Naila Waller
Why White Kids Love Hip Hop
Why do white kids love hip hop? That’s not a question you hear every day, that was one of the reasons why I was captivated to read the book titled Why White Kids Love Hip Hop. The author Bakari Kitwana believed the book was long overdue because of America’s obsession about race. He spent three years talking to white kids from all over the country that are engaged with hip hop on a variety of levels. He defined the levels as, casual listeners, die-hard fans, and actual participants, for example deejay’s and dancers.
Hip Hop has become a mainstream genre like Pop music. The author addresses two questions that have come to most Americans minds. “Will this generation’s music, hip-hop, be appropriated by white America just as rock and roll was, leaving its Black originators all but forgotten? The second question “If white youth are emulating the same young Black men are society has vilified for two centuries, are the pathologies and the immoral behaviors deemed to be “Black problem” now going to infect the young whites who fall under the spell of hip-hop music and culture?” (Kitwana,2006 ,p.1)
Before we can answer these questions we must first know a little history behind hip-hop. The generators of hip-hop grew up between the year’s (1965-1985). During that time crack and cocaine wars were happening. The white children that were born during that era are the “Generation X”. They experienced common issues that Blacks and Latinos dealt with such as unemployment. Unemployment rates increased during the 80’s regardless of what race you were. The increase in unemployment caused family’s to work longer days to support each other and left less family time.
White youth were dealing with issues that their parents the “Baby Boomers” didn’t endure. The white youth were feeling alienated due to socioeconomic issues. When the mid 1980’s came along many whites were being drawn towards hip-hop. Hip-hop had become and...