Hanif Abdurraqib writes prose like a poet, with a sense of sound and rhythm, his language both loose and precise. The performance referred to in his subtitle encompasses not only song and dance on stage, in juke-joint basements and church, but performance as survival, as going home, as misdirection and dissimulation, a way of turning the absurdity of black experience inside out.

Abdurraqib’s essays in A Little Devil in America combine a wide-ranging consideration of popular culture with an acute historical awareness. He writes of how the Harlem Hellfighters and jazz musicians arrived in France at the same time, about the rivalry of Joe Tex and James Brown and the audience at the Apollo Theatre, about how Don Shirley abandoned a musical career for a psychology practice in Chicago then combined the two in a nightclub study of how piano music affected the behavior of at-risk juveniles.

In a chapter called “Nine Considerations of Black People in Space,” Abdurraqib writes of Octavia Butler’s science fiction speaking to people who have long survived by learning to adapt until something better comes along, and of his fascination with Sun Ra’s claim to knowledge of another world and the performance that he wrought from it.

What I loved was that none of it seemed outlandish. It didn’t seem like a particularly excruciating performance, nor did it seem like the ramblings of someone suffering from some mental detachment. It all seemed very measured, calm, matter of fact. Sun Ra was from somewhere else and he’d seen things none of us could fathom, and yet here he was, sharing what he had to give with us anyway.

I tackled this book because it fell under the auspices of Black performers and their impact on culture and audiences. There is a justified rage permeating through the book that makes for an emotionally difficult read. Yet I was spellbound on the chapter about a female magician named Ellen Armstrong. The chapter ends with a treatise by the author that states, “You who might read this or hear this or stumble upon it and hope to find some answer or absolution within. This goes out to the sins; I cannot crawl myself out of in order to forgive the ones you might be buried under. This one goes out to all of the best stories I have never told. The ones I will hold close until I can pass them down to someone ese who pass them down. I have no real magic to promise any of you. I am praying for the most unspectacular exits.”
His impressions of Merry Clayton, Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Joe Tex, and Aretha Franklin are gut wrenching discourses that will compel you to rethink these artists and how you have related to them.
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Remarkable. I don't think I've ever read such a poetic and informative work of nonfiction. ( )

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. ( )

Delirious and heartfelt poetic prose at the intersections of Black resilience, US culture, and music, skillfully narrated. ( )