In 1982, my introduction to the music writing of future mentor and friend Greg Tate was a black magic moment that caused me to celebrate as his words literally changed my young life. Not that there weren’t a few Black music journalists/critics before him (LeRoi Jones, Phyl Garland) whose work I admired, but that morning I bought the Village Voice, opened to the record review section and read a piece on George Clinton (“Beyond the Zone of the Zero Funkativity”), that sent me soaring. It was a critique that was so eye-opening, funky fresh and inspiring, I felt like a kid who just watched a rocket blast towards the moon and decided he wanted to be an astronaut.

https://lithub.com/afrodi...greg-tate/