Some of the essays are: Acclaimed actor, playwright, and performance artist Danny Hoch on how hip-hop defined the aesthetics of a generation; Rock Steady Crew b-boy-turned-celebrated visual artist DOZE on the uses and limits of a 'hip-hop' identity; Def Poetry Jam’s Suheir Hammad on the urgent intersection between arts and activism after Hurricane Katrina; Cultural critics Greg Tate, Mark Anthony Neal, Brian 'B+' Cross, and Vijay Prashad in a roundtable examination of aesthetics after the decline of the 1980s Multiculturalism movement.

Infused with the movement’s grit, funk, and brutal honesty, Total Chaos is a unique and indispensable survey of the hip-hop generation’s contribution to the arts.