My Life As an Erotic Writer
By Nelson | march 28, 2008 | 1 comment

Though best known as a writer of non-fiction about black culture, I have had a life n the DL as a writer of erotic fiction. My first foray was the swinger novel Show & Tell, which featured, not a love triangle, but a love square with four people involved in a series of erotic encounters. [...]

She’s Gotta Have It Revisited
By Nelson | march 25, 2008 | 7 comments

After years of negotiation and delay She’s Gotta Have It is finally on dvd. I watched it the other night after not seeing in ten or so years. It was a film that changed many things, including my life. After meeting Spike Lee through a friend, I found that he lived two blocks from me [...]

The Wire - Post Soul Series
By Nelson | march 9, 2008 | 2 comments

I know it wasn’t a “black” show. Most of the writers were white men. Only a few of the directors were of color, though more were the last two seasons. And black women weren’t as prominent or deeply explored as the brothers. Yet The Wire, which ended tonight after five mostly brilliant seasons, presented the [...]

Passing Strange: The Great Black Boho Rock Musical
By Nelson | march 8, 2008 | 1 comment

Stew and his band, the Negro Problem, had been making the rounds of the rock world for well over a decade. Like most black rock bands they were marginalized, not part of the world of mainstream black music and had found very little love in the rock mainstream. But Stew was a sharp witted, ambitious lyricist with facility in [...]

Baduism circa 2008
By Nelson | march 6, 2008 | 1 comment

Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah:Part One (4th World War) is a complicated mesh of soul, electro sounds and references, simple and obscure. The lady is one of the great eccentric’s in pop music and it’s a pleasure to have her making music again after a six year absence. That much of the album is produced by [...]