Mickey Hess, Rider University, CCHS Distinguished Visitor
"Writing The Dirty Version: The Uncensored Story of Professors & Rappers"
“Writing The Dirty Version: The Uncensored Story of Professors and Rappers,” takes the reader behind the scenes to explore the sometimes uneasy translation of hip-hop onto library shelves and into college classrooms. From the failed attempts of others to tell Dirty’s story, to the fights Buddha and I had about how best to tell it, my article wrestles with the question of who will tell hip-hop’s story and what will get lost in translation.
Mickey Hess is Professor of English at Rider University and the co-author (with Buddha Monk) of The Dirty Version: On Stage, in the Studio, and in the Streets with Ol' Dirty Bastard (HarperCollins, 2014). He is the author of Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory and Is Hip-Hop Dead? The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Most Wanted Music, and the editor of Greenwood Press’s Icons of Hip-Hop and Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide.