Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop

Abstract

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 most far-reaching and transformative arts movements of past two decades.American Book Award-winning journalist Jeff Chang, author of acclaimed Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of Hip-Hop Generation, assembles some of most innovative and provocative voices in to assess most important cultural movement of our time. It's an incisive look at arts in voices of pioneers, innovators, and mavericks.With an introductory survey essay by Chang, anthology includes: Greg Tate, Mark Anthony Neal, Brian B+ Cross, and Vijay Prashad examining aesthetics in 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 and lit hop. Actor, playwright, and performance artist Danny Hoch on how defined aesthetics of a generation. Rock Steady Crew b-boy-turned-celebrated visual artist DOZE on uses and limits of a hip-hop identity. Award-winning writer Raquel Cepeda on West African cosmology and the flash of spirit in arts. Pioneer dancer POPMASTER FABEL's history of dance, and acclaimed choreographer Rennie Harris on hip-hop's transformation of global dance theatre. Bill Adler's history of 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 in theatre, graphic design, documentary film and video, photography, and visual arts. Total Chaos is Jeff Chang at his best: fierce and unwavering in his commitment to document explosion. In beginning to define a aesthetic, this gathering of artists, pioneers, and thinkers illuminates special truth that speaks to youth around globe. (Bakari Kitwana, author of The Hip-Hop Generation)

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