This collection is a treasure. Hanif Abdurraqib writes with wisdom and generosity, a man wise beyond his years. Not every essay here will speak to everyone, but the observations on race and culture in America are often profound. This is worthy of the accolades.

I did not, at any point, want this book to end. It hit soooo hard. Hanif Abdurraqib is my favourite writer. There, I said it. I never ever have had a favourite writer, I've had writers that I've loved, that I love, but he's my favourite. A Little Devil in America is so good that finishing it... I feel.. I feel like I'm thirsty, I'm starving. I want more. Throughout out this book I felt... every emotion, mostly elation, but every emotion that you could think of. Okay, so Hanif writes everything I...

One of my favorite Audiobook’s of the YEAR!!! Read BEAUTIFULLY by JD Jackson9 hours and 38 minutesLonglisted for the National Book Award! I HOPE IT WINS!!!I listened to most of this audiobook yesterday—IN AWE…..but then came in the house- to sit. I switched to reading an ebook late afternoon [“Stranded” by Sarah Goodwin] — through the evening - finishing around 3am today. I’m still shaky from “Stranded”…….feeling much despair….But…..while trying to shake off the gloom-mood…I returned to listenin...

If, as Basquiat said, art is how we decorate space and music is how we decorate time, then perhaps writing is how we decorate memory. And no one’s writing does that quite the way Hanif Abdurraqib’s does.His writing somehow feels tangible, words crafted and woven in a such a way as to provoke Stendhal syndrome. Often, I found myself breathless after a sentence, in complete awe of his language. It’s not just that his prose carries the cadence of poetry — “I want, instead, to fill my hands with wha...

I need to read more Hanif Abdurraqib immediately. With this book he's become one of my favorite essayists and cultural commentators, able to be moving movingly personal, backward and forward looking, intellectually insightful, emotionally open, and able to make connections I'd never imagined, all within several paragraphs and all wrapped in electrifying prose.The essays on Blackface, Wu Tang, and Whitney Houston were my favorites, but everything here was amazing and thought provoking. **Thanks t...

“...there is no church like the church of unchained arms being thrown in every direction…”This is my first time reading Hanif Abdurraqib and I am absolutely BLOWN AWAY.I have already added all of Abdurraqib’s collections to my TBR because I need more.A Little Devil in America is an essay collection, a poem, a song, centered around all aspects of Black performance; on the stage, on the screen, in life.This is Abdurraqib’s declaration of love for music, art, his family, his people.The essay ‘Give

National Book Award for Nonfiction 2021. Abdurraqib brilliantly combines essays highlighting notable Black performers—some famous and some not—with personal reflections of his own life. There is Aretha, Michael Jackson, Josephine Baker, Whitney Houston (who apparently couldn’t dance), and many more. Abdurraqib’s observations of the performers encompass the quandary they faced working in the entertainment industry. For some white audiences, they were too Black; and for some Black audiences, they

and no one knows what to make of this, really. what to do when someone has committed themselves to sympathy, but not to mercy. collecting over twenty pieces essayistic and autobiographical, hanif abdurraqib's new book, a little devil in america, examines, celebrates, and considers the past and present of black performance. whether discoursing on dance marathons, soul train, the queen of soul, al jolson, blackface, whitney houston, "black people in space," josephine baker, don shirley, merry c

If you know, you know. So when I say this book is Hanif doing Hanif things, that means the personal is both the political and the poetic — a lens through which, at a dizzying number of focal lengths, music, pop culture and Blackness look sharper, fresher and more nuanced. A Little Devil in America braids history, criticism and fandom into the kind of book only one person could have written, and as always, I'm so grateful that he did.

This was one of the best books I read this year. It is always just an absolute pleasure to read essays from someone so skilled at the craft--the structure and rhythm of each essay and the way the author trusts the reader to fill in the spaces he has carefully opened up for our minds is such a rare talent. The playful structure of each essay is built on deep knowledge and technical skill just like the Jazz musicians, dancers, and performers he writes about. I think I read each essay twice--once t...

"I have grown weary of talking about life as if it is deserved, or earned, or gifted, or wasted. I'm going to be honest about my scorecard and just say that the math on me being here and the people who have kept me here doesn't add up when weighed against the person I've been and the person I can still be sometimes. But isn't that the entire point of gratitude? To have a relentless understanding of all the ways you could have vanished, but haven't? The possibilities for my exits have been endles...

Having grown up in a suburb that had literally built a wall to keep city folk (read: Black people) out, the majority of my adolescence was nothing short of monochromatic (and racist). I went to school with few African Americans, those whose families had disregarded the blatant attempts at diverting them elsewhere for the possibility of a more prosperous future for their children. It made for a rather misleading childhood, one practically without any semblance of diversity – and not just sans Bla...

I AM FLOORED. THIS WAS BEYOND MY EXPECTATIONS. I'll review it as soon as I have more time to process.Full review can be found on TOMESANDTEXTILES.This nonfiction work is a poet’s reflection a wide range of Black pop culture moments throughout US history, from lindy hopping in Hollywood in the 1930’s, icons such as Aretha Franklin & Michael Jackson, a lesser known singer, Merry Clayton, is recognized & given her flowers. The writing felt like Hanif’s life-long observations made in the margins of

Now a Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2021Nominated for the National Book Award 2021 Give this man his award already!!! Our social reality is made up of and structured by performances, as scholars like Erving Goffman, Judith Butler, and Erika Fischer-Lichte have pointed out, and while I had to take a mandatory class on performativity while studying literature, this class had nothing to say about Black performance and its cultural, historical and sociological implications. Abd...

My favorite essays were: On Marathons and Tunnels, On Going Home as Performance, An epilogue for Aretha, Sixteen ways of Looking at Blackface, On the Certain and Uncertain Movement of Limbs, The Josephine Baker Monument Can Never Be Large Enough and My Favorite Thing About Don Shirley.In, On Marathons and tunnels, it was fascinating to learn about the evolution of dance marathons in the years after the 1929 stock market crash. People were desperate, they participated in the hope of winning the j...

No one currently writing is better at blending poetry, memoir and appreciation than Hanif. This one took me a while to get through, as I’d often stop, Google or YouTube performances referenced in the book, even the familiar ones; just to determine how Hanif possibly arrived at his conclusions. I’d always come away with fresh perspectives. Even in our weary existence, Hanif reassures us how liberating and empowering performance can be.

This was one of those galleys I knew I wanted to buy a copy of for myself well before I was done reading, and it's one of those books whose brilliance I am so excited to share with others and re-experience again.

Simply put this collection of essays by Hanif Abdurraqib is spectacular. A five star read so bright, it's blinding. It is unapologetically and blatantly Black. A collection filled with the emotion and vulnerability that African Americans need to express. Part memoir, history book and love letter, A Little Devil in America takes you through Five Movements that are linked by moments of black performance in America and the relationship between then and now. Be prepared to pause while reading so tha...

These essays are so damn good. The sentences are gorgeous. The arguments are unique. Also he’s writing about music and dance and culture moments in this way thats so rich and evocative. Which I think has gotta be hard. There’s an essay about Merry Clayton & “Gimme Shelter” and how he describes this song we all know gives the whole thing new life and resonance. He sees and lifts the complexity of Blackness. He delves into grief. There’s so much good here.I reread this via audiobook and it’s still...

We interviewed Hanif at Books Are Pop Culture and it was a really good experience.YouTubehttps://youtu.be/xZg0j0UNRjcSpotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/1doG...