Sara Ryan

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop

Thanks for recommending it, gordonzola, because damn. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a history of the hip-hop generation by Jeff Chang is exactly what I want in social history. He connects all the dots: music to politics, art, fashion, dance, gangs, drugs, racism, hopes, fears.

Now, of course, I’m desperate to listen to all the music he’s writing about. Aside from Public Enemy, my collection is sadly lacking. I sure wish the book came with a whole bunch of companion CDs…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

10 Responses to “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop”

gordonzola Says:
Tuesday, January 9, 2007 at 10:26 pm. |

I heard a rumor that a limited first edition came with a CD but I can find no confirmation of that. But yeah… I wish.
capn_jil Says:
Tuesday, January 9, 2007 at 11:05 pm. |

If you give me a bibliography I can raid my coffers and the coffers of the hip-hop dorks around me. I really want to read that book in full; I skimmed it in the college bookstore sometime in the last several years…
badfaggot Says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 6:20 am. |

It’s one of my favorites of recent years.

Jeff Chang has a nice essay on Jay-Z in this week’s Nation.
kenllama Says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 8:38 am. |

I haven’t read this yet, but I ordered this book for our library a while back, and it has been checked out more than almost any other book i’ve ordered in recent years except. The only one that circ’ed more is Guide to getting it on! : the universe’s coolest and most informative book about sex for adults of all ages — which is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it.

In fact, now that I’m looking at it — of the top ten books circulating books I’ve ordered in recent years (2004-), we’ve got:
5 on sex
2 on rap and hip hop culture
1 each: a Sandman graphic novel, the gospel according the the flying spaghetti monster, and Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability — go Peter!
thisisnotanlj Says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 10:59 am. |

that is an utterly hilarious top ten. go peter, indeed!
thisisnotanlj Says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 11:01 am. |

thanks! and cool — it’s even online!
dirtylibrarian Says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 11:44 am. |

My library doesn’t own gospel according the the flying spaghetti monster! I need to get them on top of that!
dirtylibrarian Says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 11:44 am. |

You want hip-hop, my fella is a good source, too.
capn_jil Says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 12:20 pm. |

Record swapping party — dude..
thisisnotanlj Says:
Monday, January 15, 2007 at 8:47 pm. |

thanks! duly noted. also i have discovered that typing a few random artist names into last.fm is not a bad interim solution, — which is how i ended up listening to “shit, goddamn, get off your ass and jam” at work the other day. via headphones.