Urban Lit is DEAD! by Joey Pinkney
Yep, I said it… Urban Lit is dead. Done. Finito.
Flatline…
Who am I to say that? I don’t have the same status in the Urban Lit industry as Nas has when he said the same thing for his music. I don’t have to. I read a lot of Urban Lit, and it’s dead.
Why do I speak such blasphemous words? This sentiment stems from an email conversation I had with Therone Shellman after reading and reviewing his novel No Love Lost. (Read my review of No Love Lost, click here.) His novel was atypical and his approach to life after the streets was refreshing. Another one that comes to mind is Erick Gray’s Crave All Lose All. (Read my review of Crave All Lose All, click here. Read my interview with Erick Gray. Part I, click here. Part II, click here.)
Who am I to say that? I don’t have the same status in the Urban Lit industry as Nas has when he said the same thing for his music. I don’t have to. I read a lot of Urban Lit, and it’s dead.
Why do I speak such blasphemous words? This sentiment stems from an email conversation I had with Therone Shellman after reading and reviewing his novel No Love Lost. (Read my review of No Love Lost, click here.) His novel was atypical and his approach to life after the streets was refreshing. Another one that comes to mind is Erick Gray’s Crave All Lose All. (Read my review of Crave All Lose All, click here. Read my interview with Erick Gray. Part I, click here. Part II, click here.)
In brief, we discussed how Urban Lit doesn’t do justice to the situations that people are relegated to in hoods across America and beyond. The immorality and reality of the streets isn’t present in a lot of stories on the market today. Without going into detail, that book was the first one that I read in a long time that actually shined the light on the side of the game that most people see but few want to talk about.
Call the Coroner…
The Urban Lit genre is pumping out books with the same book covers and the same stories. Most of the authors have to boast their jail experience to get the attention and respect they think they need to sell their stories. (Sounds like rappers who have to talk about their hood exploits in order to be respected, instead of being lyrically proficient.)
The Urban Literature landscape is taking the natural life cycle of all cultural trends. It’s just like Hip-Hop, born from desolation and neglect. Just like the Hip-Hop that influenced its current direction, Urban Lit has gone from being an obscurity to being shunned to being assimilated into popular culture. That’s why the larger publishing houses are following suit and creating imprints to cater to ravenous readership that Urban Lit definitely has. That’s why you can go to Barnes and Nobles or Borders or even Wal-Mart and see the latest and greatest in the (unofficial) Urban Lit section. It’s selling.
Before it got it’s name, authors like Omar Tyree (who recently stopped writing Urban Lit), Sistah Souljah and Teri Woods wrote books that spoke to a group of people who couldn’t get the time of day from the larger publishing houses. The prevalent thought at the time was that “those people” don’t read. Urban Lit has now been digested and regurgitated by the large publishing houses just like Master P did to rap music during his hey day. And just like his albums covers, words are blinged out, the men look mean and the women look horny.
From the Cradle…
With a “for us, by us” mentality, what would later become Urban Literature was strictly a person-to-person enterprise. Authors were printing up there own books and selling them out the trunk, on the corner, mom-and-pop stores and beauty salons. Full of sex, violence and grammatical errors, these books and the readers who loved them were looked down upon by the mainstream book industry.
Then the book industry got hip. “Those people” were buying those books terrible books. “Those people” were requesting sequels and anything else their favorite hood author put out there. Why? Because those books were entertaining, but they also had an underlining message. Readers could relate.
Fast forward a couple of decades. Now every book cover either has a young black dude with braids, two ear rings, tattoos, sagging jeans and a mean mug or the book has a young female in her early twenties wearing something that makes it easy to figure out what the birthday suit is like. The stories are still about the hood, but nowadays there is a twist. The money, clothes, hos, jewelry, expensive cars, huge houses and the swagger runs the stories.
Urban Lit authors still have to get on their grind, print up the copies and sell them by any means necessary. The difference now is that they have to compete for shelf space with the larger publishing houses. A lot of times, they have to compromise the integrity of their story to fit what the readers will buy. It’s no longer a novelty to have a book with the hood as the backdrop.
With a “for us, by us” mentality, what would later become Urban Literature was strictly a person-to-person enterprise. Authors were printing up there own books and selling them out the trunk, on the corner, mom-and-pop stores and beauty salons. Full of sex, violence and grammatical errors, these books and the readers who loved them were looked down upon by the mainstream book industry.
Then the book industry got hip. “Those people” were buying those books terrible books. “Those people” were requesting sequels and anything else their favorite hood author put out there. Why? Because those books were entertaining, but they also had an underlining message. Readers could relate.
Fast forward a couple of decades. Now every book cover either has a young black dude with braids, two ear rings, tattoos, sagging jeans and a mean mug or the book has a young female in her early twenties wearing something that makes it easy to figure out what the birthday suit is like. The stories are still about the hood, but nowadays there is a twist. The money, clothes, hos, jewelry, expensive cars, huge houses and the swagger runs the stories.
Urban Lit authors still have to get on their grind, print up the copies and sell them by any means necessary. The difference now is that they have to compete for shelf space with the larger publishing houses. A lot of times, they have to compromise the integrity of their story to fit what the readers will buy. It’s no longer a novelty to have a book with the hood as the backdrop.
To the Grave…
The immorality and reality of the streets isn’t present in a lot of stories. This article actually stemmed from an email conversation I had with Therone Shellman, author of No Love Lost. Without going into detail, that book was the first one that I read in a long time that actually shined the light on the ___ side of the game. (Another one that comes to mind is Erick Gray’s ___.) Shellman is a person is has been there and done that, and it shows in his approach to his story.
A lot of people complain that most of the Urban Lit books are the same three or four stories with a different title and character names. For that matter, most of the authors have the same felonious background story in their bios. It’s just like Hip-Hop nowadays. You could take a black male between 16 and 36 (because you know we stay young looking for a while) and give him a grill, some tatoos, a fitted, a throwback (or white tee), some sagging jeans (and boxers), a gold necklace with some goofy pendant, a diamond encrusted watch, and some Air Force Ones. Then put him in front of a mansion with a couple of Lambourghinis and Escalades with a buch of women in their early 20s in bikinis. Throw on some music, let him pose and point around aimlessly showing off that goofy pendant. Oh yeah, I almost forgot let him rap…
That’s similar to what you see in Urban Lit. Most Urban Lit books has the guy that’s a drug dealer with all the name brand clothes and cars. He has enough jewelry to finance a small army. The problem is that that guy gets robbed and/or killed in real life. A perfect example is all of these rappers getting their chain snatched left and right. They talk all that stuff on the albums and still get robbed when they leave the studio. Where are the guns? Where are your boys?
On top of the hood watching you, the cops are watching harder. Most of the dudes that make it to BET’s American Gangster get an episode because of one big mistake, being too flashy. Make a solid gold crown if you want, the cops will do everything they can to take that and everything else, including your life.
Eulogy…
I understand what’s going on. People don’t read Urban Lit to get the scoop on reality. Like my girl Davida Baldwin said it, “You don’t read Street Lit for self-help and motivation, you don’t read street lit to help out the community, you read it for entertainment.” If you put the average thug n!gga or hoodrat on the book cover, it wouldn’t sell. It would probably make it hard to sell the book right next to it, too. (LOL!) If it takes a model on the cover to get noticed, then sex has sold again. To be honest, authors don’t spend months and years to write a book for it to sit in a book store. They write it to hopefully put money in their pockets.
I understand what’s going on. People don’t read Urban Lit to get the scoop on reality. Like my girl Davida Baldwin said it, “You don’t read Street Lit for self-help and motivation, you don’t read street lit to help out the community, you read it for entertainment.” If you put the average thug n!gga or hoodrat on the book cover, it wouldn’t sell. It would probably make it hard to sell the book right next to it, too. (LOL!) If it takes a model on the cover to get noticed, then sex has sold again. To be honest, authors don’t spend months and years to write a book for it to sit in a book store. They write it to hopefully put money in their pockets.
The larger publishing houses are in the game to sell units. If you like it, they love it. Business is business, but we the readers should expect more from Urban Lit authors.
The passionate Joey Pinkney is a contributor to the forthcoming The Soul of a Man: A Triumph of My Soul Anthology. Learn more about Joey at http://www.joeypinkney.com/ and learn more about The Soul of a Man at http://www.peaceinthestormpublishing.com/.
Posts
.JPG)
11 comments:
After reading this article, all I can say is WOW. Very good discription of the rise and fall of Urban Lit. I have noticed that a lot of the urban books are repetitive in content. The story lines are almost always the same in context. But it's more than likely the entertainment of the stories that keeps them selling. I was once an advid Urban Lit fan, however over time, I too have cut back on the Urban Lit. Not completely cut out, because there are still some truly good stories out there still being released. But all and all I really enjoyed this topic, very enlightening and informative.
When this article first ran on my website (http://joeypinkney.com) and later on The Urban Book Source's website, many Urban Lit authors came out to tell me how wrong I was. I think a lot of authors took my article a little too personally. On the flipside, many readers let me know that they have felt the same way for a while. I love Urban Lit, but I'm not in love with it. I can't wait to read the upcoming comments to this post. Make sure you stay on the look out for The Soul of a Man. This anthology contains a powerful group of stories from a group of men who strive to be intelligent and truthful.
Those authors who may have took it personally had to have been authors of that genre, of course they are going to uphold urban lit because this is what they write. But all in all let's not say Urban Lit is Dead, Let's just say it is becoming endangered and is on the verge of becoming extinct. Maybe this will get them on the ball, put a fire under their tails and get them to bring Urban Lit back to what it once was.
That's exactly what inspired this article. Urban Lit dead? Not in the literal sense... Dead as in in a rut? Yes, albeit profitable. Just because it's making money doesn't mean it's producing quality. I took a page from Nas' book with that concept when he said Hip-Hip is dead. Just as relevant in Urban Lit's case.
Very deep! This article is one that makes you think regardless of what side of the fence you land on in respect to Urban Lit, and or it's relevance. Great piece!! Wonderful food for thought!!!
Thanks for the compliment. That's what I was going for. This is not a bashing of Urban Lit. This is a wake up call. But it's more than a wake up call, I dissect why I feel that way about the experience of reading Urban Lit. I give reasons on why I feel the way I do.
Peace and Blessings:
I agree with you wholeheartedly on many of your points. I grew up in a house where reading was expected. My mother showcased a library of over 2,000 books for her children and the neighborhood, which was virtually unheard of in my urban community. I was exposed to some of the greatest Black and white writers in the world. So, when I started reading the authors of today I knew something was dreadfully wrong.
It seems all we want to do is publish books, regardless of the lack of punctuation for paragraphs at a time, split infinitives, and the absence of verb-subject agreement.
What has been important to us and those who exploit us is our ability to spell p-u-s-s-y and other epithets that tickles the lust of potential readers.
It is embarrassing at the very least that we would promote and stand proud of this type of urban literature to represent our community.
Of course the major publishers would begin to capitalize on our ignorance because it's all about the money. If books with no substance sells, then so be it!
Urban lit is a would be rotting corspe kept alive by the over anxious self proclaimed authors who never knew getting a book published could be so easy.
I enjoyed your article on Urban Lit's demise. I wish it were true, however, I do believe it's on it's way out and I'm thinking it's because of the election of an African American to the highest office in the land (let's hope so). When reading your very long article what held me to it was a word you used, "immorality." I use the word a lot because I write vampire stories. But checking the dictionary, I understand your use here, the evilness of the street.
That said, this is what kept me going, "...immorality & reality of the streets isn't present in a lot of stories on the market today..."
Of course not. It doesn't sell.
Then you said "...compromise the integrity of their story to fit what readers will buy..."
I see you added what publishers will publish to pull in readers. We are still on the slave auction block!
I repeat, I hope urban lit is dead.
Thank you for speaking out on a touchy subject.
I do not want Urban Lit. to be dead as a whole. As black writers, we need to brand ourselves and our products, but how many people can write about brothels, ghetto-street life, drugs, and bling-bling gangsters. There is more in the streets than the same old stories. We have to find our uniqueness and creativity and let it come forth--share with others. We forget, it is a legacy and books can last forever..what are we feeding to the generations to come?
@honeyalnasr I didn't grow up in the best of neighborhoods and surely didn't have the best of family members as role models. The one thing I did have was parents who kept me occupied with brain stimulating activities, such as reading, the best that they could.
I can't say that I read of lot of Black authors when I was younger. That didn't come until I got to high school and definitely in college. But one thing that strikes me as odd is that many authors are not strong writers. They don't study grammar. They just write how they speak, which doesn't translate well when those words are read. I know that Urban Lit isn't going anywhere at all. I just wanted to address the rut we find Urban Lit in at the moment.
@Minnie E Miller Thank you for reading the whole thing, lol. A Black President has nothing to do with the decline in quality of Urban Lit, and he surely doesn't affect the readership. Urban Lit is simply entertaining and easy on the brain because it glosses over complex social problems without urging the reader to provide solutions.
The immorality and the reality of the streets don't sell because the casual reader doesn't want to handle those truths. To tell you the truth, I don't necessarily want to handle that stuff either. My point with this article is that in the course of being entertained, entertain me with something new. The storyline of the boy that makes it to the top of the drug dealing food chain only to meet his eminent demise is...done. The storyline of the girl turned whore or girlfriend of the neighborhood drug dealer is...done.
I just want something new.
To piggyback your terminology, I'm tired of us being slaves both ways: Authors giving publishers what they want to make a quick buck and readers taking whatever is given without any hassle.
That's one reason why The Soul of a Man Anthology is so important. It's a group of black men gathered to give stories from a different angle to show the possibilities of the African American male author writing about his African American experience.
Post a Comment