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

by John McWhorter (Author) "The party line is that hip-hop is telling it like it is, showing us where to go, hitting the sweet spot as it hasn't been..." (more)
Key Phrases: sensate music, conscious rappers, brilliant soul, Civil Rights, All About the Beat, Hip-Hop Generation (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this uneven critique of mainstream and socially conscious rap and hip-hop, McWhorter (Losing the Race) pillories the genre for positioning itself as a political—even revolutionary—medium. In the author's analysis, hip-hop is typified by narcissism rather than altruism, a culture of complaint rather than creative solution and a willful blindness to the real problems affecting black communities; McWhorter demonstrates how frequently artists rail against police brutality and how few mention HIV/AIDS, the single biggest killer of African-Americans. The author's admiration for the genre generally keeps his criticisms from sounding shrill, but it cannot compensate for the book's flaws. While McWhorter lambastes rappers for failing to address real issues, he doesn't either: like the hip-hop artists he chides, the author romanticizes activism while appearing clueless about the nuts and bolts of grassroots work. Equally troubling are McWhorter's unsubstantiated theories, chief among them his claim that African-Americans are more inclined to judge a statement by how it sounds than what it communicates. More interested in skewering hip-hop than suggesting paths to substantive social change, this book ultimately frustrates more than it illuminates. (June)
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Review
“This is a remarkable book because, in its way, it celebrates hip-hop even as it argues against its political significance. McWhorter separates the powerful elements of the music itself from the often mindless political pretensions that surround it. He does what only the best cultural critics can do: he parses and clarifies to show the way beyond the dead-ends that art forms inevitably come to. He wants hip-hop to align with logic and reason. He wants it to grow.”
—Shelby Steele, author of The Content of Our Character

“John McWhorter is one of the few of whom it can be said, ‘He thinks for himself and goes his own way.’ In All About the Beat he takes on all of the exaggerated claims for hip-hop as something more than a long-running and lucrative trend. With absolute clarity, he proves them not to be the claims of airheads but airholes—empty openings in the wall of American popular culture. This book is a short but sharp and substantial rebuttal of the academic hustlers, lightweight rabble-rousers, and camp followers who do not know the difference between smoke and fire. For the good of us all, John McWhorter does.”
—Stanley Crouch, author of Considering Genius and The Artificial White Man

Praise for Winning the Race

“Splendid. . . . McWhorter has a keen eye for the foibles of social scientists.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“A provocative challenge to conventional wisdom.”
—USA Today

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (June 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592403743
• ISBN-13: 978-1592403745
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #452,555 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It Is Entertainment, Not a Political Forum. , November 28, 2008

By	Kevin Currie-Knight "PhD Student in Education" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Hip-hop presents nothing useful to forging political change in the real world. It's all about attitude and just that. It's music. Gkood music, but just music." (Kindle edition, loc. 178)

This is the thesis of John McWhorter's "All About the Beat." Hip-hop mlght be good music, but it makes for empty political commentary. It is time, McWhorter says, to treat hip-hop as what it is and not more than what it is.

Before buying this book - and if you are interested in the subject, you really should pick it up - we need to be clear on what this book is NOT. The book is not dissing hip-hop. It is not a conservative screed decrying the lack of family values in hip hop. It is not arguing that hip-hop is ruining the fabric of society. It's point is simply that hip-hop music, often touted as political commmentary laced with a beat, is nothing of the sort; it is music that OCCASIONALLY TRIES (and fails) to be political commentary.

McWhorter first focuses on the 'big' rappers - 50 Cent, Young Jeezy, et. al. - and, not suprisingly, finds this music virtually bereft of any real political statement other than "f... the man!" Next, McWhorter focuses on the "conscious" rappers - Mos Def, Common, the Roots - and finds that while their lyrics may be more about positivity than the thug life, these rappers still offer only very surface-level "political commentary." Rather than, "f... the man," these rappers say essentially the same thing in more tidy and seemingly thoughtful words - "rebel against the machine," perhaps.

McWhrter's strongest point, at least to me, is the idea that what passes as political commentary in rap is so light that it would not, and should not, be seen as political commentary at all. Let me quote directly from McWhorter on this score:

"Yet people apparently see great drama in young black men of humble circumstances knowing something about current events. The quiet assumption is that for a white person, being an intellectual means making points sustained with argumentation, and possibly writing it down. But a black person is intlelectual if he or she just says the names of W.E.B. Dubois and Malcolm X in a rap." (loc. 961)

What some say is "political commentary" in rap is usually just mention of some current social ill, civil rights, or big words like "manifest." Through some sustained analysis of supposedly deep rap lyrics, McWhorter demonstreats this phenomenon again and again; any "political message" in rap music is generally confined to a few lines, inordinate amounts of vagueness, and compulsive emphasis on moaning problems rather than spitting solutions.

So, why did I give this book 4 stars rather than 5? To be honest, a large reason was that McWhorter's points are so obvious, that I kept wondering why a book was written on it at all. Aside from about 5 scholars (Michael Eric Dyson being the most prominent), I don't think that many folks take seriously rap - or ANY form of music - as astute political commentary. While the book was a fun read, and the analysis of rap lyrics fascinating, it is still a book written to counter a handful of ivory tower academics.

This brings me to my next point. I REALLY would have liked to see a chapter or section comparing rap's present situation to that of 60's protest music, which somewhow was considered political commentary. What, if anything, makes the two situations different. (My guess is that the music of the 60's, like rap, can be called political commentary only in the sense that it contained sprinkles of rageing lyrics that managed to tap into people's anger, but could not really be seen as sustained political analysis.) It REALL would have been nice to see a section exploring this, though, because I suspect that the scholars that want to see rap as a potential political art-form probably model this desire on hopes that it will recreate what 60's folk was to the hippie generation.

All in all, this is an interesting book, even though its scope is a lot smaller than some will expect. Those who hope for a screed against rap as art will be very disappointed, as will anyone expecting a dissertaion on rap's supposed immorality. McWhoter confines himself to a much narrower thesis, and makes it forcefully.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Beat, but Can Anyone Dance To It?, January 3, 2009

By	Nyghtewynd (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews

McWhorter makes a compelling case for a subject that seems obvious enough only if you are who McWhorter is: one of the world's preeminent linguists. Since he spends all day listening to languages to determine their meaning, why not do the same to hip-hop? And when you take away the beat (which the author claims is the primary draw to it) and the theatrics, what's left is not much. Even today's "conscious" rappers can't seem to fit more than a few sentences of actual message into each song, and the "message" that ends up there isn't much more than an upraised middle finger. Instead of encouraging action through music, the author encourages action through service, work, and education, and all three are more relevant that the political activism that is encouraged by such music. Don't turn it off, but don't rely on it as the be-all, end-all. The author has a very relational, understandable style, and his arguments are fairly tight. Very much worth your time.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Read, October 24, 2008

By	Jason W. Banks - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Good read. I enjoyed how he expressed for the need of a political view in hip-hop, although I never viewed it as essential for the culture to succeed. Also, he mentions the track "Words I Manifest" by GangStarr as not being able to create political change. Last time I checked, a manifestation was more like a revelation, and does not necessarily result in a movement.

I enjoyed reading it, I just wished he used other hip-hop artists too, such as Camp Lo and Blueprint. I feel like he attempted to use known artists, and didn't invite the reader to explore.