Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture - Hardcover

Williams, Thomas Chatterton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 159420263X ISBN 13: 9781594202636

Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The, 2010

Synopsis

A pitch-perfect account of how hip-hop culture drew in the author and how his father drew him out again-with love, perseverance, and fifteen thousand books.

Into Williams's childhood home-a one-story ranch house-his father crammed more books than the local library could hold. "Pappy" used some of these volumes to run an academic prep service; the rest he used in his unending pursuit of wisdom. His son's pursuits were quite different-"money, hoes, and clothes." The teenage Williams wore Medusa- faced Versace sunglasses and a hefty gold medallion, dumbed down and thugged up his speech, and did whatever else he could to fit into the intoxicating hip-hop culture that surrounded him. Like all his friends, he knew exactly where he was the day Biggie Smalls died, he could recite the lyrics to any Nas or Tupac song, and he kept his woman in line, with force if necessary.

But Pappy, who grew up in the segregated South and hid in closets so he could read Aesop and Plato, had a different destiny in mind for his son. For years, Williams managed to juggle two disparate lifestyles- "keeping it real" in his friends' eyes and studying for the SATs under his father's strict tutelage. As college approached and the stakes of the thug lifestyle escalated, the revolving door between Williams's street life and home life threatened to spin out of control. Ultimately, Williams would have to decide between hip-hop and his future. Would he choose "street dreams" or a radically different dream- the one Martin Luther King spoke of or the one Pappy held out to him now?

Williams is the first of his generation to measure the seductive power of hip-hop against its restrictive worldview, which ultimately leaves those who live it powerless. Losing My Cool portrays the allure and the danger of hip-hop culture like no book has before. Even more remarkably, Williams evokes the subtle salvation that literature offers and recounts with breathtaking clarity a burgeoning bond between father and son.

Watch a Video

About this title

Review:

Thomas Chatterton Williams's Playlist Inspired by Losing My Cool
Listen to Thomas Chatterton Williams's annotated playlist, a lineup of ten essential hip-hop tracks that informed Losing My Cool, including highlights from Dr. Dre, 2pac, and Jay-Z.

Browse the playlist

A Conversation with Thomas Chatterton Williams

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up in New Jersey, but my parents are from out west. They moved the family to New Jersey when my father, a sociologist by training, took a job in Newark running anti-poverty programs for the Episcopal Archdiocese. My father “Pappy” who is black, is from Galveston and Fort Worth, Texas. My mother, who is white, is from San Diego. They both lament the decision to move east.

I spent the first year of my life in Newark, but was raised in Fanwood, a solidly middle-class suburb with a white side and a black side. We lived on the white side of town mainly because Pappy, who had grown up under formal segregation, refused out of principle to ever again let anyone tell him where to live.

I studied philosophy at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., and more recently, attended graduate school at New York University.

Q: Why did you write this book?

I started writing this book out of a searing sense of frustration. It was 2007, hip-hop had sunk to new depths with outrageously ignorant artists like the Dip Set and Soulja Boy dominating the culture and airwaves, and something inside me just snapped. I was in grad school at NYU and one of my teachers gave the class the assignment of writing an op-ed article on a topic of choice, the only requirement being to take a strong stand. I went straight from class to the library and in three or four hours banged out a heartfelt 1000 words against what I saw as the debasement of black culture in the hip-hop era. After some revisions, the Washington Post published what I had written and it generated a lot of passionate feedback, both for and against. I realized that there was a serious conversation to be had on this subject and that there was a lot more that I wanted to say besides. That was why I started.

By the time I finished writing, though, it had become something quite different, something very personal, a tribute to my father and to previous generations of black men and women who went through unimaginable circumstances and despite that, or rather because of it, would be ashamed of the things we as a culture now preoccupy ourselves with, rap about, and do on a daily basis.

Basically, the book began as a Dear John letter to my peers and ended as a love letter to my father.

Q: You fully embraced the black culture of BET and rap superstars starting at a young age. What drew you in?

I think I was drawn to black culture by the same things that have been drawing the entire world to it since the days of Richard Wright, Josephine Baker and Louis Armstrong. This culture is original, potent and seductive. As we all know, the evil of slavery and the sting of the whip have given us many things including the voice of Nina Simone, the prose of James Baldwin, the Air Jordan sneaker, the blues, jazz, moonwalking, and more recently gangsta rap.

What matters here is not that I found the black hip-hop driven culture that I was surrounded by alluring—that’s not significant, unique or particularly interesting. The crucial point is that this culture exerted a seriously negative influence on my black peers and me, and it did so in a way and to a degree that it didn’t for non-blacks. The main reason for this, I firmly believe, is that we (blacks) tended to approach hip-hop seriously and earnestly, striving to “keep it real” and viewing a lifestyle governed by hip-hop values as some kind of prerequisite to an authentically black existence. Non-blacks were better able to embrace hip-hop with a healthy sense of irony.

Q: Your father tutored you throughout your life, yet you still seem awed that you escaped the allure of hip-hop culture. Where are your high school classmates today?

Yes, I was and still am awed! Let’s be honest, like many committed parents my father faced daunting odds getting me away from the foolishness that surrounded us. Because we were not wealthy and living in seclusion, it was basically him and my mother against a neighborhood and high school of bad role models who were working in conjunction with a relentless and powerful propaganda campaign that streamed into the house 24/7 via Hot 97 FM, Black Entertainment Television and MTV. The odds were that his message would be drowned out in a cacophony of bullshit.

To answer the second question—and to be precise, we’re just talking about blacks and Latinos when we talk about my classmates here because I wasn’t really around anyone else in those days—I haven’t kept up with any of the classmates I mention in the book with the exception of Charles, who is like a brother to my brother and me and a son to my parents. Charles is doing fantastic, having recently graduated from one of the top two law schools in the country.

From what I hear and occasionally see on Facebook, no one else has done anything close to that. That’s sad to me because there were many other students who were intelligent enough to go that far, but they didn’t. Without my father’s encouragement and guidance, of course, I don’t think that Charles and I would have gone far either. The culture was stifling. None of us (except for one or two good girls who come to mind, but who were not influential at all on the rest of us) considered being smart very “real.” Most of the others that I mention in the book seem to be in solidly mediocre positions, having grown into adults with varying degrees of success. Some have done okay, but some have utterly failed. Some are happily married and some still dream of becoming rappers, which floors me. The girls seem to have done better than the boys. Are they all a bunch of criminals and crackheads? No, not at all, and I want to emphasize that. But was there a lot of needlessly squandered potential? Yes, absolutely.

Q: Your father owned 15,000 books, but says that he has never read for enjoyment. What is the difference between your attitude toward books and your father’s?

It’s true, Pappy is in his 70s and to this day he still underlines articles in the newspaper every morning. My father loves to read, but he can’t simply relax with a good book. Reading will always be work for him. He always felt pressure to read for the purpose of obtaining practical knowledge (even from novels). He was born black in the segregated south in the 1930s, and he figured out early on that if he didn’t teach himself what he needed to know through books no one else would. I contrast this with my own view that it’s nice to enjoy literature for purely aesthetic reasons.

In college and in my early 20s, I read for the latter reason mainly, for beauty and quixotic epiphany, both of which are valuable things, but a bit luxurious, too. Today, as a writer and someone who cares deeply about sentences, I find myself reading for many more practical reasons than I used to. I read for technical and inspirational knowledge about my craft. In that way I am more like my father than I used to be. However, I’m also always on the lookout for beauty for beauty’s sake and nothing more. I see it both ways now.

Q: In the book you describe Georgetown as “an outpost of white and international privilege” nestled into one of our country’s blackest cities. What was your attitude going into your first year? And upon graduating?

Georgetown is certainly that. Going into my first year, my attitude was essentially that I would be an alien there; at most I would just be passing through. I had no animosity toward the wider non-black world, I just couldn’t imagine myself reflected in it. It wasn’t real to me. By the time I graduated, I had become a stranger to the hip-hop culture I had grown up in. Crucially, though, I didn’t feel that I had started selling out or acting white at all. Actually, I felt prouder than ever to be black—it’s just my definition of what black could be had begun to expand dramatically.

Q: At different points in Losing My Cool, you identify hip-hop as “a culture,” “a way of being in the world,” as like a religion, an “opiate,” “captor,” “nation,” and, well, just music. What does hip-hop signify to you today?

For a lot of people I know, hip-hop is still all of those things, so it signifies all of that to me still. In my own life, though, more than anything, hip-hop is now the sound of my childhood and adolescence. It signifies the past and not the future. Of course, anything that reminds you of your growing up years is going to be special to you in certain ways, but I see hip-hop, by its very nature, as basically an obstacle to serious engagement with the world.

Q: Do Kanye, Jay-Z, and other current rap superstars have anything to offer society?

The thing I want to stress here is that it has never been my aim or desire to criticize hip-hop from a musical or formal standpoint. For one thing, I’m not qualified to do that, and for another, I’m already convinced that it is formally very interesting and worthy of respect from a variety of perspectives.

So with that said, yes, I do think artists like Jay-Z and Kanye West especially have something to offer society, and that is the spectacle of their talent. These are extraordinarily talented cats. Jay-Z’s wordplay on songs like “D’Evils” or “Can I Live?” surpasses what most Harvard and Yale graduates can do with language. As for Kanye West, he’s got to be one of the most gifted and original popular musicians of his generation in any genre. The things he hears you and I don’t hear.

It’s no secret that we all love to discover and marvel at talent, put it on a pedestal and gawk at it. But in my opinion, what these guys do for us seldom or never gets any deeper than merely displaying that they are clever, and doing so in strictly solipsistic ways. In terms of their ethics, interests, values, and the lyrical content of their work, these rappers have very little that is enriching and lots that is actually very damaging to offer their listeners. They engage us in a catchy way so we admire them for it, and hunger after what they produce, but it’s empty calories at best. The truth is that there’s very little that is nutritious to consume there. You can gain far more from an hour spent with Joan Didion or James Baldwin than with Jay-Z, period.

Q: How does your father feel about Losing My Cool?

My father named me after a writer, always encouraged me to be a writer, and worked extremely hard to equip me with the tools to become one, so this book is my way of saying thanks to him and I think he gets that. The first time he read the book I was nervous, though, because he’s an intensely private man and here I was writing a memoir and exposing things about myself that he might find vulgar or embarrassing. Unlike with my mother and brother, I never let him read the manuscript; I waited until I had galleys before I shared it with him. When I finally gave him a copy, he took it upstairs to his reading room and read the whole thing straight through. And he took notes on it! He identified two minor factual errors in the text, which was really helpful. Other than that, he didn’t say much immediately about it, we just sat down and watched some NFL, but I knew that he was very happy because he was in a really playful mood throughout the game, laughing and joking with my mother and me.

Since then he’s read the book cover to cover at least three more times, underlining it extensively (always underlining!). We’ve spoken a lot about the more philosophical subject matter, which comes up later in the book, like Heidegger’s idea that groups rob the individual of him or herself. This is an important point for my father. Pappy is almost never in crowds, and he doesn’t belong to any scene and never has. That’s because, he says, he’s been trying his whole life to define himself and not be defined by others. I think he’s proud that I was able to touch on this.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to go back and tell your low slung jeans-wearing, basketballing, game-running former self?

Most definitely! I’d say: Life is long and the world is wide, so it’s important as hell to guard against making choices that pointlessly limit you down the road. And also, it’s better to be open and flexible than closed and hard. And also, when you’re tall and slim, it’s much, much more flattering to the physique to wear clothes that fit. And also—pay more attention in French class, please!

Q: What can we do to overcome the negative aspects of hip-hop culture such as self-hatred, emphasis on failure, willful ignorance?

The first thing we have to do is get serious. The world is a serious place—the climate is changing and we are at war—and way too many of us are walking around worrying about utter trivialities, such as what 50 Cent said about Rick Ross or what shoes Kanye West wore.

In the book, I describe a time in my early high school years when I was playing basketball with members of the St. Anthony Friars, one of the best, if not the best, boy’s varsity teams in the nation. These kids there were dedicated to the game of basketball the way many black kids I know are dedicated to hip-hop, to such an extent it is almost unbelievable if you take a step back and think about it. In fact for young black men hip-hop and playing sports, particularly basketball, go hand-in-hand. What’s heartbreaking to me is that if these kids had ever put similar effort into developing their minds, some of them would now be inventing ways to combat global warming, some would be curing cancer, and one or two would be writing the next great American novel. Almost none of the members of the Friars team, if any, now play in the NBA, so what was it all for?

The second thing is that we really have to expand our idea of what it means to be black. Being authentically black has to mean something much more than merely being cool, athletic, sexy, thugged-out, from the ‘hood, or “real.” To that end, I think the election of Barack Obama was earth-shattering and we will start reaping the tangible rewards five, ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road. At least, that is what I sincerely wish for.

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from Losing My Cool?

I hope that Losing My Cool will provoke readers black, white, old and young to question, critique, and ultimately reject more of the nonsense and conformity that surrounds us all.

(Photo of Thomas Chatterton Williams © Luke Abiol)

From the Publisher:

Advance Reader Reviews from BookBrowse
Rated of 5 by Froma F. (Boulder, CO)
Powerful indictment of hip hop culture
This is an important book. Williams chronicles his life in hip hop culture and his eventual break from that culture as he moves away from negative values (empty materialism, denigration of women) into a life of self examination. Along the way he becomes a philosophy major and Williams is particularly gifted at explaining difficult concepts in language that makes them seem quite simple. Although this is not an introduction to Heidegger or Hegel, you will walk away understanding the ideas they propound. The book is filled with extraordinary insight about the values hip hop culture promotes, what it is like to grow up middle class and black in America and how pernicious the hip hop values are for most young, black people. Williams is very insightful and is most compelling when he reflects on his life. One caveat: Williams seems somewhat uncomfortable and overly self-conscious when writing about himself and the people he knows and in the early part of the book, the writing is stilted. Persist! This is a book that is well worth reading.

Rated of 5 by Maria P. (Washington, DC)
Culture Shift
The ideas proposed in this book offer a culture shift away from what some believe to be popular, cool and hip. Hip today is not what hip was yesterday, and will not be what hip is tomorrow. The challenge for the young who want to be part of a group for reasons of safety, coolness or just belonging is to find the thoughts that can help create a cool, safe free society. The challenge for adults is to remember that what they do and say is heard and repeated by future generations. In "Losing My Cool" the family is challenging and wise and strongest group of all.

Rated of 5 by Marta M. (Tustin, CA)
An interesting read
I found this book very interesting. In fact I couldn't put it down and I was reading it while on vacation. On vacation I usually read fiction. The author is well educated and the book is well written. It explained a lot to me about my fifth grade students. They all fans of hip-hop music but not so much with the education. This gives me a small insight into their world. This might help me in teaching them. I liked the way he blended philosophy with the fascinating story of his life. I don't think we have heard the last of this smart young man. I think that this is an important book that should be read by all.

Rated of 5 by Terye B. (Scotts Valley, CA)
How cool is cool?
This was a fascinating story on so many levels. A young black man struggles for his identity and finds it in the black culture of Hip Hop and BET television. While fitting into a crowd, a group he never gets to know his true self. When away at college he finds himself and learns to appreciate the structured, collegiate life his father was preparing him for since childhood. This true story is told in an easy tone, and brings back all the teenage struggles for acceptance and the awakening of adulthood. I would highly recommend this for a book group.

Rated of 5 by Irene M. (Ashland, OR)
Losing My Cool
This book is fascinating. I have not read anything that so clearly defines the peer pressure for young blacks in today's culture. I enjoyed reading about this author's decision-making process, and the influences that took him from a hip- hop life on the streets of his home town to become a graduate of Georgetown University with major in philosophy.

Rated of 5 by Kendra R. (New Orleans, LA)
Engaging and thought provoking
I found it so engaging I read it in a day. Williams provides insight into what draws people into the hip-hop lifestyle as well as what it means to be black today. As he evolves his perspective, so follows the narrative. I'm already looking forward to rereading it and sharing it with friends so we can discuss it, black and white together.

Rated of 5 by Barbara C. (Riverside, CA)
A Father's Love
Being the age of Thomas' father myself, that relationship was the thread that I followed through the book. The book was rich with philosophical turns, anecdotes, history, and culture from a very non-typical perspective....but very much driven by the loving, strong father. The book had so many facets to understand--hip hop to Hegel in 200 pages. I guess my desire would be to sit down at the table with Pappy and Thomas and understand the subtle nuances between their middle class and mine. I loved the book and couldn't put it down!

Rated of 5 by Beverly D. (Palm Harbor, FL)
a young man's look at hip hop
Williams examines the seductiveness and potential dangers of the hip hop lifestyle as it applied to him as a young man growing up in Plainfield,N.J. Ultimately finding his "place" through the study of Hegel, Heidegger and his father's unending belief in study & learning, Williams is able to love the music but ignore the philosophy and find his way as a young African -American philosopher and first time author.

Rated of 5 by Constance S. (Sacramento, CA)
Losing My Cool
It was difficult to read this well written, seemingly honest memoir by Thomas Chatterton Williams when I realized I was at odds with his conclusion about the reason so many African American students do poorly in school. He writes that they feel the need to adhere to only one culture, the hip hop one, and distance themselves from all others. This is called "keeping it real". As a Black woman I see this as only one of the causes. The hip hop culture through music,movies, TV and materialism is fed non-stop to our children and it is seductive. Nothing else seems to grant many youngsters the feeling of solidarity and the swagger and the elusive cool. To turn away from this is considered being disloyal and acting white. It is better to remain with the group than to seek many other avenues of success through education. Losing My Cool deserves four stars for creating a three dimensional picture of the hip hop world; and four stars for the very inspiring description of his awakening through his father's intellectual assistance and determination. I enjoyed his many references to philosophers and authors. I bookmarked and underlined his many well chosen quotations.

Rated of 5 by Susan R. (Dublin, NH)
Anticipating the next chapters in this man's life
This thoughtful memoir is written by a young man whose mother is white and whose father is a black man who came up in the pre-integration south. When he finally got the opportunity, Mr. Williams senior embraced books and scholarship wholeheartedly. Growing up in a relatively white NJ suburb, the author and his brother bought completely into black culture as portrayed by BET and rap music. This is the story of how he moved selectively to the norms of the larger society. It's an interesting book with a few magnificent passages.

Rated of 5 by Rosario D. (South El Monte, CA)
Losing My Cool to Hip-Hop
An interesting view at how hip-hop formed the mentality of Thomas and his friends so that their lives go hand-in-hand with the hip-hop lyrics they hear. Through the perseverance, advice, and love of his father, Thomas realizes that he can do more with his life than just listen to hip-hop and "keep it real". I really enjoyed this book, it is always nice to read a story about someone that was able to realize his/her full potential. Thomas shows us that is possible to follow ones dreams instead of doing what everyone else is doing. I also enjoyed the philosophical view of this book and believe that Thomas did a wonderful job of explain it towards the end of the book. Whether you agree or disagree with him, this is a must read in today's world where many of us are afraid to be individuals and instead decide to be part of the crowd.

Rated of 5 by Vicky S. (Torrance, CA)
Questioning values
I enjoyed the questioning of values that the author experiences as he encounters a variety of other blacks or African-Americans, and non-blacks that he initially dismisses when he goes from high school to Georgetown University. The text would make for interesting book club discussions as the individuals could draw parallels to similar soul searching they have made when faced with challenges to their own values.

Rated of 5 by Nancy O. (Hobe Sound, FL)
When you need a bit of inspiration...
Losing My Cool is one person's story about how he learned to "interpret and navigate the world around us." There's always more out there, if you want it, and more importantly, it's attainable, as Williams shows in his touching story. This is a valuable message for everyone. It's an engrossing story -- I couldn't put it down once I'd picked it up. Williams is a talented writer -- I hope we see more from him in the future. Losing My Cool is definitely a book I would recommend to others.

Rated of 5 by WDH (New Port Richey, FL)
Thoughtful Voice
I like the author's voice throughout the book. He chronicles growing up and trying to find your place in the world very well. He is thoughtful in how he examines his life and the lives of his friends and his views about getting caught up in a culture and believing you are something you really are not are thought-provoking. The author acknowledges his father (and to a lesser degree his mother) and provides a showcase for the power and influence a key person with love, strength, patience and perseverance can have over a child's life. The description of his father's library and his love of books and knowledge was in itself a powerful message. This book is a good read.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 159420263X
• ISBN 13: 9781594202636
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240