What's Good
Notes on Rap and Language
- Much has been asserted about hip-hop’s lyrical inventiveness, but there have been very few, if any, dives as deep into the way rap lyrics function.
- The book is as up to the moment as possible and embraces a wide range of styles and periods of rap, rather than limiting itself to one type of hip hop.
- This book is a love letter to rap and hip hop, similar to the sentiments of music writers like Hanif Abdurraqib in his Notes to a Tribe Called Quest as well as Nick Hornby's music column in The Believer.
- Levin Becker is equally likely to discuss the origins as the most contemporary chart-toppers.
- Artists discussed include: Sugarhill Gang, UGK, Young M.A, Rakim, Rick Ross, Rae Sremmurd, Jay-Z, Drake, and Snoop Dog, among others.
- The author wrestles with the very possibility of adequately representing and/or explaining a given set of hip hop lyrics.
- What’s Good will appeal to readers of Adam Bradley's Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, Rakim's Sweat the Technique(2019), Vikki Tobak's Contact High (2018), and Matthew Zapruder's Why Poetry (2018)
- *Daniel Levin Becker was an early contributor to the groundbreaking lyrics site Rap Genius (now known as Genius).
- The author has an excellent repuation amongst his literary peers having long served in editorial roles at McSweeney's and The Believer Magazine.
- Levin Becker is also a member of OULIPO, one of the most language-focused avant-garde movements of the last century.
- *More info on Rap Genius: In case you're unfamiliar, it is a pretty significant website for lyrics. It started as "Rap Genius," by a bunch guys from Yale who were into hip-hop and fascinated with the often difficult to parse lyrics. Now it's simply known as Genius, as it covers all genres. Genius is basically the lyrics site of the internet for all genres, though it started with hip-hop.
Daniel Levin Becker is a critic, editor, and translator from Chicago. An early contributing editor to the groundbreaking lyrics annotation site Rap Genius, he has written about music forThe Believer, NPR,SF Weekly, and Dusted Magazine, among others. His first book,Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature(Harvard UP, 2012), recounts his induction into the French literary collective Oulipo, of which he became the youngest member in 2009. His published translations include Georges Perec'sLa Boutique Obscure(Melville House, 2013), Eduardo Berti'sAn Ideal Presence(Fern Books, 2021), and Serge Haroche’sThe Science of Light(Odile Jacob, 2021). He is also co-translator and co-editor ofAll That Is Evident Is Suspect: Readings from the Oulipo1963–2018(McSweeney’s, 2018) and the editor ofDear McSweeney’s: Two Decades of Letters to the Editor from Writers, Readers, and the Occasional Bewildered Consumer(McSweeney’s, 2021). Levin Becker is a founding editor of Fern Books, English editor for the French nonfiction publisher Odile Jacob, senior editor at McSweeney’s Publishing, and a longtime contributing editor toThe Believer. He lives in Paris.
