8 Pop Culture Companions for Watching “The Get Down”

4. Ed Piskor’s Hip Hop Family Tree.

Piskor’s Hip Hop Family Tree serves as a comic book history of hip-hop. It’s meticulously researched, and creates a thrilling narrative of the birth and development of the genre. It also does a great job of illustrating the overlap between comic book/superhero culture and hip-hop.

3. Hip Hop and Architecture.

If you want to think deeper about the socio-economic factors that influence the birth of hip-hop, this interview in The Fader magazine is a great place to start. Discussing the land development and oppressive social structures that are illustrated in the series, this piece offers a deeper examination of how the music was shaped by its surroundings.

2. Mark Ronson’s TED Talk on DJ sampling and creativity

In this talk Mark Ronson discusses how sampling allows DJs to insert themselves into the narrative. This talk shows where the mixing that DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash started have brought us in terms of pushing creativity forward.

1. Portlandia’s History of Hip-Hop

This hilarious skit has a “Rick Moranis-looking mo-fo” trying to learn all there is to know about hip-hop before he goes to a Jay-Z concert. I figure it’s a fun thing to show your friends who didn’t like hip-hop until The Get Down. Of course, crucial is the reference at the end: “New York! 1977!”

Got any other pieces to tide us over? Sound off in the comments section!