Synopses & Reviews
View the
Table of Contents. Read the
Introduction.
"The New H.N.I.C. brilliantly observes pivotal moments in hip hop and black culture as a whole... provocative[ly] raises the level of the hip hop discussion."
Black Issues Book Review
"It was naive for Todd Boyd to subtitle his book The Death of Civil Rights and the Birth of Hip Hop, and not to expect people to wig out."
Punk Planet
"Stand back! Todd Boyd brings the ruckus in this provocative look at how hip hop changed everything from the jailhouse to the White Houseand why it truly became the voice of a new generation."
Alan Light, Editor-in-Chief, Spin Magazine
"Elegantly script[s] the fall of the previous generation alongside the rise of a new hip-hop ethosà. [The New H.N.I.C] is built on the provocative premise that this generation's hip-hop culture has come to supersede the previous one's paradigm of civil rights. Highlighting various moments in recent rap history—the controversy over OutKast's naming a single after Rosa Parks; the white negro-isms of Eminem—Boyd offers hip-hop as the most suitable access point for understanding the social, political, and cultural experiences of African Americans born after the civil rights period."
Village Voice
"Those who are hip have always known that Black music is about more than simply nodding your head, snapping your fingers, and patting your feet. Like the proverbial Dude, back on the block, Dr. Todd Boyd, in his groundbreaking book The New H.N.I.C., tells us that like the best of this oral tradition, hip hop is a philosophy and worldview rooted in history and at the same time firmly of the moment. Dr. Boyd's improvisational flow is on point like be bop Stacy Adams and The New H.N.I.C.,in both style and substance, breaks down how this monumental cultural shift has come to redefine the globe. With mad props and much love, Dr. Boyd's The New H.N.I.C. is the voice of a generation and stands poised at the vanguard of our future."
Quincy Jones
"A convincing and entertaining case that hip-hop matters, Boyd's reading [of hip hop] is nothing less than inspired."
Mother Jones
"If you want to understand the direction of music today, read thisbook. Boyd expertly chronicles the birth of Hip Hop, its impact on allmusic and how the language and music defines a generation."
Tom Freston, CEO, MTV Networks
"Boyd's main observation is simple and mostly true: "Hip-hop has rejected and now replaced the pious, sanctimonious nature of civil rights as the defining moment of Blackness."
Los Angeles Times
When Lauryn Hill stepped forward to accept her fifth Grammy Award in 1999, she paused as she collected the last trophy, and seeming somewhat startled said, "This is crazy, 'cause this is hip hop music.'" Hill's astonishment at receiving mainstream acclaim for music once deemed insignificant testifies to the explosion of this truly revolutionary art form. Hip hop music and the culture that surrounds itfilm, fashion, sports, and a whole way of beinghas become the defining ethos for a generation. Its influence has spread from the state's capital to the nation's capital, from the Pineapple to the Big Apple, from 'Frisco to Maine, and then on to Spain.
But moving far beyond the music, hip hop has emerged as a social and cultural movement, displacing the ideas of the Civil Rights era. Todd Boyd maintains that a new generation, having grown up in the aftermath of both Civil Rights and Black Power, rejects these old school models and is instead asserting its own values and ideas. Hip hop is distinguished in this regard because it never attempted to go mainstream, but instead the mainstream came to hip hop.
The New H.N.I.C., like hip hop itself, attempts to keep it real, and challenges conventional wisdom on a range of issues, from debates over use of the "N-word," the comedy of Chris Rock, and the "get money" ethos of hip hop moguls like Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Russell Simmons, to hip hop's impact on a diverse array of figures from Bill Clinton and Eminem to Jennifer Lopez.
Maintaining that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is less important today than DMX's It's Dark and Hell is Hot, Boyd argues that Civil Rights as a cultural force is dead, confined to a series of media images frozen in another time. Hip hop, on the other hand, represents the vanguard, and is the best way to grasp both our present and future.
Review
"If you want to understand the direction of music today, read this book. Boyd expertly chronicles the birth of Hip Hop, its impact on all music and how the language and music defines a generation." - Tom Freston, CEO, MTV Networks
Review
"Stand back! Todd Boyd brings the ruckus in this provocative look at how hip hop changed everything from the jailhouse to the White Houseand why it truly became the voice of a new generation." - Alan Light, Editor-in-Chief, Spin Magazine
Review
“A convincing and entertaining case that hip-hop matters, Boyd's reading [of hip hop] is nothing less than inspired.”
“If you want to understand the direction of music today, read this book. Boyd expertly chronicles the birth of Hip Hop, its impact on allmusic and how the language and music defines a generation.”
“Stand back! Todd Boyd brings the ruckus in this provocative look at how hip hop changed everything from the jailhouse to the White House—;and why it truly became the voice of a new generation.”
“Those who are hip have always known that Black music is about more than simply nodding your head, snapping your fingers, and patting your feet. Like the proverbial Dude, back on the block, Dr. Todd Boyd, in his groundbreaking book The New H.N.I.C., tells us that like the best of this oral tradition, hip hop is a philosophy and worldview rooted in history and at the same time firmly of the moment. Dr. Boyd's improvisational flow is on point like be bop Stacy Adams and The New H.N.I.C.,in both style and substance, breaks down how this monumental cultural shift has come to redefine the globe. With mad props and much love, Dr. Boyd’s The New H.N.I.C. is the voice of a generation and stands poised at the vanguard of our future.”
“The New H.N.I.C. brilliantly observes pivotal moments in hip hop and black culture as a whole . . . and [provocatively] raises the level of the hip hop discussion.”
Review
"This fascinating and illuminating study ably traces Civil Defense from Bert the Turtle's school drills in the 1950s to backyard family shelters in the early sixties. As Kenneth Rose insightfully shows, Americans, panicked over Cold War tensions and the threat of thermonuclear incineration, talked inordinately about fallout shelters, but few were ever built. That discrepancy reveals much about American society, culture, and psychology. This book almost glows in the dark."-W. J. Rorabaugh,author of Berkeley at War: The 1960s
Review
"This compelling chronicle of the civil defense debate during the early years of the Cold War shows how discussions of the pros and cons of fallout shelters forced Americans to face the possible consequences of nuclear war and what kind of world any survivors would inhabit. In the national soul-searching that ensued, citizens confronted their deepest fears, values, and attitudes about themselves, their neighbors, and their world. One Nation Underground reminds us of the real terror that gripped the world in the tense years of nuclear brinksmanship."-Elaine Tyler May,author of Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
Review
"One Nation Underground vividly evokes a fast-fading era of U.S. history when millions of Americans contemplated the prospect of huddling in underground shelters to escape the blast and radiation of thermonuclear war. Kenneth D. Rose brings into sharp focus these years when nuclear fear pervaded American public life and culture, gripping Pentagon Strategists, civil-defense planners, theologians, magazine editors, and the authors of comic books and science-fiction stories. Beautifully written, copiously illustrated, and drawing upon an amazing range of sources, this engrossing book should be read by anyone interested in the domestic fallout of the Cold War nuclear arms race."-Paul S. Boyer,author of By the Bomb's Early Light and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age
Review
"Rose critically nails the ambivalence of the general population toward sheltering."-Technology and Culture,
Review
"Kenneth Rose's One Nation Underground explores U.S. nuclear history from the bottom upliterally. . . . Rose deserves credit for not trivializing this period of our history, as so many retrospectives of the Cold War era have tended to do."-Journal of Cold War Studies,
Synopsis
Frames hip-hop as the defining cultural force in the aftermath of the Civil Rights and Black Power eras
When Lauryn Hill stepped forward to accept her fifth Grammy Award in 1999, she paused as she collected the last trophy, and seeming somewhat startled said, "This is crazy, 'cause this is hip hop music.'" Hill's astonishment at receiving mainstream acclaim for music once deemed insignificant testifies to the explosion of this truly revolutionary art form. Hip hop music and the culture that surrounds it--film, fashion, sports, and a whole way of being--has become the defining ethos for a generation. Its influence has spread from the state's capital to the nation's capital, from the Pineapple to the Big Apple, from 'Frisco to Maine, and then on to Spain.
But moving far beyond the music, hip hop has emerged as a social and cultural movement, displacing the ideas of the Civil Rights era. Todd Boyd maintains that a new generation, having grown up in the aftermath of both Civil Rights and Black Power, rejects these old school models and is instead asserting its own values and ideas. Hip hop is distinguished in this regard because it never attempted to go mainstream, but instead the mainstream came to hip hop.
The New H.N.I.C., like hip hop itself, attempts to keep it real, and challenges conventional wisdom on a range of issues, from debates over use of the "N-word," the comedy of Chris Rock, and the "get money" ethos of hip hop moguls like Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Russell Simmons, to hip hop's impact on a diverse array of figures from Bill Clinton and Eminem to Jennifer Lopez.
Maintaining that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is less important today than DMX's It's Dark and Hell is Hot, Boyd argues that Civil Rights as a cultural force is dead, confined to a series of media images frozen in another time. Hip hop, on the other hand, represents the vanguard, and is the best way to grasp both our present and future.
Synopsis
In this provocative book, Boyd suggests that hip hop culture has emerged as a social movement in its own right, replacing the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in influencing and defining today's generation.
Synopsis
When Lauryn Hill stepped forward to accept her fifth Grammy Award in 1999, she paused as she collected the last trophy, and seeming somewhat startled said, “This is crazy, ‘cause this is hip hop music.“ Hills astonishment at receiving mainstream acclaim for music once deemed insignificant testifies to the explosion of this truly revolutionary art form. Hip hop music and the culture that surrounds it—film, fashion, sports, and a whole way of being—has become the defining ethos for a generation. Its influence has spread from the states capital to the nations capital, from the Pineapple to the Big Apple, from ‘Frisco to Maine, and then on to Spain.
But moving far beyond the music, hip hop has emerged as a social and cultural movement, displacing the ideas of the Civil Rights era. Todd Boyd maintains that a new generation, having grown up in the aftermath of both Civil Rights and Black Power, rejects these old school models and is instead asserting its own values and ideas. Hip hop is distinguished in this regard because it never attempted to go mainstream, but instead the mainstream came to hip hop.
The New H.N.I.C., like hip hop itself, attempts to keep it real, and challenges conventional wisdom on a range of issues, from debates over use of the “N-word,” the comedy of Chris Rock, and the “get money” ethos of hip hop moguls like Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Russell Simmons, to hip hops impact on a diverse array of figures from Bill Clinton and Eminem to Jennifer Lopez.
Maintaining that Martin Luther King, Jr.s “I Have a Dream” speech is less important today than DMX's It's Dark and Hell is Hot, Boyd argues that Civil Rights as a cultural force is dead, confined to a series of media images frozen in another time. Hip hop, on the other hand, represents the vanguard, and is the best way to grasp both our present and future.
Synopsis
For the half-century duration of the Cold War, the fallout shelter was a curiously American preoccupation. Triggered in 1961 by a hawkish speech by John F. Kennedy, the fallout shelter controversy"to dig or not to dig," as
Business Week put it at the timeforced many Americans to grapple with deeply disturbing dilemmas that went to the very heart of their self-image about what it meant to be an American, an upstanding citizen, and a moral human being.
Given the much-touted nuclear threat throughout the 1960s and the fact that 4 out of 5 Americans expressed a preference for nuclear war over living under communism, what's perhaps most striking is how few American actually built backyard shelters. Tracing the ways in which the fallout shelter became an icon of popular culture, Kenneth D. Rose also investigates the troubling issues the shelters raised: Would a post-war world even be worth living in? Would shelter construction send the Soviets a message of national resolve, or rather encourage political and military leaders to think in terms of a "winnable" war?
Investigating the role of schools, television, government bureaucracies, civil defense, and literature, and rich in fascinating detailincluding a detailed tour of the vast fallout shelter in Greenbriar, Virginia, built to harbor the entire United States Congress in the event of nuclear armageddonOne Nation, Underground goes to the very heart of America's Cold War experience.
About the Author
A frequent media commentator, Todd Boyd is Professor of Critical Studies in the USC School of Cinema-Television. His books include Am I Black Enough for You? Popular Culture from the 'Hood and Beyond and, as co-editor, Basketball Jones: America above the Rim, available from NYU Press. He produced and co-wrote the Paramount Pictures film The Wood.