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Can’t Stop Won’t Stop

A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

By Jeff Chang
Introduction by DJ Kool Herc

"Hip-hop is the voice of this generation. Even if you didn't grow up in the Bronx in the '70s, hip-hop is there for you. It has become a powerful force. Hip-hop binds all of these people, all of these nationalities, all over the world together."
—DJ Kool Herc, from the Introduction

Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop became the Esperanto of youth rebellion and a generation-defining movement. In a post-civil rights era defined by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop crystallized a multiracial, polycultural generation's worldview, and transformed American politics and culture. But that epic story has never been told like this. From the gangs of the late 60s to the icons of the new millennium, from the Ghetto Brothers and Universal Zulu Nation organizations to the hip-hop activists, Can't Stop Won't Stop presents the hip-hop generation in all its grime and glory with breadth, wit, and style.

Based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, graffiti writers, activists, and gang members, with unforgettable portraits of many of hip-hop's forebears, founders, and mavericks, including DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Chuck D, and Ice Cube, Can't Stop Won't Stop chronicles the events, the ideas, the music, and the art that marked the hip-hop generation's rise from the ashes of the 60s into the new millennium. Here is a powerful cultural and social history of the end of the American century, and a provocative look into the new world that the hip-hop generation created.

» Read an excerpt.
» Read an interview with Jeff by Oliver Wang.
» Check a list of more print and audio interviews with Jeff.

If you want the first-edition hardcover edition—especially for the photos and book design in their original presentation—click here. Or just click the button below to purchase the paperback edition.

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Jeff Chang

burned all his notebooks. What good are notebooks? Mo' bio.

Q+A

Click here for an interview with Jeff by Oliver Wang. For a list of more print and audio interviews with Jeff, click here.

Buzz

"Obsessively researched, beautifully written, Chang's book is the funky, bootleg, B—side remix of late—20th century American history."
—Time Magazine

"When hip-hop 101 becomes a requirement, Jeff Chang's history of the turmoil that begat this beloved culture will be the go—to textbook."
—Vibe Magazine

"Nothing less than the finest rap history extant..."
—Robert Christgau, Rolling Stone

"The birth of hip-hop out of the ruin of the South Bronx is a story that has been told many times, but never with the cinematic scope and the analytic force that Chang brings to it...This is one of the most urgent and passionate histories of popular music ever written."
—The New Yorker

"His scope is operatic, sprawling, and concerns itself with the people, places and politics that drove hip-hop from its infancy...perhaps Chang is hip-hop America's Howard Zinn."
—Salon

"How and why hip-hop predicted today's cultural politics is the bailiwick of Jeff Chang's tour de force chronicle Can't Stop Won't Stop...his writing cogently and elegantly combines street reportage, music criticism, mother wit, semiotics and political analysis."
—Greg Tate in The Nation

"There is a fearless sweep to this book. As the narrative veers dizzyingly from content to context, from broad—brush assertion to the laser—focused insights of previously unheard voices, it's clear that there's no part of American life or recent history that Chang considers off—limits."
—Daily Telegraph

"Chang digs deeper than any previous hip-hop historian, and he also writes with more fluid eloquence and empathic warmth than any of his colleagues...Can't Stop Won't Stop is the best book ever written about hip-hop."
—Pitchfork

"Can't Stop Won't Stop remains vibrant, relevant, and vital. Grade: A—!"
—Entertainment Weekly

"A broad, eye—opening, decades—spanning account of the evolution of hip-hop culture...a collage, a "dub history," a craftily constructed mish—mash of soundbites, stories, facts and figures which, like random samples in the best rap tracks, come together to form a spectacular new narrative."
—The (Montreal) Gazette

"...the best book ever about hip-hop!"
—Cleveland Scene

» The Complete Buzz

Dates

Upcoming Appearances

January 31, 4:00 PM

RADIO :: Hard Knock Radio KPFA (Bay Area)

February 1, 7:00 PM

RADIO :: Apex Express KPFA (Bay Area)

February 12, 7:00 PM

PANEL :: 92nd Street Y/Makor with Jason Tanz and special guest TBA (New York City)

February 13, 7:00 PM

READING & DISCUSSION :: Asian American Writers Workshop Presents the Bowling Green Caravan (Bowling Green State University, OH)

February 15, 5:00 PM

SCREENING & QA :: Byron Hurt presents "Beyond Beats and Rhymes"

For a complete list of Jeff's appearances, check Dates.

Excerpt

Making A Name:
How DJ Kool Herc Lost His Accent And Started hip-hop

It has become myth, a creation myth, this West Bronx party at the end of the summer in 1973. Not for its guests—a hundred kids and kin from around the way, nor for the setting—a modest recreation room in a new apartment complex; not even for its location—two miles north of Yankee Stadium, near where the Cross—Bronx Expressway spills into Manhattan. Time remembers it for the night DJ Kool Herc made his name.
Read on!

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Just 1 thing: before hitting your "Send" button, please check to make sure your email is going to the right spot. No use sending a line-by-line critique of Chapter 3 to the agents, yaddamean?

Props, Disses, or Curry Recipes:

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USA Interview Requests, Press Inquiries, or Review Copy Requests:

Please email here to reach James Meader at Picador Books.

UK and Australia Interview Requests, Press Inquiries, or Review Copy Requests:

Please email here to reach Caroline Newbury at Ebury Press.

Speaking Engagements or Lectures:

Please email here to reach Dave Twombly at the Lavin Agency. For more info on booking an engagement, go here.

Literary Rights, Reprint Requests, or Multimillion Dollar Shoe Deals:

Please email here to reach Victoria Sanders at the Victoria Sanders Agency.

Note: Feel free to distribute any written material on cantstopwontstop.com for educational uses. You don't want to try to jack, though. Jeff has a lot of family members.