Why isn't the greatest storytelling tradition of the last fifty years on the bookshelf?

Tales From Hip-Hop Vol. 1 answers that question with ten original works of short fiction descended from hip-hop's storytelling tradition. Not adaptations. Not retellings. Original stories that carry the narrative DNA of iconic hip-hop songs forward into literature.

A teacher and a former student walk the same hallway of memory and arrive at two different endings. A queenpin steps into a coronation she believes was always owed to her, in an empire built on deception, and every year she was told to wait her turn. A first transmission breaks through to a frequency only the chosen can hear. And seven more that hold on the page what sixteen bars could only gesture at.

The collection moves from micro-fiction to novella and reads the way the best storytelling rap sounds.

Where the music ends, the story begins.

Details

• Format: Paperback

• Pages: 226

• Dimensions: 8.5" × 11"

• Spine Width: 0.5"

• Interior: Black & white on white paper

• ISBN-13: 978-1-966196-68-6

• Publication date: July 2026

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Instant access to the stories behind the stories.

(Digital and Print Edition)

TFHH Vol. 1 Liner Notes is the annotated companion to Tales From Hip-Hop Vol. 1: Where the Music Ends and the Story Begins. Ten essays, one for each story in the collection, that walk you through the descent — from the song to the finished fiction. What was inherited. What was left behind. What the story is doing that the song could only gesture at.

This is not a study guide. It is not a spoiler dump. It is the kind of writing you find on the inside of a great record sleeve — where the person who made the thing tells you what they were listening to, what they were reading, what they were trying to hold onto, and what they finally let go.

Inside the Liner Notes

• The song behind each story, with the specific narrative traits it passes down

• The descent from song to story made explicit, moment by moment

• Author's notes from Lamont Walker on what each story asked of him

• An editofrom the founder of the TFHH imprint, on the collection as a whole

Who this is for

Readers who want to knowmore about what they just read. Writers studying how storytelling rap builds a scene. Teachers, book clubs, and anyone who has ever wanted to trace the storyies back to the song it came from and hear the conversation between the two.

Format

Delivered as a digital PDF ONLY designed to sit alongside the book. Print-friendly. Delivered instantly to your email after purchase.

The space between the music and the story.

Product only available through TalesFromHip-Hop.com.

Tales From Hip-Hop, Volume 1 + Digital Liner Notes Bundle

Musicians have always included liner notes with their records for a reason. Once you heard the album, you wanted to know what went into it. This bundle brings that same tradition to fiction. Read the collection, then read the notes. The bundle keeps both pieces together so the fiction stays fresh when you open the companion. The choices behind each story, the songs, and the narratives themselves hit different when you can see the storytelling DNA of hip-hop running through the fiction.

Tales From Hip-Hop, Volume 1 is the collection. Ten works of fiction that descend from ten hip-hop songs, written by Lamont Walker. Fiction that belongs to both sides of the family, carrying the density and voice of the music into the room where literature lives.

Liner Notes is the companion. Written for readers who finished the collection and came back for more. In each entry, Lamont Walker traces how a specific song became a specific story, naming the exact objects the story inherited, the structural moves it borrowed, and the moments where the fiction picks up what the song had to leave behind. The full document runs across all ten stories in the volume, giving each one the room it needs to open up.

Read the book first. Read the notes second. Bundle both for the full experience.

Volume 1 ships as a physical paperback. The Liner Notes are delivered digitally, available for download immediately after purchase while the book is on its way.