In Hip Hop World, the latest in the Groundwood Guides series, Toronto-based journalist Dalton Higgins offers an introductory guide to hip hop culture, outlining its South Bronx past and global future. Higgins’s thesis is that as hip hop finds its way around the world, its vitality as the socio-political voice of disenfranchised youth is likely to depend on artists from beyond the borders of the U.S. Indeed, the book’s strongest elements are the descriptions of the hip hop scenes in South Africa, Cuba, and France. At the same time, Higgins insists on the importance of a localized historical consciousness: “Hip hop is for everybody. But every hip hop practitioner needs to understand how hip hop got to the place it is today.”

Hip Hop World distinguishes itself in a couple of ways. First, it discusses the oft-neglected role of beat-boxing (i.e., using the voice as a percussive instrument), something entirely absent from Jeff Chang’s lauded Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. Also, Higgins conducts interviews with international hip hop artists, including Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal and Somali-Canadian rapper K’naan. Given that the teenage audience for Hip Hop World is likely obsessed with Lil’ Wayne, such a broad worldview is useful. Finally, Higgins notes the key roles played by women in hip hop’s formative years – though his complaint that women have altogether disappeared isn’t accurate: major female artists such as Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, and Beyoncé are all integral to hip hop, just not as rappers.

The book does have a few serious problems. In an egregious instance of censoriousness, Higgins suggests all derogatory terms (especially the “N bomb”) “should be removed from all rap albums.” And on occasion, Higgins loses his own historical sense, such as when he posits the West African griot, a kind of wandering musician and bard, as a potential hip hop antecedent and analogue, an idea that has been refuted elsewhere. But then, Higgins isn’t the only one guilty of this kind of thing: rapper/producer The RZA once deemed Jesus the first MC.