The Reader is the online archive of Jeff’s writings on culture, politics, music, and more. It includes excerpts and outtakes from Can’t Stop Won’t Stop and interviews with Jeff. Articles are being added regularly, so come back often.
The Nation
May 4, 2009
Image by Ennis Carter, Design For Social Impact
This piece began as a brief acceptance speech for my 2008 North Star News Prize Award. I was trying to spell out the key roles that journalists, artists, and organizers played in bringing about Obama’s victory, all jobs that were looked down upon and that I–of course–had held during the 20+ years of my so-called career. Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation liked it and commissioned it for the magazine.
Over the next three months, I found myself thinking about creativity’s role in social change around the world, from the Great Depression through now. Read more
The Nation
November 19, 2007
Before “Pineapple Express”, “Swagga Like Us”, “Slumdog Millionaire”, and a baby made her a global hip-hop heroine, there were a pair of albums. Times have changed. Junot Diaz won a Pulitzer, Obama was elected and the Tamil Tigers were routed. But here’s why M.I.A. mattered then…and still does now.
When she debuted in 2005 with Arular, critics couldn’t get over the package: the brown doe eyes, the cover model looks, the bracingly danceable music–not to mention the lyrics about war, terror and poverty. Read more
Vibe Magazine
September 2007
Can the freshman senator from Illinois stick to his ideals and still become the first man to rock Air Force Ones on Air Force One? We’re entering the mostly hotly contested election of our lifetime. It’s time to decide? Is Barack Obama our man?
On a Tuesday afternoon in May, the lines for a Barack Obama rally are as long as they would be for the rock concerts that are the normal fare here at the Electric Factory, a vast, converted warehouse in North Philadelphia. Read more
Salon.com
June 26, 2008
Rivers Crew in the flow. Photo by the incomparable magnificent Joe Conzo.
How did South Korea come to rule the b-boy world? What role did Asian Americans play? When I visited the 2008 R16 competition in Suwon, heads dropped a history of breaking and hip-hop in South Korea and Korean America on me…
This summer, the United States is reaching new heights of dance fever as TV shows like Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” and MTV’s “Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew” have returned to the airwaves.
MTV’s runaway hit is considered especially cutting edge, showcasing hip-hop dance groups from across America. But if MTV really wants the best dance crew, it should be looking in South Korea. Read more
Village Voice
April 2002
In 2002, then 33-year-old Bakari Kitwana ushered in a new era of hip-hop intellectual work with his book, The Hip-Hop Generation. Since that time, hip-hop studies has quickly expanded in the academy. Here’s a snapshot from that new dawn.
Without dogma or jargon, Bakari Kitwana’s important new book, The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture, cuts right to the chase. “What will be our generation’s contribution to the centuries-long African American struggle for liberation, and how do we redefine this struggle for our time?” he asks.
For us freedom-thinking young’n’s, Kitwana’s emergence as a young Black public intellectual is itself as important as the questions that he poses. Read more
How DJ Kool Herc Lost His Accent And Started Hip-Hop
…the logic is an extension rather than a negation. Alias, a.k.a.; the names describe a process of loops. From A to B and back again.
—Paul D. Miller
It has become myth, a creation myth, this West Bronx party at the end of the summer in 1973. Not for its guests–a hundred kids and kin from around the way, nor for the setting–a modest recreation room in a new apartment complex; not even for its location–two miles north of Yankee Stadium, near where the Cross-Bronx Expressway spills into Manhattan. Time remembers it for the night DJ Kool Herc made his name. Read more
Here’s a list of interviews Jeff has done on Can’t Stop Won’t Stop and other stuff. They are roughly in reverse chronological order since 2005.
You may use the search function on the site and blog as well if you’re looking for specific search topics. For whatever it’s worth, this guy has a lot of opinions on a lot of things.
Please let us know of any missing interviews that need to be added or dead links to drop or fix. We web gnomes will do our best to keep it fresh given the crappy salaries Jeff is paying us and our bad morale. Read more
In 2004, Oliver Wang sat down to talk with Jeff Chang on Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. Here’s what it sounded like…
Note: for a complete bio of Jeff, click to the Self page.
Q: Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is subtitled “A History of the Hip-Hop Generation”, which seems to me to be rather distinct from calling it “A History of Hip-Hop”. Is there a distinction between the two? Read more
Vibe.com and Cantstopwontstop.com
November 5, 2008
Loric Frye. Photo By Paradise Gray (c) 2008
On election day 2000, a new generation battled a legacy of voting irregularities and cynicism to make itself known. Here is the story of one of those young voters, Loric Frye.
Throughout the north side of Pittsburgh, one of the city’s three major Black districts, they lined up before dawn, hundreds deep in the 47-degree weather as if they were waiting for history to be made. Even after the polling places opened into an instant crawl, they kept coming.
And they kept coming all day. Read more
Can't Stop Won't Stop Extras
- A Can’t Stop Won’t Stop Q+A By Oliver Wang
An exclusive interview about the book from 2004 - A Tribute To Richie Perez
The story of one of the Bronx greats–a Young Lord and a mentor to many. - Interviews With The Author
Four years of print, radio, and video interviews with Jeff Chang. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll order Chinese. - Making A Name :: Book Excerpt
It has become myth, a creation myth, this West Bronx party at the end of the summer in 1973… - Writing The Book, Part 1
From 2003, the first blog post on writing “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop”. Can it be that it was all so simple then? - Writing The Book, Part 3 or 2.5
Another blog post on writing “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” from the eve of release. Bonus angst: that vexing “Asian American question”.
The Reader Archive
- Welcome To The Reader
We’re working out the kinks in this as we both add more content and tweak the landing page. Please stay tuned.
Most Popular Topics
- 2008 Elections
Links to Jeff’s coverage of the 2008 elections for Vibe - Hip-Hop Activism
Links to some of Jeff’s articles on hip-hop activism - Music Writing
Links to some of Jeff’s stuff on music writing. Note: We’re currently trying to properly organize this section and upload lots more.
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