New hip-hop lit: ‘Titles Ruin Everything,’ ‘The Book of HOV,’ ‘Welcome 2 Houston’

By JORDANNAH ELIZABETH Special to the Amnews

This year is hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, and the genre is more alive and vibrant than it has been in all of its history. Yes, there can certainly be a debate about the content and context of lyrics, musical style, and cultural landscape in which the music continues to form; more on that in the coming weeks. But for now, we have two new hip-hop literary and nonfiction offerings and a historical exhibition on display at the Brooklyn Public Library’s main branch.

Aubrey Graham, also known as Drake, and his longtime songwriting partner Kenza Simir, have written a new collection of colloquialisms titled “Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Consciousness” that is presented as the duo’s first public effort at poetry. A new mixed-media installation, “The Book of HOV: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Shawn ‘JAY-Z’ Carter,” is being shown at Brooklyn Public Library. The University of Illinois has published an exciting nonfiction hip-hop work entitled “Welcome 2 Houston: Hip Hop Heritage in Hustle Town,” named after Houston’s own Slim Thug’s 2009 song.

“Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Consciousness” by Aubrey Graham & Kenza Samir (Phaidon)

“Titles” is an interesting book. It has been described as a poetry book by the authors and many others, and Graham is without a doubt a modern-day poet, a great songwriter and troubadour of our times. But it is safe to say that this book is a seed of what is to come from Graham and Samir. Each page of the book has a sentence of only three to 10 words, and the lines are witty, honest, funny, and sometimes painful to read. Graham’s pain and alienation from romance and traditionalism, specifically the construct of marriage, make you feel a bit saddened. You almost want to read the lines where he is happy—but that doesn’t occur. There are just bars of competitiveness, social comparisons, and his disdain for women who have broken his heart. With this said, it is likely that Graham has learned from the reception to this work and will show us what he can do with stanzas, rhymes, alliteration, style, and storytelling in fully developed poems. I somewhat wish the duo’s editor had guided them and advised them to push and challenge themselves more.

Let’s hope we see Graham and Samir stretch themselves to stand next to Voltaire, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovani, Dickenson, and others. No pressure. This is, though, a fun first effort.

“The Book of HOV: A celebration of the life and work of Shawn ‘JAY-Z’ Carter” | Brooklyn Public Library

“The Book of HOV” is an interactive exhibition that you can view both online and in person at Brooklyn Public Library’s main branch. The collection displays Jay-Z’s gold and platinum albums, music, oral history, and visual art. Curated by Roc Nation, HOV gets to express himself in the exhibition freely as opposed to hiring a highly credentialed contemporary art curator. It is accessible and immersive, full of pride (in a good way), and right on time for the 50th Anniversary of hip-hop. It’s possible that this year brought on the idea, but what is most important is that young people, and people of all walks of life, are going to be exposed to one of hip-hop’s icons.

“Welcome 2 Houston: Hip Hop Heritage in Hustle Town” by Langston Collin Wilkins (University of Illinois)

“Welcome 2 Houston” is a new academic, scholarly work from Houston native and assistant professor of folklore and African American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Langston Collin Wilkins. Wilkins begins by defining the word heritage, then theorizes about and ties in hip-hop culture to create the foundation of the book’s thesis of hip-hop heritage. What does it look like in H-Town? Through literary storytelling that includes Wilkins’s personal history, you get a historical and geographical view of Houston’s hip-hop scene, beginning with blues musicians who laid the foundation for the scene to emerge.

Esthetically, the lettering is a bit small, and there aren’t as many names mentioned as there could be, but the conclusion notes the influence of Travis Scott and features chapters about Iceberg Slim and Block Boyz Click. It also gives a lot of attention to New York rappers in the fifth chapter. The book, all in all, is tied together well, and easy to follow.