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Overview
Overview
A love letter to the verbal artistry of hip-hop, What's Good is a work of passionate lyrical analysis
What's Good is a work of passionate lyrical analysis, a set of freewheeling liner notes, and a love letter to the most vital American art form of the last half century. Over a series of short chapters, each centered on a different lyric, Daniel Levin Becker considers how rap's use of language operates and evolves at levels ranging from the local (slang, rhyme) to the analytical (quotation, transcription) to the philosophical (morality, criticism, irony), celebrating the pleasures and perils of any attempt to decipher its meaning-making technologies.
Ranging from Sugarhill Gang to UGK to Young M.A, Rakim to Rick Ross to Rae Sremmurd, Jay-Z to Drake to Snoop Dogg, What's Good reads with the momentum of a deftly curated mixtape, drawing you into the conversation and teaching you to read it as it goes. A book for committed hip-hop heads, curious neophytes, armchair linguists, and everyone in between.
He is obviously very smart, but he doesn't need to show you that; instead, he leads with his curiosity and his humility.--Julia Keller on Levin Becker's Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Author: Levin Becker, Daniel
- ISBN: 9780872868762
- Condition: Used
- Number Of Pages: 312
- Publication Year: 2022
Language:
English