Marcus J. Moore
“I worship God every day, even though I'm not always in church. I truly believe I've been put here to spread the gospel of good music, good writing and critical thinking, so every time I put pen to paper, and words to microphone, I'm praising the Most High. Following your passion is a spiritual experience.”
“I have a great amount of gratitude for The Butterfly Effect and the triumph of chronicling one of our great artists while they’re still here with us. Marcus J. Moore is thoughtful, incisive, and generous in this work, and will hopefully set a blueprint for how we honor the brilliant and living.”
“Marcus J. Moore viscerally understands how music and art are connected to human lives. His writing exudes this holistic empathy and compassion; no matter his subject, his gaze is always clear and his heart is always full. He brings eloquence and gently bracing wit to his criticism, which always talks directly to the audience: when you read Marcus, you can feel him looking out at you. This is the highest praise, I think, you can pay to a critic, writer, or artist. Moore invites you into his mind and encourages you to peek out at the world from his perspective, without ever insisting his view is correct. It is simply his, and the grace with which he shares it has always felt like generosity.”
Marcus J. Moore is an award-winning music journalist, senior editor, curator and pop culture commentator. He is the author of The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America, which was published by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster in October 2020. His next book is High and Rising: aka The De La Soul Book, which will be published by HarperCollins in November, 2024. In June 2017, Moore's "letter to Kanye West" won a national Edward R. Murrow Award.
Speaking with The Independent about his forthcoming book, Moore said “My book details the artist’s coming of age as an MC, how he helped resurrect two languishing genres (bebop and jazz), his profound impact on a racially fraught America, and his emergence as the bonafide King of Rap.”
Moore’s writing on music can be found in Pitchfork, The Nation, NPR and The Atlantic, the Washington Post's newspaper and magazine, Complex, MTV and BBC Music. His features and reviews of mainstream albums appear in Paste, The Washington City Paper, Rolling Stone and Billboard. He’s written features and breaking news pieces for WTOP-FM in D.C., and has curated nationally syndicated playlists for Google. He discusses new music live on FM radio, and contributes to several local and national podcasts. Moore was invited to Moogfest 2017 to interview Dr. Dre collaborator Colin Wolfe as part of its program.
In 2009, he launched his own site—DMV Spectrum—which covered music and entertainment in D.C., Maryland and northern Virginia. A year later, Marcus was hired as lead editor of AOL's Patch website in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Moore launched the outlet, covered local meetings and leveraged his social media presence to build the site's readership.
Originally from the Washington, D.C. area, and now living in Brooklyn, New York, he's covered business, politics and education for the Gazette newspapers in the D.C. suburbs, and is now a senior editor at Bandcamp Daily, the editorial arm of the noted online music service.
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