In preparation for this week’s new episode with Porscha Burke read this interview with her from @slicemagazine!
“I wish there were more rappers with book deals. Seriously.
Rappers are modern-day griots, their slick punchlines and syncopated storytelling can cover complex, thought-provoking subjects and lightweight humor alike. Rappers don’t have to be memoirists only. The spectrum from, say, The Message to A Children’s Story, Steve Biko to Money, Cash, Hoes to Alright is as broad as all the literary genres—narrative nonfiction and history to memoir and poetry. Of course, poetry.
We’ve been fortunate to see books like Jay Z’s Decoded and Prodigy’s Commissary Kitchen highlight how dynamically hip-hop can be represented on the page. (Likewise, all of Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson’s books differ from each other.) Novels like Styles P’s Invincible (which he wrote on his Sidekick, by the way) and Dana Dane’s Numbers prove rappers with strong storytelling skills on the mic can translate those to the page. And the oral histories (Brian Coleman’s Check the Technique and Shea Serrano’s The Rap Year Book, for example) lend context and historical import to the art form, legitimizing it for those who still need convincing. (As if Nas’s Harvard fellowship isn’t enough!)
I don’t think book publishing’s role is just to historicize hip-hop—books are art as much as music is. I think books offer an opportunity to advance hip-hop, to communicate its beauty and power and legacy to new generations who will grow up in a world where Kendrick Lamar is old school. Books about hip-hop and by its artists can show readers what’s possible if they grab a pad and a pen, a mic and a beats tape, and let their imaginations fly. Especially for young people of color—who all too often get a message that they’re worthless or not as valuable as others—exposure to hip-hop in books can exemplify how staid margins can be transcended.”