Mark Anthony Neal

SeeingBlack.com Music and Cultural Critic

Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University. Neal is the author of four books, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), Songs in the Keys of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003) and New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity (2005). Neal has appeared in several documentaries including Byron Hurt’s acclaimed Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (2006), John Akomfrah’s Urban Soul (2004) and the BBC’s Soul Deep: the Story of Black Popular Music (2005). A frequent commentator for National Public Radio’s News and Notes with Farai Chideya and Tell Me More with Michel Martin, Neal also contribute to several on-line media outlets, including Popmatters.com and SeeingBlack.com. Neal’s blog “Critical Noir” appears at Vibe.com and he also blogs at NewBlackMan (http://newblackman.blogspot.com/). Neal’s Myspace page is at http://myspace.com/tnimixtape