The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture
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Overview
The Hip Hop Generation is an eloquent testament for black youth culture at the turn of the century. The only in-depth study of the first generation to grow up in post-segregation America, it combines culture and politics into a pivotal work in American studies. Bakari Kitwana, one of black America's sharpest young critics, offers a sobering look at this generation's disproportionate social and political troubles, and celebrates the activism and politics that may herald the beginning of a new phase of African-American empowerment.
Synopsis
This brilliantly provocative work is a focused, passionate, inspiring, and extremely thoughtful attempt not only to examine the problems facing young blacks, but also to point to a way out.--Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Washington Post Book World
Kitwana provide[s] this group with an identity beyond the notion that the hip-hop generation is just Generation X in blackface.
Editorials
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This brilliantly provocative work is a focused, passionate, inspiring, and extremely thoughtful attempt not only to examine the problems facing young blacks, but also to point to a way out.Black Issues Book Review
Today there are a slew of books about what is now being called the 'hip hop generation.' Luckily The Hip Hop Generation gets it right. Kitwana is successful in balancing critical analysis with practical, everyday observations about this generation. That balance has produced a book that is accessible to every generation...A powerful and enjoyable read.Chicago Tribune
The Hip Hop Generation. ..presents an ambitious but pragmatic plan of action based on the notion that hip-hop may offer a solution to the many crises threatening the black community. It's an admirable effort.Essence
An insightful study of post-integration black culture and its influence on the world.Los Angeles Times
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.New York Newsday
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.San Francisco Chronicle
A must-read for those interested in hip-hop.Village Voice
Without dogma or jargon, Bakari Kitwana's important new book cuts to the chase... 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.Washington Post Book World
Kitwana provide[s] this group with an identity beyond the notion that the hip-hop generation is just Generation X in blackface.KLIATT
Bakari Kitwana, executive editor of The Source: The Magazine of Hip-Hop Music, Culture, and Politics and author of The Rap on Gangsta Rap, offers an in-depth look at the politics and history of the issues affecting the hip hop generation, here defined as black youth born in the years 1965 to 1984. Reading like a long, riveting magazine article, The Hip Hop Generation spells out how this age group has become the locus of all things media with pervasive influences on clothes, film, music, and all forms of advertising. Kitwana's strength comes from not only demonstrating the historic and political context of problems facing the hip hop generation, but also showing how the lack of understanding from black leadership (like the Civil Rights-era leaders heading the NAACP and the Urban League) has led to the absence of activism in modern youth. The author names what he considers the true issues of this generation and then goes on to offer examples of successful political figures and movements that have managed to reach through hip hop apathy. The only weakness of this work is its lack of footnotes or a bibliography, which would have been helpful as a primer to reading the many works cited in the text. An essential addition for senior high and public libraries. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Perseus, 230p. index.,— Courtney Lewis