Westsiders: Stories of the Boys in the Hood Book

After Travellers and Spying in Guru Land, William "West Side" Shaw, in his third book, continues his preoccupation with those on the fringes of so-called respectable society by turning his sights on South Central Los Angeles and the careers of seven aspiring young rappers. C-Double-E and Blue Diamond may have started life as Hermann Collins and Michael Bracks but to reach the top they, like the others, need to be reborn and clad in the emperor's new clothes to embark on the dizzying milk round of recording, talent shows, hustling and wearying inertia as they seek the holy grail of a recording contract and, most of all, Respect. Their talents vary and mostly follow a depressingly dead-end course but one ends up with a break, which in its way justifies all their hopes in this artistic lottery. The didactic literalism of their syncopated patter, jousting with couplets of "spectacular vernacular", betrays metaphorical lives on the economic underbelly of the American Dream. It's a world away from the people who might listen to their polemic; rap is the music and hip hop a lifestyle but here South Central is for real.Negotiating similar ground to William Finnegan's Cold New World but carrying its bones less heavily, Shaw scans the real and imagined South Central seeking out the habitués of its shadowy margins, determined to uncover the lives behind the myths. Hip hop has become the darling of certain academics but what Shaw finds, apart from conspiracy theories, horrifying death rates and universal "dreaming of greatness", is desperately vulnerable men struggling with their fractured identities, often without fathers, caught up in the grimly violent struggles of gangs. It's all about colour: black or white, Blood red or Crip blue, as they either shoot bullets or word plays at their adversaries. You may prefer your beats unbroken or your jeans less baggy but that is precisely why this should prove an informative and challenging account of the people inside the genre, fabled for its oral tradition but here proving its worth on the page. --David VincentRead More