In honor of Black History Month, we're honoring one of the foremost leaders and thinkers in Black America today: Dr. Cornel West.
Dr. Cornel West is an Ivy League-educated professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton University. A renown, controversial philosopher, orator, scholar and activist, Dr. West has written close to 20 profoundly influential books on the topics of race, politics, culture and religion, including the best-selling book, Race Matters.
It's not unusual to see West -- a cancer survivor and the son of a Baptist minister -- keeping company with everyone from students to senators, rabbis to rappers. In fact, West has a hand in making hip-hop music too: aside from his involvement with Russell Simmons's Hip-Hop Summit, West has two albums to his name.
On his first album, Sketches of My Culture, released in 2001, he skillfully set the ramifications of slavery to soulful spoken word grooves. On his latest album, Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations, released in 2007 with the Black Men Who Mean Business, he set his thoughts on being Black in post-9/11 Bush Country to funk, soul and hip-hop rhythms. Joining him: hip-hop and R&B heavy-hitters Prince (one of the first times the artist has ever allowed his work to be sampled), Jill Scott, Talib Kweli, KRS-One, Andre 3000, Killer Mike, The Roots' Black Thought and the late Gerald Levert.