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A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
Top of the pile
95
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
99/100Critics
91/100Scholars
Author:
Hanif Abdurraqib
Publisher:
Random House
Date:
March 30, 2021
A project that unravels all modes and methods of black performance, in this moment when black performers are coming to terms with their value, reception, and immense impact on America. Abdurraqib examines how black performance happens in specific moments in time and space--midcentury Paris, the moon, or a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio.
What The Reviewers Say
[A] wide, deep, and discerning inquest into the Beauty of Blackness as enacted on stages and screens, in unanimity and discord, on public airwaves and in intimate spaces.
It's an absolutely brilliant book from a critic who's become one of the country's most essential writers.
... features Hanif Abdurraqib’s considerable talents as a poet, essayist and thoughtful social commentator. Reading this book reminded me of listening to the late night DJs of my youth who used songs as the starting point to improvise a jazz solo of murmured conversation and mellifluous contemplation. Abdurraqib also belongs in the special order of those who magically entwine musicality, voice and narrative in the liminal place between sleep and wakefulness where all is possible, and temporality is fluid.
Music, [...] in the work of Hanif Abdurraqib, is more like a vehicle for getting closer to what it means to be feel joy, and history, and shame, and anger, and lonesomeness.
