and inspired a new genre of literature and deter-
mined how mainstream America views hip-hop
culture. A journalist, poet, hip-hop historian, and
political activist, Powell was also one of the origi-
nal cast members on the first season of MTV’s Real
World in New York. Hailed as “one of America’s
most brilliant young cultural critics,” Powell’s writ-
ing range includes several collections of poetry as
well as edited volumes that explore the politiciza-
tion of race, class, and gender in popular culture.
The only child of a single mother, Powell was
born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1970. As a child
he possessed an intense passion for knowledge
and reading. Overcoming obstacles of poverty,
he attended Rutgers University, where he studied
political science and English. An avid reader and
passionate writer, Powell has published at least four
books that examine the post–BLACK AESTHETIC pe-
riod in African-American culture.
His first volume of poetry, Recognize (1995),
demonstrates how music, hip-hop, and global
events shaped his life. Passionately expressing a
new flavor of African-American literature, Rec-
ognize exposes the fears and hopes of urban black
America. Powell next coedited with Ras Baraka In
the Tradition: An Anthology of Young Black Writers.
His next work, Keeping It Real: Post-MTV Reflec-
tions on Race, Sex, and Politics (1997), a collec-
tion of four conversational essays that examines
America’s political and social landscape through
personal experiences.
The current hip-hop generation resonates with
the generation that produced the HARLEM RENAIS-
SANCE and such writers as LANGSTON HUGHES,
CLAUDE MCKAY, and ZORA NEALE HURSTON. Pow-
ell and his contemporaries, including Jessica Care
More and Zadie Smith, are pioneering the Word
Movement. In Step into a World: A Global Anthol-
ogy of the New Black Literature (2000), Powell dem-
onstrates the continuity of the Harlem Renaissance
and the Word Movement, yet at the same time he
shows the evolution and transformation of newer
writing styles and emphasis. Step into a World
serves as a venue for some of the most profound
underground and mainstream observers of black
culture, the hip-hop generation, and society. The
anthology offers a collection of essays and poems
that examine the nature and changing dynamics of
hip-hop, its growing influence on white America,
and its minimal respect among mainstream media
and music critics.
Capturing the voice of young Americans, Pow-
ell’s insightful critique offers the traditional liter-
ary world a different view of life, popular culture,
and politics. His works continue the rich legacy of
black literature because they carry a sense of op-
timism and hope for black America while reflect-
ing the truth and pain of African-Americans, who
continue to endure the politics of race, gender, and
class in 21st-century America.BIBLIOGRAPHY
George, Nelson. Hip Hop America. New York: Pen-
guin Group, 1998.
Powell, Kevin, ed. Step into a World: A Global Anthol-
ogy of the New Black Literature. New York: Wiley
& Sons, 2000.
LaShawn D. HarrisPowell, Patricia (1966– )
Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, where she was
raised by a great-aunt, and educated in England
and the United States, where she emigrated with
her family in 1982, Patricia Powell holds a bache-
lor’s degree from Wellesley College and an M.F.A.
in creative writing from Brown University. Pow-
ell continues a well-established tradition of black
Caribbean writers who have made significant con-
tributions within the African-American literary
tradition. CLAUDE MCKAY (Jamaica), PAULE MAR-
SHALL (Barbados), JAMAICA KINCAID (Antigua), and
COLIN CHANNER (Jamaica) are among the award-
winning and best-selling black writers who fit this
complex category. Powell, whose themes in her
novels center around issues of race, gender iden-
tity, sexuality, colonialism, and class, formally en-
tered the literary scene with the publication of her
first three novels: Me Dying Trial (1993), A Small
Gathering of Bones (1994), and her best-known
and well-received novel, The Pagoda (1998). All
three are set in Jamaica.
In her debut novel, Me Dying Trial, Powell fo-
cuses on the experiences of Gwennie Agusta Blas-
pole, a schoolteacher who, caught in a loveless and418 Powell, Patricia