The next stop on the blog tour for An Angel Has No Memory is at Stephen Zimmer’s blog, where I talk about straight men writing lesbian erotica.
First, should white people make hiphop? I say yes, for the same reason I think black people should make heavy metal, and indeed anybody should make anything. The claim that any particular group has a monopoly on any particular form of expression goes against the whole idea of freedom of expression. Hip-hop itself is based on promiscuous borrowing and recombination of culture items, defying conventional categories of race and class and genre.
Second, should white people dominate the charts and awards ceremonies for hip-hop, leaving black artists on the margins of the genre they created? That’s a thornier question.