Category Archives: urban lit

The black’s only water fountain…I mean, reading section.

Christopher Chambers writes about the “blacks only” section popping up in many bookstores and supermarts. In his quest for Matt Johnson’s graphic novel Incognegro, he’s directed to the “black section”. Mixed in with the urban fiction is other classics like Richard Wright’s Native Son and Dorothy West’s The Wedding. ( must admit that I’ve only heard of and read Native Son.)

His frustration came from the fact that African American authors and pushed into one section regardless of genre, time period or quality of writing. This is how I feed about it. Until these big corporations start to care about black authors as authors, as opposed to African American authors, we can’t expect for them to include African American authors with the other “greats”.

But to be mad about the success of urban lit is…typical, yet natural. Urban lit follows the same pattern that other forms of entertainment in black America have taken. The best and most recent example would be hip hop. Black artists were making music that their people liked. Not every black person was down, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that hip hop wasn’t tailor made for mainstream consumption.That didn’t stop the music from being made in makeshift studios. That didn’t stop the music from being sold out of the trunks of cars. That didn’t stop the music from finally making it mainstream. That also didn’t stop the music from being raped just like the jazz, blues and rock n’ roll that came before it.

And just like hip hop, urban fiction writer’s hustled their way into prominence. While the corporations swooped in to make some money from the trend, black writer’s of other genres tend to feel slighted and in return attack.

It makes me wonder if there is some literary Willie Lynch that held a big publishing event somewhere overseas. I bet it’s in a book. (Because we don’t read, right…) Pit the new African American writers against the old African American writers. Pit the intellectuals against the uneducated. Pit urban lit against African American romance…

Lexus is paying urban lit authors and rappers! Psyche!!

I came across interesting Tayari Jones post about a Galleycat post that Tayari found interesting.

Lexus is paying (a select group of) authors to write short stories about the Lexus IS F. The 2008 Lexus Original Fiction Series “In The Belly of The Beast” is about a young couple traveling in the car from Brooklyn to The Bay Area. Sounds like a good rap collabo in the making.
Tayari points out the fact that there are literally thousands of Urban Lit authors and rappers in the belly of the beast giving tons of free publicity to Lexus, Cristal and Armani in their works. I have to admit that I couldn’t tell you if what I’m reading is slang or product placement. Red Monkey? Murcielago?

Will the artists and writers get paid by Lexus for endorsing their products? Sure they will. Right? Just like Tommy Hilfiger and Granda Puba. Just like gangsta rap and Glock and Mossberg. Just like R. Kelly and Jeeps. Just like Timbaland and Timberlands. Just like Gucci Mane and Gucci.

But on the flip side, if urban lit authors and rappers didn’t reference material items would the stories be as interesting?

Hate Street Lit? Me, too! What are we going to do about it?

This is a great follow up to the Street Lit is the New Gangsta Rap post.

Felicia Pride of TheBackList.com, a prolific literary figure herself, wrote an interesting blog post. Instead of continuing the “street lit is taking us all down” angle, Felicia not only asks “what are you going to do about it?” but also giving some good examples of people who are taking action instead of just taking shots.

Here is the shortlist of movers and shakers:

There is more to be found on that Back List blog post.

I guess this website is my attempt to add my two cents for the sake of adding cents. (By the way, I don’t hate street lit…)