Anthology of Rap

The (long-awaited) Anthology of Rap, published by Yale University Press, is finally out. As this slate article discusses (http://www.slate.com/id/2272926/), there is a controversy that a number of the lyrics contain errors and that those errors make it appear that the editors merely copied the lyrics from a number of websites.

Because I am still waiting to get my copy in the mail, I cannot quite speak to every aspect of the controversy. However, I do think the slate article and the many comments to it miss some key issues:

• The editors and scholars more generally are not simply printing the lyrics but "translating" them. Most rap songs are oral texts, not written ones. This means that there is not an authoritative text as in a poem or a short story. In addition, many rappers and emcees, such as Jay Z and Kanye, intentionally don't write things down.
• As I have argued elsewhere, hip-hop is full of irony and ambiguity. As some folks note in the comments, one of the pleasures of hip-hop is how it can be impossible to figure out exactly what the rapper's intended meaning was. Sometimes the meaning might be "both".
• Frequently, hip-hop is extremely local. This, combined with it being an oral form, means that many listeners - myself included - have only been hearing the "incorrect" lyrics because we miss the local context/meaning. While I agree that this kind of collection ought to be more precise, it does raise the question about a form that intends to create such interpretative barriers.
• It also seems like the problem with the transcriptions is overshadowing a more crucial question about whether the editors picked the right songs to include. Should this collection follow popular taste or embody a scholarly consensus of the most important hip-hop songs? What kind of rubric ought they have followed to determined either or both of these lists?

I am still excited to get my hands on the book and to use it (eventually) in my classes!