Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation

Do you know Tyrone? That smooth-talking, irresistible fellow whose essence is full of swagger, rhythm, and flow? The militant revolutionary of the 1960s evolved into the pimp/thug of the hip-hop era? You know, the archetype converted into a hit single? Tyrone is the Black man seen through the media lens, through stereotype, through the eyes of Black women. In Deconstructing Tyrone, journalists Natalie Y. Moore and Natalie Hopkinson examine Black masculinity from a variety of perspectives, looking not for consensus but for insight. With chapters on Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, on the complicated relationship between women and hip-hop, on babydaddies, on gay Black men on and off the so-called "down low," on strippers and their fathers, on Black men in the office, at school, and in jail, Deconstructing Tyrone presents a multifaceted picture of American Black men now.