Hip-hop social criticism: bold and edgy commentary appeals to a new generation. . - rhythm & books - book review

Black Issues Book Review, May-June, 2003 by Curtis Stephen

With hip-hop as its lens, Ego Trip's Big Book of Racism! (ReganBooks/HarperCollins, October 2002, ISBN 0-060-98896-7) takes an irreverently humorous and unconventional approach to racial prejudice and stereotypes, just as television producer Norman Lear did on TV with All in the Family and The Jeffersons back in the 1970s.

Big Book of Racism! is liable to offend with its array of top 10 lists ("10 Reasons Rich Black Men Like to Play Golf"), a mock TV Guide that lists shows like The West Wang, and a pop racism quiz. Just about every public figure from Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, who took a dim view of "white niggers" and shouldered criticism for his choice of words, to P. Diddy, who once said, "My aim is winnin'/Got Asian women that will change my linen, (from his 2001 hit song, "Diddy") is taken to task for racial comments. The book is already in its second printing after selling out 20,000 copies.

"If you look at a lot of books on race relations, they're very academic and not accessible to the people," says Elliott Wilson, one of the book's editors and the editor-in chief of XXL, a hip-hop magazine. "We wanted to do something that is accessible and doesn't alienate people. One way to grab people is through humor." It would be easy to dismiss Big Book of Racism! as just a collection of inane race jokes, compiled for shock value, but that would be scratching the surface. The reference book features an exhaustive study of cases of bigotry in American popular culture, like the 1982 Atari video game "Custer's Revenge," where players take on the role of General Custer, portrayed as a rapist.

Tavis Smiley interviewed the book's editors on his syndicated National Public Radio talk show. "There are some parts that are humorous and some things that people could find offensive, but I see this book as something to peg around the conversation on race." Smiley says. "And anything that is unique or interesting in its approach to race relations in this country ought to be explored."

The editors behind Big Book of Racism! have been in the satire business for nearly a decade. And for them, this contentious work has been a long time coming. In 1994, Wilson cofounded the now-defunct publication Ego. Trip magazine, with Sacha Jenkins, former music editor at Vibe, and Chairman Jefferson Mao, a writer for The Source and Rolling Stone. Gabriel Alvarez and Brent Rollins, a writer and art designer, respectively, for Rap Pages, joined them later. In addition to offbeat coverage of hip-hop, the magazine featured cutting-edge commentary on race relations.

"Racism is like the dead person in the basement," says Jenkins. "We all know that person is there rotting and that the basement stinks, but we pretend otherwise. We have to face it."

The group pitched the idea of a full-length work to Dana Albarella, then a book editor at St. Martin's Press. "As a baby editor at the time, I knew there was no way I'd get it past the editorial board" admits Albarella, who helped the group produce Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists, (Griffin Trade, November 1999, ISBN 0-312-24298-0) instead, which spoofed the hip-hop industry. When Albarella moved to HarperCollins, the group gave the original idea another shot.

While the team of editors pride themselves in taking a no-holds-barred approach to just about every race, class and ideology in the book, producing the project was not without its headaches. "There were definitely a few copy editors who had a knee-jerk reaction and decided they couldn't work on this," says Chairman Mao.

After the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, the editors hesitated. "It was very stressful, and we were questioning why we were doing this, but ultimately we decided that we're not just hip-hop critics, we're social critics. We have a voice," says Wilson.

Still, The Big Book of Racism! would have remained on the cutting-room floor had it not been for some internal! muscle. "No one from the sales, marketing or publicity departments was consulted prior to signing this book up," says Albarella. "I showed my publisher their first book and we were on our way."

The editors behind the project believe it will help usher in a new era in hip-hop publishing. "There has to be an evolution" says Chairman Mao. "There are new voices against the grain."

Twenty-five years after the hop-hop first electrified the streets of New York, publishers are scrambling to release books from insiders as the billion-dollar global industry continues to expand. Most major publishers have a preference for celebrity-driven bios from the likes of LL Cool J, DMX and Ashanti, but hip-hop intellects, including Farai Chideya, Joan Morgan and others, have contributed material with bold and edgy social commentary. Chuck D, the outspoken leader of the seminal rap group Public Enemy, has also announced plans to launch his own independent book imprint called Offda Books and Under the Radar Publishing. Indeed, hip-hop's literary evolution will be published.

--Curtis Stephen, a freelance journalist in Brooklyn, is a stringer for Newsweek and a columnist with New York Newsday.