When a publisher suggested that Questlove write a book on the history of hip-hop, he was reluctant at first. Not for fear of writing—the Roots drummer is an accomplished author, with a catalog that includes an acclaimed 2013 memoir, along with tomes like 2021 Music is history. The problem? He was unsure of where he fit into the hip-hop landscape of the mid-fifties.
“That used to be my girlfriend,” he says of the genre he grew up loving. “I guess we're still married, but I don't know how I feel about her right now. I was a little concerned to see if I had meaningful opinions about hip-hop after 2015.”
After struggling with these doubts, he ended up writing hip hop is history out this summer via his own imprint, AUWA Books. The book is divided into chapters that represent five-year steps of hip-hop's development in seven and two (1982, 1987, 1992, 1997…). Each chapter references era-defining lyrics from artists like Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, and Lil Yachty. He also chose to raise funds with his take on the drugs that defined any given five-year period: crack from 1987 to 1992, “sizzurp” from 2002 to 2007, and opioids from 2017 to 2022. (Questlove predicts that fentanyl will be a reference drug from 2022 to 2027.)
“I think the sound of black music is based on what we soothe our pain with,” he says. “I got it from Chuck D. He said, 'We wanted people to know how crack was affecting us.' Once he put it that way, I started making a CSI chart in my crib.”
He began this musical exploration in upstate New York at the start of the Covid lockdown, a time that, Questlove recalls, began with a few weeks of “fetal panic”. Later, he used his Sunday routine of listening to new music for three to five hours as a way to familiarize himself with modern hip-hop. In time, he was ready to begin creating the book with longtime writing partner Ben Greenman, author and former New Yorker editor whom Questlove jokingly calls “the adult in the room” for this process.
“If I had done it myself, this probably would have ended up as a memoir, and it wasn't,” he says. Even so, he adds, “I always let the reader know, 'This is a subjective opinion.' I let you know where my life was and how my relationship with her was.”
The average writer might have written about the pro-College dropout Determination through quotes or verses. Questlove shares a hilarious story about a young West reciting his bars to Black Thought backstage while the latter is putting on his pants before a show. Elsewhere, there's a shocking story about the shocking way the Roots heard the Notorious BIG had been killed in 1997 (before they could tell him he wasn't being deliberately left out of the “oh what are they doing” video).
The book's foreword puts us right in the thick of the tension Questlove experienced while hosting the Hip-Hop 50 Grammys in 2023. It also reveals how his intense work ethic has affected his romantic life. These details add to its richness Hip-Hop is History; it's not a dry encyclopedia, it's a look at a hip-hop head's lifelong journey with the genre.
When I talk to Questlove via Zoom, it's only an hour after Kendrick Lamar's “Euphoria” for Drake was released, and he's got a lot on his mind. “I don't know if I'm in the same hip-hop game as Drake and Kendrick,” he says. “Listening to the back and forth of the boxers, I feel like I'm only in it because I'm of this, but i'm not in the.”
Weeks later, he would continue to infuriate hip-hop heads by declaring “nobody won” the Lamar and Drake beef and that “hip-hop is really dead” thing at the hands of viewers who started moving at the disgusting turn the conflict took. A week after that, Questlove hits back at critics with even bolder views to come in his book: “I'm really going to have a field day with him, if this morning is any indication.” Time will tell which one he gets from Hip-Hop is History they end up fooling hip-hop fans the most.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/questlove-hip-hop-history-book-interview-1235031314/
