One Nation Under Hip-Hop? William Jelani Cobb and Jason Tanz Reviewed in the Washington Post

One Nation Under Hip-Hop

Even as its beat begins to fade, the influence of the music is everywhere.

Reviewed by Adam Bradley
Sunday, January 28, 2007; BW08

OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY
A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America
By Jason Tanz
Bloomsbury. 254 pp. $24.95

TO THE BREAK OF DAWN
A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic
By William Jelani Cobb
New York Univ. 200 pp. $22.95

Hip-hop is dead. That's what rap legend Nas claims in the title of his latest album. He just might be right. According to Nielsen Soundscan, album sales in all genres declined by nearly 5 percent in 2006, largely attributable to the increasing popularity of digital downloads. Rap sales, however, plummeted by more than 20 percent, the most of any genre. Ironically, this downturn comes at a time when hip-hop seems to be catering to commercial tastes as never before, often at the expense of artistic innovation.

But don't write rap's obituary yet. Hip-hop still remains a dominant voice in youth culture, though it undoubtedly faces an identity crisis. Now 30 years old, hip-hop must reconcile the twin tensions of art and commerce -- just as jazz did in the 1940s, when bebop supplanted swing and young lions such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie emerged as cultural icons capable of crossing the color line. And because the majority of rap artists are black and much of the audience is white, the genre bears both the promise and the peril of interracial encounter. Like jazz, hip-hop has the paradoxical potential to promote understanding and to reinforce stereotypes.

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