A NEW YORKER & GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

A love letter to the verbal artistry of hip-hop, What's Good is a work of passionate lyrical analysis

"What's Good is, among a great many other things, a byproduct of joyful obsession and immersion into both language and sound, an intersection that offers a rich and expansive land upon which to play." -Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

" . . . an often hilarious, surprisingly moving and always joyful paean to rap's relationship to words."-Jayson Greene, The New York Times

"Rap, he is not afraid to say, is as close to a universal tongue as we have."-Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

What's Good is a work of passionate lyrical analysis, a set of freewheeling liner notes, and a love letter to the most vital American art form of the last half century. Over a series of short chapters, each centered on a different lyric, Daniel Levin Becker considers how rap's use of language operates and evolves at levels ranging from the local (slang, rhyme) to the analytical (quotation, transcription) to the philosophical (morality, criticism, irony), celebrating the pleasures and perils of any attempt to decipher its meaning-making technologies.

Ranging from Sugarhill Gang to UGK to Young M.A, Rakim to Rick Ross to Rae Sremmurd, Jay-Z to Drake to Snoop Dogg, What's Good reads with the momentum of a deftly curated mixtape, drawing you into the conversation and teaching you to read it as it goes. A book for committed hip-hop heads, curious neophytes, armchair linguists, and everyone in between.

"For those of us who love rap, What's Good is a gift. The book offers a new set of eyes and ears through which to see and to hear the language of rap. Its brief and brilliant chapters are like the best kinds of freestyles: spontaneous and structured, startling and profound. A remarkable achievement." -Adam Bradley, author of Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop

"Could this be the rap equivalent of Lewis Hyde's The Gift or Marina Warner's Once Upon A Time? Anyhow, it's an electrifying book, full of wild epiphanies and provocations, an exhibition of a critical mind in full and open contact with their subject at the highest level, with a winning streak of confessional intimacy as well." -Jonathan Lethem, author of The Arrest: A Novel

"What's Good is a feat of critical precision and personal obsession: Daniel Levin Becker's deep appreciation for rap is rangy and illuminating, and his delight in language is infectious. What a thrill to swing so gracefully from Lil Wayne to Mary Ruefle to the lyrical evolution of 'tilapia'; pure pleasure. A generous, joyful exegesis."-Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley: A Memoir

• Galleys are available upon request.
• We'll pursue the ABA's IndieNext campaign for February 2022
• The national media campaign will focus on music and literature journals, blogs, podcasts, radio shows, and more. We'll pursue reviews, interviews, profiles, and excerpts.
• We will plan an international media campaign given the worldwide popularity of hip hop and rap, as well as author's home base of Paris.
• Author is from Chicago and a graduate of Yale University. We'll pursue regional media in Illinois, and alumni publications associated with the school.
• We'll promote the book via its Soundcloud playlist, currently posted on the site.
• The social media campaign includes promotion of the book on the author's own accounts, as well as City Lights.
• Will pursue the production of short "music videos" for Instagram featuring commentary by the author.
• Academic marketing: The book is of interest to academics, as well as lay readers, and we will pursue a variety of disciplines including English, Rhetoric, African American Studies, Music, and more.

About the Author
Daniel Levin Becker is a critic, editor, and translator from Chicago. An early contributing editor to the groundbreaking lyrics annotation site Rap Genius, he has written about music for The Believer, NPR, SF Weekly, and Dusted Magazine, among others. His first book, Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature (Harvard UP, 2012), recounts his induction into the French literary collective Oulipo, of which he became the youngest member in 2009. His published translations include Georges Perec's La Boutique Obscure (Melville House, 2013), Eduardo Berti's An Ideal Presence (Fern Books, 2021), and Serge Haroche's The Science of Light (Odile Jacob, 2021). He is also co-translator and co-editor of All That Is Evident Is Suspect: Readings from the Oulipo 1963-2018 (McSweeney's, 2018) and the editor of Dear McSweeney's: Two Decades of Letters to the Editor from Writers, Readers, and the Occasional Bewildered Consumer (McSweeney's, 2021). Levin Becker is a founding editor of Fern Books, English editor for the French nonfiction publisher Odile Jacob, senior editor at McSweeney's Publishing, and a longtime contributing editor to The Believer. He lives in Paris.

Reviews

Praise for What's Good:

". . . this ode to rap is sure to surprise and delight. . . . Open to any bite-sized chapter and you're sure to find some tantalizing tidbit worth your time."-Grace Utomo, Rain Taxi Review of Books

"Written in short, savorably dense chapters, What's Good manages to be many kinds of books at the same time. It's exhaustive - in its command of rap lyrics, in its ear for modulations in meaning and tone, in its ability to straddle the complexities of race and identity as they converge in rap . . . "-Aaron Peck, Los Angeles Review of Books

"A book filled with such love and thoughtfulness and fun has to come from a fan; who but a genuine devotee would use his introductory chapter to provide a deep reading of 50 Cent's 'In Da Club?'"-Adam Ellsworth, The Arts Fuse

"Music aficionados and hip-hop lovers will savor every bit."-Publishers Weekly

"His book performs a unique and exciting rhetorical move, presenting itself as a sort of freestyle in its own right: short, punchy chapters that each focus on a single lyric."-ALTA

"There is so much I admire about Daniel Levin Becker's What's Good: how knowledgeable it is, how synoptic, how precise, persuasive, and risky; I love its savvy politics, its passion, its aching, tragic heart."-David Shields, author of Black Planet: Facing Race during an NBA Season

"All in all, What's Good is an enlightening, self-aware, and deeply satisfying look at the wondrous ways rap music uses language. It is absolutely essential reading on hip-hop-and one of the smartest books about music I've read."-Ian Port, author of The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll

"What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language is a celebration of the artistry and craft of rap lyrics written in a way that only Daniel Levin Becker could, with his sharp eye for linguistic experimentation and his appreciation for the ways rappers have been able to turn English inside out. His fascination is contagious as he revels in the incredible vitality of this ever-morphing lexicon, from its rhymes to its slang to its creation of new modes of meaning. It's the book us lovers of music and language had no idea we needed."-Emma Ramadan, Riffraff Books, Providence, RI

"Characterized with a clear love for hip-hop, Daniel Levin Becker's What's Good is a joyful and deep dive into the many wonders of hip-hop as an art form."-Bennard Fajardo, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington DC

"Exceptionally well written, impressively informed and informative, and an absorbing read from cover to cover, What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language will have particular interest for poets, literary critics, authors and lyricists. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language is an extraordinary and highly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Contemporary Literary Criticism collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists."-Micah Andrew, Midwest Library Review

"What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language is a studied, well-researched, critical, and loving exploration of the wit, humor, nuance, intelligence, meaning-making, truth telling, occasional hyperbolic absurdity, and craft of the MC and, in turn, Hip Hop culture. Becker approaches the topic with the care, competence, and appreciation of a lifelong Hip Hop aficionado and, as a result, What's Good is a remarkable achievement that deserves a place in any Hip Hop studies collection."-Craig Arthur, Virginia Tech, College & Research Libraries

Book Information
ISBN 9780872868762
Author Daniel Levin Becker
Format Paperback
Page Count 200
Imprint City Lights Books
Publisher City Lights Books