Log in to track your reading progress.
Overview
A former welfare father from the ghetto of Detroit, Michael Eric Dyson is today a critic, scholar, and ordained Baptist minister who has forged a unique role: he is a compelling spokesman for the concerns of the black community, and also a leader who has a genuine rapport with that community, particularly with urban youth. In his essays, lectures, sermons, and books, he has emerged as one of the leading African-American voices of our day. There is a section of wonderful profiles Dyson calls "Testimonials" - studies of black men, from O. J. Simpson to Marion Barry, and from Baptist preacher Gardner Taylor to Michael Jordan and Sam Cooke. In "Obsessed with O. J.," Dyson offers an extremely personal and insightful series of reflections on the case. In "Lessons," Dyson takes up the subjects of politics and racial identity. Newt Gingrich and moral panic, Qubilah Shabazz, Carol Moseley Braun, the NAACP, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X all figure in these insightful and accessible pieces. And "Songs of Celebration" draws from Dyson's writings for the popular press such as Rolling Stone and Vibe, and explores the joys and pitfalls of black expression, from the black vernacular bible to gospel music, R & B, and hip-hop. Dyson concludes with an essay framed as a letter to his wife, which offers a positive counterbalance to the opening address to his brother. The letter serves as a tribute to the redemptive powers of love, the black family, spirit, and change. Arguing that the richness of black culture today can be found in the interstices - between god and gangsta rap - Dyson charts the progress and pain of African Americans over the past decade. As a compendium of his thinking about contemporary culture Between God and Gangsta Rap will find a wide audience among black and white readers.Arguing that the richness of black culture today can be found in the interstices between God and gangsta' rap, Dyson charts the progress and pain of African Americans over the past decade, and brings together writings on music, religion, politics, and identity to offer a multi-faceted view of black life.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Between God and Gangsta Rap is a morally corrective and knowledgeable shout-out to the hip-hop generation, with terse analysis of the peccadilloes of politicians -- these are the contents of Dyson's latest collection. The collection reveals at least one coherent thematic tendency in its repeated declamation against the ethics, aesthetics, and economics of a black identity politics that stresses "racial purity." Dyson would substitute for such politics a resounding anthem of American multiculturalism. Dyson is most engaging in essays that muse on gospel music, hip-hop culture, and the intricacies and intimacies of his young life in Detroit.Publishers Weekly -
``[P]reacher and public intellectual'' Dyson (Making Malcolm) offers a lucid, mostly stimulating roundup of op-eds, reviews and articles about books, music, people and politics. An ordained Baptist minister, at 35 he has his finger on the pulse of the younger generation, so he can criticize the NAACP for losing touch with the grass roots and criticize gangsta rap for sexism and homophobia-but observe that attacks on it divert attention from more important threats to society as a whole. A few articles seem ephemeral, but most pieces on music-from Sam Cooke to Vanessa Williams to Public Enemy-reveal a fan's enthusiasm filtered through the screen of racial history. Dyson opens and closes the book with personal essays: a reflective letter to his incarcerated brother and an almost mawkish letter to his (third) wife in which he recounts his painful path to maturity in relationships. In Dyson's best essay, on the culture wars, he calls for the nation ``to own up to its rich and creolized practice''; thus he recalls his own sturdy education in Detroit, where wise mentors fed him black culture high and low and fueled his omnivorous intellectual appetite. (Dec.)Dyson (Making Malcolm, Oxford Univ., 1995), a Baptist minister and professor of communications at the University of North Carolina, has written a complex work on race and identity and what is needed to heal the country. The book comprises a series of essays following three themes: Testimonials, or lives of contemporary black men; Lessons, or the politics of black culture, from the Panthers to the current Congress; Songs of Celebration, which cross musical and cultural lines, from gospel to pop and gangsta rap. The book examines the impact of the O.J. Simpson case on the country, as well as the forces of politics and religion brought to bear on American blacks from the start of the Civil Rights movement to the present. This timely account is recommended for all academic and public libraries.-Kevin Whalen, Union P.L., N.J.
American culture is sharply divided racially, nowhere more than over "gangsta' rap" music, which appeals to young blacks and repels older blacks and whites who cite it as evidence of moral decay and devolution. But Dyson holds that "the vilification .". . is far out of proportion to the problem [gangsta' rap] presents. The demonization of gangsta' rappers is often a convenient excuse for cultural and political elites to pounce on a group of artists who are easy prey." Dyson makes the fact that this isn't the first time such a group has been scapegoated by a nervous overclass the backdrop for a literate and compelling argument that cultural warfare over popular music and other matters he addresses is just a convenient way for society to avoid dealing with larger issues of race and class. Nervous parents, educators, and others with an interest in future generations and in racial and class hatred would do well to read his thoughtful assessments.
"Michael Eric Dyson is...one of our most compelling spokesmen for the concerns of the Black community today."--Black History
"A provocative collection of essays on black culture.... Dyson is one of a group of contemporary black writers, including bell hooks, Cornel West, and Derrick Bell, who are forging what might be called a new canon of inclusion."--Christopher John Farley, Time
"Eclectically jumping from profiles of Michael Jordan...to the Rev. Gardner Taylor,...Dyson provides an expertly composed snapshot of contemporary African-American life."--Newsday
"If you're a member of the hip hop community who's fed up with critics attacking the genre and villifying its artists, Michael Eric Dyson's latest book, Between God and Gangsta Rap, provides long-sought-after relief. This brother's sermon is a must-read."--Shani Saxon, Vibe
Book Details
Published
January 4, 1996
Publisher
New York : Oxford Unviersity Press, 1996.
Pages
218
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780195098983