Reviewed by Sidik Fofana
Often recognized for his seminal text Hip-Hop America, Nelson George rides the frontier of culturally astute writers. He and his contemporaries have successfully melded the global genre with the social avalanches that spurned it. Yet unlike his fellow writers, Jeff Chang, Mark Anthony Neal, William Jelani Cobb, Toure, and others, George’s foundation is not merely hip-hop. It’s black music as a whole. Long before hip-hop swelled into the world phenomenon it is today, George was penning pieces for Billboard Magazine and Amsterdam News, and his beat was the R&B, disco, and sometimes rock ‘n’ roll circuit. His career, much like this all-encompassing memoir of his coming-of-age as a writer, lends itself to the invisible benefits of career evolution.
City Kid is an autobiography about how George’s schooling, neighborhood, internships, layoffs, etc. influenced his writing. It starts in Brownsville—after George’s prelude about how his parents met—where his mother is working hard as a teacher to support him and his sister, while entertaining a couple of unfruitful romances. George’s recollections of growing up in the notorious Tilden Projects poke at the edginess of urban survival. “When I was around seven or eight and just beginning to understand growing up in a tough neighborhood, bullies would try to intimidate me,” he writes. “They’d try to steal my Pensky Pinky rubberball, cheat me at games, and ask for money. Out of nowhere, my little sister would show up and challenge them. ‘Don’t mess with my brother,’ she’d demand.”
Amidst the chaos and calamity of a Brooklyn upbringing, George graduated high school, attended St. John’s University, and secured several writing gigs. It is at this student/professional ‘tweener stage when George’s personal narrative really starts. We don’t get some one-in-a-million story about a steady ladder climb to success; George’s travels in the field of journalism are often desultory and heartbreaking. He writes about being laid off from Amsterdam News in his early twenties and being banned from Billboard because he used “black English” in concert reviews. George’s successes, which are evident from numerous anecdotes, come from being resilient and annoyingly persistent, and not from any prescribed road to self-actualization. George obviously wants to show readers that it took him years of receiving rejection letters from Village Voice Editor Robert Christgau and writing for less-than-ideal wages to reach the fame he has today.
George spares none when it comes to telling of the spoils of that fame. Throughout his memoir, he constantly acknowledges his weak spot for women and has no delusions about the reason behind the growing pool from which to choose. “Through my access to events I met older, more sexually active women,” George recalls. “I didn’t get any handsomer or dress any better (style never being one of my strong suits), but I became a more
exciting date.” It is that point in the book where George weaves in his breakthroughs as an author and film producer with his marvelous social life as a young, single, hip writer. The latter part of the autobiography is more
about the lifestyle of a writer than the writing itself, which by no means takes away from the validity of the work since his life experiences influence his work. For instance, stiff questioning about the sources from TV anchor Bryant Gumbel on his 1986 book on Motown, Where Did Our Love Go, teaches George a lesson about keeping his personal standards high. George takes much wisdom from each of his writing milestones, and that wisdom makes each subsequent project more successful.
These days, Nelson George is more of a film icon than a music journalism icon. Years of notable writing, editing, and living in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene section led him to produce films like Cell Block Four starring Chris Rock, and the inspirational HBO hit, Life Support, based on the life of his sister who tested HIV positive a few years back. He also has made life-long friends with Spike Lee, whose first film, She’s Gotta Have It, he helped finance.
City Kid is a direct testament to the stages of life. This is a memoir of a writer who has ridden the wave of writing trends—from music journalist to hip-hop to black cinema—and has enjoyed the success of one who recognizes a good thing when he sees it.