Kevin Phinney and watkins talks somethin bout eminem(healthy

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50,000,000 Eminem Fans Can't be Wrong
A UT professor and a KGSR deejay discuss the eternal problem of race and American music

Kevin Phinney
What: Book release party
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Book People, 603 N. Lamar Blvd.
Tickets: 472-5050


S. Craig Watkins
What: Discussion and signing
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Book People, 603 N. Lamar Blvd.
Tickets: 472-5050

By Joe Gross

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Two Austinites have recently released compelling books on race and pop music. One of them, Kevin Phinney, is best known as half of KGSR's drive-time team Kevin and Kevin, but he's also a journalist (formerly with the Austin American-Statesman, among others). His book, "Souled American," traces the racial math of American music from before Stephen Foster to Louis Armstrong to James Brown to whoever might come after 50 Cent. The other writer, S. Craig Watkins, teaches cultural and media studies at the University of Texas, and his book, "Hip Hop Matters," engages all sorts of debates within hip-hop, from the dominance of the bling-bling lifestyle to the genre's revolutionary potential.

As both men will be making public appearances in Austin this week, we brought them together to talk about race, music and the hypnotic power of Eminem.

Austin American-Statesman: So what are the central theses of your books?

S. Craig Watkins: I'm intrigued by the debate within hip-hop about hip-hop. I think most people recognize that hip-hop has this interesting relationship to so-called "mainstream America" and that it's been a strained relationship at best, an outright hostile one at worst. But there are similar kinds of tensions within hip-hop, even though there's this public perception of it as a monolithic movement. I also think hip-hop's sphere of influence has extended way beyond music into all facets of youth culture, advertising, fashion, language, sense of style and attitude toward the world.

Kevin Phinney: The thesis of my book is really simple: The differences between us are not nearly as great as the commonalities among us. Over and over again, we see this cycle repeating where black people and white people don't see each other clearly. For example, there are two prevailing stereotypes from the early days of minstrelsy. There was Zip Coon, a fellow who was known as a dandy and given to malapropism. We saw that image resurface in the blaxpoitation era with the pimp and now with someone like Outkast's Andre 3000. You also had the bedraggled bluesman known as Jim Crow. 50 Cent is perceived in some corners of the marketplace as a descendant of that image. Again, these are not real people, these are types.

Watkins: What makes an Andre 3000 or a 50 Cent an arresting figure is that they are very familiar with some of this history, in terms of being savvy about media images, particularly as it relates to race and ethnicity. To an extent, they are playing with these images in an attempt to defy or subvert the stereotype. But there's slippage there, too. 50 Cent comes to mind because some would argue that he, like a lot of so-called "hard-core" rappers, harkens back to some of these distilled images of black masculinity that still operate on racist notions.

It seems as though mainstream R&B and hip-hop are dominating culture like never before. Has this happened in the same way it happened with rock 'n' roll, where 20 years after its introduction, suddenly everything on the pop charts was rock 'n' roll?

Watkins: I think it's a different dynamic. There are a few things I found during research for my book. One, no one saw this coming, how hip-hop stormed the pop charts, how it "remixed" American music. And even as it was happening, people were denying that it was happening. It wasn't until Billboard started using Soundscan (a computerized method of tracking music sales) to compile its charts that, to the surprise of everyone, rap and country music came to a prominence that neither had enjoyed before. They were both perceived as music with a regional interest. There was also a rejection of hip-hop within the world of R&B