From Library Journal
Seminal rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once asked the musical question, "Who stole the soul?" In this anthology, perhaps the first to deal solely with the business of black music, Chuck D, editor Kelley (author of the Nina Halligan mysteries), and other name contributors (including Courtney Love) attempt to come up with some answers. This is not a study of the appropriation of African American musical styles which was ably covered in Leroi Jones's Blues People: Negro Music in White America, among other titles but rather an examination of why white-owned entertainment conglomerates have profited so much and blacks as a whole so little from the worldwide explosion of hip-hop. Kelley's introductory piece sets the tone, describing the current state of the music industry as a continuation of a "structure of stealing" that has plagued African Americans for centuries. The history of the modern recording industry, including the gray line between major and "independent" labels, is dissected in several eyeopening contributions that should be required reading for anyone interested in popular music. The collection comprises 20 pieces (seven are new and two are substantially revised) from a variety of journalists, music industry insiders, and historians, as well as an interview with Rap Coalition founder Wendy Day. Recommended for larger public and all academic libraries. David Valencia, King Cty. Lib. Syst., Seattle
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
This book's message is that the pop music business has ripped off black performers and fans for years. The copiously referenced pieces in it, whose writers include both academics and musicians, identify the industry's sins, general and particular. David Sanjek, director of the BMI Archives and consultant to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, critiques a never-made-public Harvard report on the early '70s "soul market," which found that Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk possessed almost no "soul content" and recommended strategies for leveling the industry playing field. As Sanjek reports, the effects of those recommendations have been mixed. Former Public Enemy member and rap legend Chuck D. details the "morphing of" certain "black folk into a new race: the Niggro. The Niggro is rewarded by ignorance [and] lauded in
Vibe and
Source for its thug spirit." As D. sees it, Niggros accept "'nigger ways,' confusing it with the soul root of black people," and become easily entertained members of lucrative marketing demographics. Hot stuff for politically and economically astute pop-music collections.
Mike TribbyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
