Many outlets and journalists have covered hip-hop since it was originated in the Bronx in 1973. However, no one provided in-depth pieces surrounding the genre and black culture like Greg Tate. According to a representative for Tate’s publisher Duke University Press, hip-hop journalism’s influential cultural critic and founder died at 64.
A cause of death was not provided.
Tate was famed for his work regarding Black artistry and influence while remaining at the forefront during the first wave of journalism covering the birth of hip-hop. When he started working at The Village Voice from 1987 to 2003, Tate delved into hip-hop’s aesthetics, influences, and values, uncovering the differences within innovative Black lineages and white-dominated spaces of popular culture, according to Pitchfork.
In his first book, 1992’s Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America, the hip-hop journalist included past work that had initially appeared in The Voice. Tate used a definitive approach by making selections containing Miles Davis, Public Enemy, Jean Michel Basquiat, and more.
During an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books in 2018, Tate recalled his earlier days working for The Voice, “I was trying to literally approximate music on the page.”
In previous years, Tate had co-founded the Black Rock Coalition with Konda Mason and Vernon Reid in 1985. The nonprofit organization’s primary focus is to combat inequity in the music industry by providing resources for Black artists. In addition, he dedicated his life and work to documenting hip-hop and creating a safe space for Black creatives to excel within the culture.
The culture critic had “a keen sense for the way that both artists and communities discern where they fit in the world, and what is expected of them, and then either go along for the ride or carefully plot their escapes,” as The New Yorker’s Hua Hsu wrote in 2016, Pitchfork reported.
Tate was originally from Dayton, Ohio, in 1957 before he relocated with his family to Washington, D.C., during his teen years. After graduating from Howard University and later publishing work for The Village Voice via Robert Christgau, Tate decided to move to New York in 1982 to fully emerge himself in the hip-hop culture that was vastly spreading throughout the city. “It was like writing war dispatches right there on the ground. There was all this incendiary work coming out. It was unprecedented. It didn’t sound like anything that had come before. There was a lot to talk about,” he recalled to Pitchfork in 2018.
While living in New York, Tate released a follow-up to the “Flyboy” with a second edition titled “Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader” in 2016; the book included more of Tate’s critical essays. In addition to those projects, “he published “Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience” in 2003 and edited the essay collection “Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking From Black Culture.”
Tate maintained his presence within the culture by contributing to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Vibe, The Believer, Encyclopedia Britannica, and more. He also became a visiting professor at Brown University and Columbia University.
