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4.61 AVERAGE
4.61 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
It is the best and saddest feeling to finish a 5 star book. I finished this in two days in a time where I'm in a bit of a reading slump (mostly because I find myself doom scrolling of the hate filling the world at this moment). Today, I've been thinking about how wonderful this writing is and will probably think about it the next day and the day after that. Hanif Abdurraqib is a brilliant writer and juxtaposes so many awesomely random artists, bands, and songs with grief, love, loss, and all of the pain that comes with the political climate of the 21st century. Obviously I was hooked when he started the book with an essay about Chance the Rapper and cultivating joy during the painful 2016; but he kept me reading from discussing Carly Rae Jepsen and our human tendencies to weaponize sadness to emo bands like My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy bringing together people who are just trying to live another day. I had my students analyze a concept album as a project this last year, and at the end of the year when I asked them what the highlight of the year was; most of them said that project and it is for this reason: music makes us feel when we didn't think it was possible to feel so hard. It makes us think. It brings back memories and creates them alike. It is a historic time capsule to the good, bad, and ugly of the world's history. In the words of Chance the Rapper, music is really all that we've got, and Hanif could not write that concept more beautifully. I could not recommend this book to you enough especially in times where it is easy to feel hopeless.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
reflective
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.43 / 5 💫
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib and he immediately vaults into the list of authors I want to read everything from regardless of what they are talking about. He speaks with as much passion about Carly Rae Jepsen as he does racial injustice with ferocious poetic prose. This is one of the best collection of musical essays (although it covers so much more than that) that I’ve ever read.
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib and he immediately vaults into the list of authors I want to read everything from regardless of what they are talking about. He speaks with as much passion about Carly Rae Jepsen as he does racial injustice with ferocious poetic prose. This is one of the best collection of musical essays (although it covers so much more than that) that I’ve ever read.
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced