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From "The Washington Post," 11/22/07:

As a former English major -- he dropped out of the University of Maryland to pursue his music career -- [Bomani] Armah has conducted creative writing and audio/video workshops for kids. He has worked as a youth counselor. He has seen firsthand one of the most pernicious effects of the rap game, the warping of black reality into a one-dimensional caricature. Too many in his generation of artists, he says, aspire to be "as grimy and gangster" as they can be, a depiction of black life that filters down to the kids, who become the next inaccurate storytellers.

"As an educator and an artist, it was hurting me both ways," says Armah, who is hardly the first "conscious" artist to come along advocating a hip-hop makeover. But most artists who feel as he does, Armah adds, "write essays or long esoteric songs" that are indigestible. Armah was determined to do something more jolting. Provocative, but funny.

" 'Read a Book' was a joke from the beginning," he says. "It was more about parodying the state of hip-hop." And now it has become the thing that defines him. He thought about that for a moment. "Damn, do this many people not get me?"

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