If any of these topics interest you, consider picking up a copy of Hip Hop Know What I’m Sayin by Kurt Nice in paperback or as a digital download.
1. Introduction – Who are you really?
2. Why call me a Hiphoppa?
3. Shades of Hip Hop Biography (Abbr.)
4. The Cypher
5. Reflections of the Round Table
6. What’s Beef for You?
7. Hip Hop is a seed
8. What aspect of Hip Hop came first?
9. The end of winter
10. Hip Hop in 2012
11. Hip Hop music or business?
12. The lost art of originality
13. More random babbling?
14. Fame and Fortune v. making a living
15. Is Black August racist against White people?
16. Cymatics: Becoming in tune with real Hip Hop
17. Bronx only Hip Hop?
18. MLK prophesized the coming of Hip Hop
19. The stolen legacy of Hip Hop
20. Hip Hop and the Illuminati summed up
21. No more rappers
22. The reason you think it’s hot
23. What if White rappers spit conscious rhymes?
24. Is conscious rap viable as an art form?
25. RE: Iron Solomon vs. E-Ness rap battle
26. Hip Hop Lives: The Rock Steady Crew Anniversary
27. What is Hip Hop?
28. Are we there yet?
29. KRSONE talks about Hip Hop at NYU
30. Hip Hop needs you!
31. The dumbing down of Hip Hop music
32. Meth on swag
33. Music is like fast food
34. FB conversation about the Gospel
35. No account rap bastards
36. Politics and Hip Hop
37. The Civil War/Bloods and Crips
38. The end of racial identity
39. Nigga vs. Black
40. A person is not their race
41. Brother from another mother
42. 2012: Year of the follower
43. Is Trinidad James Hip Hop?
44. Trinidad James: Comedy or Cooning?
45. The Lies Hip Hop told me (part 1):Rappers speak for Hip Hop
46. The Lies Hip Hop told me (part 2):Ignorance is cool
47. Meteorite explodes in the sky over Russia
48. Hip Hop lives on Earth
49. Adrian Younge: The concept art of beat making
50. Finding the right answers
51. My Philosophy is more typical than you remember
52. Language, perception and Hip Hop
53. What is Hip Hop Expression?
54. NSA scandal nothing compared to Stop-and-Frisk
55. Zimmerman creepy-ass cracker
56. Another way mass media manipulates you
57. Why is “White on Black crime” different?
58. Blame Hip Hop and protect the real criminal
59. How Hip Hop entered the global economy
60. Judge rules stop-and-frisk unconstitutional
61. Jay-Z as the shareholder model
62. A Hip Hop pilgrimage to the Mother Land
One good thing about this subject matter is that it’s pretty much timeless. Although there are some references to specific events, the underlying context is as relevant today as it was when it was written. People sometimes think the past is outdated and irrelevant. But that is merely a marketing device employed to keep consumers in a perpetual race for need satisfaction. The desire to want something new all the time is not so much natural as it is programed by businesses and the ones who guide their decision-making process. Everything about the human race is in the past. Now is always just a fading memory and tomorrow never really comes. The past is what we are really made of. Every yesterday that has been spent leads to today. The past is what we have to thank for everything we have. Even all the new freshly packaged things you buy had been planned and processed long before you walked through the door with your money.
The most important decisions about basic life have been solved thanks to those in the past. The comfort and luxury many of us enjoy is due to the efforts of those long dead and decayed in the ground. Who do we thank for roads and running water, and traffic lights or TV dinners and libraries. Even the microchip might not be as new as one would think. Outside of Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr and 3D printers, we have to look to the 20th century and earlier for how we got to where we are now. Also, the knowledge and wisdom from the past is priceless. Most of the deepest questions concerning the human spirit have already been asked. Different levels of the answers may be revealed over time, but without the past, many wouldn’t even know what questions to ask.
With this book, I hope you are inspired to seek the answers to questions which give you a deeper insight to the life around you in society and your perception of it. As Hiphoppas or those influenced by Hip Hop, we are bombarded with ideology from the mainstream that makes us question reality. This books offers a perspective on reality that may remind you of something. There are others, who see the reality you see. There are others like you, who aren’t completely brainwashed by the mainstream culture, and use Hip Hop as means to escape from some of the bullshit.
Kurt Nice
Kurt Nice aka Kurtiss Jackson is a behind the scenes pioneer in the Hip Hop Kulture, creating the first nationally distributed video mix tape series, Shades of Hip Hop, in the late 1990s. Since touring the country with the Stop the Violence Movement and the Temple of Hip Hop as KRS-ONE’s National Marketing Director, Kurt Nice has been a constant commentator on conscious Hip Hop and its relevance to the new rap music of today, through radio and cable appearances. contact Kurt at info@hiphoplives.net
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Kurt Nice aka Kurtiss Jackson is a behind the scenes pioneer in the Hip Hop Kulture, creating the first nationally distributed video mix tape series, Shades of Hip Hop, in the late 1990s. Since touring the country with the Stop the Violence Movement and the Temple of Hip Hop as KRS-ONE's National Marketing Director, Kurt Nice has been a constant commentator on conscious Hip Hop and its relevance to the new rap music of today, through radio and cable appearances. contact Kurt at info@hiphoplives.net
