He was originally hired by the Miami Herald to critique music, but quickly received his own column, in which he has dealt extensively with race, politics, and culture from a progressive perspective.

[3] Raised in Los Angeles and educated at the University of Southern California, Pitts currently lives in Bowie, Maryland.

The novel centers on a faded soul singer whose early-onset Alzheimer's disease compels him to reconnect with his father and son.

[5] In June 2007, Pitts was the subject of a campaign of death threats and harassment, including neo-Nazi Bill White, who were angry at a column he wrote about the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a white couple who were raped and murdered by five black assailants in Knoxville, Tennessee.

In his column addressing the murders, Pitts wrote: I am [...] unkindly disposed toward the crackpots, incendiaries and flat-out racists who have chosen this tragedy upon which to take an obscene and ludicrous stand.