MIXED MEDIA

*** “RAP” Photographs by Janette Beckman, text by B. Adler St. Martin’s Press ($13.95) .

Public Enemy’s Chuck D is fond of saying rap music is the television station black people never had. Fifteen-odd years after rap came into its own, there’s still no rap TV Guide, a decent book tracing the phenomenon. “Rap” is more a scrapbook than a reference book, sort of an annotated family album of the hip-hop generation: lyrics, posed mug shots and wistful, thumbnail sketches of rap’s elite. Writer Adler, a former rap publicist, is strongest on early rappers, weakest on West Coast artists, whose vital stats (some in error) he mostly lifted from published interviews. Too slight for aficionados and too insiderish for beginners, it’s still probably the most complete book about rap ever published, and the beat of the music courses through every page.