I’ve had the same editor since 1967. Many times he has said to me over the years or asked me, Why would you use a semicolon instead of a colon? And many times over the years I have said to him things like: I will never speak to you again. Forever. Goodbye. That is it. Thank you very much. And I leave. Then I read the piece and I think of his suggestions. I send him a telegram that says, OK, so you’re right. So what? Don’t ever mention this to me again. If you do, I will never speak to you again

Maya Angelou on the joys of being edited

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity Great swathes of rock music since the nineteen-sixties would never have existed, we're sometimes told, were it not for the recordings of Robert Johnson. Certainly the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Cla...

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity

Reclaiming the Banjo's Hidden Black History | In the Making YouTube video by PBS

Today's delight: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVv...

actual nytimes headline FEMA Official Says He Teleported to Waffle House. Experts Are Dubious.

you, a naive fool: i do believe there are some things the nytimes won’t both sides

the nytimes:

As the global musical phenomenon turns 50, a hip-hop professor explains what the word ‘dope’ means to him As the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop, a scholar of the culture and its musical genres explores the meaning of the word ‘dope.’

“As the global musical phenomenon turns 50, a hip-hop professor explains what the word ‘dope’ means to him (March 2023)”
theconversation.com/as-the-globa...

Me and William Edward Burghardt was classmates. He even signed my yearbook.

I love how picking the wrong one on the right day & picking the right one on the wrong day mean the same thing. You will bow before the innovations of AAVE!

The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie - YouTube Out April 7, 2026 in North America from Pantheon Books and in UK/Europe on May 7 from Canongate Books.

The book has a playlist and it is a wonderful listen, in my extremely biased opinion 😀

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

"American culture encourages you to delay feeling proud of yourself until external validation has been granted. Practice this and you get to the point where you cannot feel proud until that validation materializes."

If you think I’m failing you right now, boy am I failing me right now!

Movies and TV greatly overestimate how many people would simply follow you if you said "can I talk to you privately for a moment" as a way to disengage them from a group conversation before things get bad.

I don't know if we will win. But it's worth trying cuz we deserve better.

And I agree with Angela Y. Davis, who said, "We can never predict the outcome of our work. As Stuart Hall said, 'There are never any guarantees.' At the same time, you have to act as if it were possible to change the world."

Writers! Read! Respect your medium!

If you have friends or family who deal with depression or anxiety, you really just have to think outside of yourself. It might seem like folks went dark and don’t want to talk to you but they might just be in the mud at that moment.

Your interpretation of what you read is more precious than what any critic or scholar has said about what you read, & far more precious than any kind of summary AI can give you of written material. The work is supposed to go inside of YOU & work with what's inside of you to have a home there.

"Across 24 tracks and 101 minutes, The Fall Off is full of technical proficiency, raw lyrical skill, citation, interpolation and sampling, and it attempts nothing less than to embody a half-century of hip-hop." ~ @aydeethegreat.bsky.social
❤️🖤💚

J Cole: The Fall Off review – rap legend’s final album is a self-obsessed hip-hop history lesson (Interscope)Bowing out after six consecutive US No 1 albums, Cole references rap greats and even conjures a convo between Biggie and 2Pac – but the lens rarely strays from himself

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

In his new book, ‘Being Dope,’ A.D. Carson raps about racial reckoning in Charlottesville and Clemson, South Carolina Carson, a UVA professor of hip-hop and the Global South, uses prose, poetry and rap rhythms to explain race and culture. "Dope" is a term that he traces to stereotypes of Black people to rappers recla...

www.cvilletomorrow.org/in-his-new-b...

Stanley from the Office with BLACK on his head

How your email finds me during #BlackHistoryMonth:

#BookSky, this impacts not just writers but also readers.

Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raym...

BREAKING: The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

www.millikin.edu/news-events/...

I'm not going to complain about this, but I'd be a lot happier if it were a large public university system making this announcement.

Two copies of a black, white and red book cover. The cover reads UNCORRECTED PROOF NOT For SALE SECOND SIGHT: HOW THE WONDER AND VISION OF BLACK MEDIAMAKERS PUSH AMERICA TOWARD FREEDOM SARAH J. JACKSON My light brownish hand with chipped purple glitter nail polish holds the books

Thrilled to have galleys of my book in hand! Final corrections & index pending. Please consider preordering, gifting, & teaching. Via the archive, interviews & more I show how the crisis we face now reflects failure to listen & act on the democracy Black folks have envisioned, but we still can.

My twin* wrote another book and it's realllllly good

Preorder today!!!!

'Dry Bones' film explores race, sports and community through Ike Maxwell story On Friday, Feb. 6, filmmaker Tara Conley will hold the first public screening of her film "Dry Bones," which explores not just Ike Maxwell's life and football career, but the realities of sports, comm...

“A longtime Elyria resident is finally set to bring the story of Elyria football phenom Ike Maxwell to life on film, after a half a decade of work and a lifetime of hearing the tales of Maxwell, his family and the city that made him.“
chroniclet.com/news/455695/...

I don't like the way that history is popularly narrated in this country. At all.

Non paywall link archive.is/WZNib

Hello editors, our leaders lying to our face is a big story to write multiple articles about.