Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay collection is They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us. One of ten music books that shaped his knowledge of the songs he loves, as shared at Publishers Weekly:Rip It Up: The Black Experience in Rock ‘N’ Roll by Kandia Crazy HorseRead about the other entries on the list.
I admired this book for years when looking for a language with which to explain the roots of black music. Kandia Crazy Horse traces rock and roll to black music, of course. But then takes a step further into blues, into soul, into gospel. The book leans on black rock musicians like Lenny Kravitz, Venetta Fields, and Slash, and it presents them matter-of-factly. Black people playing the music they were born into.
--Marshal Zeringue
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