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Beats Rhymes & Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip-Hop
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.
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.
- GenresHip HopMusicNonfiction
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 15, 2007
About the author
Ytasha L. Womack
12 books63 followersYtasha L. Womack is an award-winning filmmaker/author/journalist and choreographer. She is author/creator of the popfuturist/afrofuturist novel 2212:Book of Rayla, first of the groundbreaking Rayla 2212 series. Her other books include the critically acclaimed Post Black: How a New Generation is Redefining African American Identity, a popular cultural studies text universities across the US, and her most recent work Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi and Fantasy Culture. She also co-edited the anthology Beats, Rhymes and Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip Hop.
A Chicago native, her film projects include The Engagement (director) and Love Shorts (producer/writer). A social media and pop culture expert, she frequently consults and guest lectures for corporations and universities across the world. She received her B.A in Mass Media Arts from Clark Atlanta University and studied Arts, Entertainment and Media Management at Columbia College in Chicago.
- summarised from http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/bio/wo...
She can be found at:
http://www.iafrofuturism.com/
https://www.facebook.com/iafrofuturism
http://postblackexperience.com/
http://www.postblackthebook.blogspot....
A Chicago native, her film projects include The Engagement (director) and Love Shorts (producer/writer). A social media and pop culture expert, she frequently consults and guest lectures for corporations and universities across the world. She received her B.A in Mass Media Arts from Clark Atlanta University and studied Arts, Entertainment and Media Management at Columbia College in Chicago.
- summarised from http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/bio/wo...
She can be found at:
http://www.iafrofuturism.com/
https://www.facebook.com/iafrofuturism
http://postblackexperience.com/
http://www.postblackthebook.blogspot....
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 23, 2007
The idea of a collection of essays for, about and by hip hop artists and enthusiasts is great. However, this book falls short of its potential. About a third of the essays in this collection are really good. The really good ones are the ones that have a humorous slant and are not overly preachy. Another third of the essays are poorly chosen interviews that have been chopped up beyond recognition and do not include the interviewer’s questions. The rest of the essays are squarely in the middle of the interest spectrum. There are no new or interesting ideas that come out of the “middle” essays and they tend to be pages longer than they need to be. This collection is perhaps best suited for people who are not as familiar with common criticisms of hip hop from within the hip hop community. Maybe some of this stuff would seem new and brilliant to those people.
May 24, 2013
The book beats rhymes and life is a very interesting book. It leads you in the hip-hop world, and the artist’s perspective of everything. This book has interviews on artist such as mos def, nelly, Ludacris, ice-t, common, too $hort and many other artists. The topics that are discussed go from marijuana to hustling and many other interesting topics. This book informs you about the slang words that are used in the hip-hop world and to what they originally mean. It also fills you in on what experiences these artist have had through there rapping careers. I thought this book was very good because it informs you in what the hip-hop world is about. I thought it was good how they explain how they’re childhood was and how they came to be who they are now, and what steps they had to take in order to get where they are in there rapping carriers. I also liked this book a lot because it not the usual boring stories that are written, there are stories on how the artists perspective is on everything. Beats Rhymes and Life is a book that I would recommend to the people that like books about autobiographies and artists.
July 26, 2008
Easy to read, yet deep and thoughtful critique of hip-hop. Sections are broken up into, bling, slabs, violence and all the different aggregates of the genre. The voices writing the essays range from consumerist apologists to angry Leftist radicals. These wriitngs are interspersed with short, to the point interviews with people like Scarface and Talib Kweli.
I was really into this because, I find confliction fascinating. And what is more conflicted than hip-hop? I found it to be quite differant than the cover implied, which said, "what we love and hate about hip-hop." I felt like this implied that it was going to be from a more Left-wing critical angle. Instead, it was more rounded out, consisting of people that might support Sean John's hip-hop car model to others who feel that hip-hop is such a corrupted and poisoned genre that they don't listen to it at all anymore. This proved to be an even better read. Reccomended.
I was really into this because, I find confliction fascinating. And what is more conflicted than hip-hop? I found it to be quite differant than the cover implied, which said, "what we love and hate about hip-hop." I felt like this implied that it was going to be from a more Left-wing critical angle. Instead, it was more rounded out, consisting of people that might support Sean John's hip-hop car model to others who feel that hip-hop is such a corrupted and poisoned genre that they don't listen to it at all anymore. This proved to be an even better read. Reccomended.
February 21, 2008
It is, as a collection of essays, decent. However, a chunk of the essays did'nt seem to say much.
I did like a few of the interviews....I had intended to take notes pertaining to this book, but after a few essays without much said I fell off that task....however, I will post those that I took later...
I did like a few of the interviews....I had intended to take notes pertaining to this book, but after a few essays without much said I fell off that task....however, I will post those that I took later...
June 20, 2010
getting through this book was grueling. i should have just quit, but i like to finish reading what i start. the tone is so over the top and hood pretentious. there's very little information in the book that can be substantiated since there are no notes and all the interviews are several years older than the publication date.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews