Rap's Family Tree On the Web: Selected Sites of Interest

Calypso

Scroll down to the Calypso Resources section of my Carnival Culture home page

Dub Poetry

See the Internet Resources section of Word Sound Have Power

Rap/Hip-Hop

Reference

• The Rap section of the All-Music Guide, the pre-eminent (and most comprehensive) record guide/music encyclopedia on the Web.  Be sure not just to read the brief "Intro," but to explore what's behind the other tabs ("Styles," "Music Maps," "Essay," "Key Artists," "Key Albums") as well.
• The Rap/Hip-Hop section of listen.com, which not only provides good introductory information (and taxonomizes schools of rap even more minutely than the AMG), but links you to downloadable music and video--often free--for almost every artist you could think of.
• Eric Bennett's excellent encylopedia-style entries on Rap and Hip-Hop at Africana.com.
• The Totally Unofficial Rap Dictionary, a glossary of terms and phrases for rubes and greenhorns.
• The Hip-Hop Archives (The Hitlist) include a searchable trove of rap lyrics.
• Africanhiphop.com is a slick, comprehensive site covering rap and hiphop across the African continent

Magazines

• Vibe Online
• The Source  
• XXL  
• Ego Trip  

Other

88Hiphop.com (Pseudo.com's Internet hip-hop channel, where DJs serve up streaming audio & video)

"Guarding the Borders of the Hip-Hop Nation" (New York Times, July 6, 2000).  An article on self-styled hip-hop author and activist William "Upski" Wimsatt and XXL editor Elliott Wilson.  From the (mostly lame) series "How Race Is Lived in America."

The website of DJ Spooky (That Subliminal Kid) includes trippy theoretical articles by one of the foremost thinkers in the hip-hop nation.

For links related to individual poets & rappers, see Roots and Branches

Other Performance Poetry/Poets

General

Nuyorican Poets Cafe, New York City

Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Poets Read Their Work (promotional Web Site for Rhino Records CD Anthology; includes RealAudio samples)

Making The Spirit of 20th and 21st Century Culture: Placing Black Popular Culture and Performance (Academic Conference sponsored by the Black Popular Culture Workshop and the Committee on Black Performing Arts at Stanford University, October 8-10, 1999).  Video from the conference includes sessions on defining Black popular culture and performance, the migrations of Black culture in diaspora, the role of community in Black culture and performance, and the future social influence of Black culture.  Participants include such notable figures as NYU professor Manthia Diawara, journalist and cultural critic Margo Jefferson, novelist and dramaturg Thulani Davis, British academic Kobena Mercer, and jazz bassist Christian McBride.

James Smethurst, "The Black Arts Movement" (Africana.com)

Robert Fay, "The Dozens" (Africana.com)

Individual Poets 

Amiri Baraka

• Fooling with Words with Bill Moyers: The Poets Read (includes RealVideo of Amiri Baraka performing "Wise, Why's, Y's" and QuickTime video of an interview with Baraka). (Also on this site: Baraka bio; and nine additional poems by Baraka.)
• "Literature and Life," a PBS program based on the Givens Collection of African-American Literature at the University of Minnesota. Chapter 4: Say It Loud: The Black Arts Movement, features RealVideo of performances by Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni.
• Amiri Baraka reads "In Walked Bud" (in RealAudio or mp3) at MP3Lit.com

Michelle T. Clinton

• Michelle T. Clinton's "Solitude Ain't Loneliness" at PBS's United States of Poetry site.
• Michelle T. Clinton reads "History as Trash" and "Manifesting the Girl Hero" (in RealAudio or mp3) at MP3Lit.com

Wanda Coleman reads "They Will Starve You" (in mp3) at MP3Lit.com

D Knowledge's "The Revolution Will Be On the Big Screen" at PBS's United States of Poetry site.

Langston Hughes reads "Sylvester's Dying Bed" and "Puzzled" (in RealAudio or mp3) at MP3Lit.com

Bob Kaufman, Black Beat Poet (Modern American Poetry, Kathryne Lindberg)

The Last Poets

Tracie Morris

• On NPR's Talk of the Nation (hour 2) with Ray Suares, March 16, 1995
• Tracie Morris interviewed (with Miguel Algarin) on NPR's All Things Considered, November 17, 1997 (RealAudio file).
• Tracie Morris reads "Project Princess" (.wav file) at PBS's United States of Poetry site.
• Word Up! is Catch-A-Fire's weekly Spoken Word show. Past programs (in RealAudio) feature Tracie Morris and Oku Onuora.
• Buy Morris's book Intermission online from her publisher, Soft Skull Press.

Sekou Sundiata

• 3 Poems by Sekou Sundiata from Bill Moyers's "The Language of Life"
• Sekou Sundiata reads "the sound of the memory" (in RealAudio or mp3) at MP3Lit.com
• Sundiata interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air" (April 1997 and February 1999, both in RealAudio)

Quincy Troupe

• Quincy Troupe reads "Change" (in RealAudio) at PBS's United States of Poetry site.
• 3 Poems by Quincy Troupe in Asili (Miami-Dade Community College)
• Quincy Troupe reads "Skulls Along the River" (in mp3) at MP3Lit.com

For links related to other poets & rappers, see also Roots and Branches

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Rap's Family Tree Home Page (with frames)