Guess who's back? Back again. JD's back. Tell a friend...
In 1996, when fiction writer Junot Díaz published Drown (Riverhead Books), he became that year's numero uno literary boy wonder, wowing both the ivory tower and the kids on the corner. The short stories in Drown were contemporary marvels -- brilliantly written in a streetwise voice that made important the young Dominican experience in Jersey and in the Republic. Eleven years after being MIA (we've been callin' for you!), Díaz has published a novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead Books), about a comic book-loving Dominican "ghettonerd" who longs to be rescued from his lovelessness. But it’s about more than that: a small country's history under the gangster rule of a notorious real-life dictator, a no-name family's struggles, the cultural pressure to be a sexual Superman. For Diaz, there's always more territory to cover.
The now 38-year-old author called VIBE from East Harlem to talk about growing up hip hop. Briefly away from a year-long fellowship in Rome, he flew back to the States for a week (to receive an award, give readings, see loved ones), and got smart with us before duty called again.
VIBE: I went to get your book last night at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble. I asked the clerk to look it up and spelled your first name for him. He typed in G-U-N-I-T. So I said to him, "That's G-Unit."
DIAZ: Ohhh, you're a genius...
So he changed the I to an O, so it was "G-Unot." Finally he spelled it right [J-U-N-O-T]. Basic question, but how would you like your name pronounced?
Of course. Most people can't pronounce Spanish anyway. My friends speak it cracking up. They will actually send my name phonetically to me online. They'll be like J-O-O hyphen N-O.
What were your goals for yourself when you were little?
I was like every kid around me. We were all poor. It was kind of, like, raw. You just wanted to have fuckin' loot. And in your heart you wanted to be good at something, and you wanted people to actually love you. All the things that were pretty absent. And certainly one of my hugest goals was - I wanted to be good at something.
What were the kids around you doing to get the loot or to be successful?
Jackshit. You know, where I came from, people weren't even that good at being hoods. There wasn't any money around. It wasn't like any of these movies where motherfuckers are hustling, or even some of these cities where you could boost and make some loot. People tried it, people got locked up. People did dead-end fuckin' bullshit jobs. I worked frying chicken for years, worked delivering pool tables for years, worked as a dishwasher. You just do whatever the fuck, you know?
Did you listen to music growing up?
Oh, of course. I left Santo Domingo when I was six. I grew up basically my entire childhood and adolescence in the U.S. It was the '80s, it was fuckin' a good time for music. I was really into a lot of shit. Between Ill Will and Freestyle and Big Daddy Kane. Fuckin' loved me some Big Daddy Kane in those days! And Special Ed -- that was my little brother's absolute favorite. So Special Ed was in the house like every fuckin' day!
Do you listen to the lyrics more because you're a writer?
I'm pretty much a standard music consumer. I'm no fuckin' backpacker. I don't remember every fuckin' lyric. For me, sometimes it's the lyrics. Sometimes it's the beats. And sometimes it's just... I like the person's personality. I mean fuckin' Ludacris -- people say this and they say that about him. But everytime he's on a cut I just like him because I like his personality, yo! He talks the right kind of shit. Some people talk shit and it bores you. Some people talk shit and it makes you want to smack them. And some people talk shit and you're just like yeaaahhh!! You just laugh.
When people say Ludacris is totally misogynistic and overly confident?
I never position myself as an expert. My thing when it comes to hip hop, which is the music I love the most, is I'm the dude in the club enjoying it. I'm not the dude who's got the super special undergroundfuckin' import mixtape that only five people got. I don't have any answers. When people say shit is misogynistic, I'm like "yeah man." It's what the Communists used to think. They used to call it antagonistic or non-antagonistic contradictions, and for me a lot of the fucked-up shit about hip hop is the contradiction. But for themoment it's not antagonistic. I don't have to stop listening yet.
I guess my thing is, music is a human thing. It's messy, it's complicated. I never thought of music as being there to teach you values. Music's too complicated for something that simple. It's not a primer for behavior.
How do you feel about artists who are unapologetic about making certain tracks just to make money and for no artistic purposes?
There's supposed to be room for everybody. This is a fuckin' dumbass knucklehead culture we're in right now. So there's going to be room for a lot of dumbass knuckleheads. Look, I fuckin' love Dead Prez to death, and I love The Coup. But I don't want to live in a world where those are the only albums that exist. No more than I want to live in a world where it's all just "Ra-ra-ra, I dick-slapped my mom." Once you start excluding motherfuckers, you might as well throw the whole thing out.
Are you listening to anyone more mainstream these days?
Well anytime Snoop gets on, you gotta love Snoop! What's the name of this new dude, the young kid, Soulja Boy? I fuckin' love him! You get to be my age, and when some kid comes with alot of energy, you appreciate it. And my goddaughters have me listening to reggaeton out the ass! Anytime they get in the car they don't want to hear no fuckin' hip-hop. My goddaughters are like, Turn that shit off.
They're not into the young boys like Chris Brown?
Nah, nah, nah. One of the things that happened that I think is really fucked up is that, it's kind of crazy, because you know how they talk about hip hop sales and how hip hop sales have been going down? I think it didn't help that hip hop in general did very little to support and recognize the contributions of Latinos. Think about how many kids used to listento hip hop and spend money on hip hop, and now they're just spending it on reggaeton. Look, it's a huge shift. There used to be this huge body of Latino kids whowere basically silent partners in the hip hop movement. They got fuckin' sick of being silent partners, yo. They're like, Yo I'm going to listen to shit where people recognize me.
In the end, the industry had a certain concept of what hip hop was. Like, We don't mind the spics up in the audience, but we're not going to promote too much talent.
What's your favorite music video?
I know, it's terrible, but it's because I'm a nerd. I like Kanye's video where he rips off Akira. Everyone else hates it. My boys are all like, Turn it off! My boys hate that fuckin' video. They're like, That shit is wack! I'm, like, fuck it, I'm doomed.
What would be the anthem song for your character, Oscar Wao?
"What's Up Fatlip?" from my man Fatlip, minus the line "My girl is white."
What are you working on while in Rome?
I'm trying to write my own version of the X-Men. The majority of the planet is brown and poor. So if there were real mutants in the world, the majority would look like Storm and not like Cyclops. And in my novel I'm trying to imagine what would happen if they decided that they didn't like a world run by white capitalists and their elite colored stooges.
November 21, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
Junot Díaz: Through the Wire
The author of the year's best novel talks growing up hip hop, how reggaeton hurt rap sales, and - of course - his love for Soulja Boy. Just don't call him "G-Unit."
Article tags: Dead Prez, Fatlip, Junot Diaz, Kanye West, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Soulja Boy, Special Ed, The Coup
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