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REVIEW: Keeping It Real: Interpreting Hip-Hop
That's the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal. New York: Routledge, 2004. 628 pp.
Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Imani Perry. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2004. 236 pp.
Nuthin' but a "G" Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap. Eithne Quinn. New York: Columbia UP, 2005. 251 pp.
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. Jeff Chang. New York: St. Martin's, 2005. 546 pp.
What is hip-hop? The most obvious and immediate answer is that hip-hop is rap music: rhymed lyrics that are mainly rapped, rather than sung, over sampled beats. The unexpectedly widespread, enthusiastic, and sustained reception of rap music is one of the most remarkable and significant stories of our time. Developed in the 1970s in the South Bronx with roots in Caribbean and Afrodiasporic cultural forms, rap music spread through the boroughs and suburbs of New York City to become a national and global phenomenon, with various regions adapting the genre into versions that engaged with their particular circumstances. Inspiring enormous passion, rap music is an object of ardent and soulful love for its community of fans, as well as an object of great derision and hostility for its detractors. Its lyrics and phrases are cited at nightclubs, at house parties, at political protests, and in everyday banter. Its music can be heard not only on the radio, but also in films, retail stores, cafés, and cellphone ring-tones. This ubiquity of an art form developed by black and Latino youth well exemplifies the theoretical observation that what is socially marginalized often becomes culturally centered.
However, the story of hip-hop is not just the story of a musical genre. An often-cited distinction is that rap is the music, while hip-hop is the culture. In the early days, hip-hop comprised "four elements": DJing, MCing, breakdancing, and graffiti. In this paradigm, hip-hop emphasizes virtuosity of technique and technology-a virtuosity that is understood as style. Hip-hop style is a way of dance, dress, hair, body movement, and speech. Dick Hebdige, Robin Kelley, and others have shown how style can be profoundly articulate and deeply political. As subcultural style, hip-hop created alternative economies of value. As...