Q+A: Nelson George on His Next Book and Making Mixtapes in Paper Form
Esteemed author joins us for our new interview series!
Nelson George self-portrait
Today, we are thrilled to welcome author and filmmaker Nelson George for a Q+A! His work has had a great influence on me and, I’m sure, many of our members and authors. He was kind enough to share a peek at what he’s currently working on as well as his all-time favorite music books (from himself and other legendary authors). Do yourself a favor and check out his most recent editions, the two-volume Nelson George Mixtape books published by Pacific, for a deeper understanding of his impact.
Tamara Palmer/Music Book Club: I recently picked up your brilliant Nelson George Mixtape Volume 1 at Skylight Books in Los Angeles. How did this project materialize, and what was your favorite part of making the mix?
Nelson George: I'd done a collection of my music pieces back in the '90s, which leaned heavily on my work at the Village Voice. It was called Buppies, Bboys, Baps & Bohos, the title being a nod to Tom Wolfe. But I was at Record World and Billboard from 1981 to 1989, and had been at the Amsterdam News while in college in the late '70s. Plus I free lanced for Musician, Essence, Black Enterprise and the Source during that same period. That meant many of my most important pieces had never been collected - interviews with Marvin Gaye, hip hop's founding fathers, profiles of the Motown musicians etc. And I had an unpublished conversation with Bob Marley from a year before his death. So I wanted to make those available again. I was friends with Elizabeth Karp-Evans, co-owner of a small Brooklyn design studio called Pacific and approached her for help in self-publishing. I wanted it to feel more like an art book. Elizabeth took my original print articles and bits of memorabilia (ticket stubs, flyers) and created a very tactile experience. We [released] the hard cover as a limited edition collectors item and then did a lower price paperback.
For hip hop's 50th anniversary we did a zine version for Volume two, which collected pieces that went from the earliest recordings by Kurtis Blow up to the era of Andre 3000. It's been fun to do curated books that don't just reprint the articles but treat then as dispatches from the print past. These pieces existed in a very specific visual context and the Mixtape books celebrate that.
What are you listening to at the moment?
I'm writing a book now about Fort Greene, Brooklyn in the '80s and '90s, which means I've been listening the eclectic sounds of that community, from Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star to Cecil Taylor, from Santigold to Marc Anthony Thompson. Notorious BIG and Erykah Badu are probably the best known musical artists from that community, but there were all sorts of jazz and unconventional black singer and songwriters who lived and worked there. It wasn't simply an alternation scene - it was a place of many alternative visions. It's been fun to revisit all of it.
Of all the books you’ve written, which one is your favorite, or has aged the best?
The Death of Rhythm & Blues is absolutely the best book I've done, though my Motown history book, Where Did Our Love Go? is very much revered in the UK. Of my other non-fiction books I have great affection for Elevating the Game, where I attempted to bring a music critic's voice to writing about the history of black men in basketball.
Do you have any opinions about the various available platforms for self-publishing books and ebooks? Do any of them interest you?
Right now I'm working with a boutique publisher attached to a major house for the Fort Greene book, but I enjoyed the experience of working with Pacific and doing a bespoke publication. I do a lot of musical fiction. I did a series of noir music books with Akashic Books in the '00s and I'm interested in publishing more, perhaps as ebooks in the future.
Any music books written by other authors to recommend to us, whether all-time favorites or recently-released titles?
The classics for me are Leroi Jones's Blues People and Greil Marcus' Mystery Train. Those are my foundational texts. John Szwed's bio of Sun Ra, Space Is the Place, is a very special labor of love. Keith Richards’ autobiography [Life] and Bob Dylan's semi-autobiography Chronicles are both great reads. Though more people now know David Ritz's Divided Soul book about Marvin Gaye, his book with Ray Charles [Brother Ray] is brilliant. There are lot of books on hip hop, but when it comes to a raw depiction of life as a black man in America, Charles Mingus' Beneath the Underdog is still the ultimate tale.
Previously in our Q+A series:
More letters from Tamara Palmer
I would particularly appreciate some new subscribers to California Eating before I apply for a nonprofit reporting grant that involves this project later this month!
