N.Y. Prosecutor Makes a Strong Case for Rap

Is it time to take rap seriously?

That’s the message behind “Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race in the Urban Present,” a raw, irreverent new book that offers the first full-blown critical portrait of rap and its role in racial politics, gang wars, obscenity and art.

Due out this week from Ecco Press, “Signifying” is bound to make a splash with its hip-hop style academic analysis (you have to love a book that traces rap’s identity to the Blue Trickster of West African myth and the storytelling minstrels of Europe’s Dark Ages).

But what really makes it unique is its odd-couple authorial team. The book is co-written by Mark Costello and David Foster Wallace, a critically acclaimed young author of the novel, “Broom of the System.”

Costello doesn’t hang with many rap fans working his day job. He’s a 27-year-old New York County assistant district attorney who’s assigned to a special prosecutors’ unit handling New York City felony drug arrests.

What’s it like being a legal eagle and a hip-hop connoisseur? “It’s a little controversial,” he says. “Unfortunately in my job, rap is associated with a whole set of visceral reactions--a lot of people see it as a terrifying representation of all the worst aspects of urban youth culture. It’s become the Red Menace of the ‘90s. But it’s not such an odd combination. It’s probably more unusual that I’m a rap fan who’s also an Irish Catholic from Boston.”

Costello became immersed in rap when a friend visited him in Boston several years ago and turned him on to Public Enemy. Since then, he’s broadened his tastes.

“When I first heard Public Enemy, I was especially impressed by their boldness,” says Costello, who met Wallace when they attended Amherst. “But as I’ve gone along, I’ve become more impressed by subtlety and irony. I’m probably more of a De La Soul fan now. I guess you could say I prefer intelligence over (toughness).”

As a prosecutor, Costello is in a unique position to suggest a possible defense for rap groups who could be hit, as 2 Live Crew has been, with obscenity charges (though he stresses he’s speaking personally, not officially).

“I think it’s practically impossible to convict a rap group of obscenity. You can always find experts to testify that (a rap song) is a parody. Once you establish it’s a parody, then you’re dealing with comedy--in other words, the rap group is making fun of sexism, not advocating it. If you can cloud the issue, and make the jurors question it, then you’ve essentially derailed it.

“Anyway, rap’s biggest impact comes from its candor, so I think the idea of prosecuting rappers precisely for their candor is utterly crazy and foolish. To me, the most appalling aspect of the 2 Live Crew trials is that the DA’s office hasn’t arrested any heavy-metal bands. You have to wonder--why isn’t a group like L.A. Guns on trial too?”

To Costello, rap has gotten a bad rap from commentators like George Will and Tipper Gore, who have blamed it for inspiring much of today’s urban violence.

“I can understand where those perceptions come from, especially when (convicted Central Park-jogger attacker) Yusef Salaam got up and did a rap song in court,” explains Costello, who said he was “proud” the district attorney’s office obtained convictions in the case.

“But there are more rap albums that tell kids not to throw their lives away than tell them to shoot up the neighborhood. Rap critics should listen to Boogie Down Productions or Kool Moe Dee, who make rich, dramatic use of language and offer a sophisticated argument for not throwing your life away.”

Costello insists that rap--at its best--offers a moral message that can inspire disaffected youths. “Obviously I believe in law enforcement and criminal prosecution, but we also need a cultural change that encourages kids to make something of their lives. Rap can be one of the stronger forces in our culture in issuing a message of positive change. It tells 17-year-old kids that they may have been dealt a very bad set of cards, but the answer isn’t to throw the cards away. Rap says to use the cards that you are dealt--and use them as well as you can.”