Dalton Higgins
Hip Hop World
Groundwood Books, 2009

Rating: G - E*

When I first looked at this book I was appalled by the author’s uses of a quote from US President Barak Obama, not because it seems just a bit pretentious to quote the president of the United States in a book on a musical genre that is identified with most things underground, but mainly because it is a lousy quote.

However, once past this small hurdle, Hip Hop World is a refreshingly intelligent history and examination of that much maligned and a truly global phenomenon. It is also instructive to read about hip hop without having to listen to it. The distance does it justice.

Hip hop has deeper roots and a longer history than one would expect at first glance and the author’s encyclopedic knowledge of his subject is both reassuring and pleasantly intimidating. That hip hop has a solid reputation outside North America and a diversity its simplistic name belies is food for thought.

For any young adult reading this book (and many should) author Higgins offers much substance to the spin, and in readable prose. He names names that should be remembered, James Brown being one of them. And as surely as colour is light, Higgins sets out the reasons why human beat boxers are genuine musicians, turntablism is a musical genre and this ain’t your grandmother’s dancehall music.

Thematic Links: Global Music; Social Commentary; Racism

Lesley Little
Volume 15, number 3
Faberuary 2010

*Rating System:
E - Excellent, enduring, everyone should see it!
G - Good, even great at times, generally useful!
A - Average, all right, has its applications.
P - Problematic, puzzling, poorly presented.