Jimi Izrael it's hard, but it's fair Company: Location: Cleveland, OH Website: www.jimiizrael.com

Biography:
Jimi Izrael is an award-winning reporter and culture-critic from East Cleveland, Ohio who currently moderates "The Barbershop" for National Public Radio's "Tell Me More with Michel Martin," blogs "The Hardline" for Washington Post-backed, The Root.com, and "Primary Colors" for TV One Online. He muses often at www.jimiizrael.com. Known as progenitor of the hip-hop opinion, and his credo ("it's hard but it's fair") he's a sought-after pundit and culture critic appearing on talk radio and television news panels internationally and from coast to coast, including CSPAN, Fox's Hannity and Colmes, The O'Reilly Factor, The Larry Elder Show, XM Radio and he's a regular voice on various shows on National Public Radio, including Day to Day, News and Notes, Talk of the Nation and WHYY's Radio Times. Media blog Gawker.com named Izrael a "talking head to watch," and his mother brags about that all the time--seriously. He has earned a Bachelor of Arts in communications from Cleveland State University and a Master of Fine Arts Degree from Spalding University.

His work appears in the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The American Spectator, The Plain Dealer, the Lexington Herald-Leader, The Milwaukee Sentinel and many other newspapers and popular media. He won awards for editing and religious news writing as staff writer for the United Church of Christ from 1999-2003. He won awards for consumer journalism and investigative journalism while a staffer for Village Voice media's Cleveland Scene. Izrael was also a columnist for Africana.com from 1999 and later when it became AOLBlackvoices.com until 2006.

Jimi Izrael speaks on topics ranging from alternative journalism, opinion, the hip-hop aesthetic and opinion writing to popular music, film, pop culture, the hip-hop aesthetic, politics as well as: