Recorded Music
Biography
Nelson George has been a writer, filmmaker, and cultural critic for over 25 years. His career began while attending New York’s St. John’s University in the late ’70s as a contributing journalist to the Amsterdam News and Billboard, where after graduation (1982 through 1989), he was named black music editor. He is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound (1986), The Death of Rhythm & Blues (1988), Blackface: African Americans in the Movies (2002), and Hip Hop America (1999); reviewer and profiler of black indie films; associate producer of Just Another Girl on the IRT; cowriter of screenplays for Strictly Business (starring Halle Berry) and CB4 (starring Chris Rock); consulting producer on HBO’s The Chris Rock Show (late ’90s); Village Voice columnist of “Native Son” (1988 to 1992); coauthor, Russell Simmons’s autobiography Life and Def (2002). His short film, To Be a Black Man, featuring Samuel L. Jackson, has played in film festivals in New York, London, and Amsterdam, as has his documentary, A Great Day in Hip Hop. Mr. George’s online film project, Blacker, a look at racial identity through poetic short films, can be viewed at www.nelsongeorge.com.
