Hip-hop is hardly the sum of the images you see on video shows or the sounds you hear on commercial radio stations. The truth is: at its most elemental, hip-hop remains a lived, local culture. It's not just a CD or DVD being hawked by well-dressed folks posing in a magazine. It's a culture practiced — and evolved — daily by millions of young people all around the world.

So it makes perfect sense that the young woman or man who goes to the poetry slam, the b-boy/b-girl competition, the turntablist exhibition, or is just hanging in the park playing the latest jams on the weekend, would on Monday be angry with the way their school has been turned into a series of security checkpoints, the way the plant next to their house is spewing toxic fumes, or the fact they have no place to gather in their city without harassment from authorities. Hip-hop provides a way for young people to express not only joy and a love of life, but pain and a desire for change...

In a medium founded on action, Charlie Chan remains one of the few heroic figures in American film to function proudly as an intellectual. Chan's adventures in ratiocination were first recounted by Earl Derr Biggers in a series of six successful novels and eventually in 47 films made from 1926 to 1949 (as well as in a few parodies and semi-parodies that came after).

This courtly detective — an employee of the Honolulu Police Department on seemingly permanent leave — stands as one of the best-loved characters in American movies, a tribute above all to the warmth and gentle humor that the Swedish-born actor Warner Oland brought to the role during his 1931-to-1938 tenure as Chan...

Are the Chan films racist? Not, I think, by the standards of their time. Mr. Biggers is said to have created Chan (based on a real detective, Chang Apana, who worked for the Honolulu police) to counter the negative images of Asians being fueled by the Hearst papers' "yellow peril" campaigns and embodied most repellently by Sax Rohmer's sadistic "Oriental" villain, Dr. Fu Manchu.

GHETTO STORY
(85 Riddim by Dave Kelly)

I remember those days when Hell was my home
When, mi & Mama bed was a big piece a foam
And mi never like bathe & ma hair never comb
When Mama gone a work, me guh street guh roam
I remember when Danny dem tek mi snow cone
An mek him likkle bredda dem kick up Jerome
I remember when wi visit dem wid pure big stone
An di bwoy Danny pop off sup'm weh full chrome
I remember when wi run, Fatta get him knee blown
An mi best friend Richie get two inna him dome
I remember a suh di avenue turn inna war zone
An Mikey madda fly him out caa she get a loan
But Mikey guh to foreign & guh turn Al Capone
Mek whole heap a money & sen een our own
Now a we a lock di city & that is well known
Yesterday Mikey call mi pon mi phone, Mi seh “Mikey...

Wi get di ting dem, dem outta luck now
Mi squeeze seven & di whole a dem a duck now
Wi have whole heap a extra clip caa wi nuh bruk now
Raa, raa, raa, raa!
Wi get di ting dem suh, dem afi rate wi
Caa wi a tek it to dem wicked of lately
An now di whole community a live greatly
Raa, raa, raa, raa!"

I remember bout ’80 Jamaica explode
When a Trinity & Tony Hewitt dem a run road
Dat a long before Laing dem & even Bigga Ford
When Adams dem a corporal nuh know di roadcode
I remember when wi rob di Chiney shop down di road
An rumour have it seh di Chiney man have a sword
But, wi did have a one pop weh mek outta board
Suh yuh know di next day mama pot overload

I remember when wi stick di poll clerks
An dump di ballot box pon Tivoli outskirts
An hold a plane ticket & guh chill over Turks
When mi come back a still ina di hole mi a lurks
I remember those days when informer Derks
Get one inna him face & wi nuh get nuh perks
Caa di bigga heads dem are a couple of jerks
Cuz a dem a get di money when a we mash di works (but)

Wi get di ting dem, dem outta luck now
Mi squeeze seven & di whole a dem a duck now
Wi have whole heap a extra clip caa wi nuh bruk now
Raa, raa, raa, raa!
Wi get di ting dem suh, dem afi rate wi
Caa wi a tek it to dem wicked of lately
An now di whole community a live greatly
Raa, raa, raa, raa!

Jamaica get screwed true greed & glutton
Politics manipulate & push youths button
But wi rich now, suh dem caa tell man nutt'n
Caa a we a mek, mama nyam fish & mutton
Hey, over deh suh mek mi tell unu sup'm
True mi deh a foreign now a guy kill mi cousin
Yo mi hear seh T did deh deh but him seh him wasn't
Anytime mi fly down him a get bout dozen
(Caa)

Wi get di ting dem, dem outta luck now
Mi squeeze seven & di whole a dem a duck now
Wi have whole heap a extra clip caa wi nuh bruk now
Raa, raa, raa, raa!
Wi get di ting dem suh, dem afi rate wi
Caa wi a tek it to dem wicked of lately
An now di whole community a live greatly
Raa, raa, raa, raa!

I remember those days when Hell was my home
When, mi & Mama bed was a big piece a foam
And mi never like bathe & ma hair never comb
When Mama gone a work, me guh street guh roam
I remember when Danny dem tek mi snow cone
An mek him likkle bredda dem kick up Jerome
I remember when wi visit dem wid pure big stone
An di bwoy Danny pop off sup'm weh full chrome
I remember when wi run, Fatta get him knee blown
An mi best friend Richie get two inna him dome
I remember a suh di avenue turn inna war zone
An Mikey madda fly him out caa she get a loan
But Mikey guh to foreign & guh turn Al Capone
Mek whole heap a money & sen een our own
Now a we a lock di city & that is well known
Yesterday Mikey call mi pon mi phone, Mi seh “Mikey!"

Is it strange for an Asian Pacific Islander who grew up in the suburbs of Honolulu to be writing about hip-hop? I didn't think so.

But when I went out to promote my door-stopper of a book last year, I found out differently. Seemed like everyone wondered how someone of my background might have come to write a 500-plus page biceps-enhancer on the topic. (Thankfully, I never met the ones who didn't think there were 500-plus pages worth of the topic.)

I mean, did they live on the same planet as me?

When I got over being so defensive, I realized that unpacking that question could actually be quite interesting...