Greg Tate (1957-2021) was a music and popular-culture critic and journalist whose work appeared in many publications, including The Village Voice , Vibe , Spin , The Wire , and Downbeat . He was the author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America and Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience and the editor of Everything but the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture . He won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 2024 in recognition of his pioneering work. Tate, via guitar and baton, also led the conducted improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, which toured internationally. Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio, and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grant. He is the author of There's Always This Year, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and A Little Devil in America , which was the winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burns Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us , was named one of the books of the year by NPR, Esquire , BuzzFeed , O: The Oprah Magazine , Pitchfork , and Chicago Tribune , among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the National Book Award.

He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.