A great concept receives a middling treatment.
An uneven oral history of the early development of a vital musical genre.
Readers may expect more from a writer with the resume of Abrams, a well-known New York Times reporter and author of Boys Among Men, a compelling book about top-flight basketball players going from high school straight to the NBA, and All the Pieces Matter, an insightful oral history of The Wire. His latest has an intriguing premise: the germination and proliferation of hip-hop and how rappers became globally recognized superstars. While Abrams obviously couldn’t talk to his hero, the late Tupac Shakur, so many of the artists that he cites as essential—from DJ Kool Herc, who is credited as the pioneer of the musical style, to Rakim and Public Enemy’s Chuck D, all mentioned throughout the book—are still around and offering interviews. Not having any input from them—not to mention Jay-Z, Queen Latifah, Nas, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and numerous other significant figures and groups—is problematic. (Much of the information about DLS and ATCQ comes from the author’s interviews with the Jungle Brothers, who influenced both collectives, and Muhammad Islam, the security manager for ATCQ.) What makes the omissions more glaring is that when Abrams does have interviews with the artists involved, the narrative is an entertaining treat for fans—e.g., Ice-T talking about one of his earliest singles or Ice Cube talking about how he decided to move forward with N.W.A.’s most controversial songs. As Abrams writes about the incendiary “Fuck Tha Police,” though it “provoked consternation among police supporters, the song was a cathartic expression of protest for many people whose lives had been touched by negative encounters with law enforcement.” Unfortunately, these kinds of insightful segments are few and far between in this sprawling text, which skids abruptly to a stop with a few random thoughts about the meaning of hip-hop.
A great concept receives a middling treatment.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-984-82513-1
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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