Perseus Academic: Why White Kids Love Hip Hop by Bakari Kitwana

Our national conversation about race is ludicrously out of date. Hip hop is the key to understanding how things are changing. In a provacative book that will appeal to hip-hoppers both black and white and their parents, Bakari Kitana deftly teases apart the culture of hip hop to illuminate how race is being lived by young Americans. Why White Kids Love Hip Hop addresses uncomfortable truths about America’s level of comfort with black people, challenging preconceived notions of race. With this brave tour de force, Bakari Kitwana takes his place alongside the greatest African-American intellectuals of the past decades.

Bakari Kitwana has been the Executive Editor of The Source, the Editorial Director at 3rd World Press, and a music reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has lectured extensively on rap music and black youth culture, and his work has appeared in the Village Voice, The Source, and The Progressive. His previous book, The Rap on Gangsta Rap, is becoming a classic. Mr. Kitwana lives in Westlake, Ohio.

Bakari Kitwana was the Executive Editor of The Source from 1994–98; Editorial Director at Third World Press; and a music reviewer for NPR's All Things Considered. He currently freelances for the Village Voice, Savoy, The Source, and the Progressive, and his weekly column, Do the Knowledge, is published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is the author of The Rap on Gangsta Rap and The Hip Hop Generation. He lives in Westlake, Ohio.