For A More Ordered Life, Organize Like A Chef

It has been a six month journey with this story, but I am so grateful that it’s finally out. I wanted to answer this question: How is it that chefs and cooks all over the world are able to be so organized; and meanwhile many of us outside the kitchen can’t even keep our desks […]

How I Came To Be Called “Butt Manager.” For Real.

Come have a laugh at my expense tonight: I’ll be telling my personal stories from the “Baby Got Back” era tonight at The Soundtrack Series (alongside luminaries like Maura Johnston and Sasha Frere-Jones) at New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge (The Red Fish, for you Freedom Fries folks), 158 Bleecker Street in money makin’ Manhattan. […]

SxSW 2012 With Steve Stoute And Soul Train

On Friday, I’ll be heading to SxSW in Austin, Texas for two panels. Saturday at 11a, Steve Stoute and I will be having a conversation about America’s multiracial future. And a few hours later, at 1:30p, myself and Tony Cornelius — son of the legendary Don Cornelius — will celebrate the legacy of Soul Train […]

Why Don Cornelius Matters

Why Don Cornelius Matters

———————– The significance of Don Cornelius to American culture — and to the American culture business — is told nowhere more eloquently than in one brief exchange between Cornelius and singer James Brown, a story that Cornelius himself recalls in VH-1’s excellent 2010 documentary Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America. It was the Godfather […]

Def Jam: The First 25 Years Of The Last Great Record Label

The new book that I co-authored with Bill Adler and Cey Adams — Def Jam: The First 25 Years Of The Last Great Record Label (Rizzoli) — is out this week. (Click HERE to buy the book.) So much more than a “coffee table” book, it’s a comprehensive oral history of the label. The book […]