acknowledge I’m in my early 30s now and have devoted over half my life to inhaling every possible shred of content about hip-hop, and Abrams unearths some entertaining new insights about material I was quite familiar with and fond of. Case in point: I’ve listened to Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest billions of times but I had no idea that their record label Jive were so amused by Industry Rule #4080 (record company people are shady) from the song Rap Promoter that they created their own t-shirts celebrating it.
There are way more interesting nuggets like that, such as how legendary producer Pete Rock’s poorly-scheduled barber appointment nearly scuppered a recording session with Will Smith. And how Peanut Butter Wolf (founder of the legendary underground label Stones Throw Records) opened for a young Jay-Z and predicted Hov would never amount to anything. And how Q-Tip got his name, and how Chuck D wrote much of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back on the Long Island Expressway going back and forth from the studio, how (the apparently super-elusive?) Pete Rock flat-out missed recording with Shaquille O’Neal because he just wasn’t home when they came to his house and couldn’t be found anywhere. And and and.
If I haven’t made it abundantly clear how much I liked this book, then I should just hang up my reviewing keyboard and give it up. But yes, I really enjoyed this. It is one of the top 3 (out of many, many, many) books about hip-hop that I’ve ever read. I don’t have any big quibbles with it. I would have appreciated a bit more of a focus on production throughout (though there is a late chapter going into some dedicated detail on the craft of beatmaking), I’m a bit bummed that some of my favorites like De La Soul didn’t participate (but again, the roster of participants is massive and very strong), and I thought the Roots probably warranted more than about half a page (but they’ve always been a sorta self-contained group that is hard to link to other artists/cities outside of I guess the brief-lived Soulquarians) but those are tiny nits that all have parenthetical caveats. If you have no interest in hip-hop whatsoever I guess you won’t get a ton out of The Come Up. But you also wouldn’t have read this far if that was the case, or read this review at all. Simply put, if you like hip-hop at all you owe it to yourself to check this out and you should find it to be outstanding.
9/10
December 6, 2024
My rap period was fairly short, the late 1980s and early 1990s, really, and so I learned so much from this book about artists I knew and artists I did not. I took a lot from this book, but the one thing that sticks with me the most is how much these artists pushed each other forward. Famous beefs get the headlines, but so many of the stories in here are about collaboration in an effort to put out great work that gets everyone over.
It's a rich read, and one of my favorite books of the year.
It's a rich read, and one of my favorite books of the year.
March 31, 2024
love a music oral history!!!!!
shoutout to the author for having who each person is (as in, their profession or what group/label they’re from) next to their name throughout the whole book, because the other oral histories i’ve read only do it the first time and i can’t be expected to remember who all these people are lmao.
some quotes:
“and then, vanilla ice from florida with his thing blows up. meanwhile, everyone’s kicking themselves because ‘under pressure’ was one of those records that was just too obvious to sample. like, ‘who would sample that?’ and then somebody does, and everyone’s pissed off for three reasons: first, ‘fuck, why didn’t i sample that?’ because that’s a perfect record to sample. two, this white boy, he’s doing his thing. so it’s one of those records that when you first heard it, you liked it. but then it was like, ‘what the fuck? it’s a novelty. it’s cool. it’s not supposed to be this.’ and then he’s selling fourteen million records and getting all this respect, and people are like, ‘oh my god. get the fuck out of here.’”
“you know what else i learned from hanging around with pac? this guy is not a fucking rapper. this fucking guy is a musician. his voice was actually an instrument. it’s like he found the beats that actually harmonized with his voice, and with those two combinations, this is how he was killing the game. rappers don’t really harmonize. we’re hardcore. we’re cutthroat. so, he was able to sit in both lanes, and people couldn’t tell the difference because he’ll talk shit to you in the singing type of voice until you’re like, man, this motherfucker cursed me out singing to me.”
“i remember eminem said something that was so crazy, it fucked my self-esteem up for like two minutes.”
content/trigger warnings; discussions of racism, n word, police brutality, gun violence, gang violence, sexism, misogyny, sexual assault, rape, drug use, alcohol use, poverty, incarceration, murder, death,
shoutout to the author for having who each person is (as in, their profession or what group/label they’re from) next to their name throughout the whole book, because the other oral histories i’ve read only do it the first time and i can’t be expected to remember who all these people are lmao.
some quotes:
“and then, vanilla ice from florida with his thing blows up. meanwhile, everyone’s kicking themselves because ‘under pressure’ was one of those records that was just too obvious to sample. like, ‘who would sample that?’ and then somebody does, and everyone’s pissed off for three reasons: first, ‘fuck, why didn’t i sample that?’ because that’s a perfect record to sample. two, this white boy, he’s doing his thing. so it’s one of those records that when you first heard it, you liked it. but then it was like, ‘what the fuck? it’s a novelty. it’s cool. it’s not supposed to be this.’ and then he’s selling fourteen million records and getting all this respect, and people are like, ‘oh my god. get the fuck out of here.’”
“you know what else i learned from hanging around with pac? this guy is not a fucking rapper. this fucking guy is a musician. his voice was actually an instrument. it’s like he found the beats that actually harmonized with his voice, and with those two combinations, this is how he was killing the game. rappers don’t really harmonize. we’re hardcore. we’re cutthroat. so, he was able to sit in both lanes, and people couldn’t tell the difference because he’ll talk shit to you in the singing type of voice until you’re like, man, this motherfucker cursed me out singing to me.”
“i remember eminem said something that was so crazy, it fucked my self-esteem up for like two minutes.”
content/trigger warnings; discussions of racism, n word, police brutality, gun violence, gang violence, sexism, misogyny, sexual assault, rape, drug use, alcohol use, poverty, incarceration, murder, death,
April 23, 2023
I loved, loved, loved this book. I also really enjoyed Abram’s last oral history he wrote on HBO and David Simon’s “The Wire”.
A huge tome in pages, but the conversational tone of an oral history and the way Abrams arranges by scenes, geographical and genre, and periods of time really helps.
As hiphop celebrates it’s 50th year, I can’t think of a better document to read to compliment the understanding of the music and the culture\.
I learned a lot about the twists and turns rap has taken from the 2000’s until now - I am so stuck in my “golden era” comfort zone, that it was fun learning more about Sadat X, Underground Killers, Trap, Mumble rap, etc.
All the heavy hitters are here too, have no fear! I enjoyed getting more info on Marley Marl, seminal NYC clubs like the Latin Quarter, and really digging into the overlooked importance of Monie Love and Queen Latifah in this age of Cardi B, Niki Minaj, etc.
A huge tome in pages, but the conversational tone of an oral history and the way Abrams arranges by scenes, geographical and genre, and periods of time really helps.
As hiphop celebrates it’s 50th year, I can’t think of a better document to read to compliment the understanding of the music and the culture\.
I learned a lot about the twists and turns rap has taken from the 2000’s until now - I am so stuck in my “golden era” comfort zone, that it was fun learning more about Sadat X, Underground Killers, Trap, Mumble rap, etc.
All the heavy hitters are here too, have no fear! I enjoyed getting more info on Marley Marl, seminal NYC clubs like the Latin Quarter, and really digging into the overlooked importance of Monie Love and Queen Latifah in this age of Cardi B, Niki Minaj, etc.
February 29, 2024
This is a very important book, and a worthwhile read, but also LONG and dense. I kept putting it down and picking it up again over the course of a year and a half. I think this is mostly because the format of an oral history is just hard for me to digest. There's lots of names! It's a dialog! When I finally found a copy of the audiobook (none of my libraries had it!!!) I finished the half I had left in like, three days. So I personally recommend it that way. I think it would work great as a documentary.
Anyways, super accessible even if you don't know much about hip-hop but a love letter to the genre if you do. It's a fascinating look at all the cultural aspects that make hip-hop what it is today, and all the work it took to get it recognized. Recommend for sure!
Anyways, super accessible even if you don't know much about hip-hop but a love letter to the genre if you do. It's a fascinating look at all the cultural aspects that make hip-hop what it is today, and all the work it took to get it recognized. Recommend for sure!
March 19, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was packed with so much information that I found insightful as it captured the origins of hip-hop. I’m into music heavy especially rap and just to read something that goes into depth on its history I learned so much.
It took awhile to get through this one but I enjoyed the authors personal perspective and how well he constructed the interviews, stories, talent, and backgrounds of so many artist into this one book. Definitely worth the hype and recommend you read if you’re into music. Special thanks to the author, Crown publishing, and Netgalley for my advanced copy!!!
It took awhile to get through this one but I enjoyed the authors personal perspective and how well he constructed the interviews, stories, talent, and backgrounds of so many artist into this one book. Definitely worth the hype and recommend you read if you’re into music. Special thanks to the author, Crown publishing, and Netgalley for my advanced copy!!!
April 10, 2024
Finally finally finished reading this, it was really good I just haven’t had any time to read this semester. I loved the style and the interviews with rappers and producers and record studio executives. Hearing from some of my favorite artists and producers was so interesting and I really learned a lot of cool history. Also got put on to a lot of good music. Definitely would be a good read for anyone but especially fans of the genre will really really enjoy reading this I think.
September 21, 2022
I received this as an eGalley from NetGalley.
Best fact learned from this book:
Pharrell Williams' early rap name was....."Magnum the Verb Lord."
Best fact learned from this book:
Pharrell Williams' early rap name was....."Magnum the Verb Lord."
October 27, 2022
This was a phenomenal look at the origins of hip hop told by those who created it. It’s a massive book, but we’ll worth the time it will take to read.
July 21, 2023
So fun. Will probably read this one again someday.
September 19, 2023
An amazing timeline of the influence of hip hop and how it has affected today’s hip hop and rap music. I loved every part of this book from beginning to end!
April 13, 2024
As a lover of the genre, I really enjoyed this and found it useful in understanding the importance of a lot of influential albums/artists/events in hip-hop history. There are some great stories in here and a wide range of perspectives - I appreciate how Abrams gives weight to contrasting opinions on subjects like sampling, female sexuality in rap music, and the current state of the genre. This was a complete pleasure to read and it provided context that deepened my love for the music. I think it would be a fantastic introduction for someone less familiar with hip-hop.
Since I already was familiar with many of the artists and key moments discussed in this book, I also noticed its deficiencies. For all of the voices included here, it’s a shame that Abrams couldn’t have gotten in touch with people like Questlove, either member of Outkast, or anyone from the Wu-Tang Clan. I know that these aren’t exactly easy gets, but some sections that cover massively important albums and artists end quickly due to a lack of interviews with people connected to those artists. I also think that this is a bit messy chronologically, as Abrams leaps too far forward and pulls too far back between chapters, some of which span massive gaps of 20 years whereas others focus on single moments, or periods of 3-4 years. It’s insane that this history even exists, and knowing how complicated it must have been to organize it helps me understand the cause of these issues, but it does feel strange that stuff like Tupac and Biggie’s murders doesn’t get proper attention until the final hundred or so pages of the book.
Still, I felt overwhelmingly positive while reading this, and I’m glad that these stories were captured while many of the genre’s pioneers are still with us. I hope someday we get more oral histories on hip-hop’s many eras - I’d love to read about the early 2000s bling era, the 2010s mixtape era, the rise of internet rap, etc.
Since I already was familiar with many of the artists and key moments discussed in this book, I also noticed its deficiencies. For all of the voices included here, it’s a shame that Abrams couldn’t have gotten in touch with people like Questlove, either member of Outkast, or anyone from the Wu-Tang Clan. I know that these aren’t exactly easy gets, but some sections that cover massively important albums and artists end quickly due to a lack of interviews with people connected to those artists. I also think that this is a bit messy chronologically, as Abrams leaps too far forward and pulls too far back between chapters, some of which span massive gaps of 20 years whereas others focus on single moments, or periods of 3-4 years. It’s insane that this history even exists, and knowing how complicated it must have been to organize it helps me understand the cause of these issues, but it does feel strange that stuff like Tupac and Biggie’s murders doesn’t get proper attention until the final hundred or so pages of the book.
Still, I felt overwhelmingly positive while reading this, and I’m glad that these stories were captured while many of the genre’s pioneers are still with us. I hope someday we get more oral histories on hip-hop’s many eras - I’d love to read about the early 2000s bling era, the 2010s mixtape era, the rise of internet rap, etc.
February 29, 2024
I read this over the course of about a year because I periodically stopped because of school workload. The whole story has stuck with me, although I wish I had a playlist or albums to listen to support the reading (going into it I wasn’t familiar with much of earlier hip-hop music).
I’m white and I went to a vastly majority white middle and high school. I noticed that some kids often listened to rap and hip-hop to imitate being black or to get “hyped” for a game. Getting hyped for them also involved using a blaccent and an attempt at AAVE. The way people around me interacted with rap and hip-hop always felt off to me. Reading this book helped me understand what hip-hop really is.
Between reading sessions I sometimes listened to a single or an album that was mentioned. As a person who loves pretty much all music, I now feel like I have the context and background to properly listen, enjoy, and analyze hip-hop music.
I think this is a great read for both fans of hip-hop and people who haven’t paid much attention to the genres. I also think that it would be especially helpful for people who don’t read the lyrics or don’t listen from the perspective of social injustice and systemic oppression.
I’m white and I went to a vastly majority white middle and high school. I noticed that some kids often listened to rap and hip-hop to imitate being black or to get “hyped” for a game. Getting hyped for them also involved using a blaccent and an attempt at AAVE. The way people around me interacted with rap and hip-hop always felt off to me. Reading this book helped me understand what hip-hop really is.
Between reading sessions I sometimes listened to a single or an album that was mentioned. As a person who loves pretty much all music, I now feel like I have the context and background to properly listen, enjoy, and analyze hip-hop music.
I think this is a great read for both fans of hip-hop and people who haven’t paid much attention to the genres. I also think that it would be especially helpful for people who don’t read the lyrics or don’t listen from the perspective of social injustice and systemic oppression.
May 28, 2024
Impressive in its scope, integrates multiple regions really well and some of the groundwork on the start of hip-hop is among the best I've seen. The book loses its focus somewhere after the death of Pac and Biggie, which is fine, but the half-in/half-out approach of ambling towards the end gave the conclusion a bit less focus than the rest of the book set it up to deserve.
That said, there's just something very cool about reading a lot of people who were responsible for, or witness to, some of the most important moments in music history share their stories. It must have been a marathon of work to compile so many interviews and Abrams does a wonderful job letting people speak at length without it often feeling like a ramble or run-off. An essential addition to the library for anyone who wants to write or speak about hip-hop with any sort of credible authority.
That said, there's just something very cool about reading a lot of people who were responsible for, or witness to, some of the most important moments in music history share their stories. It must have been a marathon of work to compile so many interviews and Abrams does a wonderful job letting people speak at length without it often feeling like a ramble or run-off. An essential addition to the library for anyone who wants to write or speak about hip-hop with any sort of credible authority.
September 19, 2023
I would give this book 4 stars for content, but 3 stars for format. The content was fantastic and I learned so much about the origins and evolution of hip hop and the regional twists that developed over time. The book is very up front about it being an oral history, so I was expecting the quotations, but while I was reading it, I longed to see a documentary version of it instead. I wanted to hear the beats and songs the interviewees were referencing. I wanted to see the visual styles (fashion, dance, music videos, etc.) they were highlighting as defining characteristics of different crews. This book took me several weeks to read, thanks to the detours of creating looking up songs on Spotify and rabbit holes spent on Wikipedia. If I came away with nothing else, I have a killer hip hop playlist to listen to.
November 9, 2024
Nonfiction>music, history
4 stars for being accessible, informative, relevant, and thorough. I was a little bored at times, but always came back quickly. I liked all the direct quotes from people actually present at the moment or having close knowledge to what he was talking about at the time.
Some memorable things: 90s saw singers with hats become popular- rappers with sideways ball caps and country with cowboy hats 😆; Dr Dre didn't experience Marijuana until the end of putting together The Chronic; stealing equipment during a blackout might be catalyst for explosion of hip hop in NYC.
I did feel at times like he could have done better with staying in chronological order (as the outline of his chapters suggests), but he chose to bounce around a little to possibly introduce West Coast sooner? Idk... seemed like at that point the timeline bounced a lot.
4 stars for being accessible, informative, relevant, and thorough. I was a little bored at times, but always came back quickly. I liked all the direct quotes from people actually present at the moment or having close knowledge to what he was talking about at the time.
Some memorable things: 90s saw singers with hats become popular- rappers with sideways ball caps and country with cowboy hats 😆; Dr Dre didn't experience Marijuana until the end of putting together The Chronic; stealing equipment during a blackout might be catalyst for explosion of hip hop in NYC.
I did feel at times like he could have done better with staying in chronological order (as the outline of his chapters suggests), but he chose to bounce around a little to possibly introduce West Coast sooner? Idk... seemed like at that point the timeline bounced a lot.
January 11, 2023
I recently read "Dilla Time" and "Rap Capital" and I think I prefer those intimate, scene-specific explorations of hip-hop to one that goes this big. I loved listening to a lot of the early NYC stuff and a lot of the Southern stuff that I'd missed (Houston, NOLA, Miami).
He unsurprisingly can't get a lot of the biggest characters in hip hop for this and some of the smaller ones just seem kind of salty that the most popular rappers are not very good...
He unsurprisingly can't get a lot of the biggest characters in hip hop for this and some of the smaller ones just seem kind of salty that the most popular rappers are not very good...
October 19, 2025
Very interesting history! I listened to the audiobook and it was super cool to hear all the people interviewed give their perspectives in their own voices. I also enjoyed listening to the songs mentioned in the book in parallel, it gave me a much richer understanding of the music. I found the beginning with the origins of hip hop and the end as I recognized the artists most engaging. The middle dragged a bit, mostly because there was so much great detail but I wasn’t as familiar with any of it so I found some of the names and timelines harder to track. The structure was also helpful to identify geographic trends, but since the timelines overlapped so much it was hard to place some things in the overall context of the full country.
January 11, 2023
4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📖
Finished January 10, 2023
📖
Extensive oral history collection regarding the past, present, and future of the hip-hop music genre.
I learned so much from this book. Stuff I knew some about and then stuff I had no clue about. Very knowledgeable. Very well structured. I listened to this book, which I feel may account for my date confusions. It did jump back and forth a little with dates, but that might be the nature of the interviews. As the book progressed, it became less linear. I chose this on a whim and for the oral history, I’m so glad I did!
📖
Audio - Non-Fiction - 2022
📖
Finished January 10, 2023
📖
Extensive oral history collection regarding the past, present, and future of the hip-hop music genre.
I learned so much from this book. Stuff I knew some about and then stuff I had no clue about. Very knowledgeable. Very well structured. I listened to this book, which I feel may account for my date confusions. It did jump back and forth a little with dates, but that might be the nature of the interviews. As the book progressed, it became less linear. I chose this on a whim and for the oral history, I’m so glad I did!
📖
Audio - Non-Fiction - 2022
February 12, 2023
Really great listen! Loved the historical aspects and hearing the first hand accounts from so many different artists. The only thing that could make this better is if they could sample some of the music that was referenced, like you could push play and hear the song. There’s no way they could do that financially because it would cost so much but it would be cool!
January 23, 2023
This book was masterfully put together, not once did I get lost. The soundtrack to this book is amazing. The stop and start of reading and listening brought it to a whole different level, one I highly recommend. My only wish was more female representation, luckily I had read God Save the Queens first.
Read
September 11, 2025I wanted more modern hip hop info, but this was okay.
December 22, 2022
Good, but not exactly what I wanted. The parts it covered, I quite enjoyed, but there were people I wanted to know about who were left out. And it’s more of a survey than a deep dive. Still, if you’re a fan, you’ll enjoy it.
July 8, 2022
The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop, by Jonathan Abrams, is a wonderful look at the history through the recollections of those involved.
Many oral histories, no matter the subject, consist of a collection of accounts, each told by a participant (or large excerpts from the people grouped thematically). I find the approach here to be both very effective and a lot of fun. Abrams offers the structure through paragraphs that set up what is being discussed. Then shorter but very on-point quotes are used to almost simulate a conversation. So rather than just reading about the history or reading what would amount to several versions of the history if each person was included separately, you feel like you are listening to all of these icons sitting around and remembering what happened.
The one thing this does require of the reader is keeping the various people straight. Abrams includes their roles each time and after a few pages you begin to just follow naturally. So, if you are initially unsettled by always switching speaker, give it time. You'll get used to it and once you do, you'll be well rewarded for the effort.
No matter how well you know the history of hip-hop, this book will offer new information and great perspectives on things you knew. Even having read a couple of other books and taken a MOOC, this volume still both educated and entertained me.
Highly recommended for those with an interest in hip hop and music history more broadly. Many of the insights also speak to how the music industry itself has changed.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Many oral histories, no matter the subject, consist of a collection of accounts, each told by a participant (or large excerpts from the people grouped thematically). I find the approach here to be both very effective and a lot of fun. Abrams offers the structure through paragraphs that set up what is being discussed. Then shorter but very on-point quotes are used to almost simulate a conversation. So rather than just reading about the history or reading what would amount to several versions of the history if each person was included separately, you feel like you are listening to all of these icons sitting around and remembering what happened.
The one thing this does require of the reader is keeping the various people straight. Abrams includes their roles each time and after a few pages you begin to just follow naturally. So, if you are initially unsettled by always switching speaker, give it time. You'll get used to it and once you do, you'll be well rewarded for the effort.
No matter how well you know the history of hip-hop, this book will offer new information and great perspectives on things you knew. Even having read a couple of other books and taken a MOOC, this volume still both educated and entertained me.
Highly recommended for those with an interest in hip hop and music history more broadly. Many of the insights also speak to how the music industry itself has changed.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
October 18, 2022
What a great book this was I learned a lot about the differen Types of rap and how The producers and songwriters presented this to this world. I know it's started in the South Brooks And how they were trying to express their views through their music. And how this was really interesting to me because I didn't ever know there were so many different aspects of this and however rap was different depends on where you are going and what part of the country you are in. How West Coast and East Coast had a rivalry because they had 2 different ways of looking at things. I think this book is really important because it shows the producers and how people start at this Music and how they were just trying to be who they were because the mainstream really didn't understand who they were. The basic record companies really didn't really want to embrace us so they started their own movement which is pretty amazing for people who really have nothing at all to start with. Every region had a different form of wrap which was pretty interesting how they compared it to these areas and how it changed over the years. You're not this book is great because it shows people these people are very intelligent people and how they cooperate in these different music and even produce when produce music for movies based on their experience. I wish more people would look at this type of music because it's important. Every music is important but this is especially because it's explaining the way of life from these people. Even winning a Poets are a prize for this type of music that wasn't amazing.
February 23, 2025
Incredible work. This book opened many doors to my hip-hop knowledge, how it started with deeyajs in 70’s, B-boys and evolution of sound and sampling.
I’m born in 1999 and i’m huge hip-hop fan. First encounter with hip-hop happened to be from GTA san andreas, radio los santos,as i was playing it as a kid. English is my third language, i learned it to fluency in my 20’s, so , at first i couldnt understand what they were even talkin’ bout there but i always loved that sound and unique style. Thanks to hip-hop and rappers like joey bada$$, kendrick , Jcole , ms.hill, nas ect. I started reading books and become interested in poetry. Hip-hop is best thing that happened to me in my life. Without hip-hop i would have been stayed ignorant and illiterate.
I’m born in 1999 and i’m huge hip-hop fan. First encounter with hip-hop happened to be from GTA san andreas, radio los santos,as i was playing it as a kid. English is my third language, i learned it to fluency in my 20’s, so , at first i couldnt understand what they were even talkin’ bout there but i always loved that sound and unique style. Thanks to hip-hop and rappers like joey bada$$, kendrick , Jcole , ms.hill, nas ect. I started reading books and become interested in poetry. Hip-hop is best thing that happened to me in my life. Without hip-hop i would have been stayed ignorant and illiterate.
May 14, 2023
Really enjoyed this one. Interesting to learn more about the early years just before I started engaging with the world of hip-hop.
Some of my favorite clips:
In the genre, I found a constant ally. I turned to hip-hop music when I needed inspiration or motivation, to zone out or home in, during times of celebration and mourning, for education and enlightenment.
Kurtis Blow became the first hip-hop artist to sign with a major label when he joined Mercury Records.
The first rappers, the first DJs and MCs are the greatest ever. Why? They were the first. When they came into show business, they had no MCs and DJs to look up to. They had no source to pour from except what they'd been seeing in the industry and musically and commercially all their lives.
Run-DMC became the first hip hop album to be certified gold.
Licensed to Ill was the first hip-hop album to top the Billboard charts.
Rappers are the first to point out when things are hurtful and bad, because they're poets. They're our truth-tellers.
Think about some of the jazz music that came out of the civil rights movement. Think about the blues music that came out of the turn of the last century, literally our of slavery. That's American music - hip-hop, blues, and jazz - that's American music to the core. All that shit came out of hardship, all that shit came out of struggle, came from pain, and they turned the pain into art.
Cheryl James and Sandra Denton met as nursing students at Queensborough Community College, becoming close while working together at Sears. Debuting as Super Nature, the pair changed their name to Salt-N-Pepa.
NWAs Straight Outta Compton began with "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge." The album forever changed hip-hop music. The group viscerally and forcefully documented poverty, violence, and disenfranchisement.
We didn't give it the name 'gangster rap'. The press gave it that name, but we'll rock with it. Gangster rap. Me, myself, gangsters are people that basically make their own rules. They don't back up. They say that they're gonna say. So, if that makes you a gangster, I think everybody needs to have a little gangster in them. But I call it reality rap, because it was my reality, but it's not everybody's reality.
When Dre and I finished The Chronic, we looked at each other and Dre said, "Have you ever smoked weed?" And I said, "Hell, no." I said, "Have you?" He said, "No." We didn't tell nobody this shit, right? We said, "Main, we got to smoke a joint before we finish mixing that shit or it won't be authentic, bro." Snoop and them smoked, but we didn't. we was always in the studio. We was just nerds.
Hip-hop is definitely an influential art form. It, to me, molds the culture in many ways that educators and parents seem to be incapable of when it comes to reaching young people.
She renamed her son Tupac Amaru in honor of the Incan leader of the rebellion against the Spanish in Peru.
Those first conversations that I had with Pac, we both felt that globally, everybody's hearts are fucked up. We were all damaged wherever we came from, but the power of money is at the core of most of these issues, and Black people weren't sitting at any tables.
The birth of police in this country was policing slaves, so their whole institution has been built on racism and selective protecting.
Bruce Lee: "You don't fear the man that's done ten thousand kicks once. You fear the man that's done one kick ten thousand times." It's the fact that you put that time in to so many verses.
The genre provided a megaphone for the oppressed and ignored.
Music, as a whole, not just hip-hop, is the closest thing you're going to get to anything that'll desegregate people. Music has no color barriers. You can go back to the roots of R&B and jazz; white people have always embraced it. Hip-hop really brought Black and white kids globally together, because as long as you don't know somebody's story, it's easy to hate them. But once you understand where they're coming from, then you might have some compassion for the situation. It's just another way of communication, music. Unfortunately, we all can't communicate as all just through talking.
Some of my favorite clips:
In the genre, I found a constant ally. I turned to hip-hop music when I needed inspiration or motivation, to zone out or home in, during times of celebration and mourning, for education and enlightenment.
Kurtis Blow became the first hip-hop artist to sign with a major label when he joined Mercury Records.
The first rappers, the first DJs and MCs are the greatest ever. Why? They were the first. When they came into show business, they had no MCs and DJs to look up to. They had no source to pour from except what they'd been seeing in the industry and musically and commercially all their lives.
Run-DMC became the first hip hop album to be certified gold.
Licensed to Ill was the first hip-hop album to top the Billboard charts.
Rappers are the first to point out when things are hurtful and bad, because they're poets. They're our truth-tellers.
Think about some of the jazz music that came out of the civil rights movement. Think about the blues music that came out of the turn of the last century, literally our of slavery. That's American music - hip-hop, blues, and jazz - that's American music to the core. All that shit came out of hardship, all that shit came out of struggle, came from pain, and they turned the pain into art.
Cheryl James and Sandra Denton met as nursing students at Queensborough Community College, becoming close while working together at Sears. Debuting as Super Nature, the pair changed their name to Salt-N-Pepa.
NWAs Straight Outta Compton began with "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge." The album forever changed hip-hop music. The group viscerally and forcefully documented poverty, violence, and disenfranchisement.
We didn't give it the name 'gangster rap'. The press gave it that name, but we'll rock with it. Gangster rap. Me, myself, gangsters are people that basically make their own rules. They don't back up. They say that they're gonna say. So, if that makes you a gangster, I think everybody needs to have a little gangster in them. But I call it reality rap, because it was my reality, but it's not everybody's reality.
When Dre and I finished The Chronic, we looked at each other and Dre said, "Have you ever smoked weed?" And I said, "Hell, no." I said, "Have you?" He said, "No." We didn't tell nobody this shit, right? We said, "Main, we got to smoke a joint before we finish mixing that shit or it won't be authentic, bro." Snoop and them smoked, but we didn't. we was always in the studio. We was just nerds.
Hip-hop is definitely an influential art form. It, to me, molds the culture in many ways that educators and parents seem to be incapable of when it comes to reaching young people.
She renamed her son Tupac Amaru in honor of the Incan leader of the rebellion against the Spanish in Peru.
Those first conversations that I had with Pac, we both felt that globally, everybody's hearts are fucked up. We were all damaged wherever we came from, but the power of money is at the core of most of these issues, and Black people weren't sitting at any tables.
The birth of police in this country was policing slaves, so their whole institution has been built on racism and selective protecting.
Bruce Lee: "You don't fear the man that's done ten thousand kicks once. You fear the man that's done one kick ten thousand times." It's the fact that you put that time in to so many verses.
The genre provided a megaphone for the oppressed and ignored.
Music, as a whole, not just hip-hop, is the closest thing you're going to get to anything that'll desegregate people. Music has no color barriers. You can go back to the roots of R&B and jazz; white people have always embraced it. Hip-hop really brought Black and white kids globally together, because as long as you don't know somebody's story, it's easy to hate them. But once you understand where they're coming from, then you might have some compassion for the situation. It's just another way of communication, music. Unfortunately, we all can't communicate as all just through talking.
October 6, 2022
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Crown Publishing for an advanced copy of this book on the history and impact of hip-hop music.
How does an artistic movement begin. One person with an idea, a group of like minded people trying to entertain their friends, family, and others. People hopping on an idea to get them out of a place they know will probably keep them down or even kill them. Or as one person says in this book and I am paraphrasing, your brain is not the same as my brain, and we are not the same brain as this other guy, so what we can do with beats and samples will be totally different. That sounds as good a reason as any. The history of hip-hop has tons of stories about talent, musical and lyrical skills, breaks, helping some, dissing others, and a lot of using brains. Jonathan Abrams author and journalist has done his best to bring all their stories back to us in The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop, in which players discuss the game from its beginnings up to the present day.
The book covers over fifty year of history, starting in the block parties of New York City, expanding to the West Coast, and back to New York. Miami and the South are discussed as is the Mid-West. The book is a chronological history, but does move around a bit to get a sense of the scene and the people involved. The interviews share a theme discussing the ideas behind the block parties, the rise of the DJ and the scene, finding the beats to get the party started, and keep the people moving. The coming of MCs to hype up the people, evolving into rhymes and rhythms that started to get socially aware, as well as body moving. Disco influences, drum machines, West Coast sound, horror core, drill, trap. All with historical asides to tie-in events and movements that keep the narrative moving.
The book is worth the hype. Most of my knowledge of hip-hop is of a person living in Connecticut watching on MTV and even I was amazed at what I remembered. The interviews are very good, informative, and when a story goes one way, Abrams finds another person, to go, hmm no this is what really happened. There are so many good stories, of people so just loving the music and getting behind it, helping each other out, sharing beats, rhymes, studio time, and supporting each other. Reading this one is amazed at how many lives were changed by hip-hop, some for good, but for others tragically. Abrams keeps the narrative going and describes, even to a neophyte like myself, the different sounds of different areas, and never loses track, or bogs down. With so large a cast that he interviewed I can't imagine that was easy, and I am quite impressed by all his work and how he arranged it. My favorite chapters are near the end, where the questions are more about creativity. People discussing filling journals with lines, or others just thinking about it in traffic, laying it down in the studio. Or just blasting back in rap battles right off the cuff. For so much talk about the evils of hip-hop that this kind of skill is just amazing to even think about, and I am in awe at their abilities on the mike, on the turntables, or in producing these songs.
A book that needs a playlist. Readers will be on Spotify or checking out vinyl racks to see what secrets might be in their collections. This book is not just a history but a celebration of an American made form of music that could only have been created at a certain time, under certain conditions. Highly recommended for music fans, and cultural studies fans. This is a book that others will be compared to.
How does an artistic movement begin. One person with an idea, a group of like minded people trying to entertain their friends, family, and others. People hopping on an idea to get them out of a place they know will probably keep them down or even kill them. Or as one person says in this book and I am paraphrasing, your brain is not the same as my brain, and we are not the same brain as this other guy, so what we can do with beats and samples will be totally different. That sounds as good a reason as any. The history of hip-hop has tons of stories about talent, musical and lyrical skills, breaks, helping some, dissing others, and a lot of using brains. Jonathan Abrams author and journalist has done his best to bring all their stories back to us in The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop, in which players discuss the game from its beginnings up to the present day.
The book covers over fifty year of history, starting in the block parties of New York City, expanding to the West Coast, and back to New York. Miami and the South are discussed as is the Mid-West. The book is a chronological history, but does move around a bit to get a sense of the scene and the people involved. The interviews share a theme discussing the ideas behind the block parties, the rise of the DJ and the scene, finding the beats to get the party started, and keep the people moving. The coming of MCs to hype up the people, evolving into rhymes and rhythms that started to get socially aware, as well as body moving. Disco influences, drum machines, West Coast sound, horror core, drill, trap. All with historical asides to tie-in events and movements that keep the narrative moving.
The book is worth the hype. Most of my knowledge of hip-hop is of a person living in Connecticut watching on MTV and even I was amazed at what I remembered. The interviews are very good, informative, and when a story goes one way, Abrams finds another person, to go, hmm no this is what really happened. There are so many good stories, of people so just loving the music and getting behind it, helping each other out, sharing beats, rhymes, studio time, and supporting each other. Reading this one is amazed at how many lives were changed by hip-hop, some for good, but for others tragically. Abrams keeps the narrative going and describes, even to a neophyte like myself, the different sounds of different areas, and never loses track, or bogs down. With so large a cast that he interviewed I can't imagine that was easy, and I am quite impressed by all his work and how he arranged it. My favorite chapters are near the end, where the questions are more about creativity. People discussing filling journals with lines, or others just thinking about it in traffic, laying it down in the studio. Or just blasting back in rap battles right off the cuff. For so much talk about the evils of hip-hop that this kind of skill is just amazing to even think about, and I am in awe at their abilities on the mike, on the turntables, or in producing these songs.
A book that needs a playlist. Readers will be on Spotify or checking out vinyl racks to see what secrets might be in their collections. This book is not just a history but a celebration of an American made form of music that could only have been created at a certain time, under certain conditions. Highly recommended for music fans, and cultural studies fans. This is a book that others will be compared to.
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