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Ten Books that Change(d) My Life by Mark Anthony Neal

Ten Books that Change(d) My Life by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Thanks to my mother, I’ve been a reader since I was a toddler; I’m sure if you asked me  at the time, I would have said that The Berenstain Bears’ The Bike Lesson was atop the list of books that changed my life.  Truth is that as a child, periodicals like Weekly Reader(which we read aloud at the R.T. Hudson Seventh Day Adventist School) Highlights for Children , Baseball Digest and The New York Daily News tended to be my favorite reads. 
Books became the matter when I started to want to live in a world of ideas as opposed to a world of facts. Reading books like John Gardner’s Grendel (1971) and Albert Camus’s The Stranger in high school—a big shout-out to the English department at Brooklyn Technical High School, one of the nation’s premiere high schools for engineering—were indeed life changing experiences.
The list below reflects an admittedly truncated list of books that have helped shape my adult worldview—and in many ways they all continue to change my life.

Enemies the Clash of Races (1978)– Haki Madhubuti
Fitting to start with Madhubuti’s Enemies, in that the book contains his own list of must reads, a list that I dutifully engaged.  The book was a gift from  then Donald Smith—now Nation of Islam Minister Abdul Halim Muhammad (Buffalo, NY)—during my first year in college, and it unlocked a ferocious curiosity that continues to this day. 
The Black Poets (1971)—ed. Dudley Randall
Pretty sure that this is a book I purchased during my first trip to the old Liberation Bookstore in Harlem.  Probably stayed in my knapsack continuously for  five years, especially in those years when I fancied myself as a poet (this in the years before Spoken Word).  A reminder today that my undergraduate concentration was in creative writing.  After beating the first one to shit—something to be said about every book on this list—I purchased a replacement from Amazon a few years ago.  What I wouldn’t give to spend an hour or two in Liberation, now.
The Death of Rhythm and Blues (1988) – Nelson George
I read Nelson’s columns in Billboard Magazine and The Village Voicereligiously in the early 1980s; The Death of Rhythm and Blues was confirmation that writing criticism of Black music was something I could do, and make a living (though not the way I thought at the time).  The Death of Rhythm and Blues led me to Baraka’s Blues People, and for that I’ll always be thankful.
Yearning: Race, Gender, and Culture (1991)—bell hooks
Procured during a trip to Toronto during the summer of 1992—a time in my life, where I remember, that I didn’t go anywhere without trying to find a good bookstore and a good record store. Felt like contraband when I bought it; bell made the life of the mind as sexy as hell (and with no footnotes).
Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) – Greg Tate
Like Nelson, had been reading Tate religiously in the Voice.  More than twenty-years after its publication, still a little Stannish in Tate’s presence. But this book tho;  Like Jelani Cobb always makes me want to head to the shed, with Greg, it’s like there ain’t no shed that even exist for no shit like Tate’s.  Bought Flyboy at the same time I bought bell’s Yearning; my teachers will tell you that they both were all up in my early scholarly writing. Think about Flyboy a lot these days, as I plot the next scene, and look forward to getting back to my own shit.
Forty Three Septembers (1993)  – Jewelle Gomez
Been reading Alexis De Veaux’s Yabo this summer in small sips—it takes me places I ain’t quite ready to inhabit right now; I only mention that because it was while sitting in my first graduate seminar with De Veaux – on Black and Red Feminism – during the fall of 1993 that I first read Gomez’s work.  It was a decade later when I was working on New Black Man when I realized how much Forty Three Septembers had influenced me.  Teaching Gomez’s The Gilda Stories remains one of my favorite teaching experiences.
Reflecting Black: African American Cultural Criticism (1993) – Michael Eric Dyson
It was the paragraph where he critically broke down Michael Jordan’s connection to a Black aesthetic.  More than African American cultural criticism, it was like micro-criticism; Dyson’s genius has always been in the small details, something folk are likely to miss if they don’t actually read his writing. Always thankful that this was the first Dyson that I read—still have the review that I wrote for The Leader—because it provided faith for the path that I was going to take.
Writin’ is Fightin’: Thirty Three Years of Boxing on Paper (1988)– Ishmael Reed
First read Ishmael during a transitional period before grad school; teaching high school during the day, and working the front desk at an NYU dorm from 4pm-midnight; me and BX Golden sharing a tiny, tiny spot up in the Bronx. Passed some of the time reading Reed’s non-fiction, including, Writin’ is Fightin. Bought it at the old St. Marks bookstore in the East Village; same spot I bought  the Henry Dumas’s collection Knee of a Natural Man, during my 8pm “lunch” break. Ishmael and I disagree on a fair amount of things—and we’ve had online conversations to that affect—but lawd that dude can write.  My favorite non-fiction style-guide.
Race Rebels (1994)—Robin D.G. Kelley
Tate and Tricia Rose in the Acura Integra talking about the new shit—Cassandra Wilson’s first joint working with Craig Street and this cat Robin Kelley coming to NYU from Michigan.  Tracked down some seriously obscure piece R. Kelley had written about Black folk in Birmingham; was standing at Talking Leaves Books when they opened the box with Race Rebels; joint is all up in the diss/first book. Every youngun that wants to write about Black Popular Culture, I send them to Race Rebels first.
In Search of the Black Fantastic (2008) – Richard Iton
Richard was a good friend/colleague—and I had digital front seat to so much of his thought process while he was working on this book.  The book has fundamentally impacted how I think about many things popular—something I reflect on throughout Looking for Leroy—but it’s the book itself that reminds me that we must do the work that we want to do now or we might not be around to do so.  Thankful that Richard stayed with us long enough to leave this gift.

"Freedom Sound" (1961) -- The Jazz Crusaders

Jazmine Sullivan Fades A New Orleans Barber Shop

NPR | Field Recordings
Jazmine Sullivan drops a version of her song "Stupid Girls" at the Clear-Vue Barbershop in New Orleans.

THE COSBY SHOW AT 30: REFLECTIONS ON RACE, PARENTING, INEQUALITY & EDUCATION -- Thursday September 18, 2014

To commemorate the anniversary of The Cosby Show’sdebut, The Center for Arts, Digital Culture & Entrepreneurship (CADCE) at the Duke Consortium on Social Equity, in conjunction with the John Hope Franklin Center , is hosting a roundtable discussion,  The Cosby Show at 30: Reflections on Race, Parenting, Inequality & Education , September 18, 2014 at 7:00pm at the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University (2204 Erwin Road).
Blair LM Kelley—Associate Professor of History and Assistant Dean for interdisciplinary studies and international programs at NC State University.
Wahneema Lubiano—Associate Professor of African & African American Studies and Literature at Duke University
Natalie Bullock Brown—Chair of the Department of Film and Interactive Media at St. Augustine’s College
Joshua L. Lazard
--C. Eric Lincoln Minister for Student Engagement at 
Duke University Chapel
Moderated by Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of African & African American Studies at Duke University and Director of the Center for Arts, Digital Culture & Entrepreneurship.
* The Event is Free and Open to the Public

Water No Get Enemy: Donations Flow in to Help Detroit Water Customers

MarketPlace APM
The United Way for Southeastern Michigan, which oversees the Detroit Water Fund, is currently helping around 200 households with a payment plan that covers 25 percent of a delinquent resident's bill, while the resident pays the rest. A recent $2 million award from the Michigan Health Endowment will help the fund assist more people.  Another campaign, the crowdfunded "Detroit Water Project," is connecting donors directly with people who need help. The project's website says it has 7,000 donors. 

In the Life (At the Schomburg): Outing Lorraine Hansberry w/ Alexis De Veaux + Joi Gresham + Steven G. Fullwood

The Schomburg Center
A panel discussion about imposing gay and lesbian labels on public figures who never publicly identified as such. This conversation centers on playwright, activist and intellectual, Lorraine Hansberry. Panelists include Joi Gresham, Alexis De Veaux, Steven G. Fullwood, and moderator Shawn(ta) Smith.
Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. She wrote A Raisin in the Sun, a play about a struggling black family, which opened on Broadway to great success. Hansberry was the first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle award. 

The Sweetest 16 (for Whurl-a-Gurl)

The Sweetest 16 (for Whurl-a-Gurl) by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
“With the other children one could hear, some distance off, their feet flopping in the two-inch dust. Karintha’s running was a whir.” – Jean Toomer, “Karintha”
You can’t ever ask me about these things, because I will tell you—from what I remember—that she pulled my glasses off of my face the first time we met (yeah, she was only about a week old).  And I will swear that we’ve been talking together—her using words—since she was about 2-months-old; she riding shot-gun in the backseat in her car-seat, singing Jilly’s “The Way” (“grits…”). 
I now ride shotgun (more often than not); yesterday morning the both of us head-nodding to Hov’s “Izzo,” it sounding as fresh as it did in the old Honda Accord that she spent so much time in those in early days.
What I know is that she’s always had a plan.  Somehow knowing that if she could just get into the world a little bit sooner—by three weeks—the right family would be waiting for her. 
I mean, she knew this; borne out perhaps in how little we’ve ever talked about her adoption (as opposed to her baby sister who asks about such things weekly). She matter of factly confessed a short time ago—as we both survived another Q & A from Baby Sis—that she just never thinks about such things, because “it” has given her the best life she could have imagined.
I will confess that I think such things more often than she, that baby-sister or the mate of 23-years will ever know. 

Every time I get a good night’s sleep, wake-up pre-dawn for a morning walk or pull into the driveway after a long day on Duke’s yard, I’m reminded of the once little girl, who once willed me—even challenged me—to better health and better living, if only because I wasn’t always sure I would be around long enough to witness a Sweet 16.

#IfTheyGunnedMeDown--Daniel J. Watts

Original Spoken Word by Daniel J. Watts pondering, if he happened to be gunned down, how he might be portrayed via certain media outlets. #IfTheyGunnedMeDown #ThisIsHowWeShootBack #WattsWords #LoveTerrorist

"Chop My Money"--Where Nigerian Hip-Hop Meets Bluegrass

PRI
Bluegrass covers of pop and rock music abound abound. But none have quite the back story of The Henhouse Prowlers' version of "Chop My Money,"a cover of P Square's Nigerian hip-hop mega-hit that created a frenzy in the country when the band toured there this summer.

The Jacksons--"Can You Feel it" (1980)