Introduction: Lust, of All Things (Black) 1
1. The Black Male Show
Amiri Baraka 9
Wayne Shorter 16
Jimi Hendrix 24
John Coltrane 41
Gone Fishing: Remembering Lester Bowie 44
The Black Artists' Group 50
Butch Morris 55
Charles Edward Anderson Berry and the History of Our Future
57
Lonnie Holley 68
Marion Brown (1931–2010) and Djinji Brown 71
Dark Angels of Dust: David Hammons and the Art of Streetwise
Trancendentalism 73
Bill T. Jones: Combative Moves 78
Garry Simmons: Conceptual Bomber 81
The Persistence of Vision: Storyboard P 83
Ice Cube 91
Wynton Marsalis: Jazz Crusader 102
Thonton Dail: Free, Black, and Brightening Up the Darkness of the
World 110
Kehinde Wiley 124
Rammellzee: The Ikonoklast Samurai 127
Richard Pryor: Pryor Lives 136
Richard Pryor 146
Gil Scott-Heron 149
The Man in Our Mirror: Michael Jackson 152
Miles Davis 158
2. She Laughing Mean and Impressive Too
Born to Dyke: I Love My Sister Laughing and Then Again When She's
Looking Mean, Queer, and Impressive 167
Joni Mitchell: Black and Blond 175
Azealia Banks 177
Sade: Black Magic Woman 180
All the Things You Could Be by Now If Iames Brown Was a
Feminist 186
Itabari Njeri 193
Kara Walker 196
Women at the Edge of Space, Time, and Art: Ruminations on Candida
Romero's Little Girls 202
Ellen Gallagher 208
To Bid a Poet Black and Abstract 210
"The Gikuyu Mythos versus the Cullud Grrrl from Outta Space": A
Wangechi Mutu Feature 213
Come Join the Hieroglyphic Zombie Parade: Deborah Grant
219
Björk's Second Act 223
Thelma Golden 228
3. Hello Darknuss My Old Meme
Top Ten Reasons Why So Few Black Women Were Down to Occupy Wall
Street Plus Four More 235
What Is Hip-Hop? 239
Intelligence Data: Bob Dylan 242
Hip-Hop Turns Thirty 246
Love and Crunk: Outkast 252
White Freedom: Eminem 254
Wu-Dunit: Wu-Tang Clan 256
Unlocking the Truth vs. John Cage 260
4. Screenings
Spike Lee's Bamboozled 265
It's A Mack Thing 270
Sex and Negrocity: John Singleton's Baby Boy 272
Lincoln in Whiteface: Jeffrey Wright and Don Cheadle in Susan-Lori
Parks's Topdog/Underdog 275
The Black Power Mixtape 278
5. Race, Sex, Politricks and Belle Lettres
Clarence Major 285
The Atlantic Sound: Caryl Phillips's The Atlantic Sound
288
Acocalypse Now: Patricia Hill Collins's Black Sexual Politics;
Thomas Shevory's Notorious H.I.V.; Jacob Levenson's The Secret
Epidemic 290
Blood and Bridges 292
Nigger-'Tude 296
Triple Threat: Jerry Gafio Watts's Amiri Baraka; Hazel Rowley's
Richard Wright; David Macey's Frantz Fanon 299
Bottom Feeders: Natsuo Kirino's Out 306
Scaling the Heights: Maryse Condé's Windward Heights 307
Fear of a Mongrel Planet: Zadie Smith's White Teeth 310
Adventures in the Skin Trade: Lisa Teasley's Glow in the Dark
313
Generous Hexed: Jeffery Renard Allen's Rails under My Back
315
Going Underground: Gayl Jones's Mosquito 317
Judgment Day: Toni Morrison's Love and Edward P. Jones's The Known
World 320
Black Modernity and Laughter, or How It Came to Be That N*g*as Got
Jokes 322
Kalahari Hopscotch, or Notes toward a Twenty-Volume Afrocentric
Futurist Manifesto 330
Sources 343
Index 347
Greg Tate is a music and popular culture critic and journalist whose work has appeared in many publications, including the Village Voice, Vibe, Spin, the Wire, and Downbeat. He is the author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America and Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience and the editor of Everything but the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture. Tate, via guitar and baton, also leads the conducted improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, who tour internationally.
"Tate has been an important if underread critic for the past
several decades, and this collection will allow more readers to
discover him. Not a fast or simple read, but a worthwhile one for
fans of music and culture."
*Library Journal*
"Flyboy 2 will be like no other collection of writing you will read
this year, and probably this decade. Refer back to the original
Flyboy book to whet your palate, and to note and compare the
evolution of Tate’s voice and his perception of the world and music
around him. Take comfort in knowing that there is a Black writer
who has no choice but to be real, poised and dignified, denying all
pressures to bastardize the class and power of Black arts criticism
and literary excellence."
*Amsterdam News*
"Whether you are new to his work or a longtime reader, the universe
of Black magic lovingly curated in Flyboy 2 will do your soul
good."
*The Guardian*
"Flyboy 2 is an immersive, fluid, and genre-bending collection of
commentary, essays, and exposition of the self, a beautiful text
solidly grounded in the critical theories of late twentieth- and
early twenty-first-century academia."
*ForeWord Reviews*
"What Flyboy 1 and 2 show is that Tate has come a long way in the
study of this, the feared black planet and, in so doing, came out a
more skilful, more humble man. What his style won’t let me forget
is this: we are simultaneously in command of this world, and
others."
*Mail & Guardian*
"What made Tate’s criticism special was his ability to theorize
outward from his encounters with genius and his brushes with
banality—to telescope between moments of artistic inspiration and
the giant structures within which those moments were produced. . .
. Tate has a keen sense for the way that both artists and
communities discern where they fit in the world, and what is
expected of them, and then either go along for the ride or
carefully plot their escapes."
*The New Yorker*
"[T]hought-provoking. . . . There's lots to unpack in Tate's
writing, challenging us to come along for the ride--if we're up to
it."
*Paper Magazine*
"A Rolling Stone contributor, Greg Tate's ferocious, slang-tinged
salvos and deep-rooted historical analysis have inspired readers
and intimidated colleagues for decades. This sequel to the 1992
collection Flyboy in the Buttermilk felt particularly acute in the
context of 2016's nonstop stream of racial horror, whether Tate is
delineating visual artist Kara Walker's unflinching slavery-era
silhouettes or eulogizing Richard Pryor and Michael Jackson. . .
."
*Rolling Stone*
"Greg Tate has been responsible for some of the most erudite and
energetic cultural criticism of the past thirty years. . . . The
book stands as a testimony to the richness and variety of
contemporary Black artistic production, and to Tate’s restless
curiosity and learning."
*TLS*
“Like all of Greg Tate's work, this is required reading for anyone
interested in the last several decades of life and culture in the
United States.”
*Journal of Popular Music Studies*
"Flyboy 2 collects more pieces that prove Tate, a Rolling Stone
contributor, hasn't lost a step, with riffs on young artists like
Azealia Banks ('a freaky-geeky, speed-rapping succubus') and
forebears such as Jimi Hendrix ('one of our most agile and adept
freedom fighters'). It's a dive into what Tate calls 'Black
Cognition,' a cornerstone of the American mind."
*Rolling Stone*
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