The 'Hood Comes First


Book Description




Space Rap


Book Description




The Ape that Understood the Universe


Book Description

The Ape that Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our altruistic tendencies, and our culture? The book tackles these issues by drawing on two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture - and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we're but a tiny, fleeting fragment. Featuring a new foreword by Michael Shermer.




Rap to Mars


Book Description

Rap to Mars, a book of poetry, satire, and prose, attempts by words and art to dissect and sift through diverse aspects of the life of man in his quest to assert himself as the king or queen of the universe. This is even in spite of mans obvious lapses, frailties, and entrapment. During the course of various attempts, sometimes, success smiles on man. But when failures present themselves, arrogant and deceitful man refuses to accept his obvious limitations. Often, in his ever-willing efforts to deceive the more gullible, man in his cowardice plays the monkey that uses the cats paws to extract nuts from the fi re. From a safe distance, the minion, man, details his more gullible fellow men to sacrifi ce themselves and others in silly and assumed defense of the Almighty Maker. The martyr and suicide bomber along with their victims become the willing and unwilling by-products But even in spite of his sometimes comical shenanigans, man, who unsuccessfully plays the angel on Earth, remains man and suffers or causes others to suffer the pains arising from a perpetual struggle between the good and the bad as represented in Rap to Mars by Earths angels, suicide bombers, and whores. At the end of the day, man, mere mortal man, still fi nds himself trapped in his self-imposed cocoon of a shanty or a mansion. In the latter, man again plays the elitist parent of a lone child while the downtrodden fi nd their pleasure by doggedly obeying the injunction of increase and multiply. Rap to Mars is a mixed grill of fun, challenges, and what the evolving society was, what it is, and what it should fi ght hard not to be.




Space Rap


Book Description

Join the intrepid Galaxy Warriors Jet, Tip and Boo Hoo on their quest to save the universe from destructive baddies Lord and Lady Evil and Dr Y. In Space Rap the baddies detect the whereabouts of our heroes thanks to their loud rap music. When Jet and Tip realise they're in trouble they summon the help of Grandmaster Boss -- the biggest rap star in the galaxy!




The 'Hood Comes First


Book Description

Examines the significance of the 'hood in rap and hip hop




Rapping Rhymes about Space


Book Description

"Combining musical rhythms and scientific information, students will explore space through poems meant for rapping"--




Listening to Rap


Book Description

Over the past four decades, rap and hip hop culture have taken a central place in popular music both in the United States and around the world. Listening to Rap: An Introduction enables students to understand the historical context, cultural impact, and unique musical characteristics of this essential genre. Each chapter explores a key topic in the study of rap music from the 1970s to today, covering themes such as race, gender, commercialization, politics, and authenticity. Synthesizing the approaches of scholars from a variety of disciplines—including music, cultural studies, African-American studies, gender studies, literary criticism, and philosophy—Listening to Rap tracks the evolution of rap and hip hop while illustrating its vast cultural significance. The text features more than 60 detailed listening guides that analyze the musical elements of songs by a wide array of artists, from Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash to Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and more. A companion website showcases playlists of the music discussed in each chapter. Rooted in the understanding that cultural context, music, and lyrics combine to shape rap’s meaning, the text assumes no prior knowledge. For students of all backgrounds, Listening to Rap offers a clear and accessible introduction to this vital and influential music.




Introduction to Reconfigurable Supercomputing


Book Description

This book covers technologies, applications, tools, languages, procedures, advantages, and disadvantages of reconfigurable supercomputing using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The target audience is the community of users of High Performance Computers (HPC) who may benefit from porting their applications into a reconfigurable environment. As such, this book is intended to guide the HPC user through the many algorithmic considerations, hardware alternatives, usability issues, programming languages, and design tools that need to be understood before embarking on the creation of reconfigurable parallel codes. We hope to show that FPGA acceleration, based on the exploitation of the data parallelism, pipelining and concurrency remains promising in view of the diminishing improvements in traditional processor and system design. Table of Contents: FPGA Technology / Reconfigurable Supercomputing / Algorithmic Considerations / FPGA Programming Languages / Case Study: Sorting / Alternative Technologies and Concluding Remarks




Underground and Independent Rap


Book Description

A collection of essays, interviews, and other prose works revolving around the North American underground and independent rap scene and the author's experiences with it, this book offers appreciation for those already steeped in the genre and provides outsiders a glimpse into a fertile subculture.