My Five Favorite Hip-Hop Books

Over the past thirty years, there have been a lot of books written about hip-hop. It seems that any idiot with a laptop has not only written a book on the subject, but also a sequel.

With so many options, where should one start? Should you hit the autobiographies such as those by Russell Simmons (Life and Def), Eminem (The Way I Am), DMX (E.A.R.L.), Prodigy (My Infamous Life), and Common (One Day It’ll All Makes Sense)? Or should you take a more academic approach and examine essays on artists and projects, like Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic or Jay-Z: Essays on Hip Hop’s Philosopher King, and others? Or maybe just something more straightforward like The Vibe History of Hip Hop? What are must-reads and what can be left on the shelf? As a devout fan of books, I’ve decided to list my favorites here (be advised that I have not read every book ever devoted to the subject and that these are simply the ones from which I derived the most value):

5. “The Tao of Wu” by The RZA

I’m a Wu-Tang superfan, so I’m biased, but reading this book is what I imagine a conversation with RZA is like. Part autobiography, part spiritual guide, he uses the knowledge he’s…