If there's one thing I've learned from this thread it's that clownish academics and people who care about hip-hop should spend everyday on a message board dedicated to people with a hobby's interest in black music so that they can rack up posts in which they convince others of their nuanced opinions on black culture both musically and socially, but God forbid they trade in that cherished e-currency for doing something they feel will be positive, since it's better to blast people online than it is to build them up even if the outcome comes across as self-congratulatory, self-conscious, or self-serving for, contrary to common sense, the act and the process do not matter, only the simple act of typing laps around people who probably don't even care what you're saying in the first place matters.
If there's one thing I've learned from this thread it's that clownish academics and people who care about hip-hop should spend everyday on a message board dedicated to people with a hobby's interest in black music so that they can rack up posts in which they convince others of their nuanced opinions on black culture both musically and socially, but God forbid they trade in that cherished e-currency for doing something they feel will be positive, since it's better to blast people online than it is to build them up even if the outcome comes across as self-congratulatory, self-conscious, or self-serving for, contrary to common sense, the act and the process do not matter, only the simple act of typing laps around people who probably don't even care what you're saying in the first place matters.
If there's one thing I've learned from this thread it's that clownish academics and people who care about hip-hop should spend everyday on a message board dedicated to people with a hobby's interest in black music so that they can rack up posts in which they convince others of their nuanced opinions on black culture both musically and socially, but God forbid they trade in that cherished e-currency for doing something they feel will be positive, since it's better to blast people online than it is to build them up even if the outcome comes across as self-congratulatory, self-conscious, or self-serving for, contrary to common sense, the act and the process do not matter, only the simple act of typing laps around people who probably don't even care what you're saying in the first place matters.
If there's one thing I've learned from this thread it's that clownish academics and people who care about hip-hop should spend everyday on a message board dedicated to people with a hobby's interest in black music so that they can rack up posts in which they convince others of their nuanced opinions on black culture both musically and socially, but God forbid they trade in that cherished e-currency for doing something they feel will be positive, since it's better to blast people online than it is to build them up even if the outcome comes across as self-congratulatory, self-conscious, or self-serving for, contrary to common sense, the act and the process do not matter, only the simple act of typing laps around people who probably don't even care what you're saying in the first place matters.
This is one of the most ridiculous displays of ass-hurt I have ever witnessed on SoulStrut. I do not exaggerate.
You actually seem to think that academic credentials are meaningful when discussing rap. That the perspective of the person who has invested several years into imposing his or her own ridiculous and aggressive readings of rap onto the medium in the interests of building a career within the academy can say schitt to the person who spent that time actually listening to the music.
I can think of a dozen people that post on this board that could son virtually any working academic today on some rap schitt. And I can think of a lot more that don't post here.
I don't know, bobo, speaking as someone that actually does possess a doctorate, all I can say is that I hope at some point in the future when you get some letters beside your own name you'll start to see through the game.
If there's one thing I've learned from this thread it's that clownish academics and people who care about hip-hop should spend everyday on a message board dedicated to people with a hobby's interest in black music so that they can rack up posts in which they convince others of their nuanced opinions on black culture both musically and socially, but God forbid they trade in that cherished e-currency for doing something they feel will be positive, since it's better to blast people online than it is to build them up even if the outcome comes across as self-congratulatory, self-conscious, or self-serving for, contrary to common sense, the act and the process do not matter, only the simple act of typing laps around people who probably don't even care what you're saying in the first place matters.
This is one of the most ridiculous displays of ass-hurt I have ever witnessed on SoulStrut. I do not exaggerate.
You actually seem to think that academic credentials are meaningful when discussing rap. That the perspective of the person who has invested several years into imposing his or her own ridiculous and aggressive readings of rap onto the medium in the interests of building a career within the academy can say schitt to the person who spent that time actually listening to the music.
I can think of a dozen people that post on this board that could son virtually any working academic today on some rap schitt. And I can think of a lot more that don't post here.
I don't know, bobo, speaking as someone that actually does possess a doctorate, all I can say is that I hope at some point in the future when you get some letters beside your own name you'll start to see through the game.
I never said that academic credentials matter. I said that anyone who cares for hip-hop -- including academics -- would find bigger returns posting on a message board. I guess we can throw "actually listening to the music" in there, as well. Maybe degrees will be given out in the near future to people who read "Science" and "National Geographic"...
Which is why I asked you what, other than listening to a ton of hip-hop and posting on a message board, makes you such an expert as opposed to people who do it on a daily basis in print and in public?
Nevertheless, thank you for the re-education about academia. I never would have glimpsed the truth you espouse having come from a household environment with two professors, having visited their offices and classrooms from childhood, or having met the pathetic little men and women who run around campus. I have been humbled.
If there's one thing I've learned from this thread it's that clownish academics and people who care about hip-hop should spend everyday on a message board dedicated to people with a hobby's interest in black music so that they can rack up posts in which they convince others of their nuanced opinions on black culture both musically and socially, but God forbid they trade in that cherished e-currency for doing something they feel will be positive, since it's better to blast people online than it is to build them up even if the outcome comes across as self-congratulatory, self-conscious, or self-serving for, contrary to common sense, the act and the process do not matter, only the simple act of typing laps around people who probably don't even care what you're saying in the first place matters.
This is one of the most ridiculous displays of ass-hurt I have ever witnessed on SoulStrut. I do not exaggerate.
You actually seem to think that academic credentials are meaningful when discussing rap. That the perspective of the person who has invested several years into imposing his or her own ridiculous and aggressive readings of rap onto the medium in the interests of building a career within the academy can say schitt to the person who spent that time actually listening to the music.
I can think of a dozen people that post on this board that could son virtually any working academic today on some rap schitt. And I can think of a lot more that don't post here.
I don't know, bobo, speaking as someone that actually does possess a doctorate, all I can say is that I hope at some point in the future when you get some letters beside your own name you'll start to see through the game.
I never said that academic credentials matter. I said that anyone who cares for hip-hop -- including academics -- would find bigger returns posting on a message board. I guess we can throw "actually listening to the music" in there, as well. Maybe degrees will be given out in the near future to people who read "Science" and "National Geographic"...
Which is why I asked you what, other than listening to a ton of hip-hop and posting on a message board, makes you such an expert as opposed to people who do it on a daily basis in print and in public?
Nevertheless, thank you for the re-education about academia. I never would have glimpsed the truth you espouse having come from a household environment with two professors, having visited their offices and classrooms from childhood, or having met the pathetic little men and women who run around campus. I have been humbled.
As if when Robert Johnson lamented about selling his soul to the devil, instead of the listeners shivering in fear at the thought of such an ordeal, they saw it as the "hip" thing to do??
Robert Johnson never lamented selling his soul to the devil. Nor did he sell his soul to the devil. Nor did he try to sell his soul to the devil.
This stupid blues revivalist romanticism of Robert Johnson and the devil is the equivilent of rap is evil. Well.....according to all the sources I could find this "story" was either made up by Johnson himself, his detractors or Son House.
Regardless, the point I was trying to make is certainly still valid.
I don't believe Johnson sold his soul(nor do I believe in the Devil)any more than I believe that most rappers sling dope and commit murder.
My main question was, is there a point where music can go from reflecting the crime and misery around us to promoting it??
Johnson began traveling up and down the Delta, traveling by bus, hopping trains, and sometimes hitchhiking. According to Blues folklore, while traveling on a cross-road in the Delta, Robert sold his immortal soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar. The source of this story is unclear, however; it may have been claimed by Johnson himself or his detractors during his lifetime or it may have been the later invention of Son House[/b] , who related the tale (adapted from an autobiographical story told by Tommy Johnson) to awestruck fans during the 1960s blues revival.
If there's one thing I've learned from this thread it's that clownish academics and people who care about hip-hop should spend everyday on a message board dedicated to people with a hobby's interest in black music so that they can rack up posts in which they convince others of their nuanced opinions on black culture both musically and socially, but God forbid they trade in that cherished e-currency for doing something they feel will be positive, since it's better to blast people online than it is to build them up even if the outcome comes across as self-congratulatory, self-conscious, or self-serving for, contrary to common sense, the act and the process do not matter, only the simple act of typing laps around people who probably don't even care what you're saying in the first place matters.
This is one of the most ridiculous displays of ass-hurt I have ever witnessed on SoulStrut. I do not exaggerate.
You actually seem to think that academic credentials are meaningful when discussing rap. That the perspective of the person who has invested several years into imposing his or her own ridiculous and aggressive readings of rap onto the medium in the interests of building a career within the academy can say schitt to the person who spent that time actually listening to the music.
I can think of a dozen people that post on this board that could son virtually any working academic today on some rap schitt. And I can think of a lot more that don't post here.
I don't know, bobo, speaking as someone that actually does possess a doctorate, all I can say is that I hope at some point in the future when you get some letters beside your own name you'll start to see through the game.
I never said that academic credentials matter. I said that anyone who cares for hip-hop -- including academics -- would find bigger returns posting on a message board. I guess we can throw "actually listening to the music" in there, as well. Maybe degrees will be given out in the near future to people who read "Science" and "National Geographic"...
Which is why I asked you what, other than listening to a ton of hip-hop and posting on a message board, makes you such an expert as opposed to people who do it on a daily basis in print and in public?
Nevertheless, thank you for the re-education about academia. I never would have glimpsed the truth you espouse having come from a household environment with two professors, having visited their offices and classrooms from childhood, or having met the pathetic little men and women who run around campus. I have been humbled.
My credentials are self-evident, bobo; I've got something like 13K posts available for review.
It's mindboggling to me that you think theorizing about rap "in print" or "in public" is somehow inherently more valid or valuable than doing it on a message board or a blog, or on the corner, when there's a massive amount of evidence to the contrary.
I have no axe to grind with academia, so you can save that foolishness and the talk about your mommy and daddy. As heartwarming as the vision of you visiting your moms's office as a toddler is, it has no place in this dicsussion. But hip-hop scholarship remains a fledgling discipline and, after ~13 years, it has yet to produce many any books that are worth the space that they take up on the shelf.
Have you actually read Trica Rose's book?
What about Murray Forman's?
Marc Anthony Neal's? Robin Kelly's? Imani Perry's? Gwendolyn Pough's?
Have you? And are you honestly going to try to defend them?
i dont know what htis thread is a bout, but my mom was cleaning out her video tapes and found copies of Mos Def "Ms Fat Booty" and high and mighty "porno detective". my explanations fell on deaf ears
As if when Robert Johnson lamented about selling his soul to the devil, instead of the listeners shivering in fear at the thought of such an ordeal, they saw it as the "hip" thing to do??
Robert Johnson never lamented selling his soul to the devil. Nor did he sell his soul to the devil. Nor did he try to sell his soul to the devil.
This stupid blues revivalist romanticism of Robert Johnson and the devil is the equivilent of rap is evil.
Well.....according to all the sources I could find this "story" was either made up by Johnson himself, his detractors or Son House.
Regardless, the point I was trying to make is certainly still valid.
I don't believe Johnson sold his soul(nor do I believe in the Devil)any more than I believe that most rappers sling dope and commit murder.
My main question was, is there a point where music can go from reflecting the crime and misery around us to promoting it??
Johnson began traveling up and down the Delta, traveling by bus, hopping trains, and sometimes hitchhiking. According to Blues folklore, while traveling on a cross-road in the Delta, Robert sold his immortal soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar. The source of this story is unclear, however; it may have been claimed by Johnson himself or his detractors during his lifetime or it may have been the later invention of Son House[/b] , who related the tale (adapted from an autobiographical story told by Tommy Johnson) to awestruck fans during the 1960s blues revival. 60s blues scholars would pester old timers like Son House. Asking them over and over about RJ and the devil until they would finally agree to their story about selling his soul. Don't feel bad about falling for it, I just heard a "scholarly" radio show rehashing this myth and the myth that RJ's soul lives in Eric Clapton.
He did sing about the devil. The tension between the sacred and the profane was a big part of his music. Like Al Green, Van Morrison and Prince.
This song is about not wanting to get Lynched:
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees Asked the Lord above, have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please
Standin' at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride Whee-hee, I tried to flag a ride Didn't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by
Standin' at the crossroads, risin' sun goin' down Standin' at the crossroads baby, the risin' sun goin' down I believe to my soul now, po' Bob is sinkin' down
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown That I got the crossroad blues this mornin', Lord, baby I'm sinkin' down
I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west I went to the crossroad, babe, I looked east and west Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman, ooh well, babe, in my distress
A Black man out on the road after dark in Mississippi in the 1930 faced 2 likely fates. Either being forced into a work gang (slave labor for rail road or levee building) or being lynched.
Willie Brown is the guitar player to listen to if you want to hear some really great playing.
I'm genuinely curious as to what valuable academic scholarship on hip-hop would look like to Faux.
If I may be so bold to offer this up: not all the books you mentioned is shit I'd ride for - either as a rap fan or as an academic. However, I can't say their combined contributions are indeed, absolutely worthless but of course, what matters in this is what "worth" would constitute here.
For example, what's your beef with Robin Kelley's work? Or Mark Anthony Neal's? And why do you think I>Black Noise[/i] has absolutely nothing of benefit?
My credentials are self-evident, bobo; I've got something like 13K posts available for review.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm not talking about "theorizing" because I'm talking about being a part of it.
Does anyone know your name? Is anyone defending you? Are you even in the larger discussion?
I have no idea what any of this means. Literally.
If I didn't know you were a middle school drama teacher in the Midwest I would assume you were one of the confused French dudes that occasionally falls through here.
I'm genuinely curious as to what valuable academic scholarship on hip-hop would look like to Faux.
I'm not sure why you're asking that question or why it would be my burden to point to valuable rap scholarship, but I don't think it would look much different than plenty of other forms of scholarship. And, indeed, some of it does exist, although I have yet to see anybody do it over the length of a book. I don't know why rap has proved so resistant to inquiry but for whatever reason--as evidenced by the literature--it has. I have a nagging suspicion that it has something to do with it being uniquely attractive to people that don't have either the base of knowledge or the sensibility to do quality work on it. I am not arguing that people shouldn't continue to attempt it but I am saying that in light of the fact that almost everyone who has given it a shot thus far--or at least everyone who has attempted to spin their work out into something book-length--has failed embarassingly, nobody should be in awe of anybody's purported academic rap credentials or treat their perspective with any more deference than that of the people that bobo refers to as "hobbyists".
For example, what's your beef with Robin Kelley's work? Or Mark Anthony Neal's? And why do you think I>Black Noise[/i] has absolutely nothing of benefit?
Oliver, have you actually pulled Black Noise out recently? I guess it was a decent try for 1994 and it was important in terms of what it symbolized--namely that the subject was worthy of academic inquiry--but it has not aged well at all. Most of the best scholarship in there is lifted from other people's work. Marshall Berman and then people that had previously written about rap at the popular level... Toop and Hager. Her one truly original contribution is her stab at coming up with a fundamental hip-hop aesthetic in "rupture and flow". Are you gonna tell me you can read that schitt with a straight face in 2007? And this is perhaps my biggest beef with that book--that it has become a canonical work when it really shouldn't have been discarded entirely years ago. I'd pull it down off the shelf and break down what I take issue with for you chapter-by-chapter, but I dropped my copy off at the Strand awhile back.
I'm asking the question because with a grand wave, you managed to dead every single book ever written for an academic press on hip-hop. I'd be the first one to agree with you that, amongst that collection, few works really distinguish themselves but the idea that they're all worthless just strikes me as overstatement (except that I genuinely believe you meant it). That's why I'm curious to know what your criticisms were and I appreciate you taking the time to cite them.
I do agree with your point that hip-hop scholars have not really distinguished themselves in any way to make their perspective more valuable than that of non-scholars and as I noted before, I don't consider hip-hop's fascination to academics to be a validation of anything besides that it's fascinating to academics.
The devil was a big part of Blues music and folklore.
From Peetie Wheatstraw to Charlie Patton.
This "gimmick" was played up by many bluesmen, and was ridiculed by many "religious" folks.
I used the "well known" Robert Johnson story as an example, but there are plenty more that I know you are aware of.
The public reaction to Blues and Rap are very similar, although 60-70 years apart.
Best to look at these guys through the social life of MS Delta in the 20s and 30s. People were forced to choose between chuch or blues. If a person chose to go to dances or to drink, in other words live the blues life, then they were not welcome in church. A person had a choice, shun drinking and blues music and live a Christian life, or go with the devil. These were very real choices. Thus when, Patton, or Johnson or House sing about the devil, they are singing about sex and booze and the worldly life they have chosen. Most often if they mentioned the devil, they were lamenting thier choice.
Patton, House and Johnson were regional artists. Popular blues artists like Jefferson and Rainey and Blackwell played to more sophisticated audiences. Many could both go to church and listen to blues music.
I agree with you, whenever Black music has become popular with White audiences it has been attacked by people in power. Sex, drugs (alcohol) and violence in the lyrics are always good for atacking music no matter what the decade. Right now in Portland 'freak dancing' is causing a public outcry and the banning of freak dancing music.
I'm asking the question because with a grand wave, you managed to dead every single book ever written for an academic press on hip-hop. I'd be the first one to agree with you that, amongst that collection, few works really distinguish themselves but the idea that they're all worthless just strikes me as overstatement (except that I genuinely believe you meant it).
Well, those were just a few examples that I threw out--it wasn't intended to be exhaustive. If you think it's a loaded list, then I'd be interested in hearing what you think the quality academic books on rap are. But no matter how many examples you can come up with, I think that the fact that these books even exist is symptomatic of the state of hip-hop academia. The fact that a reputable press like Duke--which is generally very strong on music--would even publish a book like Prophets of the Hood, which is riddled with embarassing fact errors and mistranscriptions... a book whose author, in a literal sense, clearly can't understand what she's hearing.
And, honestly, I'd find a lot of academic rap writing less objectionable if I thought it was merely worthless. But some if it goes quite a bit further than that, to being irresponsible or even dangerous. Are you not troubled by the idea of somebody deriving a false sense of being informed from reading a book like Prophets of the Hood?
I'd for one be interested in people's take on Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop and Brian Cross' It's Not About a Salary. To me those are the only two books on hip-hop that I feel like I can really stand behind as great books, surely in no small part because both of the authors are involved in hip-hop in some form and have been for a very long time.
I'd for one be interested in people's take on Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop and Brian Cross' It's Not About a Salary. To me those are the only two books on hip-hop that I feel like I can really stand behind as great books, surely in no small part because both of the authors are involved in hip-hop in some form and have been for a very long time.
Both are great books. Neither is technically "academic" however, if that's what we're discussing.
Back to Faux: I've only ever read Imani Perry's first chapter and while I've heard enough from peers to have apprehensions about the entire rest of the book, I actually thought her few pages discussing Blackness and hybridity were pretty good distillations of larger debates around race, hip-hop and appropriation. I'd assign those sections but the fact that she apparently isn't aware that female rappers have their rhymes ghostwritten is NAGL. Perry's book, in particular, seems to come in second only behind Forman's in terms of relatively recent books that are no one seems desirous to ride for.
The two academic hip-hop books I personally really like are Joseph Schloss' I>Making Beats[/i] and Raquel Rivera's I>Nuyoricans in the Hip Hop Zone[/i] mostly because I think both are excellent templates for how to actually research and write about hip-hop (from a methodological point of view, I mean).
Part of the problem is that the possible readers for any manuscript submission are drawn from a relatively thin lot and as you point out, if there's a dearth of qualified/capable folks in academia in general, then you can well imagine that potentially, the people tasked with reviewing these books for the presses, won't be any better equipped to point out shortcomings or straight up factual errors. I'm not making an excuse mind you.
The two academic hip-hop books I personally really like are Joseph Schloss' I>Making Beats[/i] and Raquel Rivera's I>Nuyoricans in the Hip Hop Zone[/i] mostly because I think both are excellent templates for how to actually research and write about hip-hop (from a methodological point of view, I mean).
I haven't read Rivera's book, but I've posted about my problems with Joe's book in the past. Basically I felt like there was a complete failure to contextualize the scene he was writing about. If you're going to write a book that purports to be about the production of sample-based rap, then you need to talk to the major figures from when that style was dominant. Instead, he was mostly dealing with guys from an anachronistic little scene that was by then far outside of the mainstream. Nothing at all wrong with exploring that scene, but it was never acknowledged for what it was, and I think that should have played a major part in the analysis. For example, the possibility that these dudes had come up with all these ridiculous "rules" might well be a means of trying to solidify this little world within hip-hop that had become largely irrelevant--to give themselves something to push against. That type of thing was totally unexplored. (No disrespect to the people quoted in the book that post here--I would bet that half a decade or more later, a lot of them would cringe at some of the things they said to Joe).
Part of the problem is that the possible readers for any manuscript submission are drawn from a relatively thin lot and as you point out, if there's a dearth of qualified/capable folks in academia in general, then you can well imagine that potentially, the people tasked with reviewing these books for the presses, won't be any better equipped to point out shortcomings or straight up factual errors. I'm not making an excuse mind you.
Yeah, that's exactly the problem--that there remains an insufficiently qualified establishment within academia. And beyond that, that there is now a deeply flawed canon, which is going to constitute the sole set of reference points for most anyone that a young scholar is answerable to. I know when I was an undergraduate and writing about rap around ten years ago, my own work suffered from both a lack of rigor and wild supposition largely because there was nobody to call me on it--nobody was sufficiently comfortable with the subject matter to offer meaningful criticism.
I'd for one be interested in people's take on Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop and Brian Cross' It's Not About a Salary. To me those are the only two books on hip-hop that I feel like I can really stand behind as great books, surely in no small part because both of the authors are involved in hip-hop in some form and have been for a very long time.
Both excellent books, although the Chang book does peter out towards the end.
Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone clueless waste of space.
Clearly. Everyone knows NBC canceled Baywatch after one season and it was the 'Hoff himself who picked up the slack, producing the bulk of those 241 episodes for syndication.
Imus Is Out, But Whitey Execs Get the Last Laugh By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com
The race question is even more ridiculous. Dr. Todd Boyd notwithstanding, there's just no way to talk about the Imus incident without talking about hip-hop and rap culture. Let me just say right up-front that I listen to a lot of rap music. I'm one of those revolting well-off suburban white kids who grew up on PE and NWA and privately mourns the fact that he looks like an idiot in a Starter jersey. I love rap music, always have. But as an adult white male I also know a minstrel show when I see it, and that's what rap has turned into.
Satan himself couldn't have designed a more effective vehicle for marginalizing black culture than modern hip-hop. In the early days rap music was scary social commentary, it was raw and real and it vividly described a violent street culture that white people didn't know about and didn't want to know about. But very quickly rap turned into a multibillion-dollar industry in which the same corporate behemoths who sold us crap like Garth Brooks and boy bands and Britney Spears made massive profits selling a stylized, romanticized version of black misery to white kids in the suburbs.
That was bad enough, but even worse was the way black politicians and black intellectuals so easily bought into the idea that these endless video images of gun-toting, ho-slapping black men with fat wallets, rock-hard tattooed abs and fully-accessorized rides were positive living symbols of "black empowerment" and "black manhood." Like Tupac was the next Malcolm or something.
americans are fascinated with sex, money and violence...but apparently, when white people act it out (sopranos, desperate housewives, etc.) it is fantasy, but the moment black people do it, it is viewed as more than just entertainment...minstrelism (according to this author). i saw russell simmons on cnn defending rappers' use of "bitches and hoes" as being a description of their reality. if i were him, i'd go on tv and say the exact opposite. while this might be snoop's reality (sitting vip, drinking champagne off of stripper's asses), its all part of creating entertainment and fantasy for consumers. the public dictates the market, not snoop and ludacris. white people (the largest consumers of rap music) are fascinated with the rap fantasy world. are black rappers putting on a minstrel show by catering to what the public wants? i dont know. sex, money and violence seems to have a universal appeal, regardless of race.
I'd for one be interested in people's take on Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop and Brian Cross' It's Not About a Salary.
Both are great books. Neither is technically "academic" however[/b], if that's what we're discussing.
Wait... then what constitutes an "academic" work? I sincerely hope, my friend, you don't mean to say that the writing of Rose, Pough, or Potter is somehow more "academic" than Chang's work. Chang's research and his analysis rival that of many of the historians in my department. The book isn't perfect, but I think it's far more useful as an "academic" work, and far more accessible than something slathered with seminar speak and pretentious jargon.
Rose: "The concept of postliterate orality merges orally influenced traditions that are created and embedded in a postliterate, technologically sophistocated cultural context." This is simply unintelligible. Who is she writing for??
(Hi OD**. I owe you PMs. Hope teaching is going well! - Neta)
I'd for one be interested in people's take on Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop and Brian Cross' It's Not About a Salary.
Both are great books. Neither is technically "academic" however[/b], if that's what we're discussing.
Wait... then what constitutes an "academic" work? I sincerely hope, my friend, you don't mean to say that the writing of Rose, Pough, or Potter is somehow more "academic" than Chang's work. Chang's research and his analysis rival that of many of the historians in my department. The book isn't perfect, but I think it's far more useful as an "academic" work, and far more accessible than something slathered with seminar speak and pretentious jargon.
I think Oliver meant that Chang clearly had aspirations of reaching an audience beyond academia... but one thing his work definitely demonstrated is that it is possible to approach the material with the same degree of rigor and yet to produce something that resonates with people that don't talk like:
"The concept of postliterate orality merges orally influenced traditions that are created and embedded in a postliterate, technologically sophistocated cultural context."
However, reading that book I had the sense that Chang did intend to make it fairly teachable--for example, the way he subdivided his chapters would lend itself to daily reading assignments.
I'm writing from home right now vs. the office (where all my books are at) but I think Joe would have acknowledged all the shortcomings you just noted. In any case, the purpose of ethnography isn't to create a meta-theory but rather, is to look at the production of culture in a specific space and then extrapolate - CAREFULLY and with full recognition of limitations - what we might learn from this. Like I said, though, I'd have to pull the book off the shelf and see if this acknowledgment is actually in there or not but knowing Joe and how he behaves as a scholar, I'm pretty sure it would be.
Moreover, the fact that people might see comments once made in the late '90s as silly now is just indicative of how culture isn't static. That's why I think almost any book on hip-hop that isn't a straight history is doomed to potential irrelevance as time goes by but that's ok. The problem is more that academic publishing takes so damn long that even after you've written a manuscript (itself probably based on field work that's at least a year or more old), you can expect it to take another 1-3 years for the text to actually come out. Case in point, I was solicited to write an essay on for an anthology that literally just came out on Duke Univ. Press. The date of that solicitation was almost exactly five years ago and I had finished the essay no later than 2003. In essence, I knew full well what I was writing was probably going to irrelevant on some levels even as I was writing it but so long as you don't pretend like what you're writing is Truth???, then you just hope it contributes meaningfully to a larger, continuous conversation even if the ideas in it maybe become anachronistic very quickly as the landscape shifts.
Shifting gears a bit: What do people think of Brian Coleman's "Rakim Told Me"? I've been reading the new, beefed up version of that book, "Check the Technique" and was curious how other readers perceive it.
sex, money and violence seems to have a universal appeal, regardless of race.
Just wanted to cosine that.
And I was wondering when Can't Stop Won't Stop would be brought up. Sure, it's not straight academia, but it's solid enough to be an adjunct in an American Studies class. I say that having taken many in my time, and man, there are some books that have been used that make Can't Stop Won't Stop look like Noam Chomsky's lost masterpiece.
Comments
There's the disertation, right there.
This is one of the most ridiculous displays of ass-hurt I have ever witnessed on SoulStrut. I do not exaggerate.
You actually seem to think that academic credentials are meaningful when discussing rap. That the perspective of the person who has invested several years into imposing his or her own ridiculous and aggressive readings of rap onto the medium in the interests of building a career within the academy can say schitt to the person who spent that time actually listening to the music.
I can think of a dozen people that post on this board that could son virtually any working academic today on some rap schitt. And I can think of a lot more that don't post here.
I don't know, bobo, speaking as someone that actually does possess a doctorate, all I can say is that I hope at some point in the future when you get some letters beside your own name you'll start to see through the game.
I never said that academic credentials matter. I said that anyone who cares for hip-hop -- including academics -- would find bigger returns posting on a message board. I guess we can throw "actually listening to the music" in there, as well. Maybe degrees will be given out in the near future to people who read "Science" and "National Geographic"...
Which is why I asked you what, other than listening to a ton of hip-hop and posting on a message board, makes you such an expert as opposed to people who do it on a daily basis in print and in public?
Nevertheless, thank you for the re-education about academia. I never would have glimpsed the truth you espouse having come from a household environment with two professors, having visited their offices and classrooms from childhood, or having met the pathetic little men and women who run around campus. I have been humbled.
Robert Johnson never lamented selling his soul to the devil. Nor did he sell his soul to the devil. Nor did he try to sell his soul to the devil.
This stupid blues revivalist romanticism of Robert Johnson and the devil is the equivilent of rap is evil.
Well.....according to all the sources I could find this "story" was either made up by Johnson himself, his detractors or Son House.
Regardless, the point I was trying to make is certainly still valid.
I don't believe Johnson sold his soul(nor do I believe in the Devil)any more than I believe that most rappers sling dope and commit murder.
My main question was, is there a point where music can go from reflecting the crime and misery around us to promoting it??
Johnson began traveling up and down the Delta, traveling by bus, hopping trains, and sometimes hitchhiking. According to Blues folklore, while traveling on a cross-road in the Delta, Robert sold his immortal soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar. The source of this story is unclear, however; it may have been claimed by Johnson himself or his detractors during his lifetime or it may have been the later invention of Son House[/b] , who related the tale (adapted from an autobiographical story told by Tommy Johnson) to awestruck fans during the 1960s blues revival.
My credentials are self-evident, bobo; I've got something like 13K posts available for review.
It's mindboggling to me that you think theorizing about rap "in print" or "in public" is somehow inherently more valid or valuable than doing it on a message board or a blog, or on the corner, when there's a massive amount of evidence to the contrary.
I have no axe to grind with academia, so you can save that foolishness and the talk about your mommy and daddy. As heartwarming as the vision of you visiting your moms's office as a toddler is, it has no place in this dicsussion. But hip-hop scholarship remains a fledgling discipline and, after ~13 years, it has yet to produce
manyany books that are worth the space that they take up on the shelf.Have you actually read Trica Rose's book?
What about Murray Forman's?
Marc Anthony Neal's? Robin Kelly's? Imani Perry's? Gwendolyn Pough's?
Have you? And are you honestly going to try to defend them?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm not talking about "theorizing" because I'm talking about being a part of it.
Does anyone know your name? Is anyone defending you? Are you even in the larger discussion?
Well.....according to all the sources I could find this "story" was either made up by Johnson himself, his detractors or Son House.
Regardless, the point I was trying to make is certainly still valid.
I don't believe Johnson sold his soul(nor do I believe in the Devil)any more than I believe that most rappers sling dope and commit murder.
My main question was, is there a point where music can go from reflecting the crime and misery around us to promoting it??
Johnson began traveling up and down the Delta, traveling by bus, hopping trains, and sometimes hitchhiking. According to Blues folklore, while traveling on a cross-road in the Delta, Robert sold his immortal soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar. The source of this story is unclear, however; it may have been claimed by Johnson himself or his detractors during his lifetime or it may have been the later invention of Son House[/b] , who related the tale (adapted from an autobiographical story told by Tommy Johnson) to awestruck fans during the 1960s blues revival.
60s blues scholars would pester old timers like Son House. Asking them over and over about RJ and the devil until they would finally agree to their story about selling his soul. Don't feel bad about falling for it, I just heard a "scholarly" radio show rehashing this myth and the myth that RJ's soul lives in Eric Clapton.
He did sing about the devil. The tension between the sacred and the profane was a big part of his music. Like Al Green, Van Morrison and Prince.
This song is about not wanting to get Lynched:
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please
Standin' at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride
Whee-hee, I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by
Standin' at the crossroads, risin' sun goin' down
Standin' at the crossroads baby, the risin' sun goin' down
I believe to my soul now, po' Bob is sinkin' down
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
That I got the crossroad blues this mornin', Lord, baby I'm sinkin' down
I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west
I went to the crossroad, babe, I looked east and west
Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman, ooh well, babe, in my distress
A Black man out on the road after dark in Mississippi in the 1930 faced 2 likely fates. Either being forced into a work gang (slave labor for rail road or levee building) or being lynched.
Willie Brown is the guitar player to listen to if you want to hear some really great playing.
From Peetie Wheatstraw to Charlie Patton.
This "gimmick" was played up by many bluesmen, and was ridiculed by many "religious" folks.
I used the "well known" Robert Johnson story as an example, but there are plenty more that I know you are aware of.
The public reaction to Blues and Rap are very similar, although 60-70 years apart.
If I may be so bold to offer this up: not all the books you mentioned is shit I'd ride for - either as a rap fan or as an academic. However, I can't say their combined contributions are indeed, absolutely worthless but of course, what matters in this is what "worth" would constitute here.
For example, what's your beef with Robin Kelley's work? Or Mark Anthony Neal's? And why do you think I>Black Noise[/i] has absolutely nothing of benefit?
I have no idea what any of this means. Literally.
If I didn't know you were a middle school drama teacher in the Midwest I would assume you were one of the confused French dudes that occasionally falls through here.
I'm not sure why you're asking that question or why it would be my burden to point to valuable rap scholarship, but I don't think it would look much different than plenty of other forms of scholarship. And, indeed, some of it does exist, although I have yet to see anybody do it over the length of a book. I don't know why rap has proved so resistant to inquiry but for whatever reason--as evidenced by the literature--it has. I have a nagging suspicion that it has something to do with it being uniquely attractive to people that don't have either the base of knowledge or the sensibility to do quality work on it. I am not arguing that people shouldn't continue to attempt it but I am saying that in light of the fact that almost everyone who has given it a shot thus far--or at least everyone who has attempted to spin their work out into something book-length--has failed embarassingly, nobody should be in awe of anybody's purported academic rap credentials or treat their perspective with any more deference than that of the people that bobo refers to as "hobbyists".
Oliver, have you actually pulled Black Noise out recently? I guess it was a decent try for 1994 and it was important in terms of what it symbolized--namely that the subject was worthy of academic inquiry--but it has not aged well at all. Most of the best scholarship in there is lifted from other people's work. Marshall Berman and then people that had previously written about rap at the popular level... Toop and Hager. Her one truly original contribution is her stab at coming up with a fundamental hip-hop aesthetic in "rupture and flow". Are you gonna tell me you can read that schitt with a straight face in 2007? And this is perhaps my biggest beef with that book--that it has become a canonical work when it really shouldn't have been discarded entirely years ago. I'd pull it down off the shelf and break down what I take issue with for you chapter-by-chapter, but I dropped my copy off at the Strand awhile back.
I'm asking the question because with a grand wave, you managed to dead every single book ever written for an academic press on hip-hop. I'd be the first one to agree with you that, amongst that collection, few works really distinguish themselves but the idea that they're all worthless just strikes me as overstatement (except that I genuinely believe you meant it). That's why I'm curious to know what your criticisms were and I appreciate you taking the time to cite them.
I do agree with your point that hip-hop scholars have not really distinguished themselves in any way to make their perspective more valuable than that of non-scholars and as I noted before, I don't consider hip-hop's fascination to academics to be a validation of anything besides that it's fascinating to academics.
Best to look at these guys through the social life of MS Delta in the 20s and 30s. People were forced to choose between chuch or blues. If a person chose to go to dances or to drink, in other words live the blues life, then they were not welcome in church. A person had a choice, shun drinking and blues music and live a Christian life, or go with the devil. These were very real choices. Thus when, Patton, or Johnson or House sing about the devil, they are singing about sex and booze and the worldly life they have chosen. Most often if they mentioned the devil, they were lamenting thier choice.
Patton, House and Johnson were regional artists. Popular blues artists like Jefferson and Rainey and Blackwell played to more sophisticated audiences. Many could both go to church and listen to blues music.
I agree with you, whenever Black music has become popular with White audiences it has been attacked by people in power. Sex, drugs (alcohol) and violence in the lyrics are always good for atacking music no matter what the decade. Right now in Portland 'freak dancing' is causing a public outcry and the banning of freak dancing music.
Well, those were just a few examples that I threw out--it wasn't intended to be exhaustive. If you think it's a loaded list, then I'd be interested in hearing what you think the quality academic books on rap are. But no matter how many examples you can come up with, I think that the fact that these books even exist is symptomatic of the state of hip-hop academia. The fact that a reputable press like Duke--which is generally very strong on music--would even publish a book like Prophets of the Hood, which is riddled with embarassing fact errors and mistranscriptions... a book whose author, in a literal sense, clearly can't understand what she's hearing.
And, honestly, I'd find a lot of academic rap writing less objectionable if I thought it was merely worthless. But some if it goes quite a bit further than that, to being irresponsible or even dangerous. Are you not troubled by the idea of somebody deriving a false sense of being informed from reading a book like Prophets of the Hood?
Both are great books. Neither is technically "academic" however, if that's what we're discussing.
Back to Faux: I've only ever read Imani Perry's first chapter and while I've heard enough from peers to have apprehensions about the entire rest of the book, I actually thought her few pages discussing Blackness and hybridity were pretty good distillations of larger debates around race, hip-hop and appropriation. I'd assign those sections but the fact that she apparently isn't aware that female rappers have their rhymes ghostwritten is NAGL. Perry's book, in particular, seems to come in second only behind Forman's in terms of relatively recent books that are no one seems desirous to ride for.
The two academic hip-hop books I personally really like are Joseph Schloss' I>Making Beats[/i] and Raquel Rivera's I>Nuyoricans in the Hip Hop Zone[/i] mostly because I think both are excellent templates for how to actually research and write about hip-hop (from a methodological point of view, I mean).
Part of the problem is that the possible readers for any manuscript submission are drawn from a relatively thin lot and as you point out, if there's a dearth of qualified/capable folks in academia in general, then you can well imagine that potentially, the people tasked with reviewing these books for the presses, won't be any better equipped to point out shortcomings or straight up factual errors. I'm not making an excuse mind you.
I haven't read Rivera's book, but I've posted about my problems with Joe's book in the past. Basically I felt like there was a complete failure to contextualize the scene he was writing about. If you're going to write a book that purports to be about the production of sample-based rap, then you need to talk to the major figures from when that style was dominant. Instead, he was mostly dealing with guys from an anachronistic little scene that was by then far outside of the mainstream. Nothing at all wrong with exploring that scene, but it was never acknowledged for what it was, and I think that should have played a major part in the analysis. For example, the possibility that these dudes had come up with all these ridiculous "rules" might well be a means of trying to solidify this little world within hip-hop that had become largely irrelevant--to give themselves something to push against. That type of thing was totally unexplored. (No disrespect to the people quoted in the book that post here--I would bet that half a decade or more later, a lot of them would cringe at some of the things they said to Joe).
Yeah, that's exactly the problem--that there remains an insufficiently qualified establishment within academia. And beyond that, that there is now a deeply flawed canon, which is going to constitute the sole set of reference points for most anyone that a young scholar is answerable to. I know when I was an undergraduate and writing about rap around ten years ago, my own work suffered from both a lack of rigor and wild supposition largely because there was nobody to call me on it--nobody was sufficiently comfortable with the subject matter to offer meaningful criticism.
Both excellent books, although the Chang book does peter out towards the end.
Clearly. Everyone knows NBC canceled Baywatch after one season and it was the 'Hoff himself who picked up the slack, producing the bulk of those 241 episodes for syndication.
americans are fascinated with sex, money and violence...but apparently, when white people act it out (sopranos, desperate housewives, etc.) it is fantasy, but the moment black people do it, it is viewed as more than just entertainment...minstrelism (according to this author). i saw russell simmons on cnn defending rappers' use of "bitches and hoes" as being a description of their reality. if i were him, i'd go on tv and say the exact opposite. while this might be snoop's reality (sitting vip, drinking champagne off of stripper's asses), its all part of creating entertainment and fantasy for consumers. the public dictates the market, not snoop and ludacris. white people (the largest consumers of rap music) are fascinated with the rap fantasy world. are black rappers putting on a minstrel show by catering to what the public wants? i dont know. sex, money and violence seems to have a universal appeal, regardless of race.
Wait... then what constitutes an "academic" work? I sincerely hope, my friend, you don't mean to say that the writing of Rose, Pough, or Potter is somehow more "academic" than Chang's work. Chang's research and his analysis rival that of many of the historians in my department. The book isn't perfect, but I think it's far more useful as an "academic" work, and far more accessible than something slathered with seminar speak and pretentious jargon.
Rose: "The concept of postliterate orality merges orally influenced traditions that are created and embedded in a postliterate, technologically sophistocated cultural context." This is simply unintelligible. Who is she writing for??
(Hi OD**. I owe you PMs. Hope teaching is going well! - Neta)
I think Oliver meant that Chang clearly had aspirations of reaching an audience beyond academia... but one thing his work definitely demonstrated is that it is possible to approach the material with the same degree of rigor and yet to produce something that resonates with people that don't talk like:
However, reading that book I had the sense that Chang did intend to make it fairly teachable--for example, the way he subdivided his chapters would lend itself to daily reading assignments.
Moreover, the fact that people might see comments once made in the late '90s as silly now is just indicative of how culture isn't static. That's why I think almost any book on hip-hop that isn't a straight history is doomed to potential irrelevance as time goes by but that's ok. The problem is more that academic publishing takes so damn long that even after you've written a manuscript (itself probably based on field work that's at least a year or more old), you can expect it to take another 1-3 years for the text to actually come out. Case in point, I was solicited to write an essay on for an anthology that literally just came out on Duke Univ. Press. The date of that solicitation was almost exactly five years ago and I had finished the essay no later than 2003. In essence, I knew full well what I was writing was probably going to irrelevant on some levels even as I was writing it but so long as you don't pretend like what you're writing is Truth???, then you just hope it contributes meaningfully to a larger, continuous conversation even if the ideas in it maybe become anachronistic very quickly as the landscape shifts.
Shifting gears a bit: What do people think of Brian Coleman's "Rakim Told Me"? I've been reading the new, beefed up version of that book, "Check the Technique" and was curious how other readers perceive it.
Just wanted to cosine that.
And I was wondering when Can't Stop Won't Stop would be brought up. Sure, it's not straight academia, but it's solid enough to be an adjunct in an American Studies class. I say that having taken many in my time, and man, there are some books that have been used that make Can't Stop Won't Stop look like Noam Chomsky's lost masterpiece.