CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP: THE REVIEW

Some of my favorite MCs. :) Because I couldn't come up with yet another graphic for Jeff Chang.

"Can't Stop Won't Stop" can be so overwhelming. Jeff Chang belatedly asks near the end of the book: "What does it mean to be a member of the hip hop generation?" Truthfully, it's not clear. I'm not even sure who the hip hop generation is -- is it a continual state of mind? Did the generation fade with the passing of the Golden Era of hip hop?

What's also ambivalent is the way people come together to form hip hop, and why that matters. This is a messy book filled with pockets of great information. Most touching are the portraits of people, from Chuck D. to Ice Cube. Why is this? It's because Chang finally hits on what he's been hinting at all along: that the burgeoning of the hip hop generation is the consciousness of self, and for communities of color, that is a hard earned sensibility. When Ice Cube skirts around questions Angela Davis throws at him, you cringe for Ice Cube. That is a man still growing, developing ideas and acting defensively. We see that. It's also hard not to feel a little sympathy for someone going toe to toe with the magnificence that is Angela Davis. Had Chang focused more on individuals or specific events, this could have been a cohesive look at the social issues that developed hip hop and the hip hop generation. Instead, its miscalculated chronology and myriad of characters and events disconnect the central elements that make up a generation of cultural activists.

For such a sprawling book, it's also frustratingly superficial. I can't find the exact passage but at one point near the end, Chang talks about how a L.A. chapter of group trying to promote peace between gangs ends up being raided by the L.A.P.D. and Chang just kind of notes that in this case, the group was also doubling as drug dealers. And then he moves on. It makes no sense because as a reader, I'm not sure how to interpret this info. The L.A.P.D. sucks, I get that. Racial profiling, riding people's asses for no reason, brutality, breaking laws to send refugees to potentially dangerous situations abroad. The list goes on. But when you (Chang) spend time building up the good work a group has been doing promoting peace between warring gangs, how am I supposed to process that they were dealing drugs? What exactly am I supposed to be taking from this? I remember thinking after reading the sentence (I'm paraphrasing here): "They also dealt drugs." End paragraph. New thought. It was just jarring, and it had a shock value impact that wasn't really so much shock, so much as.... your point IS?? I wish Chang had a strong personal voice, something that hinted his point for bringing this up. I think we're supposed to have assume drugs and gangs go together, but what's the extent? It's not enough for Chang to tell me that the C.I.A. and other government agencies are involved with the drug trade, but how does it effect people in the streets? Gah. So many unfulfilled questions.

For now, I'll just continue reading illdoctrine.com for my hip hop fixation.

peace, t