A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance Reviews

• 
  Traci Thomas

  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.
• 
  Steve Haruch

  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.
• 
  David

  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.
• 
  chantel nouseforaname

  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.
• 
  Meike

  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.
• 
  Thomas

  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.
• 
  Elyse Walters

  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!!!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  brenda

  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.
• 
  Mehrsa

  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.
• 
  Julie

  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.
• 
  Geoff

  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.
  
  
• 
  Reggie

  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...
• 
  Kathleen

  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.
• 
  Michelle (hellalibrary)

  “...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.
• 
  Jeché

  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.
• 
  Bonnie G.

  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.
• 
  Tomes And Textiles

  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.
  
  
• 
  Vincent Masson

  "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.
• 
  jeremy

  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.
• 
  Kathy

  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.
• 
  Julia

  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!
• 
  Basia

  This was one of those galleys I knew I wanted to buy a copy of for myself well before I was done reading, and it's one of those books whose brilliance I am so excited to share with others and re-experience again.
• 
  Kurt Neumaier

  I really can't even say how amazing I think this book is
• 
  Ife Olarewaju

  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.
• 
  Kerry

  BookTube prize finalist. If you have any interest in the Black music scene, some of its history and just great information of performances that you may have missed, I would highly recommend this book on audio. It is non-fiction essays that are great. I found a lot here to enjoy and the information given lead me into new and greater appreciation of many of the artists I knew and a few I had never experienced. Some essays are better than others but all are of a high grade and made for great listening. The audio is narrated by JD Jackson and is excellent. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it as it went along. The first essay was probably the least interesting for me but once past that it really took off. Truly 5 star non-fiction.
• 
  Oscreads

  These essays were fucking amazing!
• 
  Gretchen Rubin

  Thought-provoking, compelling essays.
• 
  Glennys Egan

  Hanif has done it again.