Dead Precedents

Dead Precedents

From the publisher...

How Hip-Hop Defines the Future

In Dead Precedents, Roy Christopher traces the story of how hip-hop invented the twenty-first century.

Emerging alongside cyberpunk in the 1980s, the hallmarks of hip-hop — allusion, self-reference, the use of new technologies, sampling, the cutting and splicing of language and sound — would come to define the culture of the new millennium.

Taking in the ground-breaking work of DJs and MCs, alongside writers like Dick and Gibson, as well as graffiti and DIY culture, Dead Precedents is a counter-cultural history of the twenty-first century, showcasing hip-hop’s role in the creation of the world in which we now live.