Episode 008: Jim McFarlin

As one of the very first people of color to review popular music for a major daily newspaper, Jim McFarlin spent an enormous amount of time with the world’s best-known musicians. However, getting cover stories from Bob Seeger and Ted Nugent and Kid Rock seemed easy compared to fighting for his identity as a small boy…and fighting for his life as an adult.

Jim has not only battled racism over the years but, about a decade ago, he began battling kidney failure. The stories (and lessons) associated with each are incredibly powerful, and the stories in-between—the ones with Nugent and Seeger and Kid Rock and Aretha—are nearly unbelievable.

Jim McFarlin is best known for the 16 years he spent working at the Detroit News as a pop music critic and media columnist, interviewing many of the world’s biggest superstars. Currently, he is a freelance writer for publications including Drive, CS, Hour Detroit, Men’s Book Chicago, and many others. Jim has also written 8 books, and is now working on his 9th—a novel about his experiences growing up as “a small black kid in a small white town.”