Background
Lewis was born in The Bronx, New York, at the beginning of hip hop culture in the early 1970s.
Lewis was born in The Bronx, New York, at the beginning of hip hop culture in the early 1970s.
He is a graduate of Morehouse College, class of 1993. He expatriated from the United States to Paris, France during 2004 in response to the Iraq War. His debut essay collection, Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don"t Have Bruises (2004) – a book described as "an observant and urbane B-boy"s rites of passage" – established Lewis as a prose stylist observing American culture in a style directly influenced by Joan Didion, mixing personal reflection with social analysis and humor.
Lewis"s second book, There"s a Riot Goin" On (2006), deals with the making of the seminal 1971 album of the same name by Sly and the Family Stone, and the death of the 1960s counterculture.
In 2007, Lewis launched Furthermucker.com, where he blogs regularly about the arts, popular culture, hip-hop culture, and his experiences as a black American expatriate in 21st-century Paris.