RAPilates

Chuck D., the leader/cofounder of the hip-hop group Public Enemy, and Lopez, his Pilates instructor, show how people of all ages can benefit from the practice of this body-conditioning regime. Now 63 years old, Chuck D says that he wanted to make sure his book offered something that readers over 40 could do effectively and safely. Together, the authors provide a great introduction to Pilates with clear, encouraging, and easy-to-understand directions and mesmerizing illustrations, created by Chuck D., a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee who also has a degree in graphic design. The combination of the text and images help readers better grasp how to do each exercise. The book’s breathing instructions are especially helpful and essential. Some exercises come with a warning for readers who have back or neck issues. Otherwise, they’re designed to be safe for all to try at home with limited or no equipment. Most of the exercises have hip-hop adjacent names, which adds a humorous touch to the tone of the book. VERDICT A solid and fun introduction to Pilates for both beginners and readers with some knowledge of Pilates. Fans of hip-hop will appreciate this book too.– “Library Journal Life+Style April 2024”
Chuck D’s excellent STEWdio (yes, Chuck D of Public Enemy) is a literal diary of stray thoughts, three books of them, in a box–and some of the most compelling reading I’ve done this year. In one-page panels recalling a meld of eighth grade homeroom sketches and the exuberantly unstable lines of Basquiat, Chuck offers portraits of collaborators, tales of loss and quarantine, nights huddled before cable news.– “Chicago Tribune, on STEWdio”
“Summer of Hamn is billed as a depiction of gun violence in America, a collection of Chuck’s graffiti-style drawings and verse–all compiled in what he calls ‘the madness’ of last summer. ‘Every day there were things that were macabre that didn’t even make the news because people had become immune, ’ he says. He turned to illustration because people listen more than ever with their eyes. ‘A picture is worth 10,000 words nowadays, ’ he says. A drawing today can get the type of response that a rap record used to get 35 years ago, he adds, especially if it’s something he’s uploaded to Instagram or Facebook or X.”– “The Guardian, on Summer of Hamn”

CHUCK D is the leader and cofounder of the legendary rap group Public Enemy, a social activist, multimedia producer, visual artist, digital music pioneer, and author/illustrator of STEWdio: The Naphic Grovel ARTrilogy of Chuck D; Summer of Hamn: Hollowpointlessness Aiding Mass Nihilism; RAPilates: Body and Mind Conditioning in the Digital Age, and Interficial ARTelligence: The Moments that Met Me. He has been featured in more than one hundred documentaries on music, technology, politics, and race, and cocurated the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap. He has also been a national spokesperson for Rock the Vote, the National Urban League, Americans for the Arts, and the National Alliance of African American Athletes. As part of Public Enemy, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

KATHY LOPEZ earned a comprehensive certification for all equipment used in the Pilates method with the prestigious Romana’s program and received her Classical Pilates Certificate for Power Pilates in 2012. She owns Studio Be Pilates in Ventura and resides in Ojai, California.

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