Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls and Hip-Hop Culture in New York

ISBN-13: 9780195334050 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 192 str.

Joseph Glenn Schloss

Opis

B-boying is a form of Afro-diasporic competitive dance that developed in the Bronx, NY in the early 1970s. Widely - though incorrectly - known as "breakdancing," it is often dismissed as a form of urban acrobatics set to music. In reality, however, b-boying is a deeply traditional and profoundly expressive art form that has been passed down from teacher to student for almost four decades. Foundation: B-boys, B-girls and Hip-Hop Culture in New York offers the first serious study of b-boying as both unique dance form and a manifestation of the most fundamental principles of hip-hop culture. Drawing on anthropological and historical research, interviews and personal experience as a student of the dance, Joseph Schloss presents a nuanced picture of b-boying and its social context. From the dance's distinctive musical repertoire and traditional educational approaches to its complex stylistic principles and secret battle strategies, Foundation illuminates a previously unexamined thread in the complex tapestry that is contemporary hip-hop.

Recenzje

There is no richer example of tradition in Hip-Hop culture, than the legacy of B-Boys and B-Girls. Foundation gives voice to these often forgotten actors in hip-hop history, giving us all a clue about the genius that literally sits at the Foundation of Hip-Hop. Joe Schloss cannot be dismissed as some disconnected Ivory-Tower critic and with Foundation he simply ups the ante on hip- hop scholarship in a major way.

O autorze

Joseph Schloss is the visiting professor at NYU and instructor in music, Baruch College. Author, Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop (Wesleyan, 2004), recipient of the 2005 book award from the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. A leader in a new generation of practitioner/scholars writing from their own experience on the ground, Schloss exists simultaneously in the Ivory Tower and on the competitive dance floor, and has won prizes in both arenas.