Literary Nonfiction. African American Studies. LGBT Studies. Film and Music Criticism. Winner of a PEN America 2007 Beyond Margins Award. Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Writing from a critical center that is melanin-based/feminist/pro- queer/unabashedly-leftist, LA-based writer Ernest Hardy (a Sundance Fellow and member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association whose work has appeared in , , the and more) pens essays, interviews and reviews whose subject matter ranges from underground hip-hop and American indie film to modernFrench cinema; from revealing interviews with Warren Beatty, Meshell NdegeOcello and Les Nubians to an essay on gay rappers and queer rap audiences that pushes beyond the clichés of the media-stoked "down-low" phenomenon.