Questlove, writing with Ben Greenman, is attentive to the genre’s splendor as well as its stumbles. He’s sympathetic to the aspirational and at times gleefully materialistic ethos of rap’s most mainstream figures.

Lively, if self-limiting.

Occasional informal shifts from objective and omniscient narration of 'important events' that sound like traditional history to incredibly personal and subjective opinions.

For all the author’s wisdom and charm, his blizzard of names and facts is likely to overwhelm, rather than exhilarate, the uninitiated. The book at times resembles an annotated playlist.

Drawing on remarkably detailed information and a keen critical sensibility and working seamlessly with his coauthor, Greenman, Questlove traces the genre from its roots in the Bronx during the 1970s to its flourishing across the country in its many variations to its global impact in the present.

Kaleidoscopic.

Memorable, masterful.