“To this day, I’ve never stopped thinking about that music sanctuary for the twenty years it existed at that location.”
Michael A. Gonzales
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Story
Summer Mother
Michael A. Gonzales recounts the life lessons of a favorite auntie.
Posted inArts & Culture
Longreads Best of 2019: Music Writing
We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in music writing.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
Wonderful Things: The Kid Creole and the Coconuts Story
Combining island sounds with stylish clothes and an unforgettable stage presence, one of New York City’s most original bands helped influence 1980s pop culture, and they never sacrificed their unclassifiable artistic vision.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Feature, profile, Story, Writing
Beautiful Women, Ugly Scenes: On Novelist Nettie Jones and the Madness of ‘Fish Tales’
Edited by Toni Morrison, the 1983 novel ‘Fish Tales’ by Nettie Jones was supposed to set the literary world on fire. It didn’t.
Posted inNonfiction
It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer
Hip-hop was a different kind of music that needed a different kind of writer to cover it. This is how Michael A. Gonzales came of age in a time when Black writers began breaking the white ceiling.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
Blackstars
Michael Gonzales reflects on the deaths of a dear friend, and a bookworm he idolized: David Bowie.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction
Blackstars
Michael Gonzales reflects on the deaths of a dear friend, and a bookworm he idolized: David Bowie.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Blackstars
A personal essay in which Michael Gonzales reflects on the deaths of a dear friend, and a bookworm he idolized: David Bowie.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Still Celebrating the Greatest Day in Hip-Hop
On one summer day in 1998, XXL magazine gathered 177 hip-hop artists for one of the greatest musical photographs of all time: A Great Day in Hip-Hop.