A review by bengriffin
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang

4.0

As other people have said, if you go into this expecting it to be about hip-hop music, you might be disappointed. It is most definitely about the generation and the socio-political factors that surrounded, influenced, and led to the music at every stage. There's some really powerful stuff in here, particularly on the riots towards the end of the book, and to have such a wealth of in depth information on a major cultural force that's barely studied in any serious or academic context is impressive. The writing flows effortlessly, and whilst it would be nice to have a follow up with everything post 2001, and how the hip-hop scene was adopted by other countries and their take on it, this will probably remain the definitive text for anyone wanting to discover how this entire generation came to be.