AllHipHop Shows Love (Thanks)
AllHipHop.com, “the world’s most dangerous site,” ran a review of Bronx Biannual Issue 2 just yesterday written by associate editor Sidik Fofana. I remember Fofana from a capsule review The Source published last year on There’s a Riot Goin’ On. Good looking you guys. The review follows in full, or just click the link above to give the dangerous site some traffic.
“The black literati has acquainted the hiphop genre with a new type of MC; this master of ceremony is strapped with ball pens and think pads, articulating street and music tales all in one poetic jazzy web called the short story. Renegade music scribe Miles Marshall Lewis spearheads the brilliant Bronx Biannual, No. 2 (Akashic), a sexy literary journal, packed with poems, stories, and essays centered around urban culture. This collection, with a vintage The Sourcemagazine meets The New Yorker vibe, features a mélange of the new and established. Veteran writers like Kenji Jasper and Michael A. Gonzales share the leaf with fresh voices like Bahiyyih Davis and t’ai freedom ford.
“Lewis’s literary journal flourishes with so many fantastic pieces. Lewis himself pulls off ‘The Wu-Tang Candidate,’ a poignant satire about a minstrel rapper named Ace Boon Coon. Stories about kinky hair, new age jazz musicians, and aunties who live in hell coalesce to form urban mosaics full of color and lasting panoramics. Kenji Jasper contributes ‘Friday,’ a powerful excerpt from his forthcoming novel deftly narrated in the third person.
“Bronx Biannual, No. 2 swoons with engaging prose. Subjects that are normally addressed in song or poems are explored in rich, eloquent prose. T’ai freedom ford’s story about a philandering middle-school boy ‘Born Again’ beams with realistic dialogue and a gritty yet enamoring narrative voice. She writes, ‘…which made me think how brothers is kind of like butterflies ’cause some of us be on the streets with a two-week life span too. Never know when you might end up dust on somebody’s fingers, your wings broken for being too fly for niggas to handle.’
“Miles Marshall Lewis always is popping up with new ideas and Bronx Biannual, No. 2 may be his brightest to date. Akashic Books has allegedly offered a contract for ten volumes of the literary journal. Lewis’s avant-garde literary approach translates directly to this invigorating new anthology. Be on the newstand lookout because Bronx Biannual could very well represent that much anticipated next phase of the hiphop timeline.”