Mini Book Review
It’s slowly starting to take more than two hands to count the number of books I’ve read of my own volition since graduating high school [as Quizlet destroyed the need for me to ever comprehend a written body of work throughout college].
My dear friend and roommate Caleb lent me a copy of this book from his personal library.
While exploring and appreciating wide ranges of music as much as I have, I realized somewhere during this reading how much of a treat it was to read about a Black person’s engagements with widespread music genres. Early associations of the “music critic” for me were that of half-baked Pitchfork articles written by white guys. This then transitioned to me taking another white guy’s Youtube channel seriously, with videos talking about why he thought some album about finding space to breathe in the midst of Black plight was just “okay” because some of the deeper cuts underwhelmed him. Even the well-intending white guys making first reaction/ first impression videos of rap albums causes harm and muddies the lens that Black artists work so hard to craft, most likely for the people that have lived something tangential to what they’re making.
This is not to be a review about white guys reviews on Black art (although one may come to fruition). This is more to appreciate the seeming rarity of curated, thoughtful essays on music through the Black lens. Growing up in Ohio, Hanif Abdurraqib’s ear gravitated to a lot of the local punk and emo scenes being cultivated in the early 2000s, a largely less aware time period than now. Abdurraqib designs this almost meta-poetry on much of his lived experiences with albums or live music events and how he felt hyper-aware of his Blackness in them.
The essays in the book date right around the early half of 2017, likely February or early March. Though I could only directly relate to some of the more contemporary artists mentioned, it was still so gratifying to look through his lens and find memories of myself in certain spaces or listening to certain genres. He’s the “Youtuber” I was looking for, who took 10+ years of reflection before posting his reviews.
Upon finishing this reading, it made me think of how much I want to be exposed to music reviewers of color and the albums or music spaces that speak to them. There is likely a gap in my knowledge of these reviewers that likely already make the work I’m looking for, like Abdurraqib. I hope to bridge that gap and have as many people willing to cross it with me.
Still getting used to the process of writing for myself and not in an academic or professional context. When one creates a blog post in the Squarespace portal, there’s pre-generated text that you can replace with your own, but it also doubles as writing advice. I thought I’d share this pre-generated paragraph for anyone, especially POC that may like the idea of writing for themselves:
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
