HOME FEATURES COLUMNS FILM LIT MUSIC BLOG CONTACT		Lit Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA edited by Tony Mitchell Wesleyan University Press ISBN 0-8195-6502-4 (Originally published in the Wire) The amazing thing one realizes after reading Global Noise isn't how popular hip-hop culture has become worldwide, it's how little has been written about it. This new anthology attempts to reverse this trend, and despite its faults, its mere existence contributes greatly to the scant body of work on international hip-hop available in English. Global Noise is edited by Tony Mitchell, an Australian academic who has written extensively on identity formation and musical subcultures in Europe, and he helms this project with commendable intentions. His excellent Introduction suggests an exciting, untapped culture of play and exchange, vernacular and "indigenous languages" assailing both local political regimes and any lingering American hip-hop orthodoxy. He succeeds both in taking chauvinistic American commentators to task and introducing the Cultural Studies idea of the "glocal"-the interplay of a global formation and the local interpretation of that identity-to studies of hip-hop culture. Though Mitchell's aim is true, the anthology's submissions leave a little to be desired. Limited by regional academic and journalistic trends and obvious language barriers, the anthology's submissions rarely strays from its European base. Outside of the standard looks at the German, French and UK scenes, there are solid pieces on the history of rap music and trends in less-publicized European locales like Bulgaria and Italy. Jacqueline Urla's "We Are All Malcolm X!" is a fascinating look at the intersection of the hip-hop diaspora and Basque identity and Ted Swedenburg's chapter on "Islamic Hip-Hop versus Islamophobia" is as interesting and vital as the title would suggest. Perhaps the reason these overviews stand out is because they each focus on a subjugated group's use of hip-hop culture as an alternative political discourse rather than the music's penetration of larger local markets. Both pieces consider language and identity formation as alternative political sites for the subaltern; rather than the more overt methods of protest or activism, they offer compelling pictures of hip-hop's politicizing effect toward articulating Basque and Muslim identity, respectively. Unfortunately, the anthology lacks cogent and consistent analysis of this politics of identity, and the book's failure to cover hip-hop's emergence in Asia and Africa is especially glaring. The race question is rarely addressed adequately by many of the contributors. The collection focuses heavily on hip-hop as outlaw culture rather than examining its relationship toward or against the blacknuss and color of hip-hop's founding. Despite commendable chapters on the history of rap in Korea and Japan, the book as a whole rarely gets to the nuanced discussion of how poses and identities change across borders and lands. Joe Wood's piece on Japan's "Yellow Negro" phenomenon of fake tans, subterranean clubs and black servicemen would have been an interesting addition here. Perhaps the most glaring problem with Global Noise is its dry, academic tone. Most of the entries resemble term papers or dissertation chapters; one often gets the sense that some of the authors see hip-hop with a similar rigidity. The musicological lens offers rigor and formula but little room for feeling and pleasure. Rather than acknowledging the dynamism and instability inherent in the form, hip-hop gets cast as an interchangeable, plug-in value for "youthful rebellion" across the globe, a rigid and readymade pose rather than an identity that adjusts and evolves over time and space. Hip-hop, a culture vibrant with stubborn change , sly shapeshifting and utter contradiction, becomes frozen as Chuck D's "black CNN." In a broader sense, this is true-hip-hop offers release and insight where little constructive alternatives exist. But where most of the authors here view "politics" in strict terms, the possibility for release through dim fantasy, dumb fun or simple wordplay gets shafted. Despite these criticisms, Global Noise is still an essential book in the study of hip-hop culture. It provides historical data and substance where only conjecture and rumor have previously existed, and its generally optimistic feel about rap across the globe suggests hope at a time when hip-hop's Western reality seems tenuous, fragile and dangerously anachronistic.