Author: Richard Smith
Published: November 30, 2005
Tool: [ email ]
`Da Official Guide To Hip-Hop & Urban Slanguage` - Randy Kearse (Author House)
At the best of times good reviews can sometimes seem hard to come by. When Randy Kearse (AKA `Moe Deezy`) wrote to me personally asking that I comment on his new book, I was equally surprised and moved. While there has never been a statue erected in memory of a critic, we’re obviously doing something right when the creative types contact us directly to help them out on the PR front. But what has Moe D. actually written that he could possibly need my POV? Was it a biography? Was it a gritty urban novel? Was it a book of Tupac-esque poetry? When the second email came back, I discovered that I’d been asked to review a dictionary (as I said, good reviews can sometimes seem hard to come by)
But, as you can see from the title, this isn’t any kind of dictionary. This book (weighing in at an impressive 700 pages) is the most definitive collection of hip-hop/urban slang terms, colloquialisms and turns of phrase that you could ever `buck up on`. Even though I can’t personally envision Kid Rock getting hold of this book to keep on his desk next to his legal notepad, thesaurus and rhyming dictionary – it should be required reading for anyone who has even a passing interest in the genre. I know that many longtime fans might be disappointed that their music is going so mainstream, but if colleges in New Jersey are throwing symposiums on the music of Bruce Springsteen, then the celebration of the words and dialects of the hip-hop and urban cultures deserves to have its day.
All cynicism aside, Kearse has been able to pull the book together in a systematic, even scholarly fashion. Instead of it just being a one-dimensional dictionary, the book distinguishes between East Coast and West Coast, southern and general slang. It also throws in the old and new school turns of phrases that many of the readers will likely be very familiar with. That being said, Kearse unfortunately did pass on the opportunity to start another East Coast vs. West Coast rap war (he didn’t want to suggest or imply that one geographical area slang is better than another) but it’s probably for the best, regardless of how funny it would have been for the press to try and stir the hip-hop regions against each other based on slang. Also I’m still amazed by just how many ways you can refer to the derriere of the fairer sex, but now is neither the time nor place to start expounding on that particular topic.
At the end of the day, an idea as unique and well researched as this book suggests to me that Moe Deezy is not going to become a one-hit wonder (for those of you who get the book, there are a couple of `trailers` nearer the end regarding some of the books he has in the pipeline) Here’s to the first of many… I’m planning on getting myself a plate of barnyard pimp for lunch and using the time to review how one can use the `izz` sound in conversation. Thanks man.
