Jam Master Jay: The Heart of Hip-Hop

When I first got this book it was for my English class. We had to read the book every other day and then do a project on it. At first, I just grabed the book because I like hip hop and I knew who Run DMC was. The first day I was thinking, "Man I have to read for 15 mins!" So, i started reading and I could'nt put this book down. This book talks about his childhood to his death. There's so many intresting things in this book and it's not hard to read. If you want my advice, then pick up this book and never let it down.

I bought this as a holiday book, for the plane, but i couldn't put it down the whole time i was there. Really good, detailed account of the best dj ever's life. However, it could do with the pictures being spread about and more common because it's quite hard going.

In the mid-eighties, before rap splintered into countless subfactions - gangsta, political, bohemian and so on - Run-DMC were hip-hop to the better part of mainstream America. Run, DMC and Jay's family didn't contribute interviews to this book, yet despite being consigned to the outside looking in, Thigpen pieces together a taut story, locating Jay at the center of all things Run-DMC and, in turn, all things hip-hop. Interviews with Jay's childhood friends and music executives, plus a host of quotes culled from other sources, show Jay to be not only a generous person but also the one who held his group together as personal demons and difficult attitudes threatened to tear it asunder. Whose house? Jay's house. By jon caramanica