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Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'
Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib
1 review
displacedcactus's review
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Abdurraqib writes how I would love to be able to write about the things I care this strongly about -- with a mix of deep knowledge, passion, and affection, weaving facts with personal anecdotes, reflections, and the occasional divergence into a distantly related topic. It's a hard balance to get right; I've read similar essay collection style books where I found myself bored with the author's dives into their own life.
I think I especially related to this book because the author and I are of a similar age, and both grew up poor, but beyond that, we of course had very different lives. I'm a white woman and he's a Black man; I grew up in California and Arizona, and I believe he was in Ohio. I grew up on country music while he was listening to hip-hop. This book was a real window into a completely different childhood than I had, of the different emotional impact of historic events, and the feuds and deaths of artists who were mere blips on my radar if I heard about them at all.
And so this is a book about A Tribe Called Quest, and a book about hip-hop in general, but it's also about growing up Black in America in the 80s and 90s. It's also about being an adult, and losing the artists you love, and witnessing the disaster that was 2016.
All in all, an excellent read and one I recommend, even if (especially if?) like me, you are largely clueless about A Tribe Called Quest and the history of hip-hop.
I think I especially related to this book because the author and I are of a similar age, and both grew up poor, but beyond that, we of course had very different lives. I'm a white woman and he's a Black man; I grew up in California and Arizona, and I believe he was in Ohio. I grew up on country music while he was listening to hip-hop. This book was a real window into a completely different childhood than I had, of the different emotional impact of historic events, and the feuds and deaths of artists who were mere blips on my radar if I heard about them at all.
And so this is a book about A Tribe Called Quest, and a book about hip-hop in general, but it's also about growing up Black in America in the 80s and 90s. It's also about being an adult, and losing the artists you love, and witnessing the disaster that was 2016.
All in all, an excellent read and one I recommend, even if (especially if?) like me, you are largely clueless about A Tribe Called Quest and the history of hip-hop.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Gun violence, and Death
Discusses both the beating of Rodney King and several of the more recent instances of police killing Black men.
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