Hip-hop is often extolled as an urgent “political” message to mainstream America about the realities of life in black communities. But is there really any meaningful connection between hip-hop and politics? Could there actually be a hip-hop revolution?

In All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America, bestselling author John McWhorter argues that the vast majority of hip-hop music—despite claims to the contrary—has nothing real or significant to offer black America in terms of political activism that can make a meaningful difference.

In this measured, impassioned work, McWhorter maintains that hip-hop, while infectious and finely-crafted music, is overly inflated with a sense of social and political importance. He argues that activism and acting up aren’t the same thing, that hip-hop politics often amount to an upturned middle finger—which is different from really working on how to help people. “A hundred years from now, what will interest people about us today is how we solved our problems, not how eloquently we complained about what caused them,” writes McWhorter.

All About the Beat is not about putting hip-hop down for the violence and misogyny it extols. Instead, McWhorter calls for a new politics for black America, one not based on the false hope that a form of music—no matter how good or inspiring— can lead blacks to advancement.

“This is a remarkable book because, in its way, it celebrates hip-hop even as it argues against its political significance. McWhorter separates the powerful elements of the music itself from the often mindless political pretensions that surround it. He does what only the best cultural critics can do: he parses and clarifies to show the way beyond the dead-ends that art forms inevitably come to. He wants hip-hop to align with logic and reason. He wants it to grow.”

—Shelby Steele, author of The Content of Our Character

“John McWhorter is one of the few of whom it can be said, ‘He thinks for himself and goes his own way.’ In All About the Beat he takes on all of the exaggerated claims for hip-hop as something more than a long-running and lucrative trend. With absolute clarity, he proves them not to be the claims of airheads but airholes—empty openings in the wall of American popular culture. This book is a short but sharp and substantial rebuttal of the academic hustlers, lightweight rabble-rousers, and camp followers who do not know the difference between smoke and fire. For the good of us all, John McWhorter does.”

—Stanley Crouch, author of Considering Genius and The Artificial White Man

Praise for Winning the Race

“Splendid. . . . McWhorter has a keen eye for the foibles of social scientists.”

—The Wall Street Journal

“A provocative challenge to conventional wisdom.”

—USA Today