The introduction describes the origins of Greg Tate’s love of all things Black culture or, more specifically, of Black cognition—the way Black people think, mentally and physically, and how those ways of thinking and being inform artistic choices. Tate describes himself as a child of the 1970s and as a Pan-Afrikanist. He cites Black feminist writers, jazz, and hip-hop as strong influences on his cultural sensibilities. As an amateur (but energetic) Black rock musician himself, Tate describes getting so much joy out of playing that that he found himself thinking in moments of ecstasy and delirium that he’d rather be a mediocre musician than a great writer.