Cider Mill Press, distributed by Sterling, is fllipping the script on the ever-growing collection of books on the history of hip-hop (see “The Hip-Hop Library” and a forthcoming review of Total Chaos, a new collection of hip-hop scholarship): out in January is Hip-Hop U.S. History, which includes a CD and lyrics of original raps for high school students on history “from Columbus to the Civil Rights Era.” 

With praise for this “Flocabulary” series from Cornel West, TIME OUT New York, and MTV News, a look at the educational lyrics is disappointing: “Thirty thousand years ago some dudes / came across the Bearing Strait wearing snowshoes. / Eskimos chasing woolly mammoth, / Ice Age white like dandruff.” And the actual beef of the information, the stuff on tests, is in ordinary text-book prose in the margins.

This idea may work on TV (a la School House Rock), but I have trouble imagining a teenager that would be seen carrying this book or letting the beat to ”It’s the U.S. (Bust the A)” seep out of iPod ear buds. Thanks for the option, but I’ll stick with the history of hip-hop over the hip-hop of history.