with Ben Greenman
In Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s learned, discursive new book, we’re given a personal tour of rap-music history from an insider who can’t shake his outsider status. His sixth collaboration with co-writer Ben Greenman spans the life of the obsessive fan from insatiable “weird-shaped kid” to successful musician, as co-founder of the Roots, to producer, D.J., incorrigible record collector, and, now, elder statesman, covering breakbeat bootlegs, mixtape culture, and our current streaming world.
The book’s title, Hip-Hop Is History, which Questlove explains at length in the introduction, can be taken a number of ways, the most compelling being “Hip-Hop Is (My) History”—it’s a history of the genre, or perhaps a declaration that its best days are over, a sentiment Questlove underscored in an Instagram post last month responding to the recent Kendrick Lamar versus Drake battles, in which he wrote, “Hip Hop Is Truly Dead.”
