The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture |
Basic Civitas Books |
2002 |
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The Hip-Hop Generation examines the major social and political forces that have shaped young Blacks born after the civil rights movement and the ways young Blacks born between 1965 and 1984 differ from their parents. With a view on the triumphs and pitfalls of hip-hop’s mainstream success, Bakari Kitwana delves into his generation’s disproportionate incarceration and unemployment rates, as well as the civil wars that threaten the future of Black America—from the new war of the sexes to the ever-widening generation gap. Paying special attention to critical issues like educational disparities, police brutality, and the crisis in Black leadership, he gives his own provocative analysis. Kitwana’s critique of activism and politics in the hip-hop generation is perhaps this book’s most remarkable achievement. While many consider young Blacks today to be apolitical and self-absorbed, Kitwana celebrates the beginnings of a new phase of African-American empowerment. He poses a challenge to rap artists, young activists and civil rights leaders that will change African-American activism forever. With extraordinary insight, Bakari Kitwana has combined the culture and politics of this generation into a pivotal work in American studies. . |
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PRAISE FOR THE HIP-HOP GENERATION
“There are a slew of books about what is now being called the ‘hip-hop generation.’ Luckily, The Hip-Hop Generation gets it right.” —Black Issues Book Review “While Kitwana makes clear arguments about what has affected Black youth over the last twenty years, from lock-ups to loitering laws, he doesn’t simply enumerate the issues on a continuous loop. He looks toward solutions.” —The Los Angeles Times “The Hip-Hop Generation is Kitwana’s manifesto. No self-esteem-driven mazes of passive-voice philosophizing here . . . . Equal parts generational critique, pro-Black youth polemic, op-ed analysis, and hip-hop Molotov, Kitwana’s book has already garnered comparisons to Harold Cruse’s brilliant 1967 rant against Black leaders, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual.” —The Village Voice “An educated, accomplished author, very much at ease on the streets of Black America, . . .Kitwana has become a cogent narrator of the hip-hop subculture, a subculture that is helping to shape a whole generation of African-Americans.” —Newsday “An insightful study of post-segregation Black culture and its influence on the world.” —Essence “Bakari Kitwana has written a bold and honest book, a much needed salvo that not only exposes the war on youth but their war on each other. Unlike most self-proclaimed critics out here, Kitwana offers solutions rather than apologetics. He challenges the hip-hop generation to embrace values that can transform us from spectacle to a real force for social change.” —Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America “As the Notorious B.I.G. rapped, ‘Things Done Changed’—but Bakari Kitwana wants to know how and why that happened. The Hip-Hop Generation is a thorough, thoughtful examination of the dramatic forces that have shaped Black Americans raised in the post-Civil Rights era.” —Alan Light, Editor-in-Chief, SPIN magazine and editor of The VIBE History of Hip-Hop “Bakari Kitwana tells us with humor and sensitivity the real deal about this generation. Will this hip-hop generation bring us pain or honor? Will they as Fanon said: ‘speak and assume a culture and bear responsibility for a civilization?’ Will they realize as Chuck D realized that he was a ‘voice that people listened to,’ so he realized he ‘had to fill his voice with something of substance?’ This book is full of substance. And we welcome Brother Bakari’s words. Analysis. Love for a hip-hop generation walking in thunder.” —Sonia Sanchez, author of Shake Loose My Skin “Bakari Kitwana’s The Hip-Hop Generation is direct and informative, providing a more complicated view of hip-hop culture than found in mainstream media. His discussion of hip-hop activism is particularly important.” —Ishmael Reed, author of Airing Dirty Laundry |