What's Good - Notes on Rap and Language

List of contents

Table of Contents

What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language 

By Daniel Levin Becker 

Preface 

Rhetorical questions 

            I’m into having sex, I ain’t into making love 

Rewinding

            To be the man on the mic, to be the man on your mind 

On cool 

            What’s normal to us is an illusion to them 

On me 

            I heard the beat and I ain’t know what to write 

Serious rap 

            What you hear is not a test 

Word machines

            I make butter fly

Slang evolution

            Speakin’ my language if you talkin’ ’bout tilapia

Slang and slipperiness

            You’ll never find a rhyme like this in any dictionary

On rhyme

            Try me, try me

On register

            Bitch I’m morose and lugubrious

Haunted roots

            Hangin’ on for dear life

Code and contraband

            I got twenty-five lighters on the dresser

Intelligences

            They don’t call me Big for nuttin’

Power play

            I’m on point like a elbow

 

Word as bond

            Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape

Anti-simile

            I’m the motherfucking king like Oedipus

=, ≠

            Flip the script just like Marlon Brando

#

            I got bars        sentencing

Economy and time

            Four Seasons, three words: do not disturb

Signifying chains

            I take seven MCs, put ’em in a line

Recycling

            Flow retarded, I’m on some Special Ed shit 

Elective chronology

            Once upon a time in the projects

Ancestor worship

            We’re holdin’ on to what’s golden

Writing/biting

            I got ninety-nine problems and a bitch ain’t one

Aggravated quotation

            Beat biter, dope style taker

Hyperlinks

            Wikipedia that, if you didn’t know

On cliché

            Kickin’ the fly clichés

Who wore it better?

            Now I’m butt naked in a Lamborghini

Deniable plausibility

            Might look light but we heavy though

On first person

            I live it, I see it, and I write it because I know it

Truth and consequence

            Calling her a crab is just a figure of speech

Criminal slang

            I’m the biggest Dope Dealer and I serve all over town

Selling work

            The dope I’m selling you don’t smoke you feel         

On values

            I’m out here making sense ’cause I’m out here making dollars

On the b-word

            Who you callin’ a bitch?

On the n-word

            She could be my broad and I could be her —

On white people

            Please listen to my album

On second person

            If that’s your chick then why she textin’ me?

Is rap poetry?

            I take this more serious than just a poem

Writing/not writing

            I wasn’t born last night

What you hear is not a text

            I can’t help the poor if I’m one of them

On possession

            Hi haters, I’m back off hiatus

On possession with intent to sell

            Cash rules everything around me

Signifying ornaments

            I spell it how the fucks I want

Outsider art

            And all the people always know me for my comedy

On irony

            This is fucking awesome

Dumb love

            Microphone check 1-2 what is this

Criticism and categories

            Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good

A larger English

            Lampin’ in the Hamptons like “What the fuck is a hammock?”

Witness

            Party and bullshit

 

 

About the author

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 for The 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's La Boutique Obscure (Melville House, 2013), Eduardo Berti's An Ideal Presence (Fern Books, 2021), and Serge Haroche’s The Science of Light (Odile Jacob, 2021). He is also co-translator and co-editor of All That Is Evident Is Suspect: Readings from the Oulipo 1963–2018 (McSweeney’s, 2018) and the editor of Dear 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 to The Believer. He lives in Paris. 

Summary

A NEW YORKER & GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A love letter to the verbal artistry of hip-hop, What's Good is a work of passionate lyrical analysis

"What's Good is, among a great many other things, a byproduct of joyful obsession and immersion into both language and sound, an intersection that offers a rich and expansive land upon which to play." —Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
" . . . an often hilarious, surprisingly moving and always joyful paean to rap’s relationship to words."—Jayson Greene, The New York Times
"Rap, he is not afraid to say, is as close to a universal tongue as we have."—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

What's Good is a work of passionate lyrical analysis, a set of freewheeling liner notes, and a love letter to the most vital American art form of the last half century. Over a series of short chapters, each centered on a different lyric, Daniel Levin Becker considers how rap's use of language operates and evolves at levels ranging from the local (slang, rhyme) to the analytical (quotation, transcription) to the philosophical (morality, criticism, irony), celebrating the pleasures and perils of any attempt to decipher its meaning-making technologies.

Ranging from Sugarhill Gang to UGK to Young M.A, Rakim to Rick Ross to Rae Sremmurd, Jay-Z to Drake to Snoop Dogg, What's Good reads with the momentum of a deftly curated mixtape, drawing you into the conversation and teaching you to read it as it goes. A book for committed hip-hop heads, curious neophytes, armchair linguists, and everyone in between.
"For those of us who love rap, What's Good is a gift. The book offers a new set of eyes and ears through which to see and to hear the language of rap. Its brief and brilliant chapters are like the best kinds of freestyles: spontaneous and structured, startling and profound. A remarkable achievement." —Adam Bradley, author of Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop

"Could this be the rap equivalent of Lewis Hyde's The Gift or Marina Warner's Once Upon A Time? Anyhow, it's an electrifying book, full of wild epiphanies and provocations, an exhibition of a critical mind in full and open contact with their subject at the highest level, with a winning streak of confessional intimacy as well." —Jonathan Lethem, author of The Arrest: A Novel
"What's Good is a feat of critical precision and personal obsession: Daniel Levin Becker's deep appreciation for rap is rangy and illuminating, and his delight in language is infectious. What a thrill to swing so gracefully from Lil Wayne to Mary Ruefle to the lyrical evolution of 'tilapia'; pure pleasure. A generous, joyful exegesis."—Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley: A Memoir

Foreword

• Galleys are available upon request.


• We’ll pursue the ABA’s IndieNext campaign for February 2022


• The national media campaign will focus on music and literature journals, blogs, podcasts, radio shows, and more. We’ll pursue reviews, interviews, profiles, and excerpts.


• We will plan an international media campaign given the worldwide popularity of hip hop and rap, as well as author's home base of Paris.


• Author is from Chicago and a graduate of Yale University. We’ll pursue regional media in Illinois, and alumni publications associated with the school.


• We’ll promote the book via its Soundcloud playlist, currently posted on the site.


• The social media campaign includes promotion of the book on the author's own accounts, as well as City Lights.


• Will pursue the production of short "music videos" for Instagram featuring commentary by the author.


• Academic marketing: The book is of interest to academics, as well as lay readers, and we will pursue a variety of disciplines including English, Rhetoric, African American Studies, Music, and more.

Additional text

Praise for What's Good:
"Music aficionados and hip-hop lovers will savor every bit."—Publishers Weekly

"His book performs a unique and exciting rhetorical move, presenting itself as a sort of freestyle in its own right: short, punchy chapters that each focus on a single lyric."—ALTA

"There is so much I admire about Daniel Levin Becker's What's Good: how knowledgeable it is, how synoptic, how precise, persuasive, and risky; I love its savvy politics, its passion, its aching, tragic heart."—David Shields, author of Black Planet: Facing Race during an NBA Season

"All in all, What's Good is an enlightening, self-aware, and deeply satisfying look at the wondrous ways rap music uses language. It is absolutely essential reading on hip-hop—and one of the smartest books about music I've read."—Ian Port, author of The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll
"Characterized with a clear love for hip-hop, Daniel Levin Becker's  is a joyful and deep dive into the many wonders of hip-hop as an art form."—

Product details

• Authors: Daniel Levin Becker
• Publisher: City Light Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.02.2022
• EAN: 9780872868762
• ISBN: 978-0-87286-876-2
• No. of pages: 200
• Dimensions: 180 mm x 205 mm x 25 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Music; Music, MUSIC / History & Criticism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry, MUSIC / Essays, History of Music, Literary studies: poetry & poets