Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Graying of Hip-Hop

What happens to the youth-obsessed genre when its greats reach retirement?

Countering the Dumb Argument that Outrage Over Trayvon Martin's Death Distracts from Black-on-Black Violence

"Should the African American community be focusing on black-on-black crime and the carnage in our inner-cities, and not on George Zimmerman?" Chris Wallace said that a few days ago on Fox News. But you could pull a similar question from a range of sources. The sentiment is widespread these days--a ... More >>

When Food Journalists Write for Free

When Nate Thayer posted his exchange with an Atlantic editor asking him to contribute to the site for free, he sparked a huge debate over whether writers should ever expected to go unpaid. The short answer, if you ask me and most journalists, is no. But as a writer who has written for free, the no c ... More >>

How Many Negroes Must Support Gay Marriage Before "Black Homophobia" Stops Getting Overblown?

Here are the three biggest hand-wringing fears/misnomers people have had about gay marriage, even those who support it: 1. This unimportant issue will cost Obama re-election! 2. Marriage equality would have happened by now, if not for those on-the-down low, religious, self-hating, homophobic black ... More >>

Da Capo's Second-Best Music Writing 2011: 112 Of Last Year's Most Notable Music Stories

The 2011 edition of Da Capo's annual anthology Best Music Writing— which this year was guest edited by The New Yorker classical writer and The Rest Is Noise author Alex Ross; Daphne Carr has been the series editor since 2006—contains 32 essays and is augmented by a a jumbo-sized "Other N ... More >>

Every Day I Write: Music-Related Events At This Year's Brooklyn Book Festival

​ At last year's Brooklyn Book Festival, Joshua Clover and Ta-Nehisi Coates argued the relative merits of Roxette's "Listen to Your Heart" and Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." The year before, Ian MacKaye (on a panel with Thurston Moore and Lupe Fiasco) decried the overuse of the phrase "Goog ... More >>

Ice-T's Newest Role: The Voice Of Reason On Ice Loves Coco

​ Who knew Ice-T was a role model? Ice Loves Coco, E!'s new reality show about the rapper/actor and his model/fashion designer wife, makes them look like such a perfect couple that you almost expect them to turn into anime characters and see little cartoon hearts popping above their heads as t ... More >>

The Atlantic's Take On "The NYPD Tapes"

​Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor for The Atlantic specializing in culture, politics and social issues for the magazine, offers his take here, as both a journalist and father, about the practices exposed in the Voice's "NYPD Tapes" series. Notably, Coates points out that practices like issui ... More >>

RAP PARTY

Celebrating the language of hip-hop

Behold The Musical Spoils Of The Brooklyn Book Festival

​Ah, the Brooklyn Book Festival, a five-year-old, free, all-day blowout of panels, readings, and extraordinary quasi-literary happenings, where you might see, say, Ian MacKaye complaining about people who say "just type it in" when they mean "Google it." (On a panel with Thurston Moore and Lup ... More >>

The Atlantic Introduces Eminem to Obama

It's oddly timed (is this piece really pegged to Eminem's release date?), but The Atlantic is currently hosting a roundtable discussion on hip-hop in the age of Obama, a topic we once wrote a few thousand words about (more than once, actually), and remain sort of obsessed with. The panelists: Hua Hs ... More >>

Ta-Nehisi Coates Will Not Let Frederick Seidel's Arguable Racism Keep Him From Reading "Boys"

This month marks the publication of Frederick Seidel's new Poems 1959-2009, feted variously in the Times and in this paper. Last Tuesday, in an inspired maneuver, the Russian Samovar invited Ta-Nehisi Coates and Benjamin Kunkel to read from the book. Coates, perversely, chose "Boys," a poem about ... More >>

Ailing Michael Steele Vows to Continue Using the Phrase "Hip-Hop"

Sounds pretty great here, actually In a pretty pointed Politico piece today, Michael Steele, erstwhile slang-artist and growing scourge on his own party, receives some pretty rough treatment. Write Mike Allen and Andy Barr: A month after Michael Steele became the first African-American chairman o ... More >>

Week in Review: You Be Da Man! You Be Da Man!

Rebecca SmeyneStill so mad I missed this... This will seem strange, but the Oscars were not even a week ago. Not that they were all that memorable--at this point, we only retain a foggy recollection, something about a Beck song and James Franco recommending a certain book on the red carpet... To b ... More >>

Ta-Nehisi Coates To Self-Crowned Hip-Hop Republican Michael Steele: "Talk Like A Regular Human Being"

Oh, man. The newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele continues his "off the hook" offensive on the English language in the above video, responding to a question about cutting off funding for Republican party traitors by saying: "I'm always open for everything, baby." ... More >>

IT'S EUSTACE TILLY'S PARTY

Bring your own monocle

Thurston Moore, Ian MacKaye, Jonathan Lethem Head Up Brooklyn Book Festival

Rap's David Banner Threatens to Kill Music Industry

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On Da Corner Worldwide

Hip-Hop, R&B, Dancehall, Crunk, Grime, er, Music by Black People

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Rush to Judgment

Why New York's Leading Reformers Oppose Charter Change

Vote Yes for Nonpartisan Elections

Bloomberg's Proposal Is Better Than Our Sham System

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El Pueblo Unido

Making the Case for a United Latino Front

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