Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop, by Adam Bradley. Basic Books, 2009.
Rap is like Ireland to me – there’s an overlap in language and culture, I can sense that there are important differences I’m not tuned to, and I haven’t properly been there. Bradley looks at rap as poetry. Part 1 looks at rhythm, rhyme, and wordplay; Part 2, style, storytelling, and signifying. He makes his case that there is a lot going on poetically in the best rap, even if it doesn’t have the range that the best poetry aspires to. (Reviewed Oct., ’09)