Urban Book Feature: The Hip Hop Generation - Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture

By Bakari Kitwana

Click Here for the Latest Price of
The Hip Hop Generation - Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture

From Booklist

Kitwana turns from "rap music [and] the hip-hop industry's insiders" to "Black youth culture." He designates African Americans born 1965-84--the first "post-civil rights" generation of black Americans--the hip-hop generation. "Although individuals [in that cohort] may point to different defining events, all share a crystal clear understanding of coming of age in an era of post-segregation and global economics." In the face of "great disparities" in education and financial matters (jobs, wages, mortgage opportunities) that persisted beyond the civil rights era, the hip-hop generation has used newfound pop-cultural access and influence to "strengthen associations between Blackness and poverty, while celebrating anti-intellectualism, ignorance, irresponsible parenthood, and criminal lifestyles" and enjoying "a free pass from Black leaders" and "non-Black critics who . . . fear being attacked as racist." Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Read Another Review of  

The Hip Hop Generation - Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture 

Urban Nonfiction Book Feature: Hip Hop America

By Nelson George

Click Here for the Latest Price of Hip Hop America

From Publishers Weekly

George (The Death of Rhythm and Blues) calls this wide-ranging history of hip-hop a "book of memory" and compares his relationship with the music to a love affair. A portrait not just of the music but of the whole culture coalescing around beats and rhymes, from graffiti to break dancing and basketball, George's narrative sometimes jumps from topic to topic like the fragmentary soundscapes of his subject. Nonetheless, he does follow a loose, anecdotal trajectory from the "post-soul" era of the early 1980s through the Old School to the New School, through gangsta rap to the latest innovators. Often, detours seem to be taken solely because George couldn't bear to drop material, and the writing can seem hasty. One may disagree with certain assessments (he says of trendy vocalist and hip-hop impresario Puff Daddy, "Never in the history of postwar black pop has a single man done so much so well"), but quibbling aside, the author's knowledge and passion run deep. George conveys a continuing excitement and personal investment rather than pretending critical distance, still rethinking his own past positions. Most refreshingly, while an advocate, he is blunt and perceptive in areas where traditional hip-hop advocates can be blindly protective. The book is at its best when George is more commentator than chronicler; one wishes more space had been devoted to exploration of many provocative issues raised in passing: Is democracy good for art? Why no great women rappers? One such thought George offers is that art can be suffocated when "loved too well by the people [it was] intended to make uncomfortable"; the best audience for these memories may turn out to be those outsiders rather than hip-hop purists.-- intended to make uncomfortable"; the best audience for these memories may turn out to be those outsiders rather than hip-hop purists.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Read Additional Reviews of Hip Hop America