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The Hood Comes First:
Race, Space,
and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop
Murray Forman
$24.9
“Murray
Forman’s The
Hood
Comes First is a tour de force
which adds the important dimensions of space and place, and their
articulations with race, to the discourse on rap and hip-hop. Forman is
sensitive to the difficulty of trying to understand and credit hip-hop as a
fundamentally African American cultural movement, but one which has enjoyed
a diversity of cultural inputs. Equally as impressive is the way in which
Forman unpacks the layers of coded meaning in the historical transition from
“the ghetto” to “the
˘hood.” Indeed, Forman’s keen
sense of history and his insistence on returning to primary sources for data
yield an incredibly refreshing piece of scholarship, the most valuable
addition to the literature on hip-hop to come along in recent years.” –
Reebee Garofalo, author of ROCKIN’ OUT: Popular Music in the USA.”
“Forman’s examination of the special issues of hip-hop is a welcome and
informative addition to the existing scholarship on the subject. His focus
on the various conversations that took place in industry journals like
Billboard give this book a “real time” feel. He brings together
information from many disparate sources to present a useful summary of the
various artists, industry executives, promoters and visionaries who helped
develop hip-hop into the viable commercial form that it is today.” – Mark
Anthony Neal, author of Soul Babies: Black Popular
Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic.” Published by
Weslean University Press |
