Historian, Old School Rap Specialist. Writing book on history of the Left in Midwest. Words @truthout HK fan. Words all mine. IG: ausmccoy
Joined May 2012
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Here is some of the good news I couldn’t share—I’ll be spending the summer (and the year) working on my academic book, and I’m writing a book about De La Soul!
A lot of truth to this. And where you’re from and where you’re at when you start forming your own tastes and understanding about music
Austin McCoy retweeted
The Running Man
@AustinMcCoy3 joins to explore the dystopian themes of the 1987 film and its relation to contemporary issues of authoritarianism, media control, and sports.
open.spotify.com/episode/6kq…
Sort of (re)launching my Substack! I posted a few notes since last year, but I'm planning to post more thoughts about history, culture, and politics there.
Please subscribe!
Starting with updated book tour information and a media roundup.
Also, reach out about podcast appearances and if you'd like for me to visit (in person or virtually) your class, organization, book club, etc. and talk about my book, hip hop history, Black history, politics, activism, etc.!
randomly logged on to twitter today and oh boy.
thank goodness ryan grim isn't coming close to attaining any real power...
and to the folks misusing Beatrice Alder-Bolton to articulate some BS about being a "fit" revolutionary: i hope y'all are hard at work with developing a strategy to defeat military power.
not sure y'all will be able to do that by retreating their remarks on twitter lol
Austin McCoy retweeted
I know everyone is tripping over themselves to join the grimy rw pile on, leftistly, I just want to say that agree or disagree with what Beatrice said she’s not a cartoon, but a real human and deep thinker driven by a genuine commitment to justice. Just something to consider.
The Living in a DAISY Age tour continues! Next week I am heading to Portland to give a talk at Lewis & Clark College on Thursday.
Then, on Saturday, the Free Society People’s Library and Mississippi Records is throwing a free party at Sumner-Albina Park.
Listened to a recent Chris Hayes podcast about AI and the guest said something about what folks really wanting with artificial general intelligence is the ability to have robot slaves. Then I encountered this while watching the original Westworld last night.
ALT Image is a picture of a TV displaying a scene from the 1973 film, Westworld. One character is standing to the left wearing brown pants, green shirt, and a khaki bandana while holding a brown cowboy hat. The other is sitting in a chair on the right wearing a blue shirt. To the right of hinm is a fern plant and above the plant is a gold lamp and two small pictures. At the bottom reads the caption: "Boy, machines are the servant of man!"
Cop propaganda probably exists on a spectrum with The Wire not being like other shows about police.
And while Simon was obviously critical of the War on Drugs/Terror, the end of the show is too ambiguous for "we need reform" as the conclusion.
Austin McCoy retweeted
So, I just read this NYT interview with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine and whoa boy. They talk about AI use, or I would say they try to talk about it, and it's as ill-informed, ridiculous, glib, and contradictory as I expected. I'm about to rant.
nytimes.com/2026/08/23/busin…
I should talk my students through this Dre and Iovine interview as an example of how using generative AI (and thinking about everything from a billionaire capitalist POV) is bad for your brain lol
So, I just read this NYT interview with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine and whoa boy. They talk about AI use, or I would say they try to talk about it, and it's as ill-informed, ridiculous, glib, and contradictory as I expected. I'm about to rant.
nytimes.com/2026/08/23/busin…
So, I just read this NYT interview with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine and whoa boy. They talk about AI use, or I would say they try to talk about it, and it's as ill-informed, ridiculous, glib, and contradictory as I expected. I'm about to rant.
nytimes.com/2026/08/23/busin…
The irony (or is it?) with Iovine's answer is that capitalism and this current iteration of the internet has melted this dude's brain. All his talk about creativity but his use of gen AI demonstrates his lack of real curiosity. Can't have creativity without curiousity.