Amiri Baraka (known as LeRoi Jones at the publication of the poem) was an American poet, writer, music critic and political activist born in Newark, New Jersey in 1934. His works explored the anger of African-Americans and he used his writings to give voice to the concerns of the black experience in post-WWII America and beyond.

Black Dada Nihilismus was a part of Baraka’s second poetry collection The Dead Lecturer (1964), published at the edge of his Beat Movement age before realigning his work as a Black Nationalist, in which critics note that his growing political intensity begins to overshadow his flawless, poetic finesse. According to critic M.L Rosenthal, Baraka “contrives a rhetoric of rage that acts out the role assigned the black man by his most paranoid oppressor.”

Through the use of violent language, the blending of high and low cultural references and open, free verse techniques, Baraka critiques the representations of the African-American and democratizes one’s understanding of art and culture, creating a space for new artistic, personal and social possibilities for the minority.