2006-2007
To Be Shared With All Generations
and All Cultures

Tuesdays, October 10

Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America
by Tricia Rose (1994)

A comprehensive, ethnographic look at the lyrics, music, cultures, themes, and styles of rap music, the debates that surround it, and the technology, sexism and socio-economics that nurture it.

Tuesday, November 14

The Coldest Winter Ever
by Sister Souljah (2005)

A cautionary tale protesting drugs, unprotected sex and violence among inner city youth through the streetwise, life-of-crime sage of seductive Winter Santiago, the teenage daughter of a Brooklyn drug kingpin whose skills are suddenly put to the test of a lifetime.

Tuesday, December 12

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop:
A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
By Jeff Chang (2005)

An urban social history, based on original interviews with hop-hop’s forebears, founders, and mavericks, which chronicles the rise of heavy beats, rapping, dancing and graffiti art from Jamaica, to the Bronx, to L.A., to the Kristal-soaked, bling-encrusted corporate rap of today.

Tuesday, January 9

True to the Game
by Teri Woods (1999)

It’s hard to think about the bad when it’s all good; so this fable goes, a love story with street-life virtue as seen through the eyes of Gena and Quadir who are caught in the vicious, yet seductive world of drugs and money finding success in this Game is no easy win and the price is too often life in return.

Tuesday, February 13

Stand & Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership,
and Hip Hop Culture
by Yvonne Bynoe (2003)

In these essays and interviews youth are passionately challenged to eliminate their generation's political stasis and create successful black empowerment by embracing and understanding the nature of influence.

Tuesday, March 13

A Thug’s Life
by Thomas Long (2005)

Two friends, who leaped into the game as boys creating DFL, Dogs for Life, one of the most feared, yet respected crews, are now facing, as men, the consequences that go with their lifestyle and life choices, especially when one wants to move beyond THUGGIN.”

Tuesday, April 10

Hiphop America
by Nelson George (2005)

An insider’s tour through a multimedia phenomenon of which rap music is only the audible manifestation. Hiphop is the culture of black generation X that has changed the English language, reinvented dance and fashion; it is more that the motifs of violence and misogyny.

Tuesday, May 8

Flyy Girl
by Omar Tyree (1993)

The captivating, bitter sweet coming-of-age tale of Tracy Ellison, a selfish, spoiled, unkind material girl, who makes a “game of choosing and chasing and dumping,” learning not to give unless she gets, is eventually shocked into soul-searching by life’s lessons.