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 […]

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 […]

Honorable Mention From The Dean

Music criticism may be going the way of the CD in the Internet age, as critics no longer have much of a lead on fans in procuring new music, and fans have more platforms than ever to share their opinions directly with each other. We have, alas, become the squeezed-out middlemen. But folks my age […]

Dan On CNN, Discussing Common And Conservatives

There’s a first time for everything. The rapper Common — still smelling of Gap clothing and Erykah Badu’s incense — called “vile,” “misogynist,” and “violent.” The writer Dan Charnas called to talk about it on CNN. Kinda cool.