Michael A. Gonzales

Biography of Michael A. Gonzales

Harlem born and raised essayist/short story writer Michael A. Gonzales is the co-author of the groundbreaking hip-hop text Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture (1991). He has written book reviews and essays for Longreads, Catapult and The Paris Review. Once dubbed “the hip-hop Chester Himes,” his fiction has appeared in Brown Sugar II edited by Carol Taylor, The Root, Art Decades, Bronx Biannual, Crime Factory, The Darker Mask and Black Pulp. A former staff writer for The Source, Gonzales has written about pop culture, visual art and film for Essence, Ebony, The Village Voice, New York, Wax Poetics, HYCIDE, Pitchfork, The Wire, Newark Bound and Vibe. In addition, his non-fiction has appeared in the collections Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and Counter Culture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950-1980 edited Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre, Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop Book edited by Vikki Tobak and Best African-American Essays 2009 and 2010 edited by Gerald Early.