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Nelson George (born September 1, 1957) is an African-American author,[1] columnist, music and culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker. He has been nominated twice for theNational Book Critics Circle Award.

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Biography

George attended St. John’s University. He was an intern at the New York Amsterdam News before being hired as black music editor for Record World.[2] He later served as a music editor for Billboard magazine from 1982 to 1989. While there, George published two books; Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound in 1986, andThe Death of Rhythm & Blues in 1988. He also wrote a column, entitled “Native Son,” for the Village Voice from 1988 to 1992. He first got involved in film when, in 1986, he helped to finance director Spike Lee‘s debut feature She’s Gotta Have It.

A lifelong resident of Brooklyn, New York, George currently lives in Fort Greene.

Literary work

George has authored 15 non-fiction books, including the bestseller The Michael Jackson Story in 1984, Blackface: Reflections on African-Americans and the Movies in 1994, Elevating the Game: Black Men and basketball in 1992, and Hip Hop America in 1998. With Alan Leeds he co-authored The James Brown Reader, a collection of articles about the Godfather of Soul in 2008. In 1991 George co-wrote the Halle Berry vehicle Strictly Business and in 1993 he was co-creator of the movie CB4 starring comedian Chris Rock.

Nelson George’s The Death of Rhythm and Blues chronicles and critiques the path that R&B has taken. Nelson takes a close look at the genre’s fall to the hands of the mainstream and even mentions that some popular artists sold out.

George has written three detective novels featuring bodyguard-turned-private investigator D Hunter. All three novels — The Accidental Hunter, The Plot Against Hip-Hop: A Novel, and The Lost Treasures of R&B — have been optioned by rapper/actor Common.[3]

Film and television work

In 2004, George made a short film called To Be a Black Man, starring Samuel L. Jackson, and a documentary called A Great Day in Hip-Hop. Both titles appeared in festivals in New York, London, and Amsterdam. He executive-produced the HBO film Everyday Peoplewhich also debuted in 2004 at the Sundance Film Festival.

Currently he is serving as co-executive producer of VH1‘s Hip Hop Honors television show and executive producer of Black Entertainment Television‘s American Gangster series, which was the highest rated series in the history of BET in 2006. His directorial debut, Life Support, starring Queen Latifah, aired on HBO on March 10, 2007. Latifah won several awards for her performance as Ana Wallace, including a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild award, and the NAACP Image Award. Life Support was also named best TV film of the year by the NAACP. He also currently hosts the VH-1 series “Soul Cities”, which examines the music and culture of six prominent cities in the U.S.

A resident of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, for more than 25 years, George wrote, narrated, and co-directed with Diane Paragas the 2012 feature documentary Brooklyn Boheme, portraying the uniquely vibrant and diverse African-American artistic community of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill during the 1980s and ’90′s that included Spike Lee, Chris Rock, Branford Marsalis, Rosie Perez, Saul Williams, Lorna Simpson, Toshi Reagon, writer Touré, writer Adario Strange, Guru of Gang Starr, Erykah Badu, and Talib Kweli, among many others. Unlike the legendary Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, which was largely a literary scene, the artists collected in these neighborhoods were as involved with newer means of expression (film, rock music, hip hop, avant garde theater, stand-up comedy, photography) as with traditional African-American artistic pursuits (poetry, jazz). The film premiered on Showtime Networks in February 2012 for Black History Month. Finding The Funk was released in March 2013, it traced the history of funk music from the 1960s to the present day. Thisdocumentary included interviews with musicians such as D’Angelo, Sly Stone, Bootsy Collins, Mike D, Sheila E, and countless others. It was aired on VH1 on February 14, 2013.[4] In 2015, George released A Ballerina’s Tale, a documentary on Misty Copeland, a principal ballet dancer for ABT (American Ballet Theatre).[5]

Bibliography

Books

  • The Michael Jackson Story (Dec 1983)

  • Elevating the Game: Black Men and Basketball (Jan 1992)

  • Buppies, B-Boys, Baps & Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture (Feb 1993)

  • Blackface: Reflections on African-Americans and the Movies (Oct 1994)

  • Seduced (Apr 1996)

  • One Woman Short (Aug 2001)

  • Life and Def: Sex, Drugs, Money, and God (Dec 2001), Contributor – Russell Simmons

  • Show & Tell (2002)

  • The Death of Rhythm and Blues (Aug 2003)

  • Night Work: A Novel (May 2003)

  • Hip Hop America (Apr 2005)

  • Post-Soul Nation: The Explosive, Contradictory, Triumphant, and Tragic 1980s as Experienced by African Americans (Previously Known as Blacks and Before That Negroes) (Apr 2005)

  • Where Did Our Love Go?: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound (Music in American Life) (Oct 2007)

  • The James Brown Reader: Fifty Years of Writing About the Godfather of Soul (April 2008), Contributor – Alan Leeds

  • City Kid: A Writer’s Memoir of Ghetto Life and Post-Soul Success (Apr 2009)

  • Thriller: The Musical Life of Michael Jackson (June 2010)

  • The Plot Against Hip Hop: A Novel (A D Hunter Mystery) (Nov 2011)

  • The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture & Style (Mar 2014)

  • The Lost Treasures of R&B (A D Hunter Mystery) (Jan 2015)

  • The Accidental Hunter (A D Hunter Mystery) (Feb 2015)

Filmography