Author, academic and media personality Michael Eric Dyson will be writing a book that focuses on the cultural impact of musician and mogul, Jay Z.
Entertainment Weekly reports Dyson’s book will feature a foreword by #Pharrell and will contain a thorough breakdown of the self-made billionaire’s music career and cultural influence through the years.
“This book is the fruit of a decade of teaching about one of the greatest poets this nation has produced,” Dyson told EW. “Jay-Z is not only a remarkable recording artist and ingenious businessman, but he is one of our most gifted wordsmiths whose language drips with all the poetic tricks and skills you’ll find in Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and Rita Dove. But as a rapper, he’s sometimes not given the credit he deserves for just how great an artist he’s been for so long.”
The book, called “Jay-Z: Made in America,” is set to release this coming fall in honor of Jay’s 50th birthday. “I thought this was the perfect time to take a look at Jay-Z’s career and his role in making this nation what it is today,” Dyson said. “In many ways, this is Jay-Z’s America as much as it’s Obama’s America, or Trump’s America, or Martin Luther King’s America, or Nancy Pelosi’s America, or Maxine Waters’ America. Jay-Z has given this country a language to think with and words to live by, and his lyrics have shaped the self-understanding of a culture that grapples with race and injustice and inequality everyday. He’s an important thinker and artist, and my book tries to measure his impact and acknowledge his greatness.”
Dyson, who is a professor of sociology at Georgetown University, has researched and promoted for hip hop as an art form and culture, and now, his book is set to be released on Nov. 26.
