The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop

New York Times reporter Abrams (Boys Among Men) charts hip-hop’s explosive growth in this kaleidoscopic oral history. Among those interviewed are superstars DMC, both Ice T and Cube, Professor Griff, and impresario Russell Simmons, as well as less well-known producers, agents, and recording engineers. Their loose-limbed recollections cover five decades, from the genre’s origins in 1970s Bronx street parties where DJs used multiple turntables to lay down beats—after hot-wiring lampposts to power their sound systems—through such watersheds as Public Enemy’s innovations in political rap, N.W.A.’s popularization of militant gangsta rap, and the feud between West Coast and East Coast hip-hop labels that may have precipitated the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. The grassroots ferment of hip-hop brewed social networks that elevated unknowns to stardom—“I went and picked him up and smoked a bunch of weed and he got on the mic and his voice sounded incredible,” label exec Mike Ross recalls of discovering Tone Loc—along with tensions between art and commerce. (“That’s the saddest state of hip-hop,” muses pioneering gangsta rapper Schoolly D, “everything is about money.”) This entertaining conversation will captivate hip-hop heads. Agent: Dan Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (Oct.)