Searching For The Perfect Beat

The distinctive visual style of the American techno scene is featured in this source-book showing the best examples of club flyers created to promote rave events.

Despite its global popularity, rap has received little scholarly attention in terms of its poetic features. Rhymes in the Flow systematically analyzes the poetics (rap beats, rhythms, rhymes, verse and song structures) of many notable rap songs to provide new insights on rap artistry and performance. Defining and describing the features of what rappers commonly call flow, the authors establish a theory of the rap line as they trace rap’s deepest roots and stylistic evolution—from Anglo-Saxon poetry to Lil Wayne—and contextualize its complex poetics. Rhymes in the Flow helps explain rap’s wide appeal by focusing primarily on its rhythmic and thematic power, while also claiming its historical, cultural, musical, and poetic importance.

Don't Sweat the Technique equips aspiring performers with the tools and knowledge needed to become a better rapper. Written in easy-to-understand language, this book helps build techniques and unlocks solutions to common stumbling blocks. It includes exclusive advice from dozens of MCs who give further insight into mastering the craft.

“The Liver Birds were dead and the city had died with them…” Can it really be that evil has won and the world has fallen? Raj Chowdhury must lead a group of survivors on one last quest to confront their adversary, the hideously changed Saunders, who is now at the peak of his powers. They must brave the dreaded Screamers and treachery in their own ranks. As the journey which began with Missing Beat reaches its nail-biting climax, who will survive? And where, exactly, are Joey Cale and Emma Winrush? Perfect Beat is the final book in the heart-stopping trilogy that includes Missing Beat and Beat Surrender.

Corporations and the Pigeon Police rule everything around John Henry but hip hop is king. In 2037, the environmental pollution reached a tipping point creating deadly solar rays for the fair skinned. Now in 2062, Whites only survive through the use of Solar Mitigation Resistance Kits, or SMiRKs, and have been relegated to Wrashtowns under the Pigeon Code. John Henry is searching for the perfect beat. The ultimate flow to pull him out of the Wrash. He thinks his way to the top is through using old technology to put on an unforgettable show. The terrorist Graft and the Pigeon Police are both after the same technology for their own reasons. If he plans on making his mark on hip hop, John Henry will need to get to it first and rock the mic right.

In Search of Soul explores the meaning of “soul” in sacred and profane incarnations, from its biblical origins to its central place in the rich traditions of black and Latin history. Surveying the work of writers, artists, poets, musicians, philosophers and theologians, Alejandro Nava shows how their understandings of the “soul” revolve around narratives of justice, liberation, and spiritual redemption. He contends that biblical traditions and hip-hop emerged out of experiences of dispossession and oppression. Whether born in the ghettos of America or of the Roman Empire, hip-hop and Christianity have endured by giving voice to the persecuted. This book offers a view of soul in living color, as a breathing, suffering, dreaming thing.