(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MISERY IS THE RIVER OF THE WORLD") Let's start with a song from "Blood Money." This is "Misery Is The River Of The World." Waits wrote those songs with his wife, Kathleen Brennan. This month, on the 20th anniversary of their release, those albums are being reissued on vinyl with new, formerly unreleased live versions of some songs. When Terry spoke with him in 2002, he'd just released two lyrical concept albums, "Blood Money" and "Alice," which are now considered some of his finest work. We're going to listen back to two of our interviews with Tom Waits. His songs have been used on the soundtracks of several films, and he's acted in the movies "Down By Law," "Short Cuts," Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracula," "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs" and "The Old Man & The Gun." He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. The darkness of his lyrics is accentuated by the rumble and rasp of his voice, a voice that sounded old even when he was young. The people he usually sings about are loners, losers, hobos, outlaws and drunks. There's always been an element of mystery surrounding his life. The New York Times once described him as the poet of outcasts. Tom Waits is one of the true eccentrics of pop music. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, in for Terry Gross. Rose's greatest strength is something that's still shockingly rare among academics: a firm grounding in reality.This is FRESH AIR. Too few journalists (never mind professors) have examined such issues as the impact of insurance costs at arena on the progress of hip hop performance. ""Exactly the kind of down-and-dirty research linking life and art that most pop culture study lacks. ""Necessary reading for pundits, professors, and politicians, but most of all, for those who love hip-hop's rhymes and reasons."" Rap fans will marvel at the illustrations of 1979-vintage handbills for Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation."" "" Black Noise is a treasure trove of information on the early days of hip-hop in the South Bronx. It has something to teach all students of popular culture for readers fascinated or confounded by rap, Rose's arguments are pursuasive and eloquent."" ""Rose presents in Black Noise a fiercely intelligent analysis of the most misunderstood and misrepresented cultural and artistic practice in America today. In her shrewd focus on both the details and the big picture, Rose moves us miles further down the road in our thinking about the politics of popular culture." "No more loose-headed talk about rap and hip hop! From now on, all discussion starts here with Black Noise, a crucial book about a culture that has also become a new kind of social movement. ~Michael Dyson, Village Voice Rock 'n' Roll Quarterly "Necessary reading for pundits, professors, and politicians, but most of all, for those who love hip-hop's rhymes and reasons." In the end, Rose observes, rap music remains a vibrant force with its own aesthetic, "a noisy and powerful element of contemporary American popular culture which continues to draw a great deal of attention to itself." #DARK NOISE SONGS FULL#and draws on candid interviews with Queen Latifah, music producer Eric "Vietnam" Sadler, dancer Crazy Legs, and others to paint the full range of rap's political and aesthetic spectrum. Rose also closely examines the lyrics and videos for songs by artists such as Public Enemy, KRS-One, Salt N' Pepa, MC Lyte, and L. Finally, she explores the complex sexual politics of rap, including questions of misogyny, sexual domination, and female rappers' critiques of men.īut these debates do not overshadow rappers' own words and thoughts. Next she takes up rap's racial politics, its sharp criticisms of the police and the government, and the responses of those institutions. In Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Tricia Rose, described by the New York Times as a "hip hop theorist," takes a comprehensive look at the lyrics, music, cultures, themes, and styles of this highly rhythmic, rhymed storytelling and grapples with the most salient issues and debates that surround it.Īssistant Professor of Africana Studies and History at New York University, Tricia Rose sorts through rap's multiple voices by exploring its underlying urban cultural politics, particularly the influential New York City rap scene, and discusses rap as a unique musical form in which traditional African-based oral traditions fuse with cutting-edge music technologies. Winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation (1995)įrom its beginnings in hip hop culture, the dense rhythms and aggressive lyrics of rap music have made it a provocative fixture on the American cultural landscape. A comprehensive look at the lyrics, music, cultures, themes, and styles of rap music.
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