The fire this time

Jeff Chang's book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, new from St. Martin's, has received a huge amount of attention in the pop-music press, and with good reason. I couldn't say it any better than whoever wrote it up for the New Yorker's Briefly Noted column: "The birth of hip-hop out of the ruin of the South Bronx is a story that has been told many times, but never with the cinematic scope and the analytic force that Chang brings to it. Robert Moses unleashes the destructive juggernaut of the Cross-Bronx Expressway; landlords set fire to worthless tenements; police stand by and do nothing; and, against a backdrop of gang warfare, peacemaking d.j.s lay down the heavy beats and spidery loops around which a rapping, dancing, graffiti-painting culture grows. This is one of the most urgent and passionate histories of popular music ever written. Chang is blind to no one’s greed or viciousness, but he retains an idealistic view of a music that speaks the truth about the alternately stultifying and horrifying urban landscapes that the parents who hate hip-hop have made." OK, that was me. Chang blogs here.