Tomorrow I'm going to read from my book the Beautiful Struggle at the Brooklyn Book Festival. If you're in the area, come out and see me in 3-D, when I let the rhythm hit another MC. Alright, bad Rakim allusion. You get the picture. Please come out. For those who don't know about the book, it's a memoir of my time coming up in West Baltimore. Check the trailer below:
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
So when are you coming to Baltimore?
September, I think? There's a book festival there in the fall that I'll be at.
Glad to hear you're coming to B'more. Please post when that is!
Just finished your book. Really liked it. Your parents loved you deeply man. They must be so proud of you.
You have a wonderful story. Btw, I love the use of Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth.. Gosh I am getting flashbacks.
that's a beautiful song ('they reminisce over you'), over the credits.
Oh they did Lesley. Madly, actually. And I wake up everyday trying to make them proud. I'm just corny like that.
"They drag you across the finish line" . . .
This is *so* true.
The unglamorous, often unloved gifts of the poor-ass lower middle class/working class parents: checking the book bag; getting you the library card; making you sign up for all those art/music/church whatever lessons, so there's no empty space after school to get lost in.
I can remember my mom visiting my high school class and me being kinda ashamed of her wore-out, unfashionable clothes (though kinda proud of her being so pretty anyway) instead of having any appreciation of what it took her and my dad to raise 4 kids in lean times.
Gotta get this book.
Smack me and I'll smack you back
was the answer to the I ain't no joke track...
I think it's unfortunate that Talib subsequently named his awful album after your book. Or was it the other way around? That guy should go into spoken word, or politics. No flow.
Talib v Doobie Brothers
LISTEN mash up
Dope:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqBNjwrk1m0
Other way around. And yeah, the flow is a problem.
TNC, when is the Beautiful movie coming out? You sell the rights yet?
This is a great story Ta-Nehisi-I wish you the best of luck with the book and speaking tour!!
who would play TNC in the movie? forest whitaker? well, i guess it would have to be some teenager since that's the age TNC is when most of the action is taking place..
*tears*
I'm a girl, what can I say.
As the white single mother of three African-American children (adopted/liberated from Texas) I am going to go buy your book, read it, and then give it to my 13 year-old son to read.
I struggle to shepherd my flock to themselves, push them toward themselves, allow them to be themselves, and give them what they need to celebrate and respect themselves, as human beings, as African-Americans, and as citizens of the world.
But what it all comes down to is that I try to, as my childhood best friend's mother said, to "Just love 'em."
A blessing on our heads, every one.
Well, it's a good title at least. He's fine, of course, in a group context, and he was even pretty good as the rapping half of Reflection Eternal, but him over Neptunes beats was a serious stretch.
On Thursday, I heard a blurb on NPR about book trailers and wondered what the hell they were.
I too loved the part about there not being a moment of realization, but instead having parents drag you across the finish line.
When I was going to school in Oakland, in the 70's you could tell who had stong parents at home. You could tell who had gifts that would help them get through into a decent adulthood, and who had stong parents at home. Those two groups didn't always overlap. It's all about capital, social and personal. Who has the money in the bank to get them through.
This is a great video Ta-Nehisi! The use of T.R.O.Y. had me going crazy at the beginning, that song is just miraculous.
But Talib Kweli DOES need to work on his flow. He's been outshined by Mos Def on every single song they've done together, partly because Mos Def and the beat are one and the same. It's kind of annoying that an MC with so much to say tries to say it all in just a few bars, kind of like RZA did on Triumph if you get what I'm saying.