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.