Dan Charnas on the History of Hip Hop as a Business from The Takeaway: Early Edition by feedback@thetakeaway.org (Public Radio International and WNYC Radio)

It may seem like just yesterday that you first heard The Sugar Hill Gang or Run DMC, but the hip hop business is pushing forty. For many of the years that hip hop has been around, Dan Charnas has been working in the business - as a scout, a promoter, and a journalist. Dan is the author of a new book called “The Big Payback: the History of the Business of Hip Hop.” Charnas walks us through some pivotal moments in the hip hop business, and how those moments have informed our culture and the entertainment industry. We also speak with Doc Ice, longtime member of of Whodini and U.T.F.O, who weighs in on how the music business has changed over the last decades.

Download the podcast here. See also: Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement