maintained, places himself in a precarious posi-
tion by viewing the writings of black authors as
part of a larger integrationist project.
At the same time, Gayle recognized that critics,
including himself, and writers, including Don Lee
(HAKI MADHUBUTI) and AMIRI BARAKA, would be
challenged for their views by mainstream acade-
micians who quickly labeled them “racist, separat-
ist, hate mongers and anti-intellectual.” Gayle, who
was not affected by such criticism, argued that “the
consignment of black writers who dare to speak re-
alistically about American society to the outer limits
of Dante’s hell is one of the most nefarious crimes
perpetrated by American critics in this country.”
African-American critics, Gayle maintained, should
develop and use a methodology for critiquing works
by African-American writers that will evaluate the
relevance or irrelevance of the art to black people.
For him the most important purpose of African-
American literature is social and political revolu-
tion. Gayle asserted that “the job of the black writer
and black critic is to wage war against the American
society unceasingly and eternally.”
Gayle returned to New York, where he taught
at the City University of New York in the English
department. He died in 1991.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gayle, Addison. The Black Aesthetic. Garden City,
N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1972.
———. Lecture. Cazenovia College, August 1971.
———. Wayward Child: a Personal Odyssey. New
York: Doubleday, 1977.
Deirdre Raynor
George, Nelson (1957– )
The author of nine books of nonfiction books
and five novels, George was born and raised in
Brooklyn, New York, where, while attending St.
John’s University, he embarked on his career as a
writer. After graduating from St. John’s in 1979,
George worked part time for the Amsterdam News,
a black newspaper, as a film critic and sports re-
porter, while he freelanced for Billboard magazine.
In 1981, he worked full time as a music editor for
Record World, where his first assignment was an
interview with Prince. In 1982, George joined Bill-
board as editor in charge of black music, a posi-
tion he held until 1989. His assignment coincided
with the rise of hip-hop music and culture, and
George was instrumental in promoting the emerg-
ing and developing hip-hop scene. He has won the
respect of critics who, according to The New York
Times Book Review, consider him an “intelligent
informed insider” (Reisig, 724).
In his role as a black music editor for Billboard,
George promoted African-American culture to an
audience that was not exclusively black, the cross-
over audience of “Generation X,” and black teens
and rappers through his Billboard essays and ar-
ticles but also through several critical books about
popular culture. In the 1980s George published
The Michael Jackson Story (1984), Where Did the
Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound
(1985), and The Death of Rhythm and Blues (1988),
the last of which won the ASCAP Deems Taylor
Award and was nominated for a National Book
Critics Circle award. He continued his critical look
at African-American culture in the 1990s with
Elevating the Game: The History and Aesthetics of
Black Men in Basketball (1992), Buppies, B-Boys,
Baps & Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Culture (1992),
Blackface: Reflections on African-Americans and
the Movies (1994), and Hip Hop America (1999),
which won rave reviews and an American Book
Award and was nominated for a National Book
Critics Circle Award.
Besides George’s extensive critical work, he is
also an accomplished fiction writer, publishing
such titles as Urban Romance (1993), Seduced: The
Life and Times of a One Hit Wonder (1996), One
Woman Short (2000), Show and Tell (2001), Night
Wor k (2003), and The Accidental Hunter (2004). In
his attempts to mirror the unification of the Af-
rican-American experience, George has used the
same characters in all his novels. He allows his
characters to sink to the background or be drawn
to the foreground depending on the situation, cre-
ating a valid and complex narrative of Brooklyn.
Finally, George also advanced his reputa-
tion as a chronicler of American and African-
American popular culture, specifically hip-hopGeorge, Nelson 201