I spent most of yesterday reading Never Drank The Kool-Aid, a collection of essays by hip-hop journalist Toure. I didn’t plan on this.

I am a fan of Toure’s work. I initially noticed him as a VH1 talking head (15 years late). He was obviously notable because of his writing, not the other way around. I soon began to see his name everywhere, including Rolling Stone, VIBE and The Believer. The latter carried Toure’s excellent interview of Questlove, the leader of the seminal live hip-hop band The Roots, and officially made me a fan of his writing.

As much as I want to believe that a magazine journalist’s career follows a fascinating arc when all the pieces are looked at in one set, not unlike the retrospective of a film auteur, most essay collections from even the most esteemed writers fall flat for me. Absorbing journalist Susan Orlean couldn’t hold my attention with The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup. The White Album lost me after, well, the heartstopping 50-page White Album essay. The rest felt like superbly written ruminations on isolation and loneliness, but which had no real point. I’ve finished almost every book I’ve owned, many I’ve read at least twice (I’ve found books read differently at points in my life). I have yet to finish a collection of essays.

I’m pretty confident I’ll finish Never Drank The Kool-Aid. Aside from handling the intimidating kaleidescope of characters involved with hip-hop over the years (including the most interesting profile I’ve ever read of Suge Knight), Toure also manages, in the simple intro, to explain why this book is a compelling read.

In the summer of 1992, when I was an intern at Rolling Stone, I thought most of the writing I saw about hiphop was facile and viewed rappers with a bit of condenscenstion (except for The Village Voice, which back then covered hiphop better than anyone). I told myself that I would write about hiphop with the goal of expanding the complexity of the conversation about the culture. I wanted people who read my work to be able to talk with their friends about the artist or group on a deeper level.

I have a tendency to make parallels between cultures. Try replacing hiphop with videogames in Toure’s statement and it feels apparent, at least to me, that videogames are in the same boat in 2006. Most major magazines do not have a video game section. If there is one, it is an infrequent, brief collection of reviews. Publications dedicated to video games, responding – understandably – to advertisers, focus on previews, reviews and the next hot thing. There is no Village Voice to follow gaming culture.

There have been some fabulous pieces on video games in The New Yorker and other publications over the years. I’m just skeptical that, despite being an older culture, we would be able to create a journalistic historical narrative comparable to hip hop.

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