To Jelani Cobb, reading, writing, and education are inherently acts of empowerment, and sometimes even ones of defiance. A staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015 and recently appointed the dean of Columbia Journalism School, where he has been on the faculty since 2016, Cobb has written on subjects ranging from the power of Dave Chappelle’s comedy, to the vital lessons of Martin Luther King Jr., to Donald Trump as a rapper. Cobb is also the author of the books The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress (2010) and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic (2007). Given the precarious moment we’re in when it comes to truth and the future of not just journalism, but democracy itself, he is unquestionably one of the most essential writers, historians, and thinkers of our time. On this week’s episode of Time Sensitive, Cobb talks about timing and flow in hip-hop, why being a “first Black” leader in any high-profile profession is like “doing a high-wire act without a net,” and his belief that the future of journalism will include greater transparency around how a story gets made.

Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes: 

[03:39] DJ Kool Herc

[03:49] “Hip-Hop at Fifty: An Elegy”

[03:56] To the Break of Dawn

[08:05] August Wilson

[09:13] Skip James

[27:10] Run-D.M.C.

[27:16] LL Cool J

[27:24] Q-Tip

[27:25] Phife Dawg

[27:27] Salt-N-Pepa

[27:41] Kool G Rap

[27:45] Pharoahe Monch

[37:17] Queens Public Library

[39:27] Adell Patton

[41:18] Elizabeth Clark-Lewis

[43:06] David Carr

[43:23] Ta-Nehisi Coates

[49:58] The Devil and Dave Chappelle: And Other Essays

[53:21] “Trayvon Martin and the Parameters of Hope”

[59:14] “Postscript: Rodney King, 1965-2012”

[59:46] “Alvin Bragg, Donald Trump, and the Pursuit of Low-Level Crimes”

[01:02:21] Between the World and Me

[01:03:51] Columbia Journalism School