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Mark Anthony Neal

Mark Anthony Neal

Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University, where he won the 2010 Robert B. Cox Award for Teaching. Neal has written and lectured extensively on black popular culture, black masculinity, sexism and homophobia in Black communities, and the history of popular music. Neal is the founder and managing editor of the blog NewBlackMan. Neal hosts the weekly webcast, Left of Black in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University (/). A frequent commentator for National Public Radio, Neal contributes to several on-line media outlets, including Huff Post Black Voices and SeeingBlack.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.

List of articles in the library by artist

James Brown: The Last Soul Brother: James Brown (1933-2006)

Retrospective by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, January 2007

JAMES BROWN was of a generation of black men—mythological in many ways—who helped define the contours of freedom and possibility for black folk in the ...

Teddy Pendergrass: Life Was a Song Worth Singing

Retrospective by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, January 2010

HEARING THE SOOTHING voice of the late Teddy Pendergrass singing lead on the Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes classic, 'If You Don't Know Me ...

Take 6: Beautiful World

Review by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, June 2002

WHEN TAKE 6 dropped their self-titled debut in 1988, contemporary R&B and gospel were both at crossroads and the idea of an a cappella gospel ...

Lewis Taylor: Soul Enigma: Lewis Taylor Comes to America

Report and Interview by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, February 2006

FOR MUCH OF THE LAST DECADE, arguably the most brilliant R&B artist of this generation has toiled in relative obscurity in Britain. ...

List of genre pieces

The Demise of Vibe and the Future of Criticism

Comment by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, July 2009

THERE'S NO SMALL irony to the fact that the announcement of the folding of Vibe magazine occurred the day after the death of Michael Jackson. ...

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