Part 1 of 2. There's so much good stuff in this interview we had to split it into two parts.
Jeff Chang and Davey D have written the definitive hip hop history. They should know.
They're both hip hop journalists, and DJs, and political activists, and college professors.
Dave has been tearing the Bay Area airwaves and the internets since like forever. As we discuss, his charts and playlists played a big role in spreading the knowledge of underground hip hop around the world.
Jeff was a founder of the SoleSides Crew responsible for bringing us artists like DJ Shadow and Lyrics Born and helped Josh get his first job out of college. So there's that.
Our interview tracks the development of their careers along parallel paths before converging on the re-imagining of Jeff's book — originally published in 2005 — for young adults. They may have cleaned up some of the language, and also added some pivotal stories from hip hop's evolution from then until the present day. In particular, the new version expands on women's role in hip hop as well as how the culture has spread to literally every corner on earth.
We also uncover some things they learned through the writing process, and how they leaned on each other to produce a product that's truly inspiring.
Make sure you pick up a copy at https://cantstopwontstop.com
Check out some other links mentioned in the show and learn about the authors here:
Mix Engineer: James Soriano