Moving Beyond the Jay Z - Harry Belafonte Beef: A Conversation with Bakari Kitwana & Mark Anthony Neal

Rap Sessions | Left of Black


Following a week-long media frenzy surrounding the rift between icons Jay-Z and Harry Belafonte, Bakari Kitwana of Rap Sessions and Mark Anthony Neal of Left of Black sat down to unpack the shortcomings of the recent Jay Z - Belafonte debate. Rather than perpetuating the beef between the Civil Rights Generation and the Hip-Hop Generation, they insist the moment should be seen as opportunity to chart a course for moving beyond media sound bites to action. Mark Anthony Neal’s essay “My Passport Says Shawn: Toward a Hip-Hop Cosmopolitanism” (in his new book Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities ) and Bakari Kitwana’s essay “Zen and the Art of Transcending the Status Quo” (in the anthology Jay-Z: Essays on Hip-Hop's Philosopher King , edited by Julius Bailey) are the starting points for this discussion.