8 Books Published by PowerHouse Books on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

The greatest and most fearless living writer turns his unerring eye to the art world and the fraught relationship between Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.

The relationship between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat is already one of the most iconic, intensely analyzed partnerships in the history of art. Ishmael Reed, perhaps America’s greatest living writer, brings the same unsparing, deeply researched perspective as he did for the Archway Editions bestseller The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, for a captivating, illuminating final word on the famous duo.

Already the subject of controversy during its original 2021-2022 run at the Theater for the New City in the East Village, Archway Editions is proud to bring you the unabridged text of The Slave Who Loved Caviar, Ishmael Reed’s latest feat of research and drama, the tragedy as disturbingly real for today’s artists as it was in the 1980’s.

Once upon a time before crack, Jamel Shabazz was on the scene, working the streets of New York City, capturing the faces and places of an era that have long since disappeared.

Once upon a time before crack, inner city communities were blighted by poverty and unemployment–but not by the drug wars that tore families apart, destroying lives with needless violence and mindless addiction. Once upon a time before crack, pride and style were as inseparable as a beatbox and mixtape, or as a pair of shoes and matching purse. Once upon a time before crack, Jamel Shabazz was on the scene, working the streets of New York City, capturing the faces and places of an era that have long since disappeared.

Best known as Hip Hop’s finest fashion photographer for his blockbuster best-selling monograph, Back in the Days (powerHouse Books, 2001), Shabazz revisited his archive and unearthed an extraordinary collection of never-before-published documentary photographs collected for his third powerHouse Books release, A Time Before Crack, a visual diary of the streets of New York City from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, Shabazz’s distinctive photographs reveal the families, the poses, and the players who made this age extraordinary.

America’s greatest living writer returns with a hilarious, scathing satire of the MAGA mindset.

The controversial new play from Ishmael Reed, Life Among the Aryans follows John Shaw and Michael Mulvaney, two modern MAGA white supremacists as they leech off their wives, take orders from grifting Leader Matthews, and plot a unique way around the encroaching societal progress they fear will leave them in the dust. Full of page-turning dialogue, unexpected twists and hilarious asides, this is the latest urgent must-read from the greatest living American writer.

Originally performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Life Among the Aryans has only grown in relevance, as the violence in Washington D.C. and state capitals around the country shines a light on the persistent unrest among a certain kind of American. A perfect counterpart to last year’sThe Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, in which Reed investigated the darkness at the heart of Obama-era liberal piety, Life Among the Aryans is a searing, hopeful and above all joyous investigation of what it meant to live through the last four years (and what will come next).

"That’s a lot of horse hockey, Hamilton."

Described by the New York Times as "classic activist theater" and "a cross between ’A Christmas Carol’ and a trial at The Hague’s International Criminal Court."

"In this, his latest work, the protean Ishmael Reed—the legendary artist and prolific writer—continues to burnish his already sterling reputation by dismantling the ’Creation Myth’ of the founding of the U.S., as represented in the incredibly profitable play and musical, Hamilton. Reed, a verbal acrobat of global renown, demonstrates here why he is widely considered to be the leading intellectual in the U.S. today."

-Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA

This powerful play, originally produced at the Nuyorican Poets Caf�, comprehensively dismantles the phenomenon of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton. Reed uses the musical’s crimes against history to insist on a radical, cleareyed way of looking at our past and our selves. Both durable and timely, this goes beyond mere corrective - it is a meticulously researched rebuttal, an absorbing drama, and brilliant rallying cry for justice.

The perfect tie-in to both the success of and backlash to Hamilton, it is the major voice in contrast to the recent movie. It captures both the earnest engagement that fans of the musical desire, as well as the exhausted disbelief of those who can’t stand it. Teachers, students and fans of drama, literature, and history will find much to love. It is written by one of America’s most respected and original writers, who is eagerly promoting it, and who is long overdue for a renaissance.

Straight from the old-school streets of NYC at the dawn of the hip-hop scene comes Back in the Days Coloring Book.

Here is your chance to redraw the birth of old-school hip-hop fashion: hangin’ in Harlem, kickin’ it in Queens, and cold chillin’ in Brooklyn. Based on the legendary and original street-style book, Back in the Days by Jamel Shabazz. Style with an attitude not seen in fashion for another 20 years to come, Shabazz’s subjects strike poses that put supermodels to shame-showing off Kangol caps and Cazal glasses, shell-top Adidas and suede Pumas with fat laces, shearling coats and leather jackets, gold dookie chains, door-knocker earrings, name belts, boom boxes, and other 80s designer finery.

Featuring 30 original drawings, it’s now your turn to get in on the action. Pull out your Crayolas and markers and help everyone look their best by adding your own vibrant colors to these fly outfits. Fun for ages 1 to 100.

The Hunt for the Magic Pearl is the first in a series of planned books that will be filled with colorful illustrations, rich vocabulary, informative, and fun content. Shirley Perry-Church believes that every child should find mystery, adventure, discovery, exploration, stimulating challenges, and identity during the reading process. She knows that given a chance, every child can learn to read.

Once, long ago, in the deepest parts of a mighty ocean, beautiful mermaids lived in Merland, a magical place surrounded by all sorts of creatures including every kind of fish imaginable, pods of playful dolphins, the grandest and wisest of whales, magnificent shellfish, and abundant sea treasures.

In Merland, the most sought-after treasure by all mermaids was the magic pearl, held by the elusive great oyster. The magic of the pearl was said to offer any mermaid who found it unimaginable beauty and powers beyond belief. It was the dream and desire of every mermaid to discover the great oyster with the magic pearl.

In The Hunt for the Magic Pearl, three beautiful, smart, and fun-loving mermaids embark on a treasure hunt to find the pearl. During their quest, Shimmer, StarFire, and Little SeaStar experience many exciting and dangerous feats. Together, they must find the courage and wisdom to outwit a monstrous, blood-thirsty shark and its band of mermaid killers.

Filled with colorful illustrations, this children’s fantasy book (1st of a series) shares the journey of three orphaned mermaids in the kingdom of Merland—an interactive story that captures the imagination of young girls, parents, teachers, and the young at heart.

Read more about this book’s backstory in Shirley Perry-Church’s article “Part One: Diversity is not Racism, I Just Wanted Them to Look like Me.”

Kehinde Wiley painted President Obama’s official portrait and this is an early book from him documenting his extraordinary talents.

“For most of Kehinde Wiley’s very successful career, he has created large, vibrant, highly patterned paintings of young African American men wearing the latest in hip hop street fashion. The theatrical poses and objects in the portraits are based on well-known images of powerful figures drawn from seventeenth- through nineteenth-century Western art. Pictorially, Wiley gives the authority of those historical sitters to his twenty-first-century subjects.” -National Portrait Gallery

“My intention is to craft a world picture that isn’t involved in political correctives or visions of utopia. It’s more of a perpetual play with the language of desire and power.” -Kehinde Wiley

“Wiley inserts black males into a painting tradition that has typically omitted them or relegated them to peripheral positions. At the same time, he critiques contemporary portrayals of black masculinity itself…. He systematically takes a ’pedestrian’ encounter with African-American men, elevates it to heroic scale, and reveals-through subtle formal alterations-that postures of power can sometimes be seen as just that, a pose.” -Art in America

Los Angeles native and New York-based visual artist Kehinde Wiley has firmly situated himself within art history’s portrait painting tradition. As a contemporary descendent of a long line of portraitists-including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Ingres, and others-Wiley engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic, and sublime in his representation of urban black and brown men found throughout the world. By applying the visual vocabulary and conventions of glorification, wealth, prestige, and history to subject matter drawn from the urban fabric, Wiley makes his subjects and their stylistic references juxtaposed inversions of each other, imbuing his images with ambiguity and provocative perplexity.

In Black Light, his first monograph, Wiley’s larger-than-life figures disturb and interrupt tropes of portrait painting, often blurring the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation and the critical portrayal of masculinity and physicality as it pertains to the view of black and brown young men. The models are dressed in their everyday clothing, most of which is based on far-reaching Western ideals of style, and are asked to assume poses found in paintings or sculptures representative of the history of their surroundings. This juxtaposition of the “old” inherited by the “new”-who often have no visual inheritance of which to speak-immediately provides a discourse that is at once visceral and cerebral in scope.

Without shying away from the socio-political histories relevant to the subjects, Wiley’s heroic images exhibit a unique modern style that awakens complex issues which many would prefer remain mute.

Back in the Days documents the emerging Hip Hop scene from 1980-1989-before it became what is today’s multi-million-dollar multinational industry. Back in the days, gangs would battle not with guns, but by breakdancing. Back in the days, the streets-not corporate planning-set the standards for style. Back in the days, Jamel Shabazz was on the scene, photographing everyday people hangin’ in Harlem, kickin’ it in Queens, and cold chillin’ in Brooklyn.

Street styling with an attitude not seen in fashion for another twenty years to come, Shabazz’s subjects strike poses that put supermodels to shame-showing off Kangol caps and Gazelle glasses, shell-top Adidas and suede Pumas with fat laces, shearling coats and leather jackets, gold rope chains, door-knocker earrings, name belts, boom boxes, and other designer finery. For anyone who wants to know what “keepin’ it real” means, Back in the Days is the book of your dreams.