MIXED MEDIA

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“BRING THE NOISE: A GUIDE TO RAP MUSIC AND HIP-HOP CULTURE”

by Havelock Nelson and Michael A. Gonzales

Harmony Books ($12)

This is the best hip-hop reference available pretty much because it’s the only hip-hop reference available--basically 60-odd, highly judgmental, Village Voice-style profiles/album reviews masquerading as an encyclopedia. At times, the book is so full of jargon as to be incomprehensible to the casual reader. Nelson and Gonzales may be the only writers in history to have brought up the late UCLA librarian Lawrence Clark Powell in the midst of a discussion on Ice Cube, though they’re always quick to quote their homeboys on the street corner when stuck for an insight of their own. The book slights both old-school rappers and artists outside the New York orbit, but there’s a lot of information between the covers, and the writers seem to have a genuine affection for the art form. There are worse places to start.

Items in this survey of pop-related books, videocassettes and laser discs are rated on a scale of one asterisk (poor) to four (excellent).