They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

Starred review from August 14, 2017
Abdurraqib’s essay collection is mesmerizing and deeply perceptive. Most of the essays are about music, particularly live music, touching on how it acts as a balm in a time of fear and pain. One essay explores being an outsider among outsiders through Abdurraqib’s memory of being a black kid at an overwhelmingly white punk rock show, yet imbues this experience of loneliness with a sense of triumph. Not every music writer would think to connect the performative identities of the rap group Migos and Johnny Cash as Abdurraqib does, showing how both are based on an arguably inauthentic outlaw persona. All of the musicians discussed, including Carly Rae Jepsen and Chance the Rapper, are accorded respect, along with an understanding of what needs in their audience they satisfy. Abdurraqib’s essays linger on the black American experience, emphasizing the desire to be seen and the fear of being invisible. He doesn’t posit music as a cure-all for modern America’s societal ills—those he mentions include mass shootings, racial violence, and prejudice against Muslims—but also observes that it “isn’t only music” but a way of feeling a sense of belonging. Abdurraqib’s essays are filled with honesty, providing the reader with the sensation of seeing the world through fresh eyes.

October 15, 2017
An Ohio-based poet, columnist, and music critic takes the pulse of the nation while absorbing some of today's most eclectic beats. At first glance, discovering deep meaning in the performance of top-40 songstress Carly Rae Jepsen might seem like a tough assignment. However, Abdurraqib (The Crown Ain't Worth Much, 2016) does more than just manage it; he dives in fully, uncovering aspects of love and adoration that are as illuminating and earnest as they are powerful and profound. If he can do that with Jepsen's pop, imagine what the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Prince, or Nina Simone might stir in him. But as iconic as those artists may be, the subjects found in these essays often serve to invoke deeper forays into the worlds surrounding the artists as much as the artists themselves. Although the author is interested in the success and appeal of The Weeknd or Chance the Rapper, he is also equally--if not more--intrigued with the sociopolitical and existential issues that they each managed to evoke in present-day America. In witnessing Zoe Saldana's 2016 portrayal of Simone, for instance, Abdurraqib thinks back to his own childhood playing on the floor of his family home absorbing the powerful emotions caused by his mother's 1964 recording of "Nina Simone in Concert"--and remembering the relentlessly stigmatized soul who, unlike Saldana, could not wash off her blackness at the end of the day. In listening to Springsteen, the author is reminded of the death of Michael Brown and how "the idea of hard, beautiful, romantic work is a dream sold a lot easier by someone who currently knows where their next meal is coming from." In all of Abdurraqib's poetic essays, there is the artist, the work, the nation, and himself. The author effortlessly navigates among these many points before ultimately arriving at conclusions that are sometimes hopeful, often sorrowful, and always visceral. Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.

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Starred review from October 15, 2017
MTV, Pitchfork, and New York Times contributor and poet Abdurraqib (The Crown Ain't Worth Much, 2016) writes with uninhibited curiosity and insight about music and its ties to culture and memory, life and death, on levels personal, political, and universal. He's interested in what sells and what's currency, how music reminds us of who we love or who we've lost or who we once were. Hearing Nina Simone's 1964 recording of Pirate Jenny as a preteen shaped him, as did the Midwestern punk/hardcore/emo scenes he grew up with. Released days after Abdurraqib's mother's sudden death, the Notorious B.I.G.'s posthumous hit Mo' Money, Mo' Problems and the shiny suit era it ushered inwas a kind of light in the darkness, a rap song, with its infectious Diana Ross sample, that Abdurraqib will forever wonder if his mom might have liked. The title of his essay collection comes from a sign left above Michael Brown's memorial in Ferguson, which Abdurraqib visited the day before seeing Bruce Springsteen perform all the songs in The River, an album of men and women and families and the grand idea of surviving to enjoy it all. Abdurraqib's poignant critiques, a catalog of the current moment and all that preceded it, inspire us to listen with our whole selves.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)