the Greater Nomadic Council

Patrick Neate's Where You’re At - Peer at a Rap Planet

I felt I owed this book a brief word or two, since the publisher sent me a reader’s copy- the first free thing I’ve ever gotten from my blog, and from one perspective the worst-considered five bucks the promoter could’ve spent. But while I don’t have “influence” or “readers,” I did enjoy the hell out of this book, so he got that right at least. Basically what it is is a world hip hop tour, focusing on hip hop culture in Japan, France, Brazil, Italy, and South Africa. First off, it’s truly awe-inspiring to really think about the impact that the obscure innovation of putting a breakbeat under somebody boasting about themselves has had. I doubt it’s possible to have a greater sense of self-satisfaction than what guys like Flash, Doze, Rammellzee, Fab Five Freddie, and what have you must feel every day when they wake up: “Holy shit, I changed the got damn world!” Most of us will never experience that feeling, but this book does a great job of giving us a view of the staggering scope of their collective accomplishment.

It’s also really useful historically, because it breaks down the importation of rap into all of these places really well, lists important artists and important singles, and provides a lot of good sociological analysis of the situations in each of the locales. The situation in Rio is certainly the most inspiring, as the AfroReggae collective works to reverse the tide of desperation that overwhelms Rio’s drug-war ravaged illegal slums, called favelas. But my own personal interest has long been in Japanese hip hop – not because it’s particularly artistically interesting, but because every bit of it I’ve seen has an amazing and fascinating superficiality to it. In one way, Neate confirms my prejudices here, in a sense. He describes in particular an exchange with a Japanese fan in which he asks the guy repeatedly why he listens to hip hop, and the guy responds that he has to “keep it real,” and that he’s there to “represent,” and can’t seem to come up with anything more substantive.

But in another sense (and this is the most important thing I got from this book), there’s possibly more political significance to hip hop in Japan than in, say, the United States – in a society that is far more hidebound and, believe it or not, even more racist than the United States, listening to black music, dancing with black G.I.s, and wearing freaky-looking baggy clothes are all actually significant acts of rebellion, in much the same sense that being a long-haired hippy or wearing bell-bottoms could be read as inherently resistive in the sixties. Neate is pretty astute in these sorts of readings.

But it’s also just a fun book to read. It’s told in the fairly standard nineties/00’s style in which the narrator becomes part of the story, and while I often find this annoying, Neate does allright, using his narrative form to smoothly link together his various historical overviews and pithy observations. This isn’t really a book that transcends its hiphop-ness to become something that I’d recommend to just anyone, but if you’re a head, it’ll be enjoyable – I give it the sleepnotwork seal of approval.