All about the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can't Save Black America - Hardcover

McWhorter, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1592403743 ISBN 13: 9781592403745

Publisher: Gotham, 2008

Synopsis

The author of Losing the Race presents a tribute to the artistry and craftsmanship of hip-hop music while urging readers to recognize the genre as a violence-laced art form rather than a true reflection of black society, cautioning its fans against drawing on hip-hop as a positive or healthy source of political legitimacy. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

John McWhorterÂ’s acclaimed books include the New York Times bestseller Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America; Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Why We Should, Like, Care (Gotham, 2003); and, most recently, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America (Gotham, 2006). He is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to The New Republic, and has appeared widely in broadcast media, including Dateline NBC, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Fresh Air.

From Publishers Weekly

In this uneven critique of mainstream and socially conscious rap and hip-hop, McWhorter (Losing the Race) pillories the genre for positioning itself as a political—even revolutionary—medium. In the author's analysis, hip-hop is typified by narcissism rather than altruism, a culture of complaint rather than creative solution and a willful blindness to the real problems affecting black communities; McWhorter demonstrates how frequently artists rail against police brutality and how few mention HIV/AIDS, the single biggest killer of African-Americans. The author's admiration for the genre generally keeps his criticisms from sounding shrill, but it cannot compensate for the book's flaws. While McWhorter lambastes rappers for failing to address real issues, he doesn't either: like the hip-hop artists he chides, the author romanticizes activism while appearing clueless about the nuts and bolts of grassroots work. Equally troubling are McWhorter's unsubstantiated theories, chief among them his claim that African-Americans are more inclined to judge a statement by how it sounds than what it communicates. More interested in skewering hip-hop than suggesting paths to substantive social change, this book ultimately frustrates more than it illuminates. (June)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Gotham
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1592403743
• ISBN 13: 9781592403745
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 186