It’s the Message That Gets You: Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Little Devil in America

Hanif Abdurraqib interrogates history through the lens of lived experience in his essay collection celebrating Black performance

It did help that Don Cornelius was cool.

A Little Devil in America, a series of essays ‘In Praise of Black Performance’, by the poet, critic and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib begins with Soul Train. Actually, that’s not strictly true, it begins before Soul Train, long before that televised celebration of music and dancing ever appeared on our screens; but it does begin with dancing. It begins with a grim, bizarre episode of American performance history known as dance marathons – a Depression era craze that saw the poor, starved and desperate of America push themselves beyond physical limits, sometimes to the edge of, and beyond, their own limited mortality, to dance, non-stop, sometimes for days on end in the pursuit of a meal or a cash price. It starts here not for its links to Black performance, but for the absence of Black people from the competitions. Why would this be the case? Black people in America weren’t dancing to death because, we are told, they were dancing for life, “Pushing themselves to the brink of a short, blissful exhaustion, as opposed to a slow, plodding, death-defying one”. From here, the essay flowers into a celebration of Don Cornelius’ Soul Train, via the author’s own experience of awkward dancing at school (we’ve all been there, right?).

This jumping off point is quite emblematic of Abdurraqib’s style. He sets out his essays on one path, then slowly, gracefully pirouettes, throwing your balance off with some personal history or anecdote; sometimes hilarious, often tender and heartbreaking. He then charges off in another direction, bringing his intended point home to you in beautiful conclusion. By the time you reach that ending, he has been so effective in getting his story and argument across that it seems like it was the obvious thing to do all along. This style is part of his genius and in this collection of erudite, personal, informative essays, you learn to love the writing because you love the writer: his style wins you over but it’s the message that really gets you.  

If you have read Abdurraqib before then there’s a good chance you will agree that this is exactly the book you hoped he would write. One of his previous books, Go Ahead in the Rain was as much about A Tribe Called Quest as it was about how he related to a group that he loved and a celebration of that relationship, something that anyone who has ever loved music will know intimately. A Little Devil in America is not just a chronicle of Black performance, it is a tale straight from Abdurraqib’s heart, one that beautifully winds together the personal and the emotional with original, witty criticism, all done by a poet whose lightness of touch and deft phrasing helps the writing flow so sweetly.

As well as Soul Train, he brings us on a pilgrimage that takes in some fascinating stories of performers that were, to me at least, genuinely educational. Such as the story of the conjurer John Hartford Armstrong and his daughter Ellen, who took over the family business, becoming the first Black woman in America to headline her own magic show. As with many of the other characters he explores, Abdurraqib is able to see the profound and find meaning where others may walk on past. In Ellen Armstrong he finds someone who can offer “a sense of wonder to those who may otherwise have been denied it.” Again, bringing it back to the lived experiences of Black people, he sees how this magic was performed for people, serving to “give a suspension of belief… to wash away the knowing of a wretched world and replace it with another.”

Another feature of his work that gets straight to the nub of who he is as a writer, is his ability to apply a lightness of touch to the most serious of issues. For example, in the chapter “My Favorite Thing About Don Shirley”, what begins and ends with a meditation on the Black American pianist and his recent biopic takes us effortlessly into a discussion of how Black people in America have, throughout history, looked out for one another, caring and protecting themselves from the hostility and threat of the white population. Again with great ease, he weaves in his own experience, mining from a rich vein of personal anecdote to bring you a picture of modern America and the struggles that Black people continue to face.

Fans of Abdurraqib’s music criticism will not be let down either. In one of the standout chapters, “I Would Like to Give Merry Clayton Her Roses”, he is on sparkling form, composing a profound and beautiful tribute to the singer, mostly known for her vocals on the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”. There is no doubt that among his many talents, Abdurraqib is an excellent music critic and this particular section, his love letter to Merry Clayton’s incredible talent, exemplifies his intelligence and skills as a writer. As in other chapters, what starts with one thing soon becomes another and before you know it he is delivering absolutely searing prose, articulating his rage about the brutal murder of Meredith Hunter at the hands of a cadre of motorbike thugs at that notorious Stones gig in 1969.

Never sanctimonious and certainly not condescending, A Little Devil in America is truly educational and informative. Abdurraqib trades in stories and original, beautiful takes on music, performance, art, friendship and what it is to be Black in modern America. His song is sung with love, passion and a consistent, poetic outrage that makes you want to read more, to be by his side in one of his fights and to always, always cheer him on. I love his writing because you feel like he’s talking straight to you, simply and eloquently. Abdurraqib is a writer who is clearly coming into his stride; his confidence and fluidity have grown over his last few books and it makes you excited to see what he will do next.

A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib is published by Allen Lane

Author photograph: Megan Leigh Barnard