Hip-hop, money and politics are practically inextricable from each other.

In "The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop," author Dan Charnas traces how rap grew from its obscure roots in the ghettos of 1970s New York to its culmination as the world's predominant youth pop culture and a multibillion-dollar industry. The event that epitomized just how far hip-hop had come was the headline-grabbing partnership between the rapper 50 Cent and the upstart beverage company Glaceau, the maker of Vitaminwater. It may well have been the biggest deal in hip-hop history, propelling 50 Cent's personal net worth toward a half-billion dollars. In this excerpt, Charnas outlines how it happened. By the summer of 2003, 50 Cent's debut album, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," had sold more than 5 million copies, and he was easily on his way to becoming a multimillionaire on these sales alone. But the rapper from Queens, who was born Curtis Jackson and had begun his career on the reputation of being shot nine times (a bullet was still lodged in his tongue), wasn't content to remain a recording artist. And his young manager, Chris Lighty, himself a Bronx street kid turned businessman, was well-positioned to exploit 50's stardom by creating multiple income streams. Lighty had come out of the Def Jam fold and managed such stars as Missy Elliott and LL Cool J. With Lighty, 50 Cent created the "G-Unit" brand, including a record company, a clothing company and a sneaker deal with Reebok's RBK line. The G-Unit Clothing Company was a joint-venture deal, with hip-hop-influenced designer Marc Ecko fronting the money, handling the manufacturing and distribution, and splitting the profits fifty-fifty with 50.

Read the full Dan Charnas article out of the Washington Post, here. A Chicago Tribune blog had this to say about the author and book:

Those who lament how money has sucked the creativity out of hip-hop haven’t been paying attention, Charnas argues. He says hip-hop has always been about finding a way to get paid, an art form that was driven by economic aspiration from the get-go, and proud of it (which made it not much different from rock ‘n’ roll). Like blues before it, hip-hop was basically a form of folk music, a community talking to itself through music made with readily available instruments. In the case of hip-hop, those instruments weren’t guitars but turntables and microphones. DJs honed in on key parts of dance records – break beats – and MC’s toasted or rapped over them at parties in parks, clubs and recreation centers. Out of these celebrations in the South Bronx and other destitute areas of New York City an intricate urban culture emerged that also encompassed break-dancing and graffiti art.

Read the Chicago Tribune article, here. Charnas contributed to this list of the biggest deals in hip-hop; see the list here. NPR's All Things Considered recently aired this broadcast on the author, the book, and the topics on the whole. See also: Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters

"A History Of The 'Big' Business Of Hip-Hop" from NPR Fresh Air

In 1979, producer Sylvia Robinson heard hip-hop music at a birthday party in Harlem and had a hunch that it would be commercially successful. She called her son, Joey Robinson Jr., and asked him to gather a group of musicians who could perform like the rappers she saw in Harlem. She then held makeshift auditions for a rap group outside a pizza parlor in Englewood, N.J. "She put these three guys together who had never met each other before, had the backing track all ready and created a record in a matter of minutes," says Dan Charnas, a former rap industry executive who chronicles the history of hip-hop in a new book, The Big Payback. The group that Robinson put together, Charnas says, would become the Sugarhill Gang, and the track they recorded was "Rapper's Delight," the first hip-hop single to break into the Top 40 charts.

Download the podcast here. Read the full feature here. In the "'The Big Payback': How hip-hop went from penniless outlaw to penthouse mogul", Greg Kot blogged this, for the Chicago Tribune:

About 40 years ago, hip-hop started as a penniless outcast in some of America’s poorest neighborhoods. "Hip-hop is innovation out of necessity, the necessity of being broke," the rapper/producer El-P once said. Today it is a multibillion-dollar industry that transcends cultures and generations and permeates not just the pop music charts, but television, movies, comedy, fashion and product lines ranging from toys to liquor. It’s a classic American story of cultural innovation intertwined with capitalist opportunity, a tale of music creating a community which in turn attracted maverick investors who then were swallowed by corporations. The transformation bred multi-media stars, moguls and celebrities such as Jay-Z and Eminem. Author Dan Charnas tenaciously follows the money trail in “The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-hop” (New American Librarian), which celebrates hip-hop even as it details the backroom deals and marketing strategies that contributed to its explosive growth.

Read that blog post and article here. See also: Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture, Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside the USA (Music Culture)The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop (Music Culture), Hip Hop Business Advisor, Rap Rich - How to Make Money in Hip Hop Business