Omar Tyree raw and uncut: the self-described "Urban Griot" hopes to cultivate more black male readers with his next novel Leslie - Cover Story

On a warm April night, the Love Jones fallout ripples through a New York City night-club where several wannabes have come hoping to be discovered. Credit three things to Love Jones--that mid-90s movie of buppie-love--a bangin' soundtrack, open-mic nights suddenly becoming as cool as crowding the local hip-hop club and, unfortunately, lots of not-so-well-spoken-word poetry. The movie inspired once-closeted singers, poets and rappers of varying skills to express themselves before packed clubs, cafes, and libraries long before HBO got hip to Mos Def.

Tonight's showcase in Manhattan's trendy lower regions is no different. Lots of "Big-ups," "You go girl!" and "Preach!" to mediocre verse and gospel-tinged singing. Among the aspiring talents, a best-selling novelist anxiously awaits his turn to take the stage. Tonight though, the writer in question--Omar Tyree--is not himself. In fact, he winces when introduced to the crowd of trendy, well-groomed urban professionals.

"Damn, I knew this was gonna happen," he mumbles. "I told her I'm not Omar, tonight I'm the Urban Griot!"

A griot--according to leaflets Tyree has distributed to the audience before beginning to versify over the Middle Eastern jazz rhythms of Alice Coltrane who oozes what he calls "spoken groove"--is a "wise and knowledgeable" storyteller in the African oral tradition. He sits on a stool, caramel-colored Kangol cocked to the side, marble-faced notebook in hand, and reads "Journey into the Mind of a Black Man." The poetry evokes the cool vibe of Gil Scott-Heron, but with the brash energy of a 33-year-old brother from Philly who grew up on hip hop.

"Urban Griot" is Tyree's alter ego, a self-styled alias he hopes will strike a chord with other black men who can relate to his hip-hop sensibility. But since the early success of his first book in 1995, a young woman's coming-of-age story called Flyy Girl, Tyree claims his male contemporaries have yet to embrace his fiction as much as black women have.

Like fellow authors E. Lynn Harris and Eric Jerome Dickey, who write variations of the black relationship novel, Tyree is popular among the beauty shop crowd. And that bothers him to no end.

"You know how humiliating that is?" he says. "Whenever you hear my name, you want to pass my work off to your girlfriend," says Tyree, the next day over lunch at a posh Manhattan restaurant. "Women say, `why is that humiliating to you? You're making money.' But I can't even talk to my peers and you asking me why that's humiliating," he gripes. "I've got two sons. What are they gonna say, `Daddy made a fortune selling girl books.'"

Selling "girl" books

Throughout his decade-long writing career, Tyree has juggled a balancing act of wanting to increase his male readership while not alienating his female following. But it's an unavoidable circumstance among the book-buying public. And based on Tyree's experience, black men don't read books--at least not his novels.

African Americans spent about $356 million on books in 2000, according to a study by Chicago-based Target Market News, which gathers information about black consumer purchases. And according to the American Booksellers Association, of the 9.9 million black adults who are regular book buyers, more than 75 percent of them are women. When you talk about fiction, the number skyrockets to 90 percent.

"It's torture, man," says Tyree. Add those statistics to constantly having to fend off criticism from literary elitists who disparage his work as overly didactic, and a less secure author would crumble. Not Tyree. His resolve is too strong; his vision, too singular; his passion, too fervent to let those obstacles stop him. His stamina borders on the prolific and is coupled with a marketing strategy that is as aggressive as his often-hyperbolic speech. The brother's got the boastful swagger of your favorite rapper, the entrepreneurial instincts of a street hustler and a pen as swift as his tongue is sharp. His ninth book, Leslie, dubbed an "urban horror story" set in New Orleans is scheduled for an August release.

But Tyree's got other irons in the fire. He moonlights as the "Urban Griot" with a self-published series of "hard-core fiction" books and a spoken-word and rap CD aimed at the fellas. At appearances, he hands out pens and often peddles his books himself. He tours bookstores and open-mic events constantly. You can also purchase Tyree's books and videos from his websites (omartyree.com and theurbangriot.com).

"Don't stop me from doing what I'm doing. Don't stop my hustle," says Tyree. "Like Tupac said, `Old heads trying to hate on my shit.' Don't hate on mine, `cause I'm aiming for new heights and doing it a different way. I've been trained to aim high." So to all ya'll critics, Tyree wants you to just stop the hatin.'

Reared in Philadelphia by his pharmacist mother and a disciplinarian stepfather, young Omar learned early on to carve a path for himself. A rabid fan of Kung fu flicks, Tyree grew up in movie theaters whiling away hours watching triple features of Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly. It was in these darkened halls where he developed an unwavering attention span and his narrative sense of character development, plot and dialogue that would later influence his writing. That and a built-like-a-brickhouse stepfather.

"He was six-foot-four, 225 pounds. I was four-foot-nine, 70-something pounds," Tyree recalls. "He established the rules. I was hatin' him and all that. But I understood that it was good medicine for me. So I was like, let me do what I got to do to have peace with that man and then get out of here," he says. "By the time I got to college, there was a whole lot of responsibilities and a whole lot of manhood that I was just up on that the rest of the kids maybe didn't get."

Tyree's sense of purpose translated into going to the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in pharmaceutical science and running track, with an eye toward joining the football team.

But soon sports and pharmacy gave way to literary ambitions. The next thing Tyree knew, an English writing assignment turned him into a campus mini-celebrity, and he was bitten by the writing bug.

I was in the Phi Eta Sigma honor society in pharmacy, but by the time I got to my sophomore year I had no passion for it," he explains. "I could do it, but my passion was for this new writing stuff, `cause it's expressive. And when I

got in front of the audience and they responded the way they did, it was powerful. It was addictive. That's what motivated me, it's like dunking that basketball and the crowd goes off."

Ironically, Tyree's interest in writing his own stories did not spark an interest in reading classic literature. He still thought of literature as only Shakespeare or "a book that you didn't want to read in the first place." Instead, after transferring to Howard University in Washington, D.C., for his final two years, he majored in journalism, wrote for the school newspaper, and interned at local papers to polish his voice.

Self-publishing success

By graduation in 1991, he had finished two books, Colored, On White Campus and Flyy Girl. With the small amount he'd saved and loans from family members, Tyree, self-published and distributed his books at local bookstores and at book fairs. In 1995, Simon & Schuster got wind of the upstart writer, signed him, and rereleased Flyy Girl, Tyree's best known book to date.

Since then, the novelist who once hated English class has released a new title each year. His latest, Leslie, is a dialogue-heavy urban tale of the title character's attempts to transcend her sordid past through her connection to the spirit world, set against the multicultural backdrop of contemporary New Orleans.

"Leslie, man, another masterpiece. Hopefully, they'll feel this one," he says. The bigwigs at the publishing house hope so as well.

Geoff Kloske, who edited Leslie and three other Omar Tyree hardcovers, says Tyree sets himself apart from Dickey and Harris because in each book he tackles a specific social issue. Yet it still puzzles Kloske why Tyree has not achieved the critical acclaim equivalent to his commercial success.

"He's hit The New York Times bestseller list but never been reviewed by The New York Times," says Kloske. "It's not like he's gotten any notice in relationship to his prominence in the marketplace," he says. "James Patterson, big commercial writer will get reviewed everywhere. Is it based on literary merit or on commercial appeal? Omar's a big, popular writer who doesn't even get reviewed negatively That's been frustrating."

Kloske may be overstating the case, but not by much. Tyree's earlier work has been reviewed in well-regarded publications such as Kirkus Book Review and Publisher's Weekly. But black writers like Colson Whitehead and Paul Beatty, who represent a more literary tradition, receive loads of critical attention. Tyree's work has generally been regarded as less accomplished, disposable fiction. But Tyree claims it is only a matter of time until he claims his place among the giants of black literature such as Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright, or more appropriately, Iceberg Slim and Chester Himes.

Success without literary acclaim

I understand that I'm going to be frustrated because that's how it is for great people who are ahead of their time. I'm ahead of my time now. They got to catch up to me," he says. "I'm writing contemporary stuff that's on point right now and they're not getting it. Leslie is a genius book. Just Say No is a genius book."

With Tyree, it's hard to tell whether it real or just hype. "Some of my books can save lives," he continues. "Some people have said after reading my books, `It changed my life.' That makes me feel great," says Tyree. "If they [critics] got a problem with that, that's their problem, `cause that's what I write to do. I write to get people thinking. Bottom line."

Publishing veteran Manie Barron believes it's an unfair burden that authors like Tyree have to endure when they're pitted against more literary black authors like the Colson Whiteheads, Paul Beattys and Edwidge Danticats of the world.

"To me, equality means I have a right to mediocrity. That means that not every piece of work that's printed has to be Ralph Ellison, or every piece of art has to be Romare Bearden or Jasper Johns," says Barron, an industry veteran and senior literary agent at the William Morris Agency.

"Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Wallace Thurman wrote for the brother who speaks broken English because he wasn't allowed to go to school. That brother is just as valid as someone coming out of Harvard. We need to remember that," observes Barron. "We need to have enough space to not feel as though if we don't hit the mark, we're never going to get a chance to shoot again."

It is the common man that Barron alludes to who is precisely the reader Tyree wants so desperately to reach. For Tyree, writing's main function is to keep it real, not some haughty notion of grandiloquence.

"It ain't about the words. It's about the people, and the words explain how much you know about the people," he explains. "You can have the most fancy words on the page and when I close the book and you ain't learned nothing new about who we are as a people, as humans, on this joker, then what? You got fancy words.

"The greatest poet Langston Hughes broke it down for the people. It's ironic that these great literary minds will talk about my style and then celebrate Hughes," Tyree continues. "Well, that's the same thing I'm doing."

To some extent, Tyree is right. His technique of writing in today's vernacular and about young people in largely urban settings has its antecedents in many respected writers of the past.

Maybe it will take the test of time to put his work in perspective.

Still, Tyree's mission is to get black men like himself reading and buying books like his. He's got a lot of convincing to do, and he realizes he can't do it alone.

"I tell sistahs, `You put that book in front of him and say you read this book or you ain't getting none," says Tyree, with a straight face.

"Most of my letters from brothers come from jail. That's some sad shit," observes Tyree. "You got to lock them down for them to say this is the shit. We got to stop being passive as brothers and sit down and start reading. Stop the bullshitting!"

Leslie by Omar Tyree Simon & Schuster August 2002 $21.00 ISBN 0-743-22866-9

Omar Tyree has come back with a vengeance. Known for being outspoken and acerbic, the tart-tongued and self-proclaimed activist has stormed back onto the literary scene with a bold new book, Leslie.

The story centers around an attractive and mysterious young coed, Leslie Beaudet, who manages to fool just about everyone. With her wide-eyed innocence and quiet personality, the New Orleans native at first seems like any other dedicated young woman who is focused solely on her studies at Dillard University, a local college. She doesn't have time for men, easy sex or relationships, or so it would seem. As it turns out, Leslie Beaudet is something of a chameleon skilled in the art of deception.

With Leslie, Tyree has created a complex character who gradually reveals her true colors. Initially, she seems caring and wholesome. But as the story progresses, readers soon discover that Leslie is not quite as virtuous as she seems. Eventually she becomes involved in drugs and engages in various sexual escapades. One of her bed partners is her housemate's boyfriend, a dimwit named Eugene Duval. The image of Duval as a hapless fool is a little surprising since Tyree is an advocate of the importance of presenting positive images of African-American men.

Tyree's writing is, as usual, direct but a bit didactic. While not being overly preachy, readers will hear the author's strong opinions on various issues through the dialogue of his characters. Readers who didn't find Tracy Ellison Grant--Tyree's main character in For the Love of Money--realistic, Leslie Beaudet offers something more substantial.

Tyree has done a much better job of developing a more subdued and convincing main character, as well as a more intriguing story line in Leslie. Although Tyree continues to generate controversy with his fiery books and speeches, the brotha' still deserves kudos for simply knowing how to tell a good story.

--Glenn Townes is a New Jersey-based journalist and a frequent contributor to BIBR.

Brett Johnson is a freelance writer who primarily covers music and entertainment. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and The Hartford Courant, and magazines, including Savoy, The Source and Vibe. He is a writer for MTV News and lives in Brooklyn. Johnson interviewed Omar Tyree, the "literary king of self-promotion" for our cover story on page 40.

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