“Abdurraqib meshes personal writing with critique and punctuates his evaluations with poignant realizations … This critic earns our attention is through his ability to make his private musical tastes into necessary public interpretations. So, even if you don’t find My Chemical Romance or Carly Rae Jepsen or Fall Out Boy especially significant, Abdurraqib communicates his exuberance as a means to opening his readers’ ears to the joy and emotional truth contained in those songs … That said, Abdurraqib earns our admiration when his love of black music and concern for black life is central to his writing. His passionate critiques are shot through with his worries about the ease with which black people are killed in America … They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us is like a collection of death-defying protest songs for the Black Lives Matter era. Like Kanye’s ghostly, autotuned chants on the opening track of Chance’s Coloring Book, Abdurraqib’s essays say, just to live, ‘music is all we got.’”
–Walton Muyumba, The Chicago Tribune, November 20, 2017
Read more of Walton’s reviews here
