Hip-Hop: How We Got from a South Bronx Birthday Party to a Global Force
Even though it took time and intervention for hip-hop to expand beyond the South Bronx, that may have been for the better in the long run.
Mark Reynolds
Mark Reynolds, a PopMatters contributor since 2004, writes cultural criticism, reviews and essays from the intersection of history, race and culture. Mark began his journalism career in 1986 in his native Cleveland as a talk show host and news reporter for NPR affiliate WCPN-FM. From 1992 to 1998, he covered politics, education, local history, music, literature and film for the alternative newspaper Cleveland Free Times. He also freelanced for several Cleveland publications, including the daily Plain Dealer and alt-weekly Scene. His March 2003 Urban Dialect essay about his experiences in the alternative newspaper industry received statewide first-place honors for best media criticism from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. Other credits include periods as a regular contributor to the trade magazine Black Meetings and Tourism, the weekly newspaper Philadelphia Tribune, and the entertainment magazine Hear/Say. Concurrent with his journalism work, Mark spent 31 years with the U.S. Postal Service, mostly in corporate communications. From 1997 to 2003, he was the public relations representative for the Postal Service in Cleveland. He relocated to Philadelphia in 2004 to launch a monthly video newsletter for Postal Service employees in the Philadelphia region. In 2006, he moved to Chicago to serve as the district's corporate communications representative. Mark retired from the Postal Service in 2016 to accept a position at Antioch College (his alma mater) as Director of Marketing & Communications. Mark's essays are included in two Belt Publishing anthologies: "Red State Blues: Stories from Midwestern Life on the Left" (2018); and "Black In the Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest" (2020). Mark lives and works in Chicago, which is a pretty good place to pursue his particular beat. Wherever he roams in the world, Mark carries love for his wife and daughter, books he plans to read someday, and endless hope for Cleveland's confounding sports teams.
Was the Blues Born on a Vaudeville Stage?
Black creative and economic self-determination within the music industry didn’t begin with Chance the Rapper, or Prince, or even Motown.
You May Be Black or You May Be White But in Africa You’re an American First
In African, American, David Peterson del Mar explores a creation myth for a nation of black people still searching for personal and collective terra firma.
‘Bop Apocalypse’: When the Beats and the Boppers Set Out to Change the World
Fifites’ jazz and the Beat Generation are often linked. Aside from the drug use, however, Bop Abocalypse begs to differ.
The Visual Storytelling of Black Life in America
Graphic novels The Souls of Black Folk, Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story and Six Days in Cincinnati suggest the visual storytelling of black life is almost as vast as black life itself.
‘True South’ and the Foot Soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement
True South functions as a reminder of how great and important Eyes on the Prize is, and why it remains essential.
Chuck Berry, O.G.
Chuck Berry was a black man who spent the majority of his career entertaining white audiences with music more deeply rooted in black culture than they ever thought to ponder.
These ’70s Avant-Garde Jazz Musicians Blew Freely, Fiercely, and Reverently
These cats blew all night and day a new, astonishing page into the jazz lexicon. What they couldn't do was get gigs in jazz clubs.
‘Muslim Cool’ Puts Its Faith in Hip-Hop, and Hip-Hop in Its Faith
Where Chance the Rapper injects spirituality into hip-hop, Muslim Cool injects hip-hop into spirituality.
Is There Such a Thing as a Quintessentially Cleveland Film?
Cleveland’s film resume doesn’t equal even a Toronto or Vancouver, but it’s been hiding in plain sight behind some fairly notable films over the years.
Culture and History for the Age of Trump
History doesn't always tell us how to get it right. It sometimes warns us of the cost of getting it wrong. Art steeped in that history, like John Lewis' graphic novel trilogy, March, can remind us, if we're paying attention.