Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America

Bakari Kitwana

May 2006 · Ibinebenta ng Civitas Books

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Our national conversation about race is ludicrously out-of-date. Hip-hop is the key to understanding how things are changing. In a provocative book that will appeal to hip-hoppers both black and white and their parents, Bakari Kitwana deftly teases apart the culture of hip-hop to illuminate how race is being lived by young Americans. This topic is ripe, but untried, and Kitwana poses and answers a plethora of questions: Does hip-hop belong to black kids? What in hip-hop appeals to white youth? Is hip-hop different from what rhythm, blues, jazz, and even rock 'n' roll meant to previous generations? How have mass media and consumer culture made hip-hop a unique phenomenon? What does class have to do with it? Are white kids really hip-hop's primary listening audience? How do young Americans think about race, and how has hip-hop influenced their perspective? Are young Americans achieving Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream through hip-hop? Kitwana addresses uncomfortable truths about America's level of comfort with black people, challenging preconceived notions of race. With this brave tour de force, Bakari Kitwana takes his place alongside the greatest African American intellectuals of the past decades.

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Bakari Kitwana was the Executive Editor of The Source from 1994-98; Editorial Director at Third World Press; and a music reviewer for NPR's All Things Considered. He currently freelances for the Village Voice, Savoy, the Source, and the Progressive, and his weekly column, "Do the Knowledge," is published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is the author of The Rap on Gangsta Rap and The Hip Hop Generation. He lives in Westlake, Ohio.