e of names and faces and album covers falls to the background when observing the music within its tightly-woven community. When listening to a freestyle, or a New York DJ's mix tape, it becomes e vident that hip-hop is not about one artist sitting at a desk composing lyrics, or a couple of producers sitting in studio chairs putting a loop together. Rap is about the resonation of an overall sound--a sound that conveys the texture of the black, urban life that creates it. Hip-hop thrives in its tradition and cu lture through its sonic expression, and the creation of the sound is not necessa rily dependent upon the postliterate concept of the "word." Rap has existed and will always exist in a postliterate world, but making connections outside of ra p's technological realm allows us to reveal the music as more than just a by-pro duct of the environment from whence it came. ...
