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Why Bushwick Bill Matters
- Narrated by: André Santana
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
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Publisher's summary
In 1989 the Geto Boys released a blistering track, “Size Ain’t Shit,” that paid tribute to the group’s member Bushwick Bill. Born with dwarfism, Bill was one of the few visibly disabled musicians to achieve widespread fame and one of the even fewer to address disability in a direct, sustained manner. Initially hired as a dancer, Bill became central to the Geto Boys as the Houston crew became one of hip-hop’s most important groups.
Why Bushwick Bill Matters chronicles this crucial artist and explores what he reveals about the relationships among race, sex, and disability in pop music. Charles L. Hughes examines Bill's recordings and videos (both with the Geto Boys and solo), from the horror-comic persona of “Chuckie” to vulnerable verses in songs such as “Mind Playing Tricks On Me,” to discuss his portrayals of dwarfism, addiction, and mental illness. Hughes also explores Bill’s importance to his era and to the longer history of disability in music. A complex figure, Bill exposed the truths of a racist and ableist society even as his violent and provocative lyrics put him in the middle of debates over censorship and misogyny. Confrontational and controversial, Bushwick Bill left a massive legacy as he rhymed and swaggered through an often-inaccessible world.
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Good points, long winded
- By Amazon Customer on 02-06-21
By: Jabari Asim
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What Truth Sounds Like
- Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America
- By: Michael Eric Dyson
- Narrated by: Michael Eric Dyson
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook exists at the tense intersection of the conflict between politics and prophecy - of whether we embrace political resolution or moral redemption to fix our fractured racial landscape.
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Riffing on a meeting with RFK and James Baldwin
- By Adam Shields on 06-08-18
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Articulate While Black
- Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S
- By: H. Samy Alim, Geneva Smitherman, Michael Eric Dyson - foreword
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In Articulate While Black, two renowned scholars of Black Language address language and racial politics in the U.S. through an insightful examination of President Barack Obama's language use--and America's response to it. In this eloquently written and powerfully argued book, H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman provide new insights about President Obama and the relationship between language and race in contemporary society.
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best book on language
- By Amazon Customer Bishop Dr Arthur Lewis PhD on 12-07-18
By: H. Samy Alim, and others
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On the Shoulders of Giants
- My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance
- By: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Raymond Obstfeld
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In On the Shoulders of Giants, indomitable basketball star and best-selling author and historian Kareem Abdul-Jabbar invites listeners on an extraordinarily personal journey back to his birthplace. He leads us through one of the greatest political, cultural, literary, and artistic movements in our history, revealing the tremendous impact the Harlem Renaissance had on both American culture and his own life.
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The best of both worlds
- By Marianne on 10-06-08
By: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and others
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Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness
- What It Means to Be Black Now
- By: Touré, Michael Eric Dyson
- Narrated by: Touré
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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A provocative look at what it means to be Black today. This audiobook includes excerpts from over 100 interviews with Rev. Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Skip Gates, Melissa Harris-Perry, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Malcolm Gladwell, Paul Mooney, NY Gov. David Paterson, Harold Ford, Jr., Soledad O'Brien, Kamala Harris, Chuck D, Questlove, and others.
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Food for Thought
- By Sara on 12-22-11
By: Touré, and others
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Bet on Black
- The Good News About Being Black in America Today
- By: Eboni K. Williams
- Narrated by: Eboni K. Williams
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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When The Real Housewives of New York City hired its first black cast member after more than 13 years on the air, attorney, speaker, and journalist Eboni K. Williams knew that the public would consider her a diversity hire. But instead of accepting the label, Williams re-envisioned her role as a “Diversity Higher,” an opportunity to prove the significance of Black excellence in the workspace and in society at-large. In this book, she shares all the benefits and advantages that have helped her and many others historically reach great heights in their careers and beyond.
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Bet On Black…thank you, thank you, thank you!
- By amina mack on 07-15-24
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Can't Stop Won't Stop
- A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
- By: Jeff Chang
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 19 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop became the Esperanto of youth rebellion and a generation-defining movement. In a post-civil rights era defined by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop crystallized a multiracial, polycultural generation's worldview and transformed American politics and culture. But that epic story has never been told with this kind of breadth, insight, and style.
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Not About Hip Hop Music
- By A. Yerkes on 09-06-19
By: Jeff Chang
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The Nineties
- A Book
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we’re still struggling to understand.
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A Very White Middle-class Take On The Nineties
- By Umar Lee on 02-10-22
By: Chuck Klosterman
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Shakespeare in a Divided America
- What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future
- By: James Shapiro
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The plays of William Shakespeare are rare common ground in the United States. For well over two centuries, Americans of all stripes—presidents and activists, soldiers and writers, conservatives and liberals alike—have turned to Shakespeare’s works to explore the nation’s fault lines. In a narrative arching from Revolutionary times to the present day, leading scholar James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s four-hundred-year-old tragedies and comedies in illuminating the many concerns on which American identity has turned.
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An Entertaining History Lesson
- By David on 08-17-20
By: James Shapiro
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Girl Gurl Grrrl
- On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic
- By: Kenya Hunt
- Narrated by: Kenya Hunt, Ebele Okobi, Jessica Horn, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Black women have never been more visible or more publicly celebrated. But for every milestone, every magazine cover, every new face elected to public office, the reality of everyday life for black women remains a complex, conflicted, contradiction-laden experience. An American journalist who has been living in London for a decade, Kenya Hunt has made a career of distilling moments, movements, and cultural moods into words. Her work takes the difficult and the indefinable and makes it accessible; it is razor sharp cultural observation threaded through evocative and relatable stories.
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Inspired
- By Amazon Customer on 01-29-21
By: Kenya Hunt
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Batman Unauthorized
- Vigilantes, Jokers, and Heroes in Gotham City
- By: Dennis O'Neil - editor, Leah Wilson - editor
- Narrated by: Colby Elliott
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Compiled by a veteran writer of the comic series, this collection of essays explores Batman’s motivations and actions, as well as those of his foes. Batman is a creature of the night, more about vengeance than justice, more plagued by doubts than full of self-assurance, and more darkness than light. He has no superpowers, just skill, drive, and a really well-made suit.
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batman uninformed opinions
- By Aurey C. on 04-13-17
By: Dennis O'Neil - editor, and others
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We Were Feminists Once
- From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement
- By: Andi Zeisler
- Narrated by: Joell A. Jacob
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, feminism is no longer a dirty word, and women purporting to stand up for women's equality now include high-powered names like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Emma Watson. Hip underwear lines sell granny pants with "feminist" emblazoned on the back. In every bookstore, there are scores of seductive feminist how-to business guides telling women how to achieve "it all".
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Fantastic book despite shoddy narration
- By Seth H. Wilson on 05-19-16
By: Andi Zeisler