Dan Charnas Bücher

J Dilla wasn't known to mainstream audiences: in his lifetime he never had a pop hit. Since his death he has been revered by jazz musicians and rap icons for a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, which changed the way "traditional" musicians play. Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from a childhood in Detroit, to his rise as a Grammy-nominated hip-hop producer, to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death; and follows the people who kept him and his ideas alive. Along the way Charnas rewinds the histories of American rhythms, a story of Black culture in America and of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. -- adapted from jacket

The Big Payback takes readers from the first $15 made by a "rapping DJ" in 1970s New York to the multi-million-dollar sales of the Phat Farm and Roc-a-Wear clothing companies in 2004 and 2007. On this four-decade-long journey from the studios where the first rap records were made to the boardrooms where the big deals were inked, The Big Payback tallies the list of who lost and who won. Read the secret histories of the early long-shot successes of Sugar Hill Records and Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC's crossover breakthrough on MTV, the marketing of gangsta rap, and the rise of artist/ entrepreneurs like Jay-Z and Sean "Diddy" Combs.300 industry giants like Def Jam founders Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons gave their stories to renowned hip-hop journalist Dan Charnas, who provides a compelling, never-before-seen, myth-debunking view into the victories, defeats, corporate clashes, and street battles along the 40-year road to hip-hop's dominance.