Rap, Rhythm and Rhyme
In the latest in their Beyond the Secret Garden articles, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor examine lyrics and the language of rap and hip-hop
In When The Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop (2013) Laban Carrick Hill III tells the story of the genesis of hip-hop. Written in rhyme, with illustrations by Theodore Taylor III, the book traces Clive Campbell’s journey from his Jamaican childhood to becoming DJ and co-organiser, with his sister Cindy, of the first hip-hop party in 1973.
Just as hip-hop music developed out of mixing records from different genres, the anthology Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat, edited by poet and activist Nikki Giovanni situates hip-hop’s words in the form of rap within an African-American oral and written tradition. Here rappers Mos Def, Common and Queen Latifah can be read as writers who are part of a tradition that includes Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and W.E.B. Du Bois.
Like Kool Herc, Benjamin Zephaniah was born in Jamaica and grew up listening to reggae. In Gangsta Rap (2004), tells the story of three boys in east London who find success as controversial multiracial rap group Positive Negatives. Zephaniah does not shy away from the tensions and contradictions sometimes found in hip hop, including a passage that depicts a tense scene where a journalist interviews the band about the relative merits of Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur. When they are excluded from their school, they find an alternative sense of belonging in hip hop. Prem rejects his Indian mother’s disdain for black music, instead embracing the band’s motto; ‘Let wordy great minds think alike, sweet Hip-Hop be our guiding light.’ (226)
Whilst Zephaniah’s current band Revolutionary Minds includes rapper Amy True, he himself first made his name as a dub poet in the reggae tradition. It was in the 1970s that a new generation of Black British writers begin to speak up against racism and police brutality that children’s books in Britain began referencing music by people of colour in an overtly political way. Farrukh Dhondy’s short story, ‘Go Play Butterfly’, in the collection Come to Mecca (Collins 1978) contrasts the cheerful music and costumes of the Notting Hill carnival of 1976 with the surveillance and brutality
One of the most highly anticipated books of 2019 must surely be Angie Thomas’ follow-up to the New York Times Bestseller and multi award-winning The Hate U Give (2017). On the Come Up is the tale of sixteen-year-old Bri who has ambitions to be one of the greatest rappers of all time whilst dealing with the loss of her father, racist security staff at school and the threat of gang violence. Thomas describes the story as a ‘love letter to those black girls who are often made to feel as if they are somehow both too much and not enough’ as well as ‘a love letter to hip-hop’. She continues, ‘When I couldn’t find myself in books, I found myself in the rhymes written by MCs who looked like me and shared my experiences. These unconventional poets were my heroes, and are the heroes for millions of young people.’
As a former MC herself, Thomas is part of a generation of writers who are dismantling a wall they encountered in their own childhoods - that between the books they encountered that so often failed to reflect their realities and the hip-hop music that showcased the creativity of black writers. Over the past decade or so, a number of hip-hop influenced children’s and young adult books have been published, mostly by a generation of writers who, like Thomas, grew up on hip-hop music.
Karl Nova 16 Books for Keeps No.234 January 2019
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
