That's the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader

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."

Murray Forman is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University. He is author of The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Hip-Hop.

Mark Anthony Neal is Associate Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Program in African and African-American Studies at Duke University. Neal is the author of What the Music Said, Soul Babies, and Songs in the Key of Black Life, all published by Routledge.