Losing His Cool: Author Thomas Chatterton Williams Talks the Dangers of Hip-Hop Culture

Growing up in Baltimore City, I know the hip-hop culture well. I was introduced to it at a young age by rappers like Ice Cube, Tupac, and NWA. It is its own self-contained entity, as present and real as a physical being. A driving force, it held me and many of my fellow Baltimoreans in its grip. And not just Baltimoreans; African American youth from all over the world have given themselves, body and soul, to the phenomenon without any consideration of its damaging effects. Freedom from it, however, is not impossible. Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture chronicles one man's journey into and out of the shadows of hip-hop culture.

Author Thomas Chatterton Williams gives readers an intimate picture of a young man of mixed race (his mother was white, his father black). After being mistaken as Caucasian, he determines to prevent it from happening again by mimicking what he sees on Black Entertainment Television. This was the beginning of Williams' desperate journey into hip-hop. The early pages of the book chronicle his introduction into the mindsets of the culture: the degradation of women and exaltation of money. He followed his role models perfectly, wearing expensive clothing and treating women like objects. Most of all, he played down his intelligence to fit the mold rappers like Notorious B.I.G and Dr. Dre cast for him.

At its heart, Williams' story is a cautionary tale. Among the book's more striking moments is one when he realizes that his fellow classmates know more about dead rappers than they do of historic black figures. It's a moment he considers absurd, but not absurd enough for him to abandon his quest to live out what he considered the authentic African American image.

Williams lures readers into his journey with well-crafted sentences and smooth pacing, although be warned that his profanity mirrors the language of the culture, harsh and extreme. He masterfully selects the moments of his life that defined his experiences. He shares the painful realization of his limited knowledge of the world outside the culture while hanging out with a Caucasian fellow student at Georgetown University. And, while hanging out with an old girlfriend, he realizes how hip-hop isolates and fails to prepare its victims for the real world. He tells of others, friends and classmates, who never escaped the grip of the culture and how their lives turned for the worse.

Click here to continue reading.