Bedroom Rapper

Bedroom Rapper is a book for obsessive music fans who are looking for the definitive take on what’s happened in the last two decades of hip hop, from Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton: Pitchfork critic, award-winning musician, producer, DJ, and poet laureate. Tracing his roots from recording beats in his mom's attic in Edmonton to performing with some of the most recognizable names in rap and electronic music—De La Soul, Public Enemy, Mos Def, Questlove, Diplo, and more—Polaris Prize winner Rollie Pemberton, a.k.a Cadence Weapon, captures the joy in finding yourself, and how a sense of place and purpose entwines inextricably with a music scene. From competitive basement family karaoke to touring Europe, from fights with an exploitative label to finding his creative voice, from protesting against gentrification to using his music to centre political change, Rollie charts his own development alongside a shifting musical landscape. As Rollie finds his feet, the bottom falls out of the industry, and he captures the way so many artists were able to make a nimble name for themselves while labels floundered. Bedroom Rapper also offers us a wide-ranging and crucial history of hip-hop. With an international perspective that's often missing from rap music journalism, he integrates the gestation of American hip hop with UK grime and niche scenes from the Canadian prairies, bringing his obsessive knowledge of hip-hop to bear on his subject. Rollie takes us into New York in the ’70s, Edmonton in the ’90s, the legendary Montreal DIY loft scene of the 2000s, and traces the ups and downs of trusting your gut and following your passion, obsessively. With a foreword by Gabriel Szatan, music fans and creators alike will relate to the dedication to craft, obsessive passion for what came before, and desire to shift the future that is embodied in every creative project Rollie takes on.

This edited work explores the Black experience in the British Isles from Roman times to the present day. The detailed timeline charts key dates for people and events from the 2nd century AD to the 21st century.

#1 New York Times bestseller · Seven starred reviews · Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book “For all the struggle in this book, Thomas rarely misses a step as a writer. Thomas continues to hold up that mirror with grace and confidence. We are lucky to have her, and lucky to know a girl like Bri.”—The New York Times Book Review This digital edition contains a letter from the author, deleted scenes, a picture of the author as a teen rapper, an annotated playlist, Angie’s top 5 MCs, an annotated rap, illustrated quotes from the book, and an excerpt from Concrete Rose, Angie's return to Garden Heights. Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least win her first battle. As the daughter of an underground hip hop legend who died right before he hit big, Bri’s got massive shoes to fill. But it’s hard to get your come up when you’re labeled a hoodlum at school, and your fridge at home is empty after your mom loses her job. So Bri pours her anger and frustration into her first song, which goes viral . . . for all the wrong reasons. Bri soon finds herself at the center of a controversy, portrayed by the media as more menace than MC. But with an eviction notice staring her family down, Bri doesn’t just want to make it—she has to. Even if it means becoming the very thing the public has made her out to be. Insightful, unflinching, and full of heart, On the Come Up is an ode to hip hop from one of the most influential literary voices of a generation. It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you; and about how, especially for young black people, freedom of speech isn’t always free. Don't miss Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas's powerful prequel to her phenomenal bestseller, The Hate U Give!

List of members in v.1-19, 21, 24-

By the longtime editor-in-chief of Guitar World and a veteran rock journalist, an unprecedented history of the electric guitar, its explosive impact on music and culture, and the people who brought it to life. Spanning a century and encompassing some of guitar's greatest builders and players, from Les Paul to Keith Richards to Eddie Van Halen, Brad Tolinski and Alan di Perna bring the evolution of the guitar to roaring life. This is a story of inventors and iconoclasts, of scam artists, prodigies and mythologizers, as varied and original as the music they spawned. Play It Loud uses twelve landmark instruments, each of them a milestone in the progress of the electric guitar, to illustrate the chaos, conflict and passion it has inspired. It introduces Leo Fender, a man who couldn't play a note, but whose innovation helped transform the classical guitar into the explosive sound machine it is today. Some of the most significant social movements of the 20th century are indebted to the guitar: it was an essential part of Beatlemania and Woodstock; a mirror to the rise of the teenager as a social force; a linchpin of the punk movement's sound and ethos. And today the guitar has come full circle, with contemporary titans such as Jack White of The White Stripes and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys bringing some of those earliest electric guitar forms back to the limelight. For generations, the electric guitar has been an international symbol of freedom, danger and hedonism. Play It Loud is the story of how a band of innovators transformed a simple notion into a singular cultural force.

A star during his lifetime, a legend after a bullet killed him at the age of twenty-five, Tupac Shakur was the most influential rap musician of his day–and the most misunderstood. Far from being the insolent “gangsta” that the press put forth, Tupac was a committed and fearless visionary determined to make a difference not only on the music scene but in the black community at large. Darrin Bastfield grew up with Tupac in a rough Baltimore neighborhood, rapped with him, fought with him, and performed by his side. Now in this vivid, highly personal memoir featuring never-before-seen photos of the rap artist, Darrin shows the world what Tupac Shakur was really like as a teenager destined for greatness. In tight, edgy prose, Darrin follows Tupac through the seven years of their friendship. In Roland Park Middle School in the mid-1980s, rap was a kind of underground movement, and the kids with real talent always found each other. Tupac–new in town, a skinny thirteen-year old with shabby clothes and lopsided hair–may have looked uncool, but it soon became clear that he had the gift. When Tupac teamed up with Mouse, king of the beatbox, they blew the school away in their performance as the Eastside Crew. It was the first in a series of increasingly electrifying performances. When Tupac went to the Baltimore School for the Arts, then it really started to happen. A new group called Born Busy, unforgettable performances at the Beaux Arts Balls, an eye-opening backstage encounter with Salt-N-Pepa, their tight friendship with John, known among black kids as “the cool white boy,” a series of love affairs with adoring girls, the wild nights of the 1988 senior prom–Tupac and Darrin lived though it all together, and in this memoir Darrin makes it all come alive again. From the start, Darrin knew Tupac was a marked man, singled out by his charismatic gift. So it came as no surprise that Tupac made it big when rap went mainstream. What stunned Darrin was the violent turn Tupac’s life took once he relocated to L.A.–and how swiftly that violence engulfed and destroyed him. Vibrant, gritty, alive with the tension and spontaneity of rap music, this memoir of Tupac’s teenage years is a haunting portrait of one of the most important artists of our day.

Just what do you do with talent from the wrong side of town? Benjamin Zephaniah draws on his own experiences with school and the music business to create a novel that speaks with passion and immediacy about the rap scene. Ray has trouble at home, and he has trouble at school – until he's permanently excluded and ends up sleeping on the floor of a record shop. What happens to a boy like Ray? If he's lucky, maybe he gets a chance to shine. The story of three boys who aren't easy. They don't fit in. They seem to attract trouble. But they know what they want, and they've got the talent to back it up ... Brilliantly written and with a real ear for dialogue, fans of Angie Thomas and Malorie Blackman will love Benjamin Zephaniah's novels for young adult readers: Refugee Boy Face Gangsta Rap Teacher's Dead