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At the dawn of hip-hop, Grandmaster Flash recorded hits like "The Message" and "White Lines (Don't Do it)" with the Furious Five.

DJ Kool Herc is known as the father of the DJ breakbeat, part of the foundation of modern hip-hop. He also wrote the introduction to the recent history of hip-hop, Can't Stop Won't Stop. Kool Herc kicks off Fresh Air's Hip-Hop Week. (This interview originally aired March 30, 2005.)

Jacki Lyden talks with biographer Lyndall Gordon about the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th-century feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Gordon describes Wollstonecraft's violent upbringing, her radical views on education, and her failed love affair.

It's time for an end-of-summer poetry treat: NPR's Tom Cole reads "Blackberry Picking," from Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, found in Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996.

David Kamp and Steven Daly are the authors of The Rock Snob's Dictionary, a guide to the esoterica in rock music that every critic and fan knows — or pretends to know. Meredith Ochs, our own rock snob and music critic, finds the book entertaining, funny and irreverent.

In Iraq, another deadline has come and gone without agreement on a draft constitution. Thursday, the speaker of Iraq's National Assembly, Hashim al Hassani, announced shortly before midnight that negotiators need more time.

Kayla Williams is a former U.S. Army soldier who served in the Middle East as an Arabic interpreter. She recounts her decision to enlist and her experiences during the Iraq war in a new memoir.

Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr calls for calm after violent clashes between his supporters and a rival militia. This rift within Iraq's Shia erupted at an acutely sensitive time -- Iraq's politicians are supposed to agree on a draft constitution by midnight Thursday.

Sen. Trent Lott, the Republican from Mississippi, has a new memoir called Herding Cats: A Life in Politics. Lott was the Senate majority leader from June 1996 to January 2001. He resigned from his position in 2002 after making racially divisive remarks.

In Iraq, fighting breaks out between rival Shiite Muslim militiamen in two cities. The clashes involved gunmen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and members of the Badr Brigade, the paramilitary arm of the most powerful Shiite political party.