Bad boys for life

References to rap, hip-hop, bling and life in ‘da hood’ are a rare sight on literary pages. But, in his donnish but beery style, Will Self piloted through his love-hate affair with the genre in the Times recently. Decoded, a new book by one of the proponents of rap-as-literature, Jay Z, comes in for some head-patting, while the Guardian critically dissects the book. (You can read excerpts from Decoded here).

The debate about lyrics as literature is timeless. Bob Dylan’s verbal outpourings are usually cited as proof, none more so than by his most unlikely champion, Sir Christopher Ricks. Whether the men of letters are genuine or just wanting to get all down and happening with the yoof remains to be seen. Self gently mocks Seamus Heaney’s infamous words (apparently quoted on the back of Eminem’s book The Way I Am): ‘There is this guy Eminem. He has created a sense of what is possible.