Tuesday, November 22, 2011

A Preliminary List on Black Men & Consciousness

Last week, I did a presentation focused on blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates, cartoonist Aaron McGruder, novelist Colson Whitehead, and poet Kevin Young--four black men writers whose works I have followed regularly over the last several years. Their compositions have been useful touchstones, I was thinking, for getting me and folks in my circles thinking about a variety of concepts.

After the talk, I started thinking about a few other well-known black men born between 1969 and 1975, Whitehead's and Coates's respective birth years, who've been important to conversations I've had about "consciousness" during the contemporary era.

Here's a preliminary list of 13 of those men:

1969
Colson Whitehead, novelist
Jay-Z, rapper

1970
Kevin Young, poet
Mat Johnson, novelist

1971
Questlove, musician
Black Thought, rapper

1972
Saul Williams, poet/musician
Common, rapper

1973
Nas, rapper

1974
Aaron Mcgruder, cartoonist

1975
André Benjamin (André 3000), rapper
Darrin Bell, cartoonist
Ta-Nehisi Coates, blogger/journalist

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