User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
Now a 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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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!!!
Rating: really liked it
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 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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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...
Rating: really liked it
“...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 Merry Clayton Her Roses’ left me speechless and listening to Gimme Shelter on repeat for hours; sending chills up and down my spine starting at the 2:48 mark every. single. time.
In ‘On Going Home as Performance’, Abdurraqib recalls when Michael Jackson died, Aretha Franklin's Homegoing, his own mother’s Homegoing.
From dance marathons to Soul Train, Whitney to Beyoncé, Sammy Davis Jr. to Don Shirley, (I could go on) Abdurraqib gives us a detailed history of Black art and seamlessly weaves it with deep personal reflections from his own life and what it means to be Black in America.
Thank you Random House & NetGalley for the e-ARC.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
