To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip-Hop Aesthetic
Starred Review.Hip-hop "freestyle," according to Cobb, assistant professor of history  at Spelman College, is an extension of "the dozens"—exchanging barbs using  "the rapid-fire calculation of speed chess combined with the language  virtuosity of a poetry recital." Cobb subtitles his book a freestyle, and on  literally every page he displays a tremendous command of language and history  as he "examines the aesthetic, stylistic, and thematic evolution of hip hop  from its inception in the South Bronx to the present era." But make no mistake:  this groundbreaking work is an artfully constructed and vividly written look at  "the artistic evolution of rap music and its relationship to earlier forms of  black expression." Cobb brilliantly displays how hip-hop has its own aesthetic  in five sections: hip-hop's relationship to ancestral forms of African-American  culture; the history of its aesthetic evolution; its use of the "entire palette  of poetic techniques"; the influence of the storytelling tradition, especially  black autobiography; and studies of seven important artists in the field, from  Rakim to the Notorious B.I.G. Much of the book's pleasure also comes from  Cobb's ability to "freestyle" serious and humorous insights—from how artists  such as Tupac and Nas sometimes "stepped outside the conventions of hip-hop to  pen sympathetic narratives about the sexual exploitation of young women," to  how LL Cool J's pioneering "I Need a Beat" sounded "like he'd raided every  entry in an SAT book."(Feb.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.