Chinaka Hodge came of age along with hip-hop--and its influence on her suitors became inextricable from their personal interactions. Form blends with content in Dated Emcees as she examines her love life through the lens of hip-hop's best known orators, characters, archetypes and songs, creating a new and inventive narrative about the music that shaped the craggy heart of a young woman poet, just as it also changed the global landscape of pop.
"The lyrical exuberance of poet and playwright Hodge has been showcased on stage and on screen The double meaning of her first collection allude to the speaker in Hodge's poems having relationships with figureheads of hip-hop, from well-known rappers to broke-down hustlers, and having grown up during the genre's golden age. But Hodge backs away from nostalgia and instead confronts the frustrating
Booklist
"Cleverly shifting hip-hop's traditionally masculine focus, Hodge underscores the overlooked stories of women via persona poems ripe with color and sharp imagery. The strength of her speakers' voices are particularly noteworthy in the first-person poems, the women loving the voices of the men who surround them, but standing powerfully on their own. She also makes reference to anonymous working mot
Publishers Weekly
"Ultimately, this is a book that begs to be read over and over, like a favorite album that you play morning 'til night, until you know the lyrics, secret messages, and hard-won insights as intimately as you know your own beating heart. Dated Emcees is another gem from one of Oakland's best."
