MUSIC · FICTION
Nelson, George
Lady Antonia Lamb stood before the oval cheval glass, a worried frown marring her lovely brow.
— from Seduced
Most acclaimed
Hip hop America
Nelson George has been part of the hip hop world since day one, and he offers an insider's tour through a multimedia phenomenon of which rap music is only the audible manifestation - from the Sugar Hill Gang through Public Enemy, Sister Souljah, and C. Delores Tucker to Puff Daddy. His themes reflect those of hip hop itself - drugs, fashion, incarceration, basketball, entrepreneurship, technology, language. He recounts the troubling way in which Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Wall Street followed the leads of beverage companies and sports promoters who embraced hip hop in their bid to reach not just young black consumers but all young people. He looks at the motifs of violence and misogyny for which it is condemned, at the myths and realities of crossover, and at accusations that hip hop is merely the newest form of blaxploitation. George turns hip hop over and looks at it as a music, a style, a language, a business, a myth and a moral force, and when he's done it's clear why this book is not called The Death of Rhythm & Rap. Far from being the most marketable pathology in the world, as its critics have feared and sneered, hip hop has a dynamic energy and a message that plays directly across the map of the mainstream - which is why it has held its steady grip on American popular culture against all odds for over twenty years.
Seduced
Derek Harper is an r&b junkie whose desire since childhood has been to be a successful songwriter in the tradition of his idol, Curtis Mayfield. Indeed, music frees Derek from the protective cocoon that his enigmatic father, an undertaker, and his devout mother created for him in their black middle-class Queens neighborhood. Derek's ambitions take him away from the comfortable predictability of his life to a tiny Times Square apartment in Manhattan. There he encounters the guts of the music industry in the 1980s: frustrated gospel singers, nefarious record producers, captivating vocal divas, the cultural stripmining of jingle writing, rebellious rap groups, and record company executives in Atlanta, L.A., and New York. The seduction of women, music, and flash take Derek around the country, with only his parents to act as his conscience: his mother admonishes against his irresponsible lifestyle. Yet it is his father's attitude that is more troubling to Derek. In the wake of their neighborhood's steady deterioration, his bitter pragmatism shocks Derek into maturity. His odyssey comes full circle, when Derek gets what he thought he wanted from life - and maybe even more. Using his own lyrics, songs of the times, and colorful anecdotes, George shows us how the threads of love - both romantic and familial - weave into the work of an artist and into building a young black man's life.
The death of rhythm & blues
Examines the changing sound of rhythm and blues, from the electrifying music of such greats as Chuck Berry and Aretha Franklin to current mainstream names like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, and explores the reasons for this radical shift.