For those of you that don’t know, Jeff Chang is an author best known for Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. The book is taught in many universities with courses on hip hop, and is considered by many to be a primary source for knowledge on the subject.
In a recent interview with MP3.com, KRS-One (who prides himself on “being hip hop”) spoke out against Chang on several points:
On Chang’s perspective on hip hop:
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“Let me also throw Jeff Chang in there
as well. I don’t like his writing. I say that explicitly, but I give
him respect as one of the early cats writing about hip-hop in that
sense, and I’ve had many conversations with Jeff Chang. I consider him
a fellow scholar. But nonetheless, his perspective on hip-hop to me is
wrong.”
On Can’t Stop Won’t Stop’s reputation as the pinnacle of hip hop literature:
“I have issue with that. Not only do I have cultural issues with that,
meaning, who gave you the authority to even write such a book? That’s
number one. Just because Kool Herc wrote the forward of the book does
not mean you have the authority to define and interpret our culture to
the world. I was never interviewed for the book. Pee Wee Dance was
never interviewed for the book. Grandmaster Caz was not interviewed for
the book. And I mention these people in particular because these are
hip-hop’s historians from day one.”
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KRS-One continued with his analysis of Jeff Chang’s work, claiming that it is racist to not address the aformentioned hip hop artists:
“It falls in the line of discrimination
like, you don’t—like your prejudice is that they have nothing to offer
to academic scholarship, maybe because the way they talk or the way
they dress, or the lifestyle. Or maybe their perspective just doesn’t
fit into the methodology of the academy. So you brush them off and push
them to the side, even though they are the true scholars of the culture.“
Following this, KRS addressed specific pieces of information that were used in the book (particularly concerning the “Stop the Violence” movement) and claimed that they were false, and implied that Chang is merely a fan, rather than a scholar.
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Jeff Chang responded a short while later via his blog on cantstopwontstop.com:
“Listen. Lots of folks act like Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is it. Like, you read it and it’s done. Don’t need to know nothing else. But that was never my intention.
That’s
why I’ve always been insistent on being humble about my own
contribution to hip-hop scholarship. People think it’s cute or just
Asian of me to deflect praise sometimes. It’s not an act. I recognize
the fact that people sometimes place a burden on this book that I just
don’t want.”
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The author continued to explain that he was clearly unable to speak to everyone involved in hip hop, and that his perspective was not the “end all be all,” and merely a small addition to the culture.
Chang concluded his response with the following:
“I did say I got a strong enough ego to try to step on. And in the end, it ain’t about me, it’s all about building this…
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Holla if you like, KRS.”
