When I read Amiri & Amina Baraka’s 1987 *The Music: Reflections on Jazz & Blues* — published the year I began writing professionally — what most affected me were not their contemplations on Miles Davis, Max Roach, and other great artists. What captivated me was Amiri Baraka’s depiction of his struggle, as a jazz writer in the 1960s, to rescue “The Music” from the cultural domination of white critics.

It was holographic to me, in the way it anteceded my own endeavors to do the same work around hip-hop culture.

Hi, @andrewschulz:

Thanks for the interesting, funny work that you and @cthagod are doing on @BrilliantIdiots.

I'm writing about a video you posted, nearly a month ago. I've just seen it, which is why this response is so late.

It was about @NickCannon. In that video, you mentioned and critiqued the work of the late Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing, who died in early 2016. (It appears that @NickCannon may have referenced her in the statement for which he was fired by CBS/Viacom.)

Dr. Welsing was a friend and mentor of mine.