Danielle T. (mardou) reviewed Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race in the Urban Present on + 16 more book reviews
I didn't enjoy this text very much. I'm a huge fan of David Foster Wallace in fiction format, but this was nearly unbearable. I might have stumbled upon this book expecting the wrong thing, though. I expected to, well, learn about rap. Which i did, to an extent of 4 or 5 tidbits. But god, the endless philosophizing and his and Costello's wallowing in pretentiousness! Basically the whole thing is pseudo-intellectual BS white-guys-w*nking-over-rap for a couple hundred pages.
Some of it didn't even make any sense as they went off on way too long "clever" tangents. Such as when they mention the incongruity of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince sampling I Dream of Jeannie. That was the cue for a spiel about a hypothetical I Dream of Jeannie rerun that was infiltrated by the present day riots and Jeannie winks and calls in Martin Luther King Jr, who doesn't believe the riots are happening because of your average sitcom wacky misunderstanding, and she calls in Malcolm X and asks for everybody to smile and just be friends--uh, what??
Some of it didn't even make any sense as they went off on way too long "clever" tangents. Such as when they mention the incongruity of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince sampling I Dream of Jeannie. That was the cue for a spiel about a hypothetical I Dream of Jeannie rerun that was infiltrated by the present day riots and Jeannie winks and calls in Martin Luther King Jr, who doesn't believe the riots are happening because of your average sitcom wacky misunderstanding, and she calls in Malcolm X and asks for everybody to smile and just be friends--uh, what??
