Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 524

Code Switch: Changing Colors In Comics

'Gene Demby and guest host Glen Weldon explore how comics are used as spaces for mapping race and identity. Demby visits Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse in Philadelphia and chats with proprietor Ariell Johnson, who is reclaiming the comic book store, which once made her uneasy as a black fan. Meanwhile, C. Spike Trotman, another black woman, has made a name for herself as an online comics publisher of Iron Circus Comics in Chicago. Code Switch also talks to artist and designer Ronald Wimberly for his perspective as a black creator who has worked for Marvel and DC, the titans of corporate comics.' -- +NPR  

How Black Coffee Ended Up on Drake's 'More Life' & How He Feels About It |

'Drake's More Life is full of features, but one of the less familiar names was South African DJ Black Coffee. He's already a legend back home, but when Drake lifted Black Coffee's "Superman" for "Get It Together," the DJ found a whole new audience. Jinx sat down with Black Coffee to hear how it all happened and to get his take on those culture vulture accusations.' -- Pigeons & Planes

How I Got Over: Soledad O’Brien on Race, Politics and the Media

'During the 2016 election, award-winning journalist and writer Soledad O’Brien charged cable news and media companies of profiting off hate speech normalized by then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. What made for good TV ratings did not make for good journalism. WNYC editor Rebecca Carroll hosts an unconventional conversation with O’Brien about her new political magazine show "Matter of Fact" and how black and brown journalists and media makers can deliver balanced coverage with President Trump in the White House for the next four years.' -- WNYC
 

Politics & Prose: Angie Thomas Talks Her Young Adult Novel 'The Hate U Give"

'Angie Thomas’ debut novel begins when a police officer shoots a black teenager at a traffic stop. The subsequent public outrage and media attention raises questions about police brutality in the neighborhood. At the center of it all is Starr, the sole witness to her friend’s murder, and the only one who can testify what really happened. The incident forces her to reconcile her grief with a burning resentment towards her apathetic classmates and local law enforcement. Starr and her peers represent a generation of young people learning to navigate conversations about race. Thomas strives to unpack subtle and overt forms of racism in America, the complexities of social mobility, and acts of resistance that attempt to combat inequality.' --  Politics and Prose
 

#BackChannel: When a Dissertation is a Mixtape + Race Takes Us to a "Sunken Place"

On this episode of WUNC’s #BackChannel, regular contributors Natalie Bullock Brown + Mark Anthony Neal are joined A.D. Carson, a doctoral candidate at Clemson University, who just defended his dissertation, which was in part, a 34-track mixtape called “Owning My Masters: The Rhetoric of Rhymes & Revolutions.”  Bullock Brown, Neal and host Frank Stasio talk with Carson about his project and what it means to re-imagine what knowledge production is in the Academy. Bullock Brown and Neal also discuss Jordan Peele’s Get Out and the Spike TV documentary series on the life and death of Kaleif Bowder, who has become another symbol of America’s failing justice system. 

Left of Black S7:E21: Regina Bradley Got Something To Say -- on Hip-Hop and the New Southern Studies

Left of Black S7:E21: Regina Bradley Got Something To Say -- on Hip-Hop and the New Southern Studies
On this episode of Left of Black, Regina N. Bradley joins host Mark Anthony Neal in the Left of Black studio at the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. Bradley discusses her work on the groundbreaking Hip-Hop act Outkast and what might be described as “New” Southern Studies.
A Nasir Jones HipHop Fellow alumna at Harvard, Bradley is Assistant Professor of African American Literature at Armstrong State University in Savannah, GA., and the author of Boondock Kollage: New Stories from the Contemporary Black South. Bradley’s scholarly monograph Chronicling Stankonia: OutKast and the Rise of the Hip Hop South is forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press.
Left of Black is hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced by Catherine Angst of the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University and in collaboration with the Center for Arts + Digital Culture + Entrepreneurship (CADCE) and the Duke Council on Race + Ethnicity

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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

#BlackTimeCapsule: Chuck D + Joan Morgan + Mark Anthony Neal Talk Don Imus, Sexism & Hip-Hop

In this episode of Sound Opinions from 2007, Public Enemy's Chuck D, Feminist Scholar Joan Morgan and Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal talk Sexism, Violence and Hip-Hop in the backdrop of the Don Imus controversy. Morgan's classic W hen Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip Hop Feminist Breaks It Down is now available as a digital download.
 

Spare the Kids: Author Stacey Patton on the #NoHittingChallenge

Dr. Stacey Patton discusses her book Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America and the #NoHittingChallenge. 

Another Round with SWEAT: In Conversation with Lynn Nottage and Kate Whoriskey

'Playwright Lynn Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey on making and connecting to the human experience with – SWEAT, the critically acclaimed new play from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lynn Nottage. The paly comes to Broadway following its sold-out run at The Public Theater. The New York Times hails it as “an extraordinarily moving drama throbbing with heartfelt life.” Kate Whoriskey’s “assured and emotionally vibrant staging” (Time Out New York) illuminates this “perfectly written” (The New Yorker) play that takes place at a pivotal moment in America.' 

How Black Lives Matter Is Resisting Trump

'In the second installment of a political discussion series with the Public Theatre, David Remnick examines the future of Black Lives Matter with the activist Brittany Packnett, Co-founder of Campaign Zero.' -- +The New Yorker