Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: The Tanning of America

The Tanning of America: how hip-hop created a culture that rewrote the rules of the new economy by Steve Stoute 2011
 
Stoute draws from his wide background in the music industry and brand marketing to bring us his thesis that hip-hop music is the major change agent in American society today.

Stoute chronicles how an upstart art form – street poetry set to a beat – came to define urban culture as the embodiment of cool.  His vision of hip-hop’s morphing into mainstream culture allows him to relate to a new generation of thinking. He illustrates his theory through conversations with and reflections on many well known names in this music genre who are driving the change. 

To his mind, the term ‘tanning’ reflects the mingling of racial characteristics to create an homogeneous economic and societal culture. He sees the streets of large urban centers on both coasts as the melting pot for modern American youth; and he sees this new society spreading across the country.

The Tanning of America is one insider’s close look at the changing mores of 21^st century American society and how a new generation interprets their American dream.