Review: Why Bushwick Bill Matters, by Charles L. Hughes

Abstract

Book Review| June 01 2022 Review: Why Bushwick Bill Matters, by Charles L. Hughes Charles L. Hughes. Why Bushwick Bill Matters. Austin: University of Texas Press. 2021. 208 pp. Antonia Randolph Antonia Randolph University of North Carolina Email: antonia.randolph@unc.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Popular Music Studies (2022) 34 (2): 149–151. https://doi.org/10.1525/jpms.2022.34.2.149 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Antonia Randolph; Review: Why Bushwick Bill Matters, by Charles L. Hughes. Journal of Popular Music Studies 1 June 2022; 34 (2): 149–151. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jpms.2022.34.2.149 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of Popular Music Studies Search When popular culture puts its “freaks” on display, as U.S. talk shows did with gender and sexual non-conforming people during 1980s and 90s, the so-called freaks often seem more sympathetic than the audience members who spew prejudice at them.1 Charles L. Hughes makes a similar case with society’s treatment of Bushwick Bill, a little person who was one-third of the classic line-up of Houston’s Southern rap forerunners, the Geto Boys. A strength of Why Bushwick Bill Matters is Hughes’s unflinching portrayal of how both band members and critics reduced Bushwick Bill to stereotypes about his physical disabilities. Yet, Hughes shows that Bushwick Bill rejected the goal of respectability, where “freaks talk back” to an uncomprehending audience to gain social acceptance by showing how similar they are to “normal” people.2 Instead, Bushwick Bill emerges as a more complicated figure who rejected the role of poster child for anything, including... You do not currently have access to this content.