Interview with MTV Host, Writer, Journalist and Reality Star 

                      Toure

By Monica Davis and Beatrice Davis

Toure is a correspondent for BET and the author of Soul City, a novel. He's also the author of the Portable Promised Land, a collection of short stories, and Never Drank the Kool-Aid, a collection of his magazine work. He's been a Contributing Editor at Rolling Stone for over ten years and was CNN's first Pop Culture Correspondent, and was the host of MTV2's Spoke N Heard. He has appeared on many TV shows including the Today show, the O'Reilly Factor, Paula Zahn Now, Anderson Cooper 360°, and Topic A with Tina Brown where Brown called him, "a one-man media conglomerate." His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Best American Essays of 1999, the Best American Sports writing of 2001, the Da Capo Best Music Writing of 2004, and the Best American Erotica of 2004. He studied at Columbia University's graduate school of creative writing and lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with his wife Rita.

Q:   How did it feel to be rejected by a major publisher [The New Yorker] and how did it affect your career and attitude towards journalism?

A:    When that story was rejected it inspired me to dig deeper into how to write because I didn't want to be rejected like that ever again.  It spurred me to apply to graduate creative writing school and that taught me how to read better, how to write fiction, and made me a more complete writer.

Q:   What challenges did you encounter when you started out as a writer, particularly as a black journalist and writer?   How did you overcome them?

A:    Early on there was an assumption from editors that I could write about hip-hop and black music but not about white music.  Once an editor suggested I'd be lost writing about Eric Clapton, which is strange because he's steeped in black music.  I just kept fighting and I found white subjects who others didn't want to cover and did them well.  In time my editors realized I could write about anything.

Q:   Do you regret dropping out of college?

A:   Not at all.  I didn't need any more from them.  I'm just lucky I've gone into fields where the degree doesn't matter.

Q:   How has marriage and fatherhood changed your life?

A:   They've made me have to be more serious, more conscientious about money and career, as well as more judicious about my time.  It's hard to write when my son's there because he's five months old and needs attention every few seconds, which makes it hard to concentrate.  I'm still figuring out how to balance it all. 

Q:   At what point in your life did you become involved in hip-hop?

A:   I was captivated by hip-hop from the first time I heard it.  I remember riding in the car with my mom and sister when Rapper's Delight came on the radio and being blown away.  There had been songs with little rhymes in them before but never an entirely rhymed song.  That blew me away.  I began buying tapes, cassette tapes of rap as often as I could.  Most months in the early 80s I had every rap tape they had in the store but back then the rap section was pretty small, always smaller than even the dance hall station.  (Back then we hardly ever called it hip-hop, always rap.)

Q:  What was it about hip-hop that captured your attention versus other styles of music?

A:   Hip-hop was bold, stylish, cool, counter cultural, and it was the essence of bad ass black maleness.  And it spoke of the street.  And it spoke with such cool poise, such smooth flow and flavor.  

Q:   You believed many writers were failing to understand the full depth of the heroes of hip-hop so you decided to discuss it in-depth.  Who are some of your heroes of hip-hop and why?

A:   My hip-hop heroes include Rakim, Jay-Z, Nas, KRS, and a few others.  I love their example of strong black maleness and their linguistic virtuosity.

Q:   You are working on your own reality show called "I'll Try Anything Once".  Did you develop and create the show or was it a joint venture with ElectricSky Productions?

A:    I didn't develop the show they came to me with it.  They asked me if wanted to do an intellectual version of Jackass and because my wife was pregnant I said sure.

Q:  Are the episode ideas your suggestions because you want to try specific experiences or do you team with the production company on all show ideas?

A:   The challenges are their ideas. The point is for me to be put out of my comfort zone and it's hard for someone to suggest what's truly out of their comfort zone.

Q:  You have put your life at risk in some episodes.  Have you ever regretted taping those shows?

A:   Most of the shows are really stressful for me for one reason or another and I'm dealing with lots of anxiety as we go through it but after wards I'm always glad I went through that crucible.

Q:   Do you believe that with the popularity of the internet MTV is still a powerful tool for the music industry?   What do you think MTV has to change in order to maintain its viewers?

A:   MTV is doing fine in terms of viewers but that's because they've learned that videos aren't the path to ratings.  They show fewer videos now than ever and that works well for them.  Not so good for the music industry which needs videos.  But the future for music is the Internet-blogs, Myspace, iTunes, sites not yet created will be the way to introduce and market music to people.

Q:  In your opinion, what makes a person a good writer?

A:   Curiosity, courage, drive, good linguistic skills, and the ability to communicate, to understand how to put words into people's minds in a way that they'll understand.

Q:   What advice can you give other African-American writers who want to pursue a writing career?

A:    Read a ton, read everything, read black and white writers, read novels and read books about writing, too.  Keeping a journal doesn't hurt either.

www.toure.com