Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America

"Greg Tate was my first, and in some ways truest, North Star . . . Greg was the first person who validated the art that I loved and made it intellectually viable." --Questlove, from the foreword

"The velocity and volume of his exuberance, his demands, his curiosities, and, yes, his vibrant dissatisfactions pulled me to the edge of my chair." --Hanif Absurraqib, from the introduction

A reissue of Pulitzer Prize winner Greg Tate's classic, out-of-print collection of essays, with a new introduction by Hanif Abdurraqib and a new foreword by Questlove.

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.