Hanif Abdurraqib & Universes in THE MATRIX

You are in a matrix in the original sense of "source". It is a "small-world" network, meaning that the nodes inside it — mirroring human society & the 6 degrees phenomenon — tend to within a few steps of everybody else inside it. The matrix was built to allow regional Brazilian musicians to be discoverable-degrees away from everybody else in the arts world (and so the whole world), and by logical necessity this m.o. requires not only that the great Brazilians be matrixed, but so far as possible, all working artists in our time. Ergo:

This Hanif Abdurraqib matrix node is steps away from the entire planet by the well-known small-world ("6 degrees") phenomenon dictating that in human society you yourself are within several degrees of Hanif Abdurraqib.
THESE ARTIST NODES are routed to from this Hanif Abdurraqib node.

Are these Hanif Abdurraqib's personal recommendations?

CURATION STATUS

Worldline Generation: Routes by The Matrix

Who & Where

Name: Hanif Abdurraqib
City/Place: Columbus, Ohio
Country: United States

Life & Work

Bio: Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.)

His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, and was met with critical acclaim. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, is being released by Tin House Books in September 2019.

Yes, he would like to talk to you about your favorite bands and your favorite sneakers.

Contact Information

Management/Booking: All speaking / appearance inquiries, brand partnerships or other creative work: Contact Tabia Yapp at BEOTIS:
https://www.beotis.com/contact

For all interviews and press requests:
https://www.beotis.com/press

Media & Markets

▶ Book Purchases: http://www.amazon.com/Hanif-Abdurraqib/e/B07JVM42M1%3F
▶ Book Purchases 2: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781947793439
▶ Book Purchases 3: http://utpress.utexas.edu/books/abdurraqib-go-ahead-in-the-rain
▶ Book Purchases 4: http://buttonpoetry.com/product/the-crown-aint-worth-much/
▶ Instagram: nifmuhammad
▶ Website: http://www.abdurraqib.com

Quotes, Notes & Etc. GO AHEAD IN THE RAIN: NOTES TO A TRIBE CALLED QUEST

A New York Times Best Seller

“[R]iveting and poetic…Abdurraqib's gift is his ability to flip from a wide angle to a zoom with ease. He is a five-tool writer, slipping out of the timeline to deliver vivid, memoiristic splashes as well as letters he's crafted to directly address the central players, dead and living.”
—Washington Post

“[W]arm, immediate, and intensely personal...This lush and generous book is a call to pay proper respects not just to a sound but to a feeling.”
—New York Times

“Abdurraqib's book doesn't attempt an arm's length, scholarly approach to analyzing the group and its music; instead, Abdurraqib speaks from his own experiences, often in the form of questioning or appreciative open letters to members of the band. It's a bold conceit, but if the book loses a bit of reserved objectivity in the process, it gains much more: an emotional grounding for why the group was so important to the author, and, by extension, why their music should matter to readers, too.”
—Foreword Reviews

“Even those who know little about the music will learn much of significance here, perhaps learning how to love it in the process.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“Go Ahead in the Rain is more than just an homage to A Tribe Called Quest…it's more like a reckoning. The result is a critical examination of the group—their message and history—as well as a musical memoir of sorts, and an exploration of the lasting impact music can have on the soul.”
—Vanity Fair

“Abdurraqib explores and exposes the power of music, of art, to not just connect with people, but to connect people, to make movements, to inspire change and revolution, on levels both large and small. In powerful, poetic language, Abdurraqib makes clear the legacy of ATCQ, both the one the group called upon for their own creation and the one they left behind.”
—Nylon

THEY CAN'T KILL US UNTIL THEY KILL US

"Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us is a penetrating and profoundly timely collection of essays. It is music writing at its sharpest, most perceptive, and most urgent... Most remarkable, perhaps, is Abdurraqib’s ability to perceive and define connections between his subjects, himself, and the fractured, complicated culture in which we live."
—Foreword Reviews (starred review)

"Abdurraqib’s essay collection is mesmerizing and deeply perceptive... filled with honesty, providing the reader with the sensation of seeing the world through fresh eyes."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Abdurraqib writes with uninhibited curiosity and insight about music and its ties to culture and memory, life and death, on levels personal, political, and universal... Abdurraqib’s poignant critiques, a catalog of the current moment and all that preceded it, inspire us to listen with our whole selves."
—Booklist (starred review)

"These are essays about music, but also about culture, race, and life in America today. Willis-Abdurraqib writes about attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown’s grave, what it was like growing up in America in the 1990s, the first time he was thrown on the ground by police officers, and much more."
—Book Riot, 20 Great Essay Collections from 2017

"In all of Abdurraqib’s poetic essays, there is the artist, the work, the nation, and himself. The author effortlessly navigates among these many points before ultimately arriving at conclusions that are sometimes hopeful, often sorrowful, and always visceral. Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music."
—Kirkus

"Certain writers can take a pop song or musician as their subject and turn what they write into a stunning evocation of some aspect of society. That’s very much the case with Hanif Abdurraqib, and in this new collection he covers everything from the Columbus punk scene to Chance the Rapper, coming up with stunning observations along the way."
—Vol. 1 Brooklyn

THE CROWN AIN'T WORTH MUCH

"To pinpoint a highlight of the book is impossible. Every poem is honed, polished, and presented with utter rawness and defiance."―Portland Book Review

"Willis-Abdurraqib possesses a striking gift for merging pop culture with personal narrative."―Publishers Weekly

"THE CROWN AIN'T WORTH MUCH is not so much a book you read, but one you survive―with Willis-Abdurraqib's compassionate, elegiac lyric gently pushing you forward through heartbreak and violence."―Indiana Review

Clips (more may be added)

The Crown Ain't Worth Much
By Hanif Abdurraqib

182 views

Hanif Abdurraqib

THE MATRIX WAS BUILT HERE, inspired in (the kabbalah-inspired fiction of) Borges' El Aleph, that in the pillar in Cairo's Mosque of Amr, where the universe in its entirety throughout all time is perceivable as an infinite hum from deep within the stone... The Brazilian "aleph" is different though...it doesn't hum...it sings!

Sprawled across broad equatorial latitudes
Stoked and steamed and sensual in the widest sense of the word
Limned in prosody and cadenced song
brəˈzɪl / from "brasa" / Latin for "ember"

w/ David Dye for U.S. National Public Radio

Given the immense untapped power of the small-world phenomenon, from Brazilians the matrix was expanded to include nodes per jazz artists, given jazz's common roots with Brazilian music (nodes based in publicly available information; some artists we informed — Bob Mintzer, Kamasi Washington, David "Fuse" Fiuczynski, Vijay Iyer, Greg Osby — and got thumbs up, others we'll get to), and moved on from there. Artists/academics/"creative people" are welcome to create their own nodes and curate (connect to other artist nodes, so that others may follow). BTW, our logo is a cortador de cana, cane cutter. It was designed by Walter Mariano, professor of design at the Federal University of Bahia to reflect the origins of the music the shop specializes in.

MUCH MORE on all of this in the window below (which, if you are logged in, will instead contain instructions on recommending), and in the window within that window (which includes a "radio" called by The Guardian one of "10 of the best music radio stations around the world"):