The music journalist chronicles the history of hip-hop music over the past three decades, from its Jamaican roots to its origins in New York in the 1970s and rap's steady gain in popularity since.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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LA Weekly Scott T. Sterling
Extensively researched and meticulously written.
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Outstanding
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Village Voice Evelyn Nien-Ming Ch'ien
Powerful... [Chang's] steely, economical style reveals the story inside rap, straight up without any rhythmic painkillers.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
[Chang] documents stories that have been left unrecorded until now, with the oral histories of the gangs and artists.
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Outstanding
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The New Yorker
[Can't Stop Won't Stop] is one of the most urgent and passionate histories of popular music ever written.
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Favorable
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Booklist Mike Tribby
A fascinating, far-reaching must. [1 Feb 2005, p. 935]
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Favorable
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Entertainment Weekly Raymond Fiore
Jeff Chang's sprawling collection of well-researched chronological essays smartly preserves and politicizes three decades of cultural history.
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Favorable
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Salon Peter L'Oficial
Can't Stop Won't Stop reads like a history textbook -- albeit one of the cooler history textbooks you could find -- and that's a good thing.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Adam Bradley
[Can't Stop Won't Stop] is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in hip-hop's context as well as its culture, and for anyone who would better understand the confounding mixture of activism and apathy that characterizes America's younger generations.
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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph Danny Kelly
There is a fearless sweep to [Can't Stop Won't Stop]. As the narrative veers dizzyingly from content to context, from broad-brush assertion to the laser-focused insights of previously unheard voices, it's clear that there's no part of American life or recent history that Chang considers off-limits.
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Favorable
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The Independent Ben Thompson
Weighty and ambitious.
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Favorable
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The Onion A.V. Club Andy Battaglia
A rich sociological history of hip-hop.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Alex Abramovich
[Chang's] provocative, intermittently brilliant history... [loses] its form and focus.
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