Hip Hop Raised Meregistered is the definitive volume on the essence experience & energy that is hip hop & its massive & enduring impact over the last 40 years It's packed with contact sheets outtakes & glory shots of artists collectives & fans off-guard & in action from iconic photographers including Martha Cooper Henry Chalfant Eddie Otchere Normski Janette Beckman Chi Modu Nabil Elderkin & Mark Humphrey as well as photographs of hip-hop ephemera & vinyl courtesy of specialist collectors With the help of his definitive catalogue of interviews with hip-hop artists from the 1990s to today conducted at key moments in their careers & including Jay-Z Kanye West Eminem Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Drake Nicki Minaj J Cole Kendrick Lamar Nas & the Wu-Tang Clan DJ Semtex examines the crucial role of hip hop in society He reflects on the huge influence it has had on his own life & the lives of many others providing inspiration & purpose to generation after generation of disaffected youths Taking a thematic approach & featuring seminal interviews he has conducted with key hip-hop artists Semtex traces the characteristics & influence of hip hop from its origins in the early 1970s with DJ Kool Herc's block parties in the South Bronx through its breakthrough to the mainstream & advent of gangsta rap in the late 1980s with artists such as Run DMC Public Enemy & Ice T to the impact of contemporary artists & the global industry that is hip hop today Hip-hop artists have gone from hustlers to successful entrepreneurs & businessmen Hip hop has come of age Foreword by Chuck D