“Hip-hop saved me,. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance. I have a chip on my shoulder I pet every morning, a constant feeling like I have something to prove. Hearing that the canon can’t be diversified, there’s no room for more brown faces—that fueled my fire. I loved music that people said was not music, that it was too violent, too crass, too sexual. And now everyone in the world is rapping Hamilton.”

— Jason Reynolds

As quoted in [Corbett, Sue, Jason Reynolds Is the Hardest-Working Man in Washington, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/74244-jason-reynolds-is-the-hardest-working-man-in-washington.html, Publishers Weekly, 10 March 2020, July 14, 2017]

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author of young adult novels 1983

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