Making Hip Hop Theatre

Making Hip Hop Theatre is the essential, practical guide to making hip-hop theatre. It features detailed techniques and exercises that can guide creatives from workshops through to staging a performance. If you were inspired by Hamilton, Barber Shop Chronicles, Misty, Black Men Walking or Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster, this is the book for you.
Covering vocal technique, use of equipment, mixing, looping, sampling, working with venues and dealing with creative challenges, this book is a bible for both new and experienced artists alike. Additionally, with links to online video material demonstrating and elaborating on the exercises included, it offers countless useful tools for teachers and facilitators of drama, music and other creative arts.
Alongside this practical guidance is an overview of hip hop history, giving theoretical and historical context for the practice. From documentation of Conrad Murray's major productions, to commentary from leading practitioners including Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens, David Jubb, Emma Rice, Tobi Kyeremateng and Paula Varjack, readers are treated to a detailed insight into the background of hip hop theatre.
Edited by scholar Katie Beswick and genre pioneer Conrad Murray, Making Hip Hop Theatre is a vital teaching tool and provides a much-needed account of a burgeoning aspect of contemporary theatre culture.

Katie Beswick is a writer and academic working at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is interested in arts and culture and their intersections with issues of class. Conrad Murray is an artist, performer, beatboxer and rapper from Mitcham, South-West London. He is a qualified and experienced secondary school teacher, the artistic director of the BAC Beatbox Academy, co-artistic director of the hip hop theatre company Beats & Elements and associate artist at the Battersea Arts Centre and Gulbenkian. His shows include No Milk for the Foxes (Camden People's Theatre 2015); Frankenstein (BAC 2018); High Rise eState of Mind (BAC/CPT 2019). He was musical director and composer on Crongton Knights (Pilot Theatre 2020), and is director on Pied Piper: Silent City (BAC) and composer and director for The Last Man (BAC). He was awarded the Off Westend and Total Theatre Awards for Frankenstein. http://conradmurray.org @rodIUMrecords

On Collaboration and the Voices in this Book
Our Collaborators
Why We Wrote This
Some Introductions
- Hip hop culture: A brief history
- Conrad on Hip Hop
- Katie on Hip Hop
- Our Collaborators on Hip Hop
- Conrad on the Battersea Arts Centre (the venue where it all began)
- The Beatbox Academy: How it Began
Part One: Getting Started
- Principles of Hip Hop
- Warm Ups
- Beatbox Basics
- Progressing Technique
- Equipment
- Further Resources
- Ending Sessions
Part Two: Developing Ideas and Making a Living
- Principles for Working With...
- Stimulus and Starting Points
- Practical tips for Starting a Theatre Career
Part Three: How We Made It
- Hitler Wrote 20 Pop Songs...Have You Heard Them?
- No Milk for the Foxes
- DenMarked
- High Rise eState of Mind
- Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster
Against Spoken Word!
Acknowledgements
Index