Beats Rhymes & Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip-Hop [Paperback]

Ytasha Womack (Author), Kenji Jasper (Editor), Michael Eric Dyson (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2007

Our generation made hip-hop. But hip-hop also made us. Why are suburban kids referring to their subdivision as “block”? Why has the pimp become a figure of male power? Why has dodging the feds become an act of honor long after one has made millions as a legitimate artist? What happens when fantasy does more harm than reality?—From the Introduction

Hip-hop culture has been in the mainstream for years. Suburban teens take their fashion cues from Diddy and expect to have Three 6 Mafia play their sweet-sixteen parties. From the “Boogie Down Bronx” to the heartland, hip-hop’s influence is major. But has the movement taken a wrong turn? In Beats Rhymes and Life, hot journalists Kenji Jasper and Ytasha Womack have focused on what they consider to be the most prominent symbols of the genre: the fan, the turntable, the ice, the dance floor, the shell casing, the buzz, the tag, the whip, the ass, the stiletto, the (pimp’s) cane, the coffin, the cross, and the corner. Each is the focus of an essay by a journalist who skillfully dissects what their chosen symbol means to them and to the hip-hop community.The collection also features many original interviews with some of rap’s biggest stars talking candidly about how they connect to the culture and their fans. With a foreword by the renowned scholar Michael Eric Dyson, Beats Rhymes and Life is an innovative and daring look at the state of the hip-hop nation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist Jasper (Seeking Salamanca Mitchell) and filmmaker Womack have both written about various aspects of hip-hop culture, and here they collect a fascinating group of essays by music writers on key ideas and images in the genre. The book is organized by what the editors consider the strongest images in what all the writers view as the "cultural juggernaut" of hip-hop: the fan, the buzz (drugs), the love, the cane (pimps), the cross (religion), the coffin, the whip (cars), the ice (diamonds), the stilettos, the tag (graffiti), the turntable, the shell casing, the block, the floor (dancing) and the suit (business). Each writer clearly loves hip-hop music, and all are united by a sense, stated best by Lisa Pegram (in a powerful look at "Romance vs. Promiscuity in Mainstream Hip-Hop") that the music is "our blues, our jazz, our rock and roll, our generation's birthmark on the American experience." In the end, many of these writers challenge current artists, producers and record industry executives to recognize that the musical possibilities that arose out of the multicultural hip-hop scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s are being reduced to what Faraji Whalen describes as "the idea that black youth should conform to and emulate the worst possible racial stereotypes." This is a fine collection for anyone invested in hip-hop and the pop culture landscape it transformed.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Editors Jasper and Womack have collected insightful essays on the state of hip-hop culture and lifestyle and interviews with the likes of Luther Campbell (formerly of 2 Live Crew), Ludacris, and other rap notables. They launch the collection from several questions: "What happens when the listeners of a music believe more in the commercial hip hop ideal, a world [of] masochistic fantasy, than the values they are taught in their own homes?" "Why has the pimp become a figure of true male power?" "Why has dodging the feds . . . become an act of honor long after one has made millions as a legitimate artist?" "What happens when fantasy does more harm than reality?" To elicit good answers, they also identified a set of hip-hop-implicated symbols--the fan, the (pimp's) cane, the ice (i.e., diamonds), the (graffiti) tag, the turntable, the shell casing, and others--with which the writers and interviewees anchor their remarks. The result is a multifaceted, stimulating analysis of hip-hop even as its recording sales direly precipitate. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (May 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767919777
• ISBN-13: 978-0767919777
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,598,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From The Stage To The Street, July 17, 2007

By 

Porscha Coleman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beats Rhymes & Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip-Hop (Paperback)

When did we first fall in love with Hip-Hop as a culture, and as a lifestyle? When were we first disappointed in Hip-Hop as a culture, and as a lifestyle? Beats Rhymes and Life discusses this in terms that two generations of Hip-Hop lovers can understand beginning with the foreword Michael Eric Dyson compares and contrasts the Hip-Hop movement of the eighties with the civil rights movement of the sixties socially, economically, and politically.

Beats Rhymes and Life breaks down the culture, movement, and business of Hip-Hop from the perspective of rappers (through interviews) as well as from the perspective of fans. Several common Hip-Hop personas and personalities are discussed as well as why it is popular, what type of influence it has on the community/race and what rapper was the originator of this image. For example P. Diddy is listed as one of the originators of the "baller" persona, notable follow-ups include "Baby (Birdman), "Lil Flip" and Fabulous.
Beats Rhymes and Life also lists Tupac as being the originator of the "superthug/gansta" persona, notable follow-ups include Mobb Deep and 50 cent.

I enjoyed Beats Rhymes and Life because it explored many different facets of Hip-Hop and their effect. The writing is honest, and humorous (where appropriate). This book is a must read for anyone who feels strongly about Hip-Hop. This book is truly an education into a cultural phenomenon.

Reviewed By:
Porscha
APOOO BookClub

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our Love/Hate Relationship with Hip-Hop, May 16, 2007

By 

Dante Eglin (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beats Rhymes & Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip-Hop (Paperback)

Over the past 30 years, hip-hop has been a familiar friend to many of us. It's been a ear to complain to, a shoulder to lean on, a crush to flirt with. But just like those close friends we came up with, hip-hop has changed and evolved as time progressed. Hip-hop began as a cultural movement conceived in the hearts and souls of urban communities in the 1970s but has grown into a mass-produced mainstream commodity in the 2000s. It has mutated from the days of the 12" vinyl, all-night dance parties, and social commentary into pirated mp3's, candid sexualization of our women, and the constant pursuit of diamonds.

Often, some of us openly wonder has hip-hop taken a turn for the worst - a complicated question, to say the least. But in Beats Rhymes & Life, co-editors Kenji Jasper and Ytasha Womack attempt to peel back the layers of stereotype and convention and address the query at its heart. The most recognizable symbols from the genre are all dissected at length by prominent journalists in the field, who analyze modern motifs from the diamond infatuation, the adoration of pimping, the devotion to holding down the block, and the magnetizing allure of the coffin, among others.

The array of contributors aims to produce a diverse explication of the state of the hip-hop nation. The mixture of freelance writers, poets, filmmakers and editors allows Beats Rhymes & Life to dwell on a range of issues, such as hip-hop's fondness for cannabis and the garnishment of young women as live-action sex toys, to the MC Hammer backlash and religious dynamics within rap.

In his section, "The Disgruntled Fan", Faraji Whalen draws attention to the often-overlooked foster model hip-hop serves as for many youth. "With so many black youths living in single-parent households in which that single parent often works two jobs, there is frequently no one to teach the nuances of social interaction and appropriate behavior other than the TV and the CD player. And since the vast majority of these single parents are women, there's a void of male role models. So when our young consumer swithces on the boob tube and sees Jay-Z leaned up against a Bentley, `all the wavy light-skinned girls' loving him now, it's fairly easy to decipher how Jay becomes his operational role model."

Michael Eric Dyson exposes in the foreward the magnetic appeal of the late Tupac Shakur. "[He has] Black Panther sensibility, joined with political thuggery, joined with black romantic ambition, and the hoochization of the black female populace...I was attracted to him because the contradictions were in him. They were both spectacular and effectively destructive. Tupac represented the best and the brightest on one hand, and the worst on the other, at the same time."

Complementing the journalist critiques are exclusive interviews from of hip-hop's premier names, along the lines of Nelly, Ludacris, Scarface, Heather Hunter and others.

The decline in quality from many hip-hop acts is touched on by Too $hort in his interview. "My personal theory is that rappers don't really lose it lyrically, they just don't pay attention to the production. That first album, when you was broke, came out the bomb, but then [with] that next one you've got some jewelry. You got a car. The girl wants you. And then you go into the studio and you got the ego and the ego can't make records. Records gotta come from within."

XXL magazine co-founder Rob Marriott explains in his interview that, contrary to media depictions, the diamond obsession transcends hip-hop. "For me, the acknowledgement that the Negro's bling habit is both wasteful and foolish is not so much a critique as it is a point of departure. Bling culture, or at lest the wanton out-of-control materialism it describes and celebrates, is like violence: American as cherry pie. It was an American phenomenon long before Juvenile and the Cash Money Millionaires coined the phrase."

At its heart, Beats Rhymes & Life doesn't aim to answer if hip-hop has sunk into an ill-fated demise. Rather, it exposes the genre, its fans, the major players, and the behind-the-scenes forces, airing out hip-hop's dirty laundry while also shining light on its wonderful tapestry and social threading. In essence, it showcases what should be a redundancy - true and real hip-hop.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Sparks debate and discussion...presents an opportunity for us to ask ourselves difficult questions.", June 18, 2007

By 

Books2Mention Magazine "Editor" (www.Books2Mention.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beats Rhymes & Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip-Hop (Paperback)

"Beats Rhymes & Life sparks debate and discussion. It provides an interesting theory on the symbols in hip-hop, highlighting some compelling interviews with some of the top entertainers in the industry depicting hip-hop as a major influence in our world today. Promoting a notion that hip-hop has some how gone wrong and offers reason for us to ponder, which presents an opportunity for us to ask ourselves difficult questions."

"Overall, profound opinions are presented generating serious thought about the true ramifications of what is displayed through this complex genre of music through Beats Rhymes & Life."

"Do we attempt to silence or limit the artist or do we change what is often times their reality and maybe then people will not feel embarrassed, ashamed and degraded? Perhaps the change needed is far deeper than a genre of music."

"Highly recommended for those truly interested in taking a look at this issue from various perspectives."