Where You're At: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet ANNOTATION
Winner of the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Patrick Neate sets off to discover if the music and culture that mean so much to him have retained true cultural vitality and significance anywhere in the world. Covering five continents and cities as diverse as New York and Rio, Tokyo and Johannesburg, Neate talks to artists and producers, lifelong fans and recent converts - and what he finds is never what he expects." The Bronx-born music and culture has woven itself into the local urban cultures of the distant corners of the globe in different, consistently surprising, and provocative ways. What is a cliche in one city is revolutionary in another, and completely meaningless in yet another; at every stop, Neate discovers hip-hop reinventing itself and the way it's understood - internationally, locally, and individually. Where You're At is a global tour of a small planet, with hip-hop, in all its multifarious forms, as the main character.
FROM THE CRITICS
Edward Nawotka - USA Today
Riffing off '80s rapper Rakim's quote "It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at," writer Patrick Neate ventures from his home in suburban London in search of how and why hip-hop "conquered the globe and nobody noticed." His chronicle, Where You're At, is a fascinating travelogue that tells the complicated story of how American hip-hop music coursed the cultural corridors of the globe and has been absorbed and reinvented around the world.
Publishers Weekly
At first glance, one might not expect a British novelist to be a particularly insightful commentator on hip-hop, "the most elemental expression of contemporary America." But starting with a description of his first encounter with a rap record in the mid-1980s, Neate displays a sympathy and sensitivity to the musical genre many American critics would be hard-pressed to match. A trek to examine hip-hop's global influence begins with a visit to New York-and a willing acknowledgment that this city is only one facet of the complex American hip-hop scene. Neate's recognition of his own limitations increases his credibility as he drops in on the subcultures in Japan, South Africa and Brazil to see how fans are "keeping it real." He sees in hip-hop a powerful voice of protest against the status quo and is adamant about the need for its creators to wrest financial control of their music away from multinational media companies. His recommendation that American hip-hop artists start cultivating a deeper global political consciousness may come across as overly didactic, but it's the culmination of a consistent awareness of the ways in which non-Americans are already using the music to describe and define their lives. (Aug.) FYI: Neate won the Whitbread Award in 2002; his latest novel, The London Pigeon Wars, is currently out from FSG. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
British novelist Neate (The London Pigeon Wars) embarks on a series of planet-banding, gonzo-esque urban investigations to answer that truly Nietzschean question: is hip-hop dead? First stop: New York City, hip-hop's birthplace but now a dead zone owing to the presence of media conglomerates like Viacom. On to Tokyo, whose teenagers gleefully consume every ounce of commercial American hip-hop culture they are fed, then Rio de Janeiro, where the favelas (shantytowns) foster rock-infused rap that protests the government. In investigating these and other cultures, Neate reveals that each is so much simpler than ours in certain ways but eternally more sophisticated in others. This is education in the best sense, complete with humor and footnotes; Neate has the air of Michael Palin at his globe-trotting best. Only one complaint: the lack of an accompanying audio CD. Highly recommended for most academic, public, community center, correctional institution, and large church libraries; this makes a fine companion to the more scholarly Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA. [See "The Rap on Hip-Hop," p. 47.]-Bill Piekarski, Lackawanna, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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