The Null Device

Where You're At

Today I picked up Where You're At: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip Hop Planet by Patrick Neate. It's pretty interesting, exploring how the phenomenon of hip-hop has spread across the world and how it has mutated and interacted in contact with other cultures (and with corporate money). A quote which struck me from page 11:
Maybe it's memories of Biggie and Pac because, in spite of myself, I find my thoughts wandering over news footage from Columbine High School after the infamous 'massacre' in 1999. On the slideshow of my mind's eye, my attention is grabbed not by the images of the two gunmen, nor by stereotypes of the 'trenchcoat mafia', but by the snapshots of their fellow students. Whatever alienation motivated the killers to attack the mainstream, there's one association I can't excape. The mainstream was wearing Hilfiger. And listening to hip hop, I'm sure. All this from Herc's first breakbeat.

I'm up to the third chapter so far, and it's a pretty interesting book.

There are 1 comments on "Where You're At":

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Wed Aug 27 14:56:50 2003

Another interesting fact from Where You're At: South African township gangsters (or 'pantsula' as they're called) wear Converse All Star sneakers, Dickies pants and T-shirts, and thus in U.S. terms probably look more like your typical bohemian hipster ironist than a ghetto thug.