Daudi Abe, "Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle" (U Washington Press, 2020)

New Books in American Studies · Mar 23, 2022 · 1h 22m

West Coast hip hop means much more than LA, argues Dr. Daudi Abe, a professor of humanities at Seattle Central College. In Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle (University of Washington Press, 2020), Abe argues that Seattle deserves an honored spot in the cultural geography of hip hop in the United States. Although less well known than Los Angeles, New York, or even Atlanta and New Orleans, Seattle has spawned two Grammy-award winning artists (Sir Mix-a-Lot and Macklemore) and has had an active hip hop, graffiti, and breaking scene since the early 1980s. Hip Hop, as Abe argues in…