Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America
About this audiobook
A reissue of Greg Tate's classic, out-of-print collection of essays, with a new introduction by Hanif Abdurraqib and a new foreword by Questlove.
This program is read by Dion Graham and Mikel Mwalimu-Banks with introductions written and read by Questlove, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. It also features prerecorded and new music by Tate, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, and Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber conducted by Vernon Reid.
From one of the most original, creative, and provocative culture critics comes an eye-opening collection of essays and tales about American music and culture.
Under the guise of writing about a single subject, Greg Tate’s essays in Flyboy in the Buttermilk branch out from his usual and explore social, pop cultural, political, and economic subjects. Taking on a wide diversity of topics—from the rise of hip-hop; the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat; the music of Miles Davis, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Bad Brains, and many others; to the crisis of the Black intellectual and the irony of the GOP recruiting Black Americans— Tate writes in a brave and distinctive voice that is angry, joyous, anxious, and funny.
In every piece of this collection, Tate offers informed insight into where America is going and why.
Cover art © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin. Burnt Sugar credits can be found here: https://burntsugarindex.com/flyboy-in-the-buttermilk-audiobook-credits/
A Macmillan Audio production from AUWA Books.
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About the author
Greg Tate (1957–2021) was a music and popular-culture critic and journalist whose work appeared in many publications, including The Village Voice, Vibe, Spin, The Wire, and Downbeat. He was the author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America and Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience and the editor of Everything but the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture. He won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 2024 in recognition of his pioneering work. Tate, via guitar and baton, also led the conducted improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, which toured internationally.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio, and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant. He is the author of There's Always This Year, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and A Little Devil in America, which was the winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burns Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named one of the books of the year by NPR, Esquire, BuzzFeed, O: The Oprah Magazine, Pitchfork, and Chicago Tribune, among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.
