Culturebox: Fact-Check the Rhyme

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culturebox Fact-Check the Rhyme The Anthology of Rap is rife with transcription errors. Why is it so hard to get rap lyrics right? By Paul Devlin Posted Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010, at 8:01 AM ET As of this week, rap finally has an anthology, published by Yale University Press. The Anthology of Rap sets out to capture the evolution of rap lyrics through what its editors consider representative examples, collecting the work of a wide variety of MCs who recorded from 1979 through 2009, from Grandmaster Caz to Joell Ortiz. More so than most anthologies, the book is also an essay collection, featuring substantive general and chapter introductions by the editors and essays from Henry Louis Gates Jr., Chuck D, and Common. The eye-opening essay by Gates (who is the editor-in-chief of The Root, a Slate sister site) provides deep historical context for rap; it alone makes the book worth owning. Edited by two young yet accomplished professors of English, Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois, and featuring an advisory board of prominent professors and journalists (though tellingly, no rappers), The Anthology of Rap is a good start, but it will inspire mixed emotions. Most anthologies feature the name of their publisher: The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry. This book is simply The Anthology of Rap, not The Yale Anthology of Rap. The title seems to present a claim to definitiveness, and that is wrong for any anthology, but especially for one that makes no mention of innovators like DJ Quik, Redman, Keith Murray, Grand Puba, Sadat X, Rah Digga, or M.O.P., while finding room for also-rans Foxxy Brown, M.I.A., and Twista. The editors claim to be supersensitive to the role of women in hip-hop, but as the excluded Remy Ma might say, whateva. To continue reading, click here. Paul Devlin is a freelance book critic who has recently written for The Daily Beast and the San Francisco Chronicle. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Don't Trust Mitch McConnell's Distorted View of What Voters Want Spitzer: Six Lessons From the Democratic Disaster Jim DeMint's Shocking Advice to Freshman Senators	Advertisement
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