What's Good

Notes on Rap and Language

by Daniel Levin Becker

Published by: City Lights Publishers

Imprint: City Lights Publishers

312 Pages, 7.00 x 8.00 in

Paperback
9780872868762
Published: February 2022

$22.95

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Description
Contents
Praise

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

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

Praise for What's Good:
". . . this ode to rap is sure to surprise and delight. . . . Open to any bite-sized chapter and you're sure to find some tantalizing tidbit worth your time."—Grace Utomo, Rain Taxi Review of Books
"Written in short, savorably dense chapters, What's Good manages to be many kinds of books at the same time. It’s exhaustive — in its command of rap lyrics, in its ear for modulations in meaning and tone, in its ability to straddle the complexities of race and identity as they converge in rap . . . "—Aaron Peck, Los Angeles Review of Books

"A book filled with such love and thoughtfulness and fun has to come from a fan; who but a genuine devotee would use his introductory chapter to provide a deep reading of 50 Cent’s 'In Da Club?'"—Adam Ellsworth, The Arts Fuse

"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

"What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language is a celebration of the artistry and craft of rap lyrics written in a way that only Daniel Levin Becker could, with his sharp eye for linguistic experimentation and his appreciation for the ways rappers have been able to turn English inside out. His fascination is contagious as he revels in the incredible vitality of this ever-morphing lexicon, from its rhymes to its slang to its creation of new modes of meaning. It's the book us lovers of music and language had no idea we needed."—Emma Ramadan, Riffraff Books, Providence, RI

"Characterized with a clear love for hip-hop, Daniel Levin Becker's What's Good is a joyful and deep dive into the many wonders of hip-hop as an art form."—Bennard Fajardo, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington DC

"Exceptionally well written, impressively informed and informative, and an absorbing read from cover to cover, What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language will have particular interest for poets, literary critics, authors and lyricists. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language is an extraordinary and highly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Contemporary Literary Criticism collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists."—Micah Andrew, Midwest Library Review
"What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language is a studied, well-researched, critical, and loving exploration of the wit, humor, nuance, intelligence, meaning-making, truth telling, occasional hyperbolic absurdity, and craft of the MC and, in turn, Hip Hop culture. Becker approaches the topic with the care, competence, and appreciation of a lifelong Hip Hop aficionado and, as a result, What’s Good is a remarkable achievement that deserves a place in any Hip Hop studies collection."—Craig Arthur, Virginia Tech, College & Research Libraries

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