Episode 29: "Dead Precedents: How Hip Hop Defines The Future" with Roy Christopher

Roy Christopher traces the story of how hip-hop invented the twenty-first century and tells us how 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.

Christopher takes in the ground-breaking work of DJs and MCs such as Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Rammellzee, alongside writers like Philip K. Dick and William Gibson, and links graffiti and DIY culture to present a fascinating continuum of music of the past, present, and future— all  tied to hip hop.