RaveThe Adroit Journal... lives up to its title ... I’m convinced that few people in the world can write about music with as much love and intimacy as Abdurraqib does. The manner in which Abdurraqib writes about A Tribe Called Quest’s 30-year career, from their first album to their very last music video is akin to devotion, elevating ATCQ to Godly status ... moves beyond the confines of its subject. It is a book about America. It is a book about survival. It is a book that looks at all of the ways in which music interacts with the world ... It is this side by side—the personal and the musical—that makes this book so striking ... intimate and expansive ... Abdurraquib does not talk about rap, but rather is in conversation with it, often, spilling out from the body, from the heart ... To read this book is to appreciate a musical legacy. It is to understand the breadth of a musical genre ... Abdurraqib is a writer who lays everything out ... a book that complicates the meaning of art and stretches out understanding of music.
