Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 308

"simple dude from Austin, Texas who picked up a guitar": Gary Clark, Jr.

'Gary Clark Jr. is still clearly uncomfortable being heralded as one of the best guitarists in a generation. He's played the White House, and toured with the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. This year his blues/rock album, This Land, won three Grammy Awards. Kristine Johnson talks with the musician who describes himself as a "simple dude from Austin, Texas who picked up a guitar"."--CBS Sunday Morning

Khadijah Tribble Discusses Her Role as Vice President Of A $3B Cannabis Company

'Khadijah Tribble  VP, Corporate Social Responsibility at Curaleaf discusses her role as Vice President Of A $3B cannabis company.'

"Actual Proof": Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter & Terence Blanchard on COVID, #BLM, and Wayne Shorter's Legacy

'This incredible video is a true gathering of jazz titans, bringing together the legendary Herbie Hancock, trumpet giant and master composer Terence Blanchard, and SFJAZZ Fridays at Five tribute artist Wayne Shorter for a Zoom hangout. They discuss Shorter’s iconic music, the Black Lives Matter movement during this turbulent time, our new shared reality under the coronavirus pandemic, and how Hancock and Shorter’s music has remained enduringly relevant, always speaking to the times with grace and poignancy.' -- SFJAZZ

‘Honeypot’: Blending Creative Storytelling And Oral History To Spotlight Queer Southern Black Women

'Writer E. Patrick Johnson was hesitant to collect the stories of queer black Southern women. He is a cisgender gay black man, and the divide between the male and female experience was something he felt he could not portray on the page. But after being encouraged by women who wanted their experiences known and shared, he found a way to spotlight their voices. In his latest book, Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women (Duke University Press/2019), Johnson blends oral history with creative writing to take readers on a trip below the Mason-Dixon line to learn about the lives of queer black women who live there. He uses the fictional character, Ms. B, to grapple with moments of male privilege and prejudice, and he weaves lessons of empathy between the stories of women he interviewed for the book.' -- The State of Things

Jazz Night In America: Jazzmeia Horn – Love and Liberation

'For Jazzmeia Horn , this concert defined a moment. This was The Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center, after all, one of the most prestigious stages in the America jazz circuit. "Not a lot of people get that opportunity," she reflected, not only to show up for herself and her art, but to act as a good steward of jazz music, an African American art form and legacy by which the idioms of today's industry, according to Horn, don't always reflect the culture of a specific people. She hand-picked an entirely Black and brown team from bandmates to to hair and makeup and even a hired backstage film crew, people she knew would share a common goal. "I was nit-picky on everything," Horn says. She even made sure everybody was well-fed backstage, so they could honor this music with the highest possible energy and focus.' -- NPR Music
 

'Unholy' Examines The Alliance Between White Evangelicals And Trump

'The president isn't known for his faith. Instead, author Sarah Posner says he connects with Evangelicals by voicing the legal, social, religious and cultural grievances of the Christian right.' -- Fresh Air

Helga: A Conversation with Abstract Painter Stanley Whitney

'Visual artist and colorist, Stanley Whitney talks with Helga about his life as an artist and as a person. He uncovers what it means to be a black abstract painter, firmly rooted in the United States.'

The Power of Fiction By and About Black People

'For weeks, books about race and antiracism have been topping bestseller lists in the U.S. and abroad, as protests against police brutality and racial injustice continue through the summer.  Books like Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist, Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race, and Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility are all in short supply as more and more people turn to their local bookstores and Amazon to get their hands on a copy. But reading an antiracist book is a start. To better understand the wholeness of Black lives, people might need to bury their noses in another kind of book: fiction by and about Black people.  For more on the power of fiction at this moment,  The Takeaway spoke to Jasmine Guillory, the New York Times bestselling author of five novels including Party of Two.'


 

Left of Black S10:E19 | Candice M. Jenkins on the Black Middle Class

Candice M. Jenkins,  Professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the author of the recently released and critically-acclaimed Black Bourgeois: Class and Sex in the Flesh (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), joined Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal to consider the precocious existence of Black bodies in our society, even if educated and middle-class. Professors Jenkins and Neal discussed the speculative nature of Afro-pessimism, getting arrested at Starbucks, and the numerous works of Black authors and artists that heavily influenced Jenkins’ latest publication. 

Rewriting Country Music's Racist History

'Elamin Abdelmahmoud, editor of news curation at Buzzfeed News, joins All Of It to discuss his article for Rolling Stone, "Rewriting Country Music’s Racist History".'