Take a photo of a barcode or cover
citylifejc 's review for:
They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
by Hanif Abdurraqib
Wow. I never expected to cry while reading an essay about Fall Out Boy but that happened while reading this book. I picked this up after I heard Hanif on a music podcast and wanted to read more of his musical opinions. This book has that: essays on artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Carly Rae Jepsen, Chance the Rapper and more than a few emo bands. But it’s also deeper in that it’s about what it is to love music passionately, what it is to identify with an artist, to find community through music - it’s also broader - there are also essays on sports, culture and society. BUT even deeper these essays are about friendship, death, grieving, race, and living as a man of color in the despairscape that is Trump’s America - sometimes many of these things in the same essay. I’ve actually been taking my time reading it here and there because it is so dense and emotionally rich I wanted to take time to savor and digest it - but being that his new book about A Tribe Called Quest is being released tomorrow, I decided it was time to finally finish this one. A blurb on the back calls him the Ta-Nehisi Coates of popular culture and that doesn’t seem too grandiose a claim. Can’t wait to see what he has to say about Tribe!