They can't kill us until they kill us : essays
Publication Information
Columbus, Ohio : Two Dollar Radio, [2022]
Physical Description
301 pages ; 20 cm
Uniform Title
Summary
"In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others--along with original, previously unreleased essays--Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world, so that we might better understand ourselves, and in doing so proves himself a bellwether for our times."--
Contents
- I. Chance The Rapper's golden year ; A night in Bruce Springsteen's America ; Carly Rae Jepsen loves you back ; The night Prince walked on water ; ScHoolboy Q wants white people to say the word ; The Weeknd and the future of loveless sex
- II. I wasn't brought here, I was born: surviving punk rock long enough to find Afropunk ; Under half-lit fluorescents: The Wonder Years and the great suburban narrative ; All our friends are famous ; The return of the loneliest boys in town ; Brief notes on staying // no one is making their best work when they want to die ; Searching for a new kind of optimism ; Death becomes you: My Chemical Romance and ten years of The Black Parade ; Defiance, Ohio is the name of a band
- III. Fall Out Boy forever
- IV. Ric Flair, best rapper alive ; It rained in Ohio on the night Allen Iverson hit Michael Jordan with a crossover ; There is the picture of Michael Jackson kissing Whitney Houston on the cheek ; Black life on film ; Tell 'em all to come and get me ; Burning that which will not save you: Wipe Me Down and the Ballad of Baton Rouge ; Rumours and the currency of heartbreak
- V. February 26, 2012 ; On kindness ; In the summer of 1997, everyone took to the streets in shiny suits ; Nina Simone was very black ; Blood summer, in three parts ; August 9, 2014 ; Fear in two winters ; On Paris ; My first police stop ; Serena Williams and the policing of imagined arrogance ; They will speak loudest of you after you're gone ; Johnny Cash never shot a man in Reno. Or, the Migos: nice kids from the suburbs ; The Obama White House, a brief home for rappers ; The white rapper joke ; On future and working through what hurts ; November 22, 2014 ; Surviving on small joys
- VI. Bonus tracks: On summer crushing ; Carly Rae Jepsen and the kingdom of desire ; On seatbelts and sunsets.