Illmatic Consequences: The Clapback to Opponents of 'Critical Race Theory'

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About the book:

Illmatic Consequences: The Clapback to Opponents of ‘Critical Race Theory,’  is a unique mix of social science and hip-hop essays that address the marginalization of Blacks in the United States. Led by editors Walter Greason and Danian Jerry, the contributors in this edited volume address pervasive social injustice using hip-hop and Afrofuturism to offer solutions to cultural divisiveness.

Illmatic Consequences was influenced by rapper Nas’s 1994 debut album “Illmatic,” which features internal rhymes and inner-city narratives based on Nas’s personal experiences. “Nas’s 1994 album ‘Illmatic’ is fundamentally a statement of self-worth. It's not even just a conscious effort. It's just you do it because it's embedded in you—and that's the feeling, the vibe we wanted anyone reading the book to get from all the constituent chapters,” said Greason.

The essays, written by prominent and emerging social science scholars, artists, and journalists, address the disinformation campaign around CRT, the attacks on public education, the rise of mass disinformation, and other social injustice issues plaguing the nation.

About the authors:

Danian Darrell Jerry, writer holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He is a VONA (Voices of Our Nation) Fellow, a Fiction Editor of Obsidian, and a 2023 Volcanista of Under the Volcano Writer's Workshop. Danian founded Neighborhood Heroes, a youth arts program that employs comic books and literary arts to educate emerging readers. Onstage, he has performed with Hip Hop legends KRS-One, DJ Kool Herc, and as a featured guest at the 2019 Mercedes-Benz SXSW MeConvention in  Frankfurt, Germany. His work is referenced in This Ain't Chicago: Race, Class, & Regional Identity in the Post-Soul South, Hip Hop In America: A Regional Guide, The Commercial Appeal, The Memphis Flyer, and Southern Soul Magazine. He is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in Africology and African American Studies at Temple University. His writing appears in Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda, Fireside Fiction, Cracking the Wire During Black Lives Matter, Illmatic Consequences, Curating the End of the World: Red Spring, Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Fiction. Danian resides in Memphis, Tennessee, home of the blues and American soul music.

Dr. Walter Greason, Ph.D., DeWitt Wallace Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Macalester College is the preeminent historian of Afrofuturism, the Black Speculative Arts, and digital economies in the world today. Named one of “Today’s Black History Makers” by The Philadelphia Daily News, Dr. Greason has written more than one hundred academic articles and essays. His work has appeared on Huffington Post, National Public Radio, and The Atlantic among other popular, professional and scholarly journals. He is also the author, editor, and contributor to eighteen books, including Suburban Erasure, The Land Speaks, Cities Imagined, Illmatic Consequences, and The Black Reparations Project.

From 2007 ­­– 2012, Dr. Greason was an advisor to Building One America, the coalition that designed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009). He also served as the Founding President of the T. Thomas Fortune Foundation, an organization that saved the National Historic Landmark dedicated to the leading, militant journalist of the nineteenth century. Dr. Greason’s digital humanities projects, “The Wakanda Syllabus” and “The Racial Violence Syllabus”, produced global responses in the last six years. His work in historic preservation and virtual reality continues to inspire new research around the world. Dr. Greason currently writes about the racial wealth gap and the patterns of economic globalization.

About the illustrator:

Stacey A. Robinson, Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was a 2019-2020 Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellow at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and completed his MFA at the University at Buffalo in 2015.

His work discusses decolonized Black futures. Illustrated books include: ‘I Am Alfonso Jones’ written by Tony Medina (2017) Lee & Low Books, and ‘Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre’, written Alverne Ball (2021) Abrams Books. Exhibitions include: Ascension of Black Stillness (CEPA Gallery) and The Black Angel of History (Carnegie Hall) 2022.