West Harlem hosted a mural unveiling and celebration of the visionary
writer, bandleader, and cultural theorist Gregory Stephen ‘Ionman’ Tate, whose work reshaped Black music and thought. The day featured a major new public artwork by acclaimed artist Brett Cook as well as live performances and from Melvin Gibbs for Honk NYC! and Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber (BSAC), the ensemble Tate founded.

The mural is located between 134th and 133rd Street along St. Nicholas Avenue on the park fencing. It’s slated to be there for one year as a temporary public art work.

Greg Tate was an American writer, musician and producer known for his influential work as a cultural critic, particularly in establishing hip-hop as a subject worthy of serious study. A long-time critic for The Village Voice, he wrote extensively on Black music, film, and culture, blending academic scholarship with Black vernacular in his work. He was also a musician and a founding member of the Black Rock Coalition and the band Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber. 

• Writer and critic:
  • He worked at The Village Voice from 1987 to 2003, where he helped legitimize hip-hop in music criticism.
  • His collections of essays, Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) and Flyboy 2 (2016), are considered seminal works.
  • His writing appeared in numerous other publications, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Artforum.
  • He was described as one of the “godfathers of hip-hop journalism”.
• Musician and producer:
  • He co-founded the Black Rock Coalition in 1985 to support Black musicians and fight industry stereotyping.
  • In 1999, he founded the experimental music ensemble Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, in which he played guitar and served as “conductor”.
  • The band produced multiple albums, blending various genres like soul, jazz, and hip-hop.
• Academic and cultural influence:
  • He taught courses on African studies and Afrofuturism at universities including Williams, Brown, Columbia, and Yale.
  • His work was characterized by its interdisciplinary approach, connecting different forms of Black creative expression.
  • He was recognized as a United States Artists Fellow in literature in 2010. 

Brett Cook is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who uses storytelling to distill complex ideas and creative practices to transform outer and inner worlds of being. Using inquiry-based approaches, Cook designs inclusive processes and products that promote awareness and embody the complexity of loving communities. His public projects feature elaborate installations, community workshops, arts-integrated pedagogy, music, performance, food, and more to create fluid boundaries between art-making, daily life, and healing. Teaching and public speaking are extensions of his social practice that involve communities in dialogue to generate experiences of reflection and insight.

Cook has received numerous awards including the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professorship at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the Richard C. Diebenkorn Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute. Recognized for a history of socially relevant, community-engaged projects, he was selected as cultural ambassador to Nigeria as part of the US Department of State’s smARTpower Initiative. His work is in the collection of the Smithsonian/National Portrait Gallery, Walker Art Center, and the Studio Museum of Harlem. He is currently the inaugural Senior Fellow of Visual Arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium, and a trustee of A Blade of Grass.