"The break beat is the earth of hip-hop, what rappers began to run couplets over, they extended those couplets to make verses and choruses, and began to slant rhyme and then jam and extend the line break and jam in odd, thrilling places." This excerpt, read by Kevin Coval, co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, exemplifies the relationship between hip-hop and...