View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.
"The New H.N.I.C. brilliantly observes pivotal moments in hip
hop and black culture as a whole... provocative[ly] raises the
level of the hip hop discussion."
--"Black Issues Book Review"
"It was naive for Todd Boyd to subtitle his book "The Death of
Civil Rights and the Birth of Hip Hop," and not to expect people to
wig out."
--"Punk Planet"
"Stand back! Todd Boyd brings the ruckus in this provocative
look at how hip hop changed everything from the jailhouse to the
White House--and why it truly became the voice of a new
generation."
--Alan Light, Editor-in-Chief, "Spin Magazine"
aElegantly script[s] the fall of the previous generation
alongside the rise of a new hip-hop ethosa]. ["The New H.N.I.C"] is
built on the provocative premise that this generation's hip-hop
culture has come to supersede the previous one's paradigm of civil
rights. Highlighting various moments in recent rap historyathe
controversy over OutKast's naming a single after Rosa Parks; the
white negro-isms of EminemaBoyd offers hip-hop as the most suitable
access point for understanding the social, political, and cultural
experiences of African Americans born after the civil rights
period.a
--"Village Voice"
"Those who are hip have always known that Black music is about
more than simply nodding your head, snapping your fingers, and
patting your feet. Like the proverbial Dude, back on the block, Dr.
Todd Boyd, in his groundbreaking book The New H.N.I.C., tells us
that like the best of this oral tradition, hip hop is a philosophy
and worldview rooted in history and at the same time firmly of the
moment. Dr. Boyd's improvisational flow is onpoint like be bop
Stacy Adams and The New H.N.I.C., in both style and substance,
breaks down how this monumental cultural shift has come to redefine
the globe. With mad props and much love, Dr. Boyd's The New
H.N.I.C. is the voice of a generation and stands poised at the
vanguard of our future."
--Quincy Jones
"A convincing and entertaining case that hip-hop matters, Boyd's
reading [of hip hop] is nothing less than inspired."
--"Mother Jones"
"If you want to understand the direction of music today, read
this book. Boyd expertly chronicles the birth of Hip Hop, its
impact on all music and how the language and music defines a
generation."
--Tom Freston, CEO, MTV Networks
"Boyd's main observation is simple and mostly true: "Hip-hop has
rejected and now replaced the pious, sanctimonious nature of civil
rights as the defining moment of Blackness."
--"Los Angeles Times"
When Lauryn Hill stepped forward to accept her fifth Grammy
Award in 1999, she paused as she collected the last trophy, and
seeming somewhat startled said, "This is crazy, 'cause this is hip
hop music.'" Hill's astonishment at receiving mainstream acclaim
for music once deemed insignificant testifies to the explosion of
this truly revolutionary art form. Hip hop music and the culture
that surrounds it--film, fashion, sports, and a whole way of
being--has become the defining ethos for a generation. Its
influence has spread from the state's capital to the nation's
capital, from the Pineapple to the Big Apple, from 'Frisco to
Maine, and then on to Spain.
But moving far beyond the music, hip hop has emerged as a social
and cultural movement, displacing the ideas of the Civil Rights
era. Todd Boydmaintains that a new generation, having grown up in
the aftermath of both Civil Rights and Black Power, rejects these
old school models and is instead asserting its own values and
ideas. Hip hop is distinguished in this regard because it never
attempted to go mainstream, but instead the mainstream came to hip
hop.
The New H.N.I.C., like hip hop itself, attempts to keep it real,
and challenges conventional wisdom on a range of issues, from
debates over use of the "N-word," the comedy of Chris Rock, and the
"get money" ethos of hip hop moguls like Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and
Russell Simmons, to hip hop's impact on a diverse array of figures
from Bill Clinton and Eminem to Jennifer Lopez.
Maintaining that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream"
speech is less important today than DMX's "It's Dark and Hell is
Hot," Boyd argues that Civil Rights as a cultural force is dead,
confined to a series of media images frozen in another time. Hip
hop, on the other hand, represents the vanguard, and is the best
way to grasp both our present and future.
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