Dan Charnas presents his new book, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop. Charnas takes us from the first "rapping DJ" in 1970s New York, through the secret histories of Sugar Hill Records and Grandmaster Flash, the marketing of gangsta rap, and the rise of artist/ entrepreneurs like Jay-Z and Sean "Diddy" Combs.
Bio
Dan Charnas
Dan Charnas -- journalist, screenwriter, record producer, teacher -- was one of the first writers for The Source and part of a generation of young writers who helped create hip-hop journalism.
Charnas penned cover stories, features, reviews and columns for a variety of publications on artists like L.L. Cool J, Ice Cube, A Tribe Called Quest, N.W.A. and Public Enemy.
Currently, Charnas writes about culture, race, and politics for a number of publications, including the Washington Post and the New York Press. His writing has also appreared in the Chicago Tribune, the Austin American Statesman and dozens of other newspapers.
Charnas is a graduate of Boston University. His thesis, 'Musical Apartheid In America,' examined white America's 400-year-long relationship of ambivalence to Black culture; the legacy of racial segregation in the music industry; and the potential of hip-hop in resolving that ambivalence, transforming the industry and the entire culture.
Charnas received his Master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he won a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, the school's top honor. Charnas was also awarded the Lynton Fellowship for Book Writing, and the Sackett Graduate Award.
His book, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, is the epic, 40-year narrative of the executives, entrepreneurs, hustlers and handlers who turned rap music into the world's predominant pop culture. Culled from over 300 interviews with top industry figures and artists, and nearly a decade of research, The Big Payback was published by New American Library/Penguin in 2010.
Musical style in which rhythmic and/or rhyming speech is chanted (“rapped”) to musical accompaniment. This backing music, which can include digital sampling (music and sounds extracted from other recordings), is also called hip-hop, the name used to refer to a broader cultural movement that includes rap, deejaying (turntable manipulation), graffiti painting, and breakdancing. Rap, which originated in African American communities in New York City, came to national prominence with the Sugar Hill Gang's “Rapper's Delight” (1979). Rap's early stars included Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, Public Enemy (who espoused a radical political message), and the Beastie Boys. The late 1980s saw the advent of “gangsta rap,” with lyrics that were often misogynistic or that glamorized violence and drug dealing. More recent stars have included Sean “Puffy” Combs, Jay-Z, OutKast, and Eminem.
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