From the Rockaliser Publicity Department

We at Rockaliser like to occasionally share our accomplishments like most human beings, and last year we contributed a couple YA-level music history books to Lerner Publishing's American Music Milestones series. I wrote a history of hip-hop, while my esteemed colleague tackled soul and R&B. A couple days ago, we learned that the book series was selected by Booklist's Daniel Krauss as one of the top 10 nonfiction series of the past 12 months. This is already after Booklist gave a glowing starred review to American R&B a few months earlier. Very cool! We would love it if you considered buying these books online or requesting them at your local libraries.

     American Hip-Hop: Rappers, DJs, and Hard Beats by Nathan Sacks (Amazon page)

American R&B: Gospel Grooves, Funky Drummers, and Soul Power by Aaron Mendelson (Amazon page)

The other authors involved in the series, by the way, were Lloyd Sachs, Arie Kaplan, Matt Doeden and Erik Farseth. Big ups to Greg Hunter, a great editor and buddy who shared our passion for the music and for conveying its importance in an accessible manner. On a completely unrelated note, check out this crazy album cover.

The next item is that my esteemed colleague's post on Eric Clapton's racism is again seeing a lot of traffic, after being linked to by Gawker last year for a reason I no longer remember. The blog Dangerous Minds also wrote an article on a similar topic not long ago. If you're new to the blog and would like to see more, here are a few of our favorite pieces (plus a few more).

Finally, service on the blog has been somewhat quiet (at least on my end), but that will change, as we are again working on a lengthy summer series of posts that may dwarf last year's Rockaliser 30 in terms of ambition and moxie (if not in word count). Your Rockaliser writers are going to continue to branch out, so watch this space for more good writing in the future.