Can't Stop Won't Stop (Young Adult Edition): A Hip-Hop History

by Jeff Chang, Dave 'Davey D' Cook

Overview

The American Book Award winner, now completely adapted for a young adult audience!

From award-winning author Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop is the story of hip-hop, a generation-defining movement and the music that transformed American politics and culture forever.

Hip hop is one of the most dominant and influential cultures in America, giving new voice to the younger generation. It defines a generation's worldview. Exploring hip hop's beginnings up to the present day, Jeff Chang and Dave "Davey D" Cook provide a provocative look into the new world that the hip hop generation has created.

Based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, activists, and gang members, with unforgettable portraits of many of hip hop's forebears, founders, mavericks, and present day icons, this book chronicles the epic events, ideas and the music that marked the hip hop generation's rise.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250790514
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/16/2021
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.40(h) x 1.40(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

JEFF CHANG has written extensively on culture, politics, the arts, and music. His books include the adult edition of Can't Stop Won't Stop, Who We Be, and We Gon' Be Alright. Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai’i, he is a graduate of ‘Iolani School, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of California at Los Angeles.

DAVE 'DAVEY D' COOK is a nationally recognized journalist, adjunct professor at San Francisco State, Hip Hop historian, political commentator, syndicated talk show host, radio programmer, media justice and community activist.

Table of Contents

A Note from the Authors ix

Introduction DJ Kool Herc xi

Loop 1 1969-1982

1 Babylon Is Burning 3

2 How DJ Kool Herc Lost His Accent 15

3 Getting It Together 28

4 Wild Styles 39

5 Hip-Hop Is Dead 56

6 Zulus Meet the Punk Rockers Downtown 65

Loop 2 1983-1990

7 The Big Crossover 77

8 Coast to Coast 88

9 What We Got to Say 102

10 All About Reality 117

Loop 3 1991-1997

11 City on Fire 137

12 New Wars 152

13 Ladies First 166

14 Keeping It Real 178

15 Tupac and Biggie 193

Loop 4 1998-2020

16 New Queens & Kings 225

17 The Great White Hope 247

18 All Around the World 261

19 Black Lives Matter 275

Reader's Guide 299

Acknowledgments 303

Notes 309

Index 325

Editorial Reviews

"This engrossing, engaging account bills itself as a history of hip-hop, but it's so much more." - starred Booklist Review

"Readers can feel the seeds of Chang’s cultural organizing within the storytelling of this tour de force while Cook brings his decades of experience as a pioneering hip-hop journalist to give new color to this edition." - starred Kirkus Review

"This young adult nonfiction title will be enjoyed...by avid hip-hop fans." - School Library Journal

From the Publisher

02/01/2021

Gr 8 Up—The 2005 adult edition of Chang's sweeping overview of hip-hop history garnered several accolades, including an American Book Award. Due to its intended audience, this young adult adaptation is shorter than the original work. An author's note at the beginning indicates that some potentially offensive language has been removed. Part music history and part social history, the text is divided into four "loops," which highlight the performers of the spotlighted time period and the historical events that coincided with the music. Hip-hop aficionados will appreciate the first loop, which covers 1969–1982. Chang pays tribute to lesser-known artists who set the foundation for the genre and contemporary performers such as Notorious B.I.G. and LL Cool J. He also devotes equal time to groundbreaking all-female groups, such as Mercedes Ladies. The well-intentioned desire to include information about every possible performer makes the text sometimes difficult to read, with some paragraphs and pages serving as a laundry list of names. Chang establishes a clear link between hip-hop and its role in protesting racial injustice in the past (i.e. the Rodney King beating) and in the context of current events, such as the death of George Floyd. VERDICT This young adult nonfiction title will be enjoyed primarily by avid hip-hop fans who want to understand the origins of the genre.—Anne Jung-Mathews, Plymouth State Univ., NH

School Library Journal

★ 2021-01-12
A 2005 classic charting hip-hop’s rise to global prominence—while navigating the entanglements of race, class, politics, and poetics that lie at its heart—gets a long-overdue redux.

Two veteran cultural critics bring the history of hip-hop to younger readers in 2021 as the infinite futures of the genre continue to expand. Readers can feel the seeds of Chang’s cultural organizing within the storytelling of this tour de force while Cook brings his decades of experience as a pioneering hip-hop journalist to give new color to this edition. They write of hip-hop’s birth in the figurative and all-too-literal fires of Kingston, Jamaica, and the South Bronx before becoming the world’s most significant youth cultural influence. Hip-hop founding father DJ Kool Herc reminds readers of the dualities of fun and responsibility at its core in the introduction. Chapters comb through the movement’s antecedents in the 1960s, traveling from coast to coast, through the South and all around the world. The authors show the oft-underrepresented ways that Black women have shaped hip-hop, and new chapters chart its championing in the 21st century as a lifestyle built around being anti-establishment grappled with commercial success, political influence, and social change during the 2020 summer of Covid and mass protest. In addition to satisfying committed fans, this stellar work could function as a supplementary text within any social studies narration of the post–civil rights–era U.S.

Required history for young hip-hop heads—and everyone else. (reader's guide, endnotes, index) (Nonfiction 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews

04/01/2022

Gr 8 Up—Over a decade and a half after its 2005 publication, the young readers edition of historian/journalist/music critic Chang's seminal Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation seems almost overdue. The enhanced collaboration with historian/journalist/professor Cook adds new generations of makers and shakers, resulting in an enlightening, entertaining, sobering masterpiece. Covering over a half-century of history from the 1960s through the COVID-19 pandemic, Chang and Cook provide a stunning political, socioeconomic, musical melding. The audiobook, unfortunately, is disheartening. The duo alternates voicing the four "Loops," with Chang's steady gravitas making him the stronger narrator. Cook's passionate delivery occasionally hampers his enunciation; mispronunciations ("Sa-I-Gu," for example) loom. The most egregious blunders belong to the production team, with countless jarring insertions reminiscent of spotty cell connections. And why awkwardly embed just phrases—"with its redbrick buildings," "from San Fernando Valley"—instead of re-recording full sentences? VERDICT For sound purists, choose the page.

School Library Journal - Audio