Hip Hop Family Tree, Vol. 1 by Ed Piskor

Piskor also lays in hits of ice white when he wants to highlight something, such as Dre's T-shirt at a crowded barbeque or New Edition's sparkly suits in their Krush Groove appearance. These panels seem to bounce off the page and emphasize the hazy nostalgia of the rest of the art. He sampled old comic-book pages for most of his color fills, but when he draws an event that took place after 1984-85, he dumps in flat color in bright inks. Piskor's innovative use of color also makes things crackle and sputter. That's partly because Hollywood keeps entering the picture with its glossy visions and promises of big money - these were the years of Breakin' (1984), Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985). The effervescent quality prevails even when Piskor's discussing such decade-spanners as Dr.

And countless minor cuts bubble through the brew: Piskor even has a section called 'Odd classics of 1984.' Piskor briefly mentions a huge number of artists, who surely deserve the shout-out though they didn't transform the genre so much as buoy it in small ways. It was easier than ever for artists to get backing, and the result was scores of one-hit wonders. Volume 4 covers 1984-1985, a time when hip hop was becoming truly ubiquitous. This most recent volume of the series, on the other hand, is flooded with bubbles: phenomena that inexorably head skyward, pop suddenly and create a roiling surface. Virtually every story he told swelled and spread, ripe with implications for the future of music - like a wave. He told the story behind such key works as Whodini's Whodini, Afrika Bambaataa's 'Planet Rock' and Run DMC's 'Rock Box' video. He depicted Grandmaster Flash's discovery of a beat box, Fab Five Freddy's epochal ad-lib on 'Change the Beat,' and the earliest roots of the L.A. In previous installations of Hip Hop Family Tree, his history of hip hop culture told through comics, Ed Piskor charted waves and the eddies that would build into waves.

Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Hip Hop Family Tree 4 Subtitle 1984-1985 Author Ed Piskor

Hip Hop Family Tree, Vol. 1 by Ed Piskor