Can't Stop Won't Stop (book)

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Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Can't Stop Won't Stop.jpg
Author Jeff Chang
LanguageEnglish
Subject Hip hop
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Picador
Publication date
2005
Publication placeUnited States
Pages560 pp
ISBN 0-312-42579-1
OCLC 62860625

Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation is a 2005 book by Jeff Chang chronicling the early hip hop scene.

Contents

The book features portraits of DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Chuck D, and Ice Cube, among others, and is based on numerous interviews with graffiti artists, gang members, DJs, rappers, and hip hop activists. DJ Kool Herc wrote the introduction.

Reception

The book was well received, winning an American Book Award in 2005. [1] On Metacritic, the book received an aggregate score of 81/100 from twelve reviews—indicating "universal acclaim". [2] Scott T. Sterling of LA Weekly praised the book as being "extensively researched and meticulously written" [3] and The New Yorker described it as "one of the most urgent and passionate histories of popular music ever written". [4]

Conversely, some reviewers were more critical of Can't Stop Won't Stop. Alex Abramovich of The New York Times argued that the book focused too heavily on politics over music, leading it to "lose its form and focus" at points. [5] Ben Thompson of The Independent opined that the book focused excessively on topics like "the internal politics of US hip-hop magazine The Source " while giving insufficient attention to rappers like the Notorious B.I.G., Missy Elliott, or Eminem. [6]

KRS-One's response

In 2007, KRS-One criticized Can't Stop Won't Stop: "When I read Can't Stop Won't Stop I didn't see the scholarship. I saw Kool Herc thrown at the front of the book for his own credibility—and the foreword was wack." [7] His main point of contention was with the way he himself was covered: "[Jeff Chang] gets around to the Stop The Violence movement and totally downplays the movement, destroys any kind of hope we have for leadership in our culture, and just breezes over with inaccurate information about the Stop The Violence movement." [7]

Jeff Chang responded: "Can't Stop Won't Stop was and is never meant to be the last word on anything. It's meant to be a small contribution to the larger wave of thinking about the hip-hop generation." [8]

Notes

References

  1. ↑ The American Book Awards / Before Columbus Foundation Archived 2011-10-03 at the Wayback Machine . American Booksellers Association. Accessed July 11, 2008.
  2. ↑ Can't Stop Won't Stop by Jeff Chang: Reviews. Metacritic. Accessed July 11, 2008.
  3. ↑ Sterling, Scott T. (March 11, 2005). "Before Bling: Hip-hop's storied past". LA Weekly . Archived from the original on March 12, 2005.
  4. ↑ "The New Yorker: The Critics – Briefly Noted". The New Yorker . February 21, 2005. Archived from the original on April 11, 2006.
  5. ↑ Abramovich, Alex (September 4, 2005). "'Can't Stop Won't Stop': A Nation of Millions". The New York Times .
  6. ↑ Thompson, Ben (28 August 2005). "Can't Stop Won't Stop: a history of the hip-hop generation by Jeff Chang". The Independent . London. Retrieved May 4, 2010.[ dead link ]
  7. 1 2 KRS-One – The Unkut Interview
  8. ↑ KRS-One on Can't Stop Won't Stop
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