Barry Michael Cooper

Aug 8, 2022

Game of Thrones (Watching Opulent Gangsters Draped In Gilded Solitude)

An essay from August 2011 by Barry Michael Cooper Like Hip Hop’s Jordan and Pippen, the tag-team comitatus of Jay-Z and Kanye West, are balling out of control, as their bejewled sneakers squeak into a two-man weave of vintage obsessions and futurist intentions. The oeuvre of Jay and ‘Ye’s brand…

6 min read

Game of Thrones (Watching Opulent Gangsters Draped In Gilded Solitude)

6 min read

Jan 17, 2020

And It Deep, Too! My Richard Pryor Scrapbook

by Barry Michael Cooper (Originally Published in the Baltimore City Paper — 28 December 2005) Did u know Rchrd Pryr died? This is the message I got on my Sprint Mobile on Saturday, Dec. 10, 6:20 p.m. At the time I had just returned home from the Barnes and Noble…

10 min read

And It Deep, Too! My Richard Pryor Scrapbook

10 min read

Nov 3, 2019

My Conversation With The Old Dude In The Mirror

by Barry Michael Cooper So I’m sitting here thinking about my conversation this morning with The Old Dude In The Mirror. I asked him, “Yo, what happened?” And Old Dude In The Mirror replies, “You mean when did the black hairs turn white, when did the hulking virility become so…

Life Lessons

2 min read

My Conversation With The Old Dude In The Mirror

Life Lessons

2 min read

May 11, 2019

Requiem For The Zooted (May 2009 Essay)

by Barry Michael Cooper

Essay

5 min read

Essay

5 min read

May 10, 2019

Ghettofab Is Burning: The Cinematic Fire of Diddy’s Gasoline Dreams (Essay From May 2011)

by Barry Michael Cooper “The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand…” William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem)”

Hip Hop

8 min read

Ghettofab Is Burning: The Cinematic Fire of Diddy’s Gasoline Dreams (Essay From May 2011)

Hip Hop

8 min read

Mar 13, 2019

Buckaroos of the Bugaloo — Village Voice — January 1981

by Barry Michael Cooper #HipHopHistory

Hip Hop

7 min read

“BUCKAROOS OF THE BUGALOO” THE VILLAGE VOICE/1981

Hip Hop

7 min read

Sep 17, 2014

Chris Brown: Portrait of the Artist as a Grown A$$ Man

Exclusive interview with Chris Brown talking about his new album, X. by Barry Michael Cooper “You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to…

8 min read

“X”: Portrait of the Artist as a Grown A$$ Man

8 min read

Jun 1, 2014

THE NIGHT BELONGS TO ARSENIO HALL

a.k.a. Big Daddy Hall’s New Jack Chit Chat by Barry Michael Cooper — Although the 2013 reboot to his iconic talk show was canceled on 30 May 2014, Arsenio Hall is the architect of the post-mod/post-mil late night gabfest. The two Jimmy’s—both Fallon and Kimmel—owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Dave Chappelle, too. Arsenio’s hip hop driven journey from the hood to…

25 min read

25 min read

Jan 12, 2014

School Of Soft Clocks

By Barry Michael Cooper — Salvador Dali “The Persistence of Memory” 1931 Luddite Lessons Analog Questions 4G Blackboard Coded Writ Digital Chalk Hustle Backwards Future Wrought However:Graduate Now Today Is The Gift Thankful for The Present

1 min read

1 min read

Jan 10, 2014

TEDDY RILEY’S NEW JACK SWING: HARLEM GANGSTERS RAISE A GENIUS

By Barry Michael Cooper Published in the Village Voice October 18th, 1988 (“Teddy Riley’s New Jack Swing: Harlem Gangsters Raise a Genius” is my cover feature story on the iconic producer and his game-changing music, which was published in the Village Voice on 18 October 1987. It is the story…

21 min read