rachel_scho 's review for:

They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib

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I’ll refrain from rating this book because I skipped a few essays about artists I didn’t know or wasn’t interested in. This book had been on my to-read list for years, but after reading it, I realized that I wasn’t the right audience for it. I love music, but perhaps not enough to read a book of essays about it. And I enjoy the occasional nonfiction, but even this felt too dense for me. (The essays are rarely more than 10 pages each!)

Abdurraqib is an excellent writer, and his poetry background really shows in his prose. This was sometimes to my detriment, as I had a hard time following his lengthier or more creative sentences. Nonetheless, he writes sincerely and with empathy, and I admired his vulnerability and dry sense of humor. Aburraqib’s voice is a treasure.

My favorite essays were:
-A Night in Bruce Springsteen’s America
-The Night Prince Walked on Water
-I Wasn’t Brought Here; I Was Born
-Death Becomes You
-Fall Out Boy Forever
-Black Life on Film
-Fear in Two Winters
-The Obama White House, a Brief Home for Rappers