Product Description: From headlines to street corners, the message resounds: Black men are in crisis. Politicians, preachers, and pundits routinely cast blame on those already ostracized within African American communities. But the crisis of black masculinity does not rest with "at-risk" youth of the hip-hop generation or men "on the down low" alone...read more

That's the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader brings together the best-known and most influential writings on rap and hip-hop from its beginnings to today. Spanning nearly 25 years of scholarship, criticism, and journalism, this unprecedented anthology showcases the evolution and continuing influence of one of the most creative and contested elements of global popular culture since its advent in the late 1970s. That's the Joint presents the most important hip-hop scholarship in one comprehensive volume, addressing hip-hop as both a musical and a cultural practice. Think of it as "Hip-Hop 101."

Product Description: First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In Soul Babies, Mark Anthony Neal explains the complexities and contradictions of black life and culture after the end of the Civil Rights era. He traces the emergence of what he calls a "post-soul aesthetic," a transformation of values that marked a profound change in African American thought and experience. Lively and provocative, Soul Babies offers a valuable new way of thinking about black popular culture and the legacy of the sixties. (view table of contents)

Product Description: First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)