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Colson Whitehead: Cool Like 'Dat

Posted at 12:44 PM on November 2, 2011 by The Current

Tonight's Talking Volumes features author Colson Whitehead in conversation with Kerri Miller live at the Fitzgerald Theater. He'll be discussing his new book, Zone One, a tale about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse in New York.

If that weren't reason enough to attend, Mr. Whitehead also worked on staff for The Village Voice writing music reviews.

Here's a great example of his work -- a review exploring the depths of Digable Planets' debut Reachin' (a New Refutation of Time and Space)

In their choice of models, the Planets opt for boho cool rather than the ho-hum, predictable B-boy cool. In sampling's heyday, let's say around Fear of a Black Planet's wall of noise, rap became a densely packed riot, the songs' saturated grooves overflowing with allusion. As with the current use of the jazz stuff, the Sly Stone beat or the Stokely speech was a way of improving one's standing by basking in the light of an ancestral great. The songs on Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) (Pendulum) are just as crammed with references, but they radiate out to all manner of black cultural producers and products, not only the musical and political. Dropping the names of Dizzy, Mingus, and Trane, abbreviated in that in-the-know manner, is necessary for the vibe they're working, but the Planets also give shout-outs to Nikki Giovanni, Julie Dash, and Maya Angelou, figures that wouldn't fit on the typical B-boy's pedestal.

One can only imagine what he brings to a zombie narrative...

Tickets are still available for tonight's interview at The Fitzgerald Theater.

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