Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang, D.J. Kool Herc
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Book Reviews of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Book Review: flawed opus
Summary: 2 Stars
Mr. Chang has repeatedly denied that his book is definitive, but his subtitle says otherwise. The volume struck me as being comprised of two rather disjointed halves. The first is more about hip-hop and the latter more about violence, gangs, and race relations. It's the second half which falls apart as he fails to tie all those stories of riots and truces back to hip-hop. This section might as well be a separate book.
The author goes into excruciating detail around many historical and racially motivated killings (those of Karen Toshima, Michael Stewart, Amadou Diallo, Michael Griffith, Yusuf Hawkins, George Jackson, Eddie Lee, Latasha Harlins, Oliver X. Beasley, Henry Peco, etc.). Cataloging these injustices apparently seemed topical to him, but they are tangential to his ostensible subject, music. Failures in race relations are treated over and over again in the book, to the detriment of many other roots of hip-hop (funk, 808s & 1200s, marijuana, the dozens).
Mr. Chang is prone to hyperbole: "A millennial impulse was brewing." (329) "Youth itself was being criminalized." (389) "The discourse was migrating from the realm of the political to the cultural, from the intimacy of street corners and race papers to the fishbowl of the global media." (273)
The author's grip on economics is shaky and anecdotal; he makes many difficult uncited assertions. Several egregious editing mistakes crept into the first edition. The 500-page book is inexplicably set in a sans serif font.
The detailed histories of graffiti, Public Enemy, and Source magazine were excellent and worthwhile. The letters and speeches quoted are illuminating and would be difficult to find elsewhere.
While I did finish the book, and enjoy many parts of it, the hip-hop generation Mr. Chang describes is apparently not the one to which I belong.
Book Review: EXCELLENT NARRATIVE
Summary: 5 Stars
From Jamaica to Public Enemy all the way to The Source and beyond, this book is just chock-full of really gripping narratives which help hiphop fans really see what shaped the music we all love. My favorite part is the Public Enemy narratives simply because it shows, very clearly, the struggle artists go through. or when Tipper Gore and her gang go from attempting to censor heavy metal to rap. Just goes to show how powerful of a catalyst music is.
A MUST READ FOR ANY MUSIC LOVER.
Rocky
Book Review: Killer, meng
Summary: 5 Stars
As a literate college graduate who loves hiphop and reading, this book bridges the gap by bringing a history of the movement and the place that, more or less, made hiphop. The initial chapters about NYC and Jamaica from the sixties onward really clarified the scene for me: white flight, the major NYC highway projects and the civil strife in Jamaica created a cauldron of creative activity in the center of the greatest city in the world, among its poorest citizens. This book rules, quite simply. I read it over a weekend, while downloading a lot of the music along with it, immersing myself in an epoch and a movement that I have only begun to truly appreciate in the last 3-4 years. Excellent and highly recommended. Book Review: a complete history
Summary: 4 Stars
Chang's history of hip-hop starts at the beginning (in the 70s) and examines the phenomenon from musical, cultural, and political viewpoints. His main strength is that he refrains from discussing "current" events, lest the book become dated too quickly. Indeed, only the last couple of chapters deal with the last ten years, and at that it's a cursory look. Chang's writing is outstanding, if a little too focused on certain acts (Public Enemy seems to take up the entire mid-section of the book), but his depth of knowledge of his subject matter and his manner for conveying it are excellent. His primary weakness is that he has a definite political slant to his work, occasionally dropping his journalistic guard to take shots at right-wing causes/politicians. It doesn't get in the way of the text, but it does get annoying. It's hard to write a history of a person/event/phenomenon that is ongoing that actually seems like a history, but Chang has done an excellent job doing just that.Book Review: Quilting threads of Hip Hop
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading Chang's book Can't Stop Won't Stop it is amazing how all the pieces come together. He writes with an amazing breadth that captures politics, sociology, history, economics, globalization, exploitation, capitalism, racism, media tricks, etc. and how they have all contributed to the formation of hip-hop and the resulting culture. As I came of age in the mid 90's I became transfixed with gangsta rap and inner city culture, I never realized how all the afore mentioned concepts made up an entire culture that connects with audiences all around the globe or the economics that helped regenerate a struggling economy and an evaporating job landscape. As the new century comes into full swing it is astounding to think of the power hip hop still holds and the mouths it feeds.
As I dig deeper into the sociology of this last statement I can't help but think while hip hop has revived industries like music, fashion, and film and laced corporate pockets with green the conditions that breed hip hop still have not changed. The current Bush Administration is continuing where Reagan and his pops left off by gutting social programs and destroying education while offering hope through the army only to die for a country that doesn't give a damn about a better tomorrow only a richer, whiter one. Hip Hop heads are still seen as criminals in broader society, still harassed by police and still followed around the stores their culture helps feed.
Perhaps Hip Hop can be the vehicle that delivers a unified front to reclaim this country from corporate interests and the carnivorous capitalist system. It has the power to reach audiences of every creed and the prophets to deliver the message.
Jeff Chang is a prophet of history. Thanks for writing this book and teaching me about my past. Because if you love hip hop this history is a part of you.