Paul Edwards and the Lasting Influence of Brian Coleman’s “Check the Technique”
About the interviewee: Paul Edwards is the author of three hip-hop books: The Concise Guide to Hip-Hop Music (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2015), How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-Hop MC (Chicago Review Press, 2009) and How to Rap 2: Advanced Flow and Delivery Techniques (Chicago Review Press, 2013).
Edwards has interviewed more than 100 rappers and has done extensive research on rappers’ creative processes, musical theories, and lyrics. He is regarded as a leading expert on hip-hop and rap, and has been referred to as “the Aristotle of Hip-Hop poetics” by internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet Dana Gioia. He holds a master’s degree in postmodernism, literature, and contemporary culture from University of London.
Gino: How did you discover Check the Technique?
Paul: Sometime in early 2007 I heard that Check the Technique was coming out. I can’t remember how exactly, but it was a few months before the release. I might have seen it listed on Amazon actually. And just from the description I knew it was going to be incredible, with all those classic albums and info direct from the artists.
Gino: Did you read Rakim Told Me, Brian’s earlier book of classic rap album interviews before Check the Technique? If so, can you talk a little bit about the differences between the two? I know there was some overlap in albums chosen.
Paul: I read Check the Technique first. I think when I discovered Check the Technique, that’s also when I became aware of his previous book, Rakim Told Me, as Check the Technique was billed as “an updated and hugely expanded edition of the underground classic Rakim Told Me.”
I was living in the Middle East at the time and going back to England every so often, so I figured I’d wait for Check the Technique to come out rather than try to get Rakim Told Me, as Check the Technique was easier for me to get hold of. It was on a big publisher, Random House, and their distribution reached the places I was living, while Rakim Told Me had been self-published, so was a little harder to get hold of at the time.
I got Rakim Told Me much, much later, direct from Brian Coleman . It’s an incredible book in its own right and has several albums that aren't covered in Check the Technique, such as albums by Special Ed, The DOC, and Dana Dane. I also like having it just as a piece of history, seeing as this is how hip-hop music is being documented and preserved in the long run.
I think books like Check the Technique and Rakim Told Me are particularly important to do at this point in hip-hop history, while we still have the potential to ask all these historical figures how they make their music. Because in the future, decades from now when some of these artists aren't around, scholars will be like, “Did anyone actually ask these artists how they made their best albums or how they learned to rap or what techniques they use?” And you want them to be able to say, “Yeah, this stuff was documented and we don’t have to just guess how they did things, we have all the information right here in these books that were written.”
Other genres don’t always have that, they often have to make do now with the little scraps of info that are left because people at the time didn’t go all-out to try to get it all down on paper. So I think it’s a big responsibility and I’m glad Brian Coleman is one of the people who stepped up to that responsibility and gathered so much of the artists’ words and preserved them in books.
Gino: How did Brian Coleman’s interviewing and writing style influence the way you conducted interviews with rappers for your How to Rap books?
Paul: Well, in 2007, when I found out that Check the Technique was about to come out, I had just begun doing the interviews for my first book, How to Rap — I think I had about 10–15 interviews done at that point. So I got in contact with Brian Coleman to see if he could take a look at what I was doing and if he could give me some feedback on it. He was incredibly generous with his time and gave me advice on a whole range of things from interviews to getting photos.
I had been wondering whether to include the interviews I was doing in their own section at the back of How to Rap, or if I should spread them out throughout the book. Brian was like, “Don’t put them at the end, put them throughout the book, as it’ll bring all the techniques to life.” Another key thing he said which really influenced me was that he liked to have twice as many words from the artists than from himself. I really liked that idea, as it puts the people who made the music front-and-center and it gives the book a really great mix of personalities.
“Another key thing he said which really influenced me was that he liked to have twice as many words from the artists than from himself. I really liked that idea, as it puts the people who made the music front-and-center.”
Then when Check the Technique came out a few months later I got it right away and it totally set the standard for me for what hip-hop books could and should be like. There are a lot of different ways to write good hip-hop books, but his style was the most appealing to me. It was clear, precise, and authoritative and he filled the book with tons of direct quotes from the actual artists. He never “got in the way” of the artists, so to speak. He let them have their full say and held their voices up above his own.
His whole approach inspired me to go out and get as much information from as many notable rappers as I could, so that I’d have a lot of material to work with and so that I could bring new insights and information to the table. I interviewed 104 rappers in total and there was enough information for two books, How to Rap and How to Rap 2.
Also, the parts that I was particularly drawn to in Check the Technique were actually the track-by-track breakdowns. I liked how that layout created a really clear and organized structure and I liked how it looked aesthetically on the page. The style I use is influenced a lot by those parts . I have clear headings for different topics in the same way Check the Technique divided the quotes up by track name. I also love the parts where he goes through the backstory to each album, though in my books I’m not normally telling a story. I’m usually trying to organize lots of information in a logical way so that it’s easy to process and sort through, so the track-by-track parts fit what I was trying to do more than the backstory parts.
My third book, The Concise Guide to Hip-Hop Music, has been a little different, as I used a mixture of quotes from interviews I did alongside quotes from various outside sources, while the How to Rap books were created entirely from my own interviews. But even though the third book has that mixture of sources, I still kept the same layout with lots of block quotes, so that influence from Check the Technique is still there.
“When Check the Technique came out a few months later I got it right away and it totally set the standard for me for what hip-hop books could and should be like…It was clear, precise, and authoritative.”
Gino: You hit the nail on the head when you said Brian never “got in the way” of the artists talking about their craft. He is great at taking a back seat and letting the artists shine. Are Brian’s books the must successful examples of rap music oral history ever created? From my experience, I’ve never read a book that does a better job of documenting the history of rap music.
Paul: Yes, definitely as far as the golden age time period — he’s leagues ahead in documenting that era. I should probably mention that there are surprisingly few books that cover that era in any depth, so it’s not like there is loads of competition, but even if there were a lot of books, I imagine his would still be out in front.
The other book that really stands out to me as far as documenting the history, and one that I return to again and again, is Yes Yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History Of Hip-hop’s First Decade by Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn. That’s a goldmine of information from the old school era, it has so many of the key pioneers interviewed and it covers a lot of topics. That’s probably the one book I’d recommend the most for the early history.
Yes Yes Y’all is written sort of like Brian Coleman’s work and my own, as it’s full of direct quotes, though it’s a little different in that it’s more of a traditional oral history. It uses longer quotes arranged both chronologically and by theme without additional writing to segue from one quote to the next. I really like that way of doing it as well, and it fits perfectly with the style of that book.
Gino: Coleman is a master of storytelling through interviews. His interviews flow perfectly and have great structure. For aspiring music journalists, is this an essential skill for conducting and writing interviews?
Paul: Yeah — when you’re interviewing for a book you try to ask questions that are clear and will lead to information that you want to include in your book, but it also depends a lot on the artist and how he or she is feeling that day and at that time. You get some artists who want to keep giving you more and more great material and some who just aren’t in the mood to open up. Or sometimes they want to tell you, but they simply can’t remember how they did something.
I think what Brian Coleman did with Check the Technique was especially impressive because if he had done an interview that didn’t go so well, that could have messed up a whole chapter, especially if it was with one of the major players on a certain album. For me it was a little easier because if one rapper didn’t want to talk about a specific technique, I could always just go and ask ten more rappers about that same technique until someone gave me some good information. But if you’re doing a chapter on a specific album, if the person who made all the music doesn’t want to tell you about it, then you’re a bit stuck, so it was amazing that Brian managed to not only get hold of so many of the people he needed, but that he managed to get enough out of them all as well.
I think a lot of the structural stuff for a book also comes in editing once the interviews are done. When you’re interviewing for a book you’re normally going to be arranging it all later, so you approach it differently than you would a “normal” interview where the interview is presented “as it happened.” In your mind as you’re doing the interview you’re kinda going, “OK, this piece could fit over in that section of the book, that sentence would be a good one to explain this thing over here,” that sort of thing. So there are different interviewing approaches based on whether you’re trying to have an interesting conversation or whether you’re trying to get very specific pieces of information.
If it’s for a book where it’s going to be rearranged chronologically or broken down into topics, a lot of work goes into arranging the material from the interviews. I don’t know how Brian sorted out all the quotes from his interviews, but the way I did it was I had a crazy database set up when I was doing How to Rap with all the quotes sorted by theme and topic.
Gino: Did you read a physical copy of the book or an e-book?
Paul: I read a physical copy . I have quite a few e-books, but to be honest I really prefer physical copies and I get them more often if it’s convenient. It’s also easier to flip back and forth through a physical book and make lots of notes, I find. My copy of Check the Technique is well worn with notes and little bookmarks stuck to certain pages, that kind of thing.
Gino: What is your favorite section/sections? Mine are probably the Black Moon or De La Soul sections.
Paul: I think the first ones I went to immediately were the Cypress Hill, Pharcyde, and Wu-Tang Clan chapters and they were all superb. Also, in the sequel Check the Technique Vol. 2, my favorites were the Kool G Rap and Ice Cube chapters. I also love that there are some of the lesser known classics covered too, because it means they’re properly documented now. For some albums, the Check the Technique books are really the only places that cover them in any substantial way, and if they weren’t in there then those insights could have been lost forever.
“For some albums, the Check the Technique books are really the only places that cover them in any substantial way, and if they weren’t in there then those insights could have been lost forever.”
Gino: With the release of Check the Technique Vol. 2, how well do you expect both books to hold up over time? What will their legacy be?
Paul: I think their legacy and importance will keep growing exponentially over time. I think part of the importance comes from the fact that Coleman decided to put this information specifically in books, rather than in another medium like magazines or on the internet. Books are one of the best ways to preserve information, especially once you start getting lots of them printed up and spread around and kept in libraries.
Magazines are cool, though they tend to be more disposable and the information is often spread out over hundreds of issues, so it’s hard to find the information you want sometimes. The internet is incredible and allows all types of things to be put up with unlimited length, links, video, and it’s usually easy to search through too. But over the years I’ve seen many hip-hop sites go down, never to return. Some of them had really important interviews and information on them, so nowadays anything I see on the internet that looks even slightly historically important, I save it to my computer immediately! There have been many times where I’ve thought, “Hey, didn’t KRS say that in an interview one time?” and I go to look for it and the site is gone or has wiped all its archives.
I think over time, more and more of the important information on the internet will sadly be eroded, just because of the ever-evolving nature of the internet, while Coleman’s books will still be there as resources for whoever wants them, whether it’s in book stores, second hand stores, libraries, or from friends.
On top of that, it’s also the information that Coleman chose to cover. Those classic albums will pretty much always be classic, unless there is some crazy critical reappraisal that happens, but that’s unlikely. So he’s covering ground that will always be relevant to hip-hop fans and scholars, because it’s timeless and it’s from such a pivotal time in hip-hop’s history. His books will always be a reference for the creation and development of the genre.
Most people like to jump on whatever is happening right now as it always seems important at the time, but so much of it ends up not even being a footnote in the larger history. So I think his books’ legacy will be that they are a permanent and thorough documentation of one of the most important times in hip-hop music’s history.
“I think over time, more and more of the important information on the internet will sadly be eroded, just because of the ever-evolving nature of the internet, while Coleman’s books will still be there as resources for whoever wants them.”
Gino: What other books about rap music should fans of Rakim Told Me, Check the Technique, and Check the Technique Vol. 2 check out?
Paul: Along with Yes Yes Y’all, which I mentioned previously, and of course my own books, these are my personal favorites:
Making Beats by Joseph Schloss and Groove Music by Mark Katz.
These two books focus on the DJ/beatmaking side of hip-hop and both of them are excellent. They use lots of primary source quotes to back everything up and they both ask a lot of interesting questions about the music that you don’t really find anywhere else.
There’s a God on the Mic by Kool Moe Dee.
This one seems kind of harder to get hold of now as I think it went out of print, but it is definitely worth tracking down. Kool Moe Dee is one of the key foundational MCs who really helped to develop the craft of MCing early on and in the book he goes through his “top 50” MCs. It’s unique as it’s not the sort of book most musicians usually write . It’s not an autobiography or his thoughts on life or anything like that. It’s a master of an art form discussing that art form in depth and critiquing other masters of it, which is incredibly rare in music book writing.
Bookshelf Beats is a website run by Gino Sorcinelli. I interview people about books that change their lives, inspire them, and/or make them think differently. If you enjoyed this article consider subscribing to my Medium publication.
