Jimi Hendrix was a black man from a black world who made extra-terrestrial black music, Greg Tate writes. So why has he never made it into the pantheon of twentieth-century black icons? Setting out to answer this question, Midnight Lightning explores a fantastically eclectic range of issues: how Hendrix exploded our complacently segregated world to emerge as an icon for white boys; why black people once viewed him as a hippie Uncle Tom; his connection to the Black Power movement; how he revolutionized the use of technology in popular music; how he redefined rock fashion; his sex appeal, especially for black women; why nobody was mad at him for sleeping with white women; and how he has subverted and destabilized black masculine stereotypes. The result is a book which will change the way we think not only about black music, but about black identity itself.