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A review by pharmdad2007
Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race in the Urban Present by David Foster Wallace, Mark Costello
4.0
**2020 reread**
Unique investigative style and far reaching metaphors abound, as you would expect from David Foster Wallace. Hip hop explained weirdly.
I love DFW, so even when he writes on a topic I have like zero interest in, it is enjoyable. This collection of essays about the early rap scene in America is an example of a brilliantly explored topic that doesn't really speak to me. But I did enjoy the section comparing the cultural "sampling" of Martin Luther King Jr and the musical sampling that provides a tonal backbone for much of rap.
Unique investigative style and far reaching metaphors abound, as you would expect from David Foster Wallace. Hip hop explained weirdly.
I love DFW, so even when he writes on a topic I have like zero interest in, it is enjoyable. This collection of essays about the early rap scene in America is an example of a brilliantly explored topic that doesn't really speak to me. But I did enjoy the section comparing the cultural "sampling" of Martin Luther King Jr and the musical sampling that provides a tonal backbone for much of rap.