Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University. He holds a doctorate in American Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Neal co-convened with Neil De Marchi and Annabel J. Wharton for the 2007-08 John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute seminar Recycle.
Neal has appeared in several documentaries including Byron Hurt’s acclaimed Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (2006), John Akomfrah’s Urban Soul (2004) and the BBC’s Soul Deep: the Story of Black Popular Music (2005). A frequent commentator for National Public Radio Neal also contributes to several on-line media outlets, including The Root.com (Washington Post Interactive)
Neal is the author of four books, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), Songs in the Keys of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003) and New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity (2005). Of Neal’s most recent book noted scholar Michael Eric Dyson writes "New Black Man is a brilliant, courageous, engaging and imaginative manifesto for a radical new vision of black masculinity."
Neal is also the co-editor (with Murray Forman) of That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (2004). Neal’s essay “Music: Bodies in Pain” was included in the 2009 edition of The Best African-American Essays, edited by Gerald Early and Debra Dickerson. Neal maintains an ongoing blog about his research into contemporary and historical issues of race and Black culture, New Black Man.
Neal is one of the "Group of 88" professors who, in the wake of the Lacrosse players scandal, signed a controversial letter thanking protesters for "making a collective noise" on "what happened to this young woman." The letter has been widely criticized as a prejudgment since no sexual assault occurred. All charges against the players were eventually dismissed and the District Attorney who prosecuted the case, Michael Nifong, was disbarred and jailed.