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A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Nonfiction (2021)A stirring meditation on Black performance in America from the New York Times bestselling author of Go Ahead in the Rain
At the March on Washington in 1963, Josephine Baker was fifty-seven years old, well beyond her most prolific days. But in her speech she was in a mood to consider her life, her legacy, her departure from the country she was now triumphantly returning to. “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too,” she told the crowd. Inspired by these few words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines—whether it’s the twenty-seven seconds in “Gimme Shelter” in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder,” a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt—has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance.
Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain, infused with the lyricism and rhythm of the musicians he loves. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio.
At the March on Washington in 1963, Josephine Baker was fifty-seven years old, well beyond her most prolific days. But in her speech she was in a mood to consider her life, her legacy, her departure from the country she was now triumphantly returning to. “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too,” she told the crowd. Inspired by these few words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines—whether it’s the twenty-seven seconds in “Gimme Shelter” in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder,” a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt—has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance.
Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain, infused with the lyricism and rhythm of the musicians he loves. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio.
301 pages, Hardcover
First published March 30, 2021
About the author
Hanif Abdurraqib
24 books2,781 followersHanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, and was met with critical acclaim. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,333 reviews
November 11, 2021
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 so good. I preferred the page because it’s so intimate that way, but I heard new things in this reading so I’m grateful.
I reread this via audiobook and it’s still so good. I preferred the page because it’s so intimate that way, but I heard new things in this reading so I’m grateful.
January 22, 2021
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.
October 27, 2021
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.
April 1, 2024
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2021
Nominated 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. Abdurraqib now talks about the impact of Black performance in a variety of contexts, from performing masculinity to music, dancing, games, violence, blackface, and other areas, the performers mentioned include Josephine Baker, Aretha Franklin, Dave Chapelle, Beyoncé, Whitney Houston and many more. In his texts, Abdurraqib melts the personal and the political by adding a touch of memoir, and he also combines scientific research with wonderfully lyrical language that turns his sharp analysis into a work of art.
This book expands the idea of what non-fiction, of what scholarly research can be: Beautiful and moving, without losing any ot its intellectual rigor. Great, great stuff, a real masterpiece.
Nominated 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. Abdurraqib now talks about the impact of Black performance in a variety of contexts, from performing masculinity to music, dancing, games, violence, blackface, and other areas, the performers mentioned include Josephine Baker, Aretha Franklin, Dave Chapelle, Beyoncé, Whitney Houston and many more. In his texts, Abdurraqib melts the personal and the political by adding a touch of memoir, and he also combines scientific research with wonderfully lyrical language that turns his sharp analysis into a work of art.
This book expands the idea of what non-fiction, of what scholarly research can be: Beautiful and moving, without losing any ot its intellectual rigor. Great, great stuff, a real masterpiece.
July 6, 2021
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've ever wanted to read. I can't even review this because my brain is just turned inside out. This was a dazzling work of music writing. It was so layered, deep, light-hearted, painful, joyous, reflective, pensive, frustrating and infuriating (barbershops), ghostly, history-filled: all types of history just layered and layered on top of each other, much like life is. It was excoriating to the legacies that America wants to continuously pass down, legacies that exclude so much about the heartbeat of America, the artistry, work and life given to the country by Black creatives, musicians, artists, and the multitudes of everyday Black folks giving and giving and lifting and struggling and pushing and designing and detailing what it means to exist in the world right now - with the style, with the grace and the culture we possess in North America today.
Dude, I can't even get into how many albums I went through reading this book.. just listening and learning, researching. I can't get over how interactive this book was, how fun it was, how thoughtful and how much of a gift that it is! Maybe I'm a fucking nerd. I do feel that I fall into the category of "music nerd" very completely but still - this was UNREAL. Unreal.
Whew.
This was the best book I've read this year so far. I'm sad that it ended.
Check out a few more highlights that keep standing out to me after the final page here.
I wait with bated breath for more musical musings from the mind and fingers of Hanif Abdurraqib. Thank you Hanif for this work.
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've ever wanted to read. I can't even review this because my brain is just turned inside out. This was a dazzling work of music writing. It was so layered, deep, light-hearted, painful, joyous, reflective, pensive, frustrating and infuriating (barbershops), ghostly, history-filled: all types of history just layered and layered on top of each other, much like life is. It was excoriating to the legacies that America wants to continuously pass down, legacies that exclude so much about the heartbeat of America, the artistry, work and life given to the country by Black creatives, musicians, artists, and the multitudes of everyday Black folks giving and giving and lifting and struggling and pushing and designing and detailing what it means to exist in the world right now - with the style, with the grace and the culture we possess in North America today.
Dude, I can't even get into how many albums I went through reading this book.. just listening and learning, researching. I can't get over how interactive this book was, how fun it was, how thoughtful and how much of a gift that it is! Maybe I'm a fucking nerd. I do feel that I fall into the category of "music nerd" very completely but still - this was UNREAL. Unreal.
Whew.
This was the best book I've read this year so far. I'm sad that it ended.
Check out a few more highlights that keep standing out to me after the final page here.
I wait with bated breath for more musical musings from the mind and fingers of Hanif Abdurraqib. Thank you Hanif for this work.
October 9, 2023
Without a doubt, one of the best collections I have read to date. “It Is Safe to Say I Have Lost Many Games of Spades” in particular, was one of the most well constructed essays I've had the pleasure of reading.
May 9, 2022
A powerful essay collection about Black art and humanity and art as a form of resistance against injustice, racial and otherwise. I enjoyed reading and witnessing Hanif Abdurraqib’s passion for the artists he writes about and learning about what they mean to him. At times I wanted Abdurraqib to let some of his insights expand more before switching to a different topic or idea. I also felt curious to know more about how the personal tidbits he shared related to his understanding of the artists at hand. Recommended to those interested in music on both a cultural and individual level.
September 24, 2021
One of my favorite Audiobook’s of the YEAR!!!
Read BEAUTIFULLY by JD Jackson
9 hours and 38 minutes
Longlisted 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 listening to “A Little Devil In America” this morning (I didn’t realize I had less than 2 hours left)….I didn’t want it to end.
You’d have to me in my skin I suppose —- but I was ‘in-a-zone’
…..so hard to find the words to express how much this book means to me. While still feeling despondent —‘trying’ to let it go….
THE LAST WORDS Hanif wrote must have been directly written for me. I needed to hear them. It was like God was giving me a ‘all-is-well…’it-will-be-okay’….vaccine of truthful protection.
I was soaking in our warm pool with tears running down my face — taking in the VERY POWERFUL WORDS -sooooo much truth - a little hopeful - filled with gratitude FOR REAL…. (either way: hopeless or hopeful), at the end of these marvelous essays — just before the acknowledgements set in.
The entire collection of essays are soooo rich - with soul - sorrow & joy - history - passion and wonder -
“A Little Devil in America”….is a GREAT SPARKLING HONORABLE TRIBUTE TO BLACK PERFORMERS….dancers, singers, Jazz, movement, music, celebrations, celebrity Black history…etc.
A white girl like me — wanted to join in - dance my ass off - sweat with my black and white friends and shake my booty.
If a book can have SOUL….then this is the top banana SOULFUL BOOK…
The joy of young black kids dancing ….line dancing, soul dancing …
Twisting, twirling, clapping hands,…
song & dance opportunities—lovers, and brothers, friends, and sisters…
I STILL WANT TO CRY….I can taste this enjoyment.
Damn…I’m crying just trying to write - share how much this book moved me —-I think I’m literally altered from the experience…
I smiled at my own memories of watching American Bandstand-
The essay about Michael Jackson - what his death meant for Black People (their POP STAR)…from his gigantic days of Moonwalking-to his fallen days….was all very real….
VERY ENGROSSING essays about
Aretha Franklin, Muhammad Ali, Beyoncé, …. Charles Dickens, deaths ..funerals, his mothers death, a beautiful moment with his brother, ….etc….
And my personal favorite Josephine Baker.
… Josephine Baker was an extraordinary singer, dancer, an exceptional animated performer…..
But I don’t think everybody knew that she adopted 12 children from around the world: “The Rainbow Tribe” she called them.
Years ago I became very familiar with Josephine Baker when our older daughter, about seven years of age at the time, was in a world premiere professional production of the musical ‘Josephine’. Our daughter played the young little white girl adopted by Josephine Baker.
Della Reese took our daughter under her wing…as if she herself really did ‘adopt’ our daughter.
The production was huge hit - sold out every night and held over for several more weeks….
I wish thank Hanif Abdurraqib - personally for the memories he brought back for me —-
His writing is so ALIVE & ENERGIZING…
and…
and…
and…
and…. These and’s will make you smile if you choose to read or listen to this wonderful book. Nobody enhances the word AND more than Hanif…with purpose and love…
Oh…oh….OH….
and I must mention ‘something’ about the song, AMAZING GRACE…
JUST READ THIS BOOK - or LISTEN TO IT…..
there is something in here for everybody whether you realize it or not..
I just wanted to say ‘F - it’…..
> to the things that nag at me….that make me sad, depressed, angry,
and….
are unsettling….
and
hurt others
and
destroy our world
and
all the tragedies - injustice - racism - anti-semitism
and …
For a few hours
not worry….
and
just DANCE!!!
Read BEAUTIFULLY by JD Jackson
9 hours and 38 minutes
Longlisted 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 listening to “A Little Devil In America” this morning (I didn’t realize I had less than 2 hours left)….I didn’t want it to end.
You’d have to me in my skin I suppose —- but I was ‘in-a-zone’
…..so hard to find the words to express how much this book means to me. While still feeling despondent —‘trying’ to let it go….
THE LAST WORDS Hanif wrote must have been directly written for me. I needed to hear them. It was like God was giving me a ‘all-is-well…’it-will-be-okay’….vaccine of truthful protection.
I was soaking in our warm pool with tears running down my face — taking in the VERY POWERFUL WORDS -sooooo much truth - a little hopeful - filled with gratitude FOR REAL…. (either way: hopeless or hopeful), at the end of these marvelous essays — just before the acknowledgements set in.
The entire collection of essays are soooo rich - with soul - sorrow & joy - history - passion and wonder -
“A Little Devil in America”….is a GREAT SPARKLING HONORABLE TRIBUTE TO BLACK PERFORMERS….dancers, singers, Jazz, movement, music, celebrations, celebrity Black history…etc.
A white girl like me — wanted to join in - dance my ass off - sweat with my black and white friends and shake my booty.
If a book can have SOUL….then this is the top banana SOULFUL BOOK…
The joy of young black kids dancing ….line dancing, soul dancing …
Twisting, twirling, clapping hands,…
song & dance opportunities—lovers, and brothers, friends, and sisters…
I STILL WANT TO CRY….I can taste this enjoyment.
Damn…I’m crying just trying to write - share how much this book moved me —-I think I’m literally altered from the experience…
I smiled at my own memories of watching American Bandstand-
The essay about Michael Jackson - what his death meant for Black People (their POP STAR)…from his gigantic days of Moonwalking-to his fallen days….was all very real….
VERY ENGROSSING essays about
Aretha Franklin, Muhammad Ali, Beyoncé, …. Charles Dickens, deaths ..funerals, his mothers death, a beautiful moment with his brother, ….etc….
And my personal favorite Josephine Baker.
… Josephine Baker was an extraordinary singer, dancer, an exceptional animated performer…..
But I don’t think everybody knew that she adopted 12 children from around the world: “The Rainbow Tribe” she called them.
Years ago I became very familiar with Josephine Baker when our older daughter, about seven years of age at the time, was in a world premiere professional production of the musical ‘Josephine’. Our daughter played the young little white girl adopted by Josephine Baker.
Della Reese took our daughter under her wing…as if she herself really did ‘adopt’ our daughter.
The production was huge hit - sold out every night and held over for several more weeks….
I wish thank Hanif Abdurraqib - personally for the memories he brought back for me —-
His writing is so ALIVE & ENERGIZING…
and…
and…
and…
and…. These and’s will make you smile if you choose to read or listen to this wonderful book. Nobody enhances the word AND more than Hanif…with purpose and love…
Oh…oh….OH….
and I must mention ‘something’ about the song, AMAZING GRACE…
JUST READ THIS BOOK - or LISTEN TO IT…..
there is something in here for everybody whether you realize it or not..
I just wanted to say ‘F - it’…..
> to the things that nag at me….that make me sad, depressed, angry,
and….
are unsettling….
and
hurt others
and
destroy our world
and
all the tragedies - injustice - racism - anti-semitism
and …
For a few hours
not worry….
and
just DANCE!!!
February 17, 2024
Abdurraqib's ability to seamlessly weave together personal reflection, cultural criticism and historical information is impressive. In nearly every essay in this collection he manages to move from the personal to the macro and back from paragraph to paragraph, making each story more than the sum of its parts. He reflects on everything from card games to Beyonce to masculinity and does so with raw vulnerability and clear love for his subject matter.
February 15, 2024
Wow, this was outstanding, but that’s to be expected with Abdurraqib.
The thing about his work is that he always either sends me down memory lane (reshaping things I already knew about) or has me streaming new music and bookmarking Wikipedia pages. Here he highlights/showcases/dissects various arrays of Black performance (musicians, dancers, athletes, celebs, historical figures). His prose is so decadent yet it forces you to engage critically. All the essays are 10s, but my fave is the one discussing Wu-Tang Clan’s impact, which in turn triggered me to relive one of my best friend’s death.
Abdurraqib is a writer who teaches, soothes, dictates, and always gets me all in my feelings.
Full review coming sometime.
The thing about his work is that he always either sends me down memory lane (reshaping things I already knew about) or has me streaming new music and bookmarking Wikipedia pages. Here he highlights/showcases/dissects various arrays of Black performance (musicians, dancers, athletes, celebs, historical figures). His prose is so decadent yet it forces you to engage critically. All the essays are 10s, but my fave is the one discussing Wu-Tang Clan’s impact, which in turn triggered me to relive one of my best friend’s death.
Abdurraqib is a writer who teaches, soothes, dictates, and always gets me all in my feelings.
Full review coming sometime.
December 31, 2021
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 to appreciate the form and the second time to hear the content. There is a thread that runs through these essays (one of several) that has been a preoccupation of mine as of late: the idea of the "sellout." Who gets to define a sellout? How do communities police against it and are there ways to sellout without causing group harm? I appreciate that this book never actually uses the word or even the concept, but I could still sense the trouble there lurking. But HA is a very generous storyteller and his commitment to love really shines through and often answers his open curiosity.
March 20, 2022
We interviewed Hanif at Books Are Pop Culture and it was a really good experience.
YouTube
https://youtu.be/xZg0j0UNRjc
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1doG...
YouTube
https://youtu.be/xZg0j0UNRjc
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1doG...
March 19, 2021
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 —
This one took me a while to read, because I had to savour it, experience it as much as I could. I found myself pausing to listen or watch what Abdurraqib referenced, with reverence; A Little Devil in America gave me memories of moments I hadn’t lived before, like live performances in a time before I was alive, the height of Soul Train, the loud shouts at a massive concert, all through the very personal and intimate lens of Abdurraqib himself.
A Little Devil in America is an archive, collected with love and anger and more love. And it is beautiful.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.
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 whatever beauty I can steal from all of your best moments”—, it’s that it is an experience. His sentences weave moments out of everything that is intangible, and what can also be touched.
This one took me a while to read, because I had to savour it, experience it as much as I could. I found myself pausing to listen or watch what Abdurraqib referenced, with reverence; A Little Devil in America gave me memories of moments I hadn’t lived before, like live performances in a time before I was alive, the height of Soul Train, the loud shouts at a massive concert, all through the very personal and intimate lens of Abdurraqib himself.
A Little Devil in America is an archive, collected with love and anger and more love. And it is beautiful.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.
October 4, 2021
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 to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
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 to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
December 24, 2021
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 jackpot prize, and were glad to receive a hot meal. White dancers won the biggest prizes. However, "Black people were dancing with an interest in skill over endurance." They sought true dance partners who would move to the music, rather than someone to just hold them up.
In, On Going Home as a performance, I was moved by Hanif Abdurraqib's description of the purpose of "the funeral - particularly the Black funeral - is a way to celebrate what a person's life meant and to do it as if they're still there. To offer gratitude for the fullness of whatever years someone chose to have their life intersect with your own."
In, This One Goes Out to All the Magical Negroes, Abdurraqib writes regarding being in a movie theater when a joke is told at the expense of Black people about halfway into the movie. He writes, "I don't know how many Black people were in the theater with me, just that the laughter trembled the walls close and pulled the ceiling low until I was in a room all my own." It is truly humbling to have viewed the same movie, but not remember this scene and how hurtful it could be to others.
Then, in, Sixteen ways of Looking at Blackface, Abdurraqib writes about white people making themselves up as Black people and how "Darkness was achieved by what seemed like all measures: shoe polish, makeup, even markers, faces sloppily colored in." What is most hurtful is the realization that "This is what they think we look like."
Finally, in, On Certain and Uncertain Movement of Limbs, Abdurraqib writes, "There are Black artists who are not just packaged and marketed to white people, but - more importantly - to their white imagination, and to the limits of Black people within it." For me, this is truly eye-opening. I hadn't thought about this. It's one more way that racism is perpetuated.
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 jackpot prize, and were glad to receive a hot meal. White dancers won the biggest prizes. However, "Black people were dancing with an interest in skill over endurance." They sought true dance partners who would move to the music, rather than someone to just hold them up.
In, On Going Home as a performance, I was moved by Hanif Abdurraqib's description of the purpose of "the funeral - particularly the Black funeral - is a way to celebrate what a person's life meant and to do it as if they're still there. To offer gratitude for the fullness of whatever years someone chose to have their life intersect with your own."
In, This One Goes Out to All the Magical Negroes, Abdurraqib writes regarding being in a movie theater when a joke is told at the expense of Black people about halfway into the movie. He writes, "I don't know how many Black people were in the theater with me, just that the laughter trembled the walls close and pulled the ceiling low until I was in a room all my own." It is truly humbling to have viewed the same movie, but not remember this scene and how hurtful it could be to others.
Then, in, Sixteen ways of Looking at Blackface, Abdurraqib writes about white people making themselves up as Black people and how "Darkness was achieved by what seemed like all measures: shoe polish, makeup, even markers, faces sloppily colored in." What is most hurtful is the realization that "This is what they think we look like."
Finally, in, On Certain and Uncertain Movement of Limbs, Abdurraqib writes, "There are Black artists who are not just packaged and marketed to white people, but - more importantly - to their white imagination, and to the limits of Black people within it." For me, this is truly eye-opening. I hadn't thought about this. It's one more way that racism is perpetuated.
February 4, 2024
That was fantastic!! This will easily be one of my top books this year! Abdurraqib is masterful in weaving appreciation, history and artistry in concert with brilliant observations and social commentary. This was intelligent and emotional. Abdurraqib tied some of it to some lived experiences. I learned quite a bit and I'm looking at art and performance through a different lens! In 2024 the Black History Month Theme is African American and the Arts. This is a perfect read this for year (really any year). Loved this! Believe the hype!
4.75 Stars
Listened to the audiobook. Will absolutely read again eventually! J D Jackson narrated, and he was very good! I devoured the audiobook in 2 days. For me that is the equivalent of binging!
4.75 Stars
Listened to the audiobook. Will absolutely read again eventually! J D Jackson narrated, and he was very good! I devoured the audiobook in 2 days. For me that is the equivalent of binging!
February 18, 2022
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 books, on napkins & scraps of paper were collected, researched & reflected back to demonstrate how Black performance is ingrained in US culture. The topics of the essays are vast, encompassing the Black performance, but Hanif does intersperse his personal experiences as well. It’s not just in the selection of themes and the way this book moves seamlessly through them all, it’s in Hanif’s passionate & precise writing that evokes jubilation, grief, suffering. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on how I can never seem to find the words to tell you how much I loved a book & with this book, in particular, it’s impossible because there are no words better than Hanif’s to convince you to read this powerful and poignant reflection. So here are 3 quotes from A Little Devil In America to convince you to pick it up (it’s releasing on paperback soon, coincidentally):
🖤
On dancing: It occurs to me now that this was the real joy of dancing: to enter a world unlike the one you find yourself burdened with, and move your body toward nothing but a prayer that time might slow down.”
🖤
On grief: “And I realized then that this was yet another funeral. I was reminded, once again, that our grief decides when it is done with us.”
On trauma: “One way trauma can impact us is by the way it makes us consider a polite proximity to violence and oppression as comfort.”'
More reviews can be found on TOMESANDTEXTILES.
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 books, on napkins & scraps of paper were collected, researched & reflected back to demonstrate how Black performance is ingrained in US culture. The topics of the essays are vast, encompassing the Black performance, but Hanif does intersperse his personal experiences as well. It’s not just in the selection of themes and the way this book moves seamlessly through them all, it’s in Hanif’s passionate & precise writing that evokes jubilation, grief, suffering. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on how I can never seem to find the words to tell you how much I loved a book & with this book, in particular, it’s impossible because there are no words better than Hanif’s to convince you to read this powerful and poignant reflection. So here are 3 quotes from A Little Devil In America to convince you to pick it up (it’s releasing on paperback soon, coincidentally):
🖤
On dancing: It occurs to me now that this was the real joy of dancing: to enter a world unlike the one you find yourself burdened with, and move your body toward nothing but a prayer that time might slow down.”
🖤
On grief: “And I realized then that this was yet another funeral. I was reminded, once again, that our grief decides when it is done with us.”
On trauma: “One way trauma can impact us is by the way it makes us consider a polite proximity to violence and oppression as comfort.”'
More reviews can be found on TOMESANDTEXTILES.
March 27, 2022
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 weren’t Black enough. Either way, they had to fight hard to maintain their individuality against the depersonalizing effects of racism.
April 26, 2021
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.
December 5, 2023
Even better than his first book, in my opinion — which is saying something because I LOVED his first one
May 27, 2022
I received this book free in a Goodreads Giveway. As always, this did not impact my review. i can be bought, but it costs way more than a book, even a high quality hardcover.
I love Hanif Abdurraqib's work in all forms, and his are the only Spotify playlists I add to my feed without preview. His writing is taut and persuasive, personal and universal. His knowledge of music and modern American history is something beyond prodigious. He is, for me, the black Muslim Midwestern version of Jonathan Lethem's white Jewish New Yorker. As with Lethem this is not to say I agree with his every position or that I embrace his every analysis, but rather that I respect his positions and analysis, I follow and dissect them, and find they inspire in me new ways to think about very important things. They also entertain me. As he blended the historic with the personal I came to understand better his experience as a black Muslim man in America.
As with other Abdurraqib collections/articles/ podcasts/poems I have consumed before, my favorite pieces here were those that focused on music. The essay about Don Cornelius blew me away, but it was a distant second to the chapter on Merry Clayton/Gimme Shelter/the murder at Altamont. I was also intrigued by the Whitney Houston essay, though disappointed that the author chose not to look into the reasons that black audiences booed and heckled the singer. The same things happen when he writes of Dave Chapelle, and mentions in passing that the man spews hate toward those in the LGBT+ community, and laughs at them not with them -- the very thing that made him want to move away from comedy focused black culture aimed at white audiences. If Addurraqib had done a proper analysis rather than picking up his marbles and going home, the answers to his questions would not be pretty, but the truth matters. If he had been looking at the same issue with a white audience or white performer he would not have chosen to abandon ship (nor should he), and would have analyzed every utterance and act. That is my one beef with this book, that there are several times Abdurraqib's excellent analyses are cut short when they are not going in a direction in which he wants them to travel. This is not enough of an issue to cost a star, but I do think this would be a 4.5 if that were allowed.
Adurrqib left me smarter, better informed, more self-aware, and somewhat wiser. I cannot ask much more than that.
I love Hanif Abdurraqib's work in all forms, and his are the only Spotify playlists I add to my feed without preview. His writing is taut and persuasive, personal and universal. His knowledge of music and modern American history is something beyond prodigious. He is, for me, the black Muslim Midwestern version of Jonathan Lethem's white Jewish New Yorker. As with Lethem this is not to say I agree with his every position or that I embrace his every analysis, but rather that I respect his positions and analysis, I follow and dissect them, and find they inspire in me new ways to think about very important things. They also entertain me. As he blended the historic with the personal I came to understand better his experience as a black Muslim man in America.
As with other Abdurraqib collections/articles/ podcasts/poems I have consumed before, my favorite pieces here were those that focused on music. The essay about Don Cornelius blew me away, but it was a distant second to the chapter on Merry Clayton/Gimme Shelter/the murder at Altamont. I was also intrigued by the Whitney Houston essay, though disappointed that the author chose not to look into the reasons that black audiences booed and heckled the singer. The same things happen when he writes of Dave Chapelle, and mentions in passing that the man spews hate toward those in the LGBT+ community, and laughs at them not with them -- the very thing that made him want to move away from comedy focused black culture aimed at white audiences. If Addurraqib had done a proper analysis rather than picking up his marbles and going home, the answers to his questions would not be pretty, but the truth matters. If he had been looking at the same issue with a white audience or white performer he would not have chosen to abandon ship (nor should he), and would have analyzed every utterance and act. That is my one beef with this book, that there are several times Abdurraqib's excellent analyses are cut short when they are not going in a direction in which he wants them to travel. This is not enough of an issue to cost a star, but I do think this would be a 4.5 if that were allowed.
Adurrqib left me smarter, better informed, more self-aware, and somewhat wiser. I cannot ask much more than that.
September 2, 2023
I think about how often me and the boys I knew and know were taught to love each other through expressions of violence. How, if that is our baseline for love, it might be impossible for us to love anyone well, including ourselves.
In 2018 Childish Gambino dropped the music video for the song This Is America . Watching Gambino one sees him dancing through what is seemingly a chaotic warehouse but upon rewatching it and paying attention to the background one notices the intense violence that Gambino was distracting us from. Gambino's dancing Black body draws our attention away from the violence happening in the background also mainly to Black people - Gambino had created the perfect visual metaphor for America's relationship to Black performers. This point however was far from novel; the Black Panthers had a contentious relationship with Black celebrities for the same reasons, many black theorists have written about Black performers and new-age minstrelsy and so on and so forth.
Abdurraqib takes a different approach to writing about Black performance. To Abdurraqib all Black people are Black performers. When we code switch, when we act out our Blackness, when we "force [ourselves] to dance", when Black men act out violently to perform masculinity we are all performers. Abdurraqib writes about performance as a much larger and nebulous quality but in a way that still feels clearly thought out and well connected.
These cultural studies books by poetic, emotional, enlightened and wholly progressive cishet Black men are slowly becoming my favourite genre. They are refreshing and give hope that political transformation is possible. A Little Devil in America has the cutting sentences that I just have to compare to that of Kiese Laymon but Abdurraqib's distinct voice is present here as well. The observations are new and not the derivative ones we often hear trotted out. The connections he draws, although at rare moments may feel overly grasping, generally are mind-blowing and the histories of actual Black entertainers he excavates to link his points together are so relevant. This has become instantly one of my favourite books on cultural studies and I would recommend this book to everyone.
February 10, 2024
An incredibly thoughtful and intimate collection of musings, poetry, and personal reflections juxtaposed with black pop culture references that represent Abdurraqib's battered and broken heart.
To me, the "devil" in the title refers to a feeling of loneliness that doesn't seem to go away, because the world is often fraught with sadness and violence that is inflicted on those who are marginalized.
I want to openly compare this to John Green's The Anthropocene Review which is also a collection of essays and musings about the personal, and connections to pop culture references.
Whereas John Green wrote like a tone deaf, unaware privileged man who purposely did not give much thought to the struggles of others; Abdurraqib writes with such candor and openness that sometimes his fragility might shatter and wither away, "power as always, misused in the wrong hands...to attach identity to love for a place you didn't ask to be in, and a place that was not ever and will be yours" (Abdurraqib 159).
He connects his life to significant figures of black culture, history and entertainment, that have moved him to become the writer he is. He alludes to Al Jolson, racism and blackface in films, the magical negro trope, Frances McDormand and "Three Billboards" the film; Soul Train, Ben Vereen giving tribute to Bert Williams; poet Robert Hayden, Octavia Butler, supercool Billy Dee Williams, code switching, Cleveland as home, Merry Clayton, Meredith Hunter, Beyonce's formation, the murders of Trayvon Martin, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Hillary Clinton's female black voters vs Trump's female white voters, and Josephine Baker- escaping as a European expat, then returning to address racism in St. Louis in her 1952 concert.
Abdurraqib writes "in this way, my love feels more like a matter of circumstance than a matter of politics, or at least that is what I tell myself" (Abdurraqib 149). His pain and processing of grief over the death of his mother, interpolated with his grief over violence and degradation weeps for consolation. What a lovely and though provoking book.
To me, the "devil" in the title refers to a feeling of loneliness that doesn't seem to go away, because the world is often fraught with sadness and violence that is inflicted on those who are marginalized.
I want to openly compare this to John Green's The Anthropocene Review which is also a collection of essays and musings about the personal, and connections to pop culture references.
Whereas John Green wrote like a tone deaf, unaware privileged man who purposely did not give much thought to the struggles of others; Abdurraqib writes with such candor and openness that sometimes his fragility might shatter and wither away, "power as always, misused in the wrong hands...to attach identity to love for a place you didn't ask to be in, and a place that was not ever and will be yours" (Abdurraqib 159).
He connects his life to significant figures of black culture, history and entertainment, that have moved him to become the writer he is. He alludes to Al Jolson, racism and blackface in films, the magical negro trope, Frances McDormand and "Three Billboards" the film; Soul Train, Ben Vereen giving tribute to Bert Williams; poet Robert Hayden, Octavia Butler, supercool Billy Dee Williams, code switching, Cleveland as home, Merry Clayton, Meredith Hunter, Beyonce's formation, the murders of Trayvon Martin, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Hillary Clinton's female black voters vs Trump's female white voters, and Josephine Baker- escaping as a European expat, then returning to address racism in St. Louis in her 1952 concert.
Abdurraqib writes "in this way, my love feels more like a matter of circumstance than a matter of politics, or at least that is what I tell myself" (Abdurraqib 149). His pain and processing of grief over the death of his mother, interpolated with his grief over violence and degradation weeps for consolation. What a lovely and though provoking book.
January 26, 2022
"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 endless, and so the gratitude for my staying must be equally endless. I am sorry that this one is not about movement, or history, or dance. But instead about stillness. About all of the frozen moments that I have been pulled back from, in service of attempting another day".
- Hanif Abdurraqib, "A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance"
There's such a great synthesis of poetry, fiction, and history on every page of this book that it felt like the literary equivalent of drinking fine wine. Every essay combines such a brilliant and unique take on such an interesting and strange topic. There's something to be said for the scope and scale of a great biography, but there's also something to be said about more seemingly mundane heroes and artists of African American history that Abdurraqib brings to stunning life here.
- Hanif Abdurraqib, "A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance"
There's such a great synthesis of poetry, fiction, and history on every page of this book that it felt like the literary equivalent of drinking fine wine. Every essay combines such a brilliant and unique take on such an interesting and strange topic. There's something to be said for the scope and scale of a great biography, but there's also something to be said about more seemingly mundane heroes and artists of African American history that Abdurraqib brings to stunning life here.
January 9, 2021
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 clayton, beyoncé, joe tex, wu-tang, afropunk band fuck u pay us, times he's forced himself to dance (or didn't)–or frankly anything at all–hanif's work is always intriguing and insightful. one of the most remarkable elements of hanif's writing is his ability to mine his own past for perspective, while teasing out the nuance of whatever subject he's expounding upon, mingling the personal, the political, and the poignant.
i am afraid not of death itself, but of the unknown that comes after. i am afraid not of leaving, but of being forgotten. i am in love today but am afraid that i might not be tomorrow. and that is to say nothing of the bullets, the bombs, the waters rising, and the potential for an apocalypse.
February 3, 2023
I heard Abdurraqib on a podcast a couple of years ago and filed him as "fascinating," but I had no idea how remarkably good this book would be. In a series of themed essays, he reveals a great deal about himself, an open-hearted all-encompassing love for Black people, an extraordinary depth of research and knowledge about a range of Black performers from Josephine Baker to Wu-Tang Clan, as well as many others you haven't heard of, like Joe Tex, William Henry Lane (Master Juba), and my personal new fascination, Merry Clayton.
You haven't heard of Merry Clayton, but you have heard her: it's her voice that soars out over the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter," on the lyrics that even egotist Mick Jagger knew he needed a woman to sing. Clayton was heavily pregnant and completely uninterested, showing up in curlers and pajamas (and her fur coat!). Abdurraqib ties her story in with the story of Meredith Hunter, the Black man murdered at the Altamont music festival, and here's how he writes about Clayton:
"I would like to give Merry Clayton her roses because I have seen her name and cannot unsee the whole life she's lived every time I close my eyes during the chorus of "Gimme Shelter." I would like the roses to be luminescent shades of red, or yellow, or white, or whatever color reminds Merry Clayton most of the churches she learned to sing in. I would like to do this because she is again relegated to the nameless and faceless tragic backup singer. I would like to scale some mountaintop and hold stacks of her solo records in each hand, like a messiah summoning the deprived masses to drink in what they've been missing. I want Merry Clayton to live forever, but I will settle for people speaking her name when they speak of what impossible force blew through "Gimme Shelter.' I will settle for people not being able to walk from the wreckage of that song without an immovable haunting."
The whole book is like that. Abdurraqib is lyrical and over-the-top, passionate and loving, and if he's ever ashamed of his intensity, that's the one thing he keeps off the pages of this book. I devoured it; other people might want to read it in smaller chunks. But, in my mind, it's a book everyone should read.
You haven't heard of Merry Clayton, but you have heard her: it's her voice that soars out over the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter," on the lyrics that even egotist Mick Jagger knew he needed a woman to sing. Clayton was heavily pregnant and completely uninterested, showing up in curlers and pajamas (and her fur coat!). Abdurraqib ties her story in with the story of Meredith Hunter, the Black man murdered at the Altamont music festival, and here's how he writes about Clayton:
"I would like to give Merry Clayton her roses because I have seen her name and cannot unsee the whole life she's lived every time I close my eyes during the chorus of "Gimme Shelter." I would like the roses to be luminescent shades of red, or yellow, or white, or whatever color reminds Merry Clayton most of the churches she learned to sing in. I would like to do this because she is again relegated to the nameless and faceless tragic backup singer. I would like to scale some mountaintop and hold stacks of her solo records in each hand, like a messiah summoning the deprived masses to drink in what they've been missing. I want Merry Clayton to live forever, but I will settle for people speaking her name when they speak of what impossible force blew through "Gimme Shelter.' I will settle for people not being able to walk from the wreckage of that song without an immovable haunting."
The whole book is like that. Abdurraqib is lyrical and over-the-top, passionate and loving, and if he's ever ashamed of his intensity, that's the one thing he keeps off the pages of this book. I devoured it; other people might want to read it in smaller chunks. But, in my mind, it's a book everyone should read.
Read
September 7, 2023This is a hard book to review because my only thoughts while I was reading was "This is so beautiful". Gorgeously written, emotionally rich, and full of thorough research that felt substantial and culturally relevant without feeling cold. At times, there was a "stream of consciousness" quality to the writing that I ate up...I appreciate when authors can pull stuff like that off. You could feel the love Hanif has for art in every word, and it made me want to seek out the art he loved so much and experience (or re-experience) it for myself. He was able to capture macro and micro moments and feelings in such an interesting way too...idk I just love when I can tell someone is a master of their craft. The audiobook narration was also stellar, definitely matched the poetic and evocative nature of the writing, but I almost want to buy a physical copy to see his words on paper.
Will definitely need to read Hanif's other essay collection sometime soon because of how much I enjoyed this!
Will definitely need to read Hanif's other essay collection sometime soon because of how much I enjoyed this!
October 18, 2022
I read this 3-4 times over the last month and liked it more every time. Each time, it was new and lovely and precise in different ways. I can't pick a single chapter better than the rest, or even one sentence from any paragraph. I'm moved by the compassion, depth of knowing, and seeing-being-seen reflected in these essays.
I owe it all to Abdurraqib's convergence of poetry and scholarship. From Don Shirley to Merry Clayton and Whitney Houston to Wu-Tang Clan, to the performance of dance (faked dance! tap dance! line dance! dance marathons! dance battles! dance politics! dance espionage!) and playing the dozens but also spades and softness and silence and saving yourself first, it's the tenderness of writing in praise of the community he loves that leaves me breathless.
I haven't loved a collection like this since at least a year and a half + 100 books ago, honestly. I'm still not done relistening, and doubt I ever will be, but my loan is expiring yet again and I want to tell you about this sooner rather than later.
I owe it all to Abdurraqib's convergence of poetry and scholarship. From Don Shirley to Merry Clayton and Whitney Houston to Wu-Tang Clan, to the performance of dance (faked dance! tap dance! line dance! dance marathons! dance battles! dance politics! dance espionage!) and playing the dozens but also spades and softness and silence and saving yourself first, it's the tenderness of writing in praise of the community he loves that leaves me breathless.
I haven't loved a collection like this since at least a year and a half + 100 books ago, honestly. I'm still not done relistening, and doubt I ever will be, but my loan is expiring yet again and I want to tell you about this sooner rather than later.
January 3, 2021
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 that you can Google the images he beautifully describes. I had to witness them for myself and see if I would be as moved as he. Unfamiliar with Mr. Abdurraqib's work, this was a treat to consume and a fitting introduction that will have me reading more of his work. Lastly, I love the cover!
April 13, 2021
I really can't even say how amazing I think this book is
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