Over the next few months, we’ll be profiling the authors of the eighteen forthcoming 33 1/3 titles here on the blog so you can get to know them, their writing, and what kind of twisted soul chooses to think about just one album for months at a time.
Next Up: Jordan Ferguson. Originally from Windsor, Ontario, he lives and works in Toronto, where he is a freelance culture writer. Ferguson, who calls himself “The Hip-Hop Chuck Klosterman of the North,” takes on J. Dilla’s Donuts–which the late hip-hop artist made from his death bed–by drawing from philosophy, critical theory, and musicology, as well as Dilla’s own musical catalog. Ferguson seeks to illuminate “the contradictory, irascible, and confrontational music found on Donuts, [which] is as much a result of an artist’s declining health as it is an example of what scholars call ‘late style,’ placing the album in a musical tradition that stretches back centuries.” You may recall that Ferguson covered Dilla Day for us a little while back. Sensing a pattern? Yes–Ferguson might be obsessed. He’s also the first author to voluntarily make a video of his author questionnaire. If that’s obsession, we’ll take it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDvianaOHvQ&w=560&h=315]
Join us for the next 33 1/3 author Q&A in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned.
[…] Academic has been a huge success. Special congratulations are due to Jordan Ferguson for his book on J. Dilla, which was our bestselling title in 2014. And of course to Carl Wilson […]
[…] by Luis Sanchez, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville by Gina Arnold, J. Dilla’s Donuts by Jordan Ferguson, Richard Hell and The Voidoids’ Blank Generation by Pete Astor, Oasis’ Definitely Maybe […]
[…] J Dilla – Donuts, por Jordan Ferguson […]
This guy rocks!
[…] ◼ Donut Hole: Jordan Ferguson is, like me, writing a book for the 33 1/3 series. Like me, he is focused on something that is fairly unusual for the series, in that both our books are about albums that have little in the way of words, let alone of lyrics. My book-in-progress is on Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II. Ferguson’s is about J Dilla’s Donuts. And like me, he submitted to an interview for the publisher’s website. But, being a smart guy, he did his as a video: […]