From 'Round the Way.

While I appreciated the sophisticated objectivity of 'ROUND THE WAY ("It's Urban, It's Real, But Is It Literature?" BIBR, September-October 2004), as a hip-hop activist and author, it pains me when our community refers to books about street life as "hip-hop fiction."

Hip-hop involves four elements--DJing, MCing, b-boying/b-girling and graffiti. Many of us who work with young people of color use hip-hop as a tool for personal empowerment and social change, employing these elements precisely to entice them away from the lifestyles depicted in these books, to foster an analysis of the social, political and economic conditions that compel too many of our people to adopt these lifestyles and to inspire them to challenge those conditions. This powerful aspect of hip-hop receives little to no media exposure because it poses a threat to the status quo, who prefer to equate all of hip-hop subculture with the narrow subgenre of the music industry known as "gangsta rap."

It unsettles me when we ourselves imitate the racism of the mainstream media by unequivocally equating hip-hop with drugs, gangs and crime. None of the tides listed in 'ROUND THE WAY have anything to do with bona fide hip-hop. This is not to take away from the brothers and sisters who have found their voice and an audience for their stories based on street life, especially those who have lived their tales, paid the price and have chosen another path.

As an activist and artist, I use hip-hop to meet young people where they are and try to take them someplace better, and stories narrowly about "the game" does not hip-hop make.

Black Artemis

Bronx, NY