Sometimes,
The New Republic’s cluelessness about race was almost comic. A 1991
piece by David Samuels—under the headline “The ‘Black Music’ That Isn’t Either”—assured the magazine’s readers that rap music was neither black nor music, and would be a passing fad. “Whatever its continuing significance in the realm of racial politics, rap’s hour as innovative popular music has come and gone,” Samuels wrote. The issue’s cover showed a white teenager as “The Real Face of Rap.”
