Birmingham Lit Fest Presents….

In this week’s episode we welcome American essayist, cultural critic and poet Hanif Abdurraqib, who talks to our very own Birmingham Poet Laureate Casey Bailey about his latest book, A Little Devil in America. Hanif’s book offers a beautiful insight into the history of black performance and culture in America, including cultural icons such as Josephine Baker, Aretha Franklin and Dave Chappelle. Join Hanif and Casey as they talk about the process of writing a book that combines memoir with history and that is a real love letter to black cultural art and performance.

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 2: Hanif Abdurraqib 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

In this week’s episode we welcome American essayist, cultural critic and poet Hanif Abdurraqib, who talks to our very own Birmingham Poet Laureate Casey Bailey about his latest book, A Little Devil in America. Hanif’s book offers a beautiful insight into the history of black performance and culture in America, including cultural icons such as Josephine Baker, Aretha Franklin and Dave Chappelle. Join Hanif and Casey as they talk about the process of writing a book that combines memoir with history and that is a real love letter to black cultural art and performance. 

Casey Bailey 

Hello, wonderful people. My name is Casey Bailey. And I am blessed and privileged to be here with Hanif Abdurraqib to talk about his latest book, A Little Devil in America. Now, Hanif is a prize-winning poet, essayist, cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio, is the author of the highly praised poetry collections, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, and A Fortune for Your Disaster, the essay collection, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, and the New York Times bestseller Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest. Hanif, how are you today?

Hanif Abdurraqib

I'm good, Casey, thanks for hanging out.

Casey Bailey 

It's an absolute blessing and a pleasure. So, I mean, it's great for me being able to have this conversation with you. I always joke, I've done a couple of interviews now for Birmingham Literature Festival. And I get the kind of pleasure of asking you these questions that really are just secretly things I want to know before anybody else gets to hear the answers. And hopefully they enjoy it, too. So, I'm going to kind of jump in with what might be quite a big question or quite a complex question. But it's the one that kind of circulates in my head, thinking about this book, is how would you define this book? And I'll tell you why I ask before I put the pressure on you to answer it. Having read this book, it's one of those books that instantly there are people who I know, I feel like need to read this book. And so, when I say to them, you've got to read this book and they say, what’s it about or what is it, it's actually about so much and it is so much. I wonder how do you define what you've created here?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Oh, yeah, that's very kind. Thank you. I mean, I think for me, the best way to define the book is that it's a multitudinous exploration of performance, and what performance is in the very ways of performance, the many ways that performance shows up. Not on a stage or not on a screen, or not necessarily for an audience of anyone, but an audience of the performance I'm making, which is why there are essays in the book about spades or about complicated performances of affection or these kinds of things. I want to think about every route I've ever taken to a type of performance. For better or worse, sometimes for worse.

Casey Bailey

Yeah, so, one of the things that really struck me, having read the book, I went in and started kind of thumbing through the acknowledgments and stuff. And in the acknowledgments, you credit two people in particular that I noticed. You credit Maya Millet for, you say, steering the book in - and I apologize because I'm paraphrasing – in a new or better direction. And Ben Greenberg, and everyone at Random House for sticking with the book while it shifted, I think, is the word you use. What I'd really love to know is how much of a journey has the book been on from kind of the inception in your mind to what it became? And could you maybe map out some of that journey for us?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Yeah, I mean, initially, the book was going to be about, or the book was going to at least kind of revolve around appropriation and blackface in the history of minstrelsy. But I very quickly realized that that was not a pleasurable experience, like writing about that. I was centring whiteness more than I wanted to, and I didn't really find myself too keen on centring whiteness at that level. So, I began to ask myself a better question, which is a question of, what would this book look like if I extracted that desire to kind of make sense of - or tried to unravel the desires of whiteness as its projected upon black performers and black performance. And if I did that, could I get to a more pleasureful examination of what I have loved about performing and performances and watching performances. And I think that is essentially what ended up happening. You know, that's what ended up kind of, when I sat down Maya, who edited the book with me, and we began to ask questions of who the book was for and what the book wanted to celebrate. That became, you know, a lot clearer to me. And it made the book easier to edit. And it made the book a more exciting book to write, when I decentred the actual history of whiteness.

Casey Bailey

Amazing. And I think that it's interesting that you say that process wouldn't have necessarily been a pleasurable one, or wasn't a pleasurable one, kind of looking through that lens of how has whiteness impacted, or how has whiteness appropriated what we see of black culture. But what's interesting is, even having said that, the book is not just a collection of happiness, either. It has so many sombre and heavy notes, but it's carried by, you know, this real kind of idea of joy, which really is kind of like the metaphor for what you were just saying flows through the book of these punches of real happiness. And these moments of real sadness. And I think I, you know, I can honestly say, I've read an awful lot of books, but I've never read a book that I will directly compare to this book. I think I knew that that was happening after I maybe read the first chapter, and it ends around you speaking about your mother's passing, and it feels really sharp, and I didn't expect it. And then around the second chapter, there is kind of another point of real, heavy kind of sombreness. And I wonder when you wrote the book, was there a feeling of a need to juxtapose the two? Or did that just naturally kind of occur as you went through these themes and how they impacted yourself?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Oh, I think it naturally occurred. I think that it's hard for me to look at pleasure, or joy, as one would say, and not think about it as something that is earned through a very clear understanding of grief, or what can be lost, or what is on the other side of joy or pleasure or these things. I think, I'm always kind of writing towards that understanding, you know what I’m saying? Like, I'm always kind of writing towards a very clear understanding of what I've known to be on the other side of joy, or happiness or pleasure, all these things, because it makes my understanding of joy that much clearer. And that much easier to identify, but also much easier to celebrate. Because I know that it is not promised, it's not a guaranteed thing. None of us are promised or guaranteed or even all the time deserving of anything that makes us feel good. You know what I mean? 

Casey Bailey
 Absolutely. 

Hanif Abdurraqib

And so, you know, because of that, I think that I'm more keen to revel in pleasure when it arrives, because I don't know, I can't say for sure how long it'll stay or when it'll go.

Casey Bailey

Yeah, and I wonder…the note that I made when I was kind of trying to unpick that for myself is, how much of that - and you'll find probably throughout this, I have a thing about process - and I would think about what was the process and how did that kind of come into fruition? How much of that kind of push and pull between really personal moments and things that were a kind of far beyond yourself came down to the editing, to the process of looking through and saying, ‘is this a bit too much about me, or is there enough of me in here’?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Yeah, it was the latter. It was always ‘is there enough of me in here?’ which I'm always asking because it's a question of ‘are people able to trust me?’ Am I leading people down a path that is generous, and am I inserting enough of myself, to let them know that I'm here, and I'm here with them and I'm walking alongside with them? And that I'm not an expert. I tend to think that I have to insert myself to remind myself and others, that I am someone who has lived a life that is not like everyone else's life. And because of that, I'm not even an expert on myself. And so, you know, it serves that I am not an expert on my own corners of my own life. And so, I think that maybe makes the work a little bit more comfortable for people to approach. Because I'm not preaching, you know, I think I'm kind of wading through various modes of uncertainty. And I'm doing it very much on my own and asking people to witness it as it happens.

Casey Bailey

What I'd really love to know, is when you were coming up with the titles for chapter. Some of them, it's almost like a kind of a veil. So, I'm thinking specifically of the Beyonce, Superbowl Performance and Jobs that I Wish I Never did. I'm not actually looking at the book, the title is something along those lines. And it seems so trivial and funny. And as we walk through the chapter, it very quickly becomes very serious. And I wonder, was it a plan to create those titles? You know, as soon as I read that title, I thought ‘What, really? How do these two things tie up? ’And then you get through and you draw connections that I think, you know, a lot of people just wouldn't even see. How much did you plan to make those titles kind of enticing? Without giving away everything that you're trying to talk about?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Yeah, I think the title is really a space to play. I think my approach is that a title describes very clearly what someone can expect, or what they think they can expect. And then when you get into the piece, you can kind of bend that expectation. And so, there's a real opportunity for me in the title to be as kind of tongue in cheek as I would like to be always, but don't always get a chance to be. And I really try to take advantage of that when I can, because I don't always get to.

Casey Bailey

Another thing that really interested me. And there's a real point in the book, the chapter is called Fear a Crowd and it talks about Bernie Mac, it talks about Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas. And this was a point in the book that I knew my dad needed to read this book. Because we’re huge comedy fans, huge Bernie Mac fans, in the household that I grew up in. My dad was also a huge Mike Tyson fan, but he would always speak more about the Mike Tyson/Buster Douglas fight than any other fight. And so, for me, reading that chapter spoke so much to things that I feel like I already knew very well. And although I've explained to people why Bernie Mac says ‘I'm not scared of you’ a couple of times, I never actually knew the story that he was actually, you know, it'd been a bad day on stage and people were getting booed off stage. But anyway, I digress. How much of what you speak about in the book are things that you just knew? And how many of them are things that came to you during the process of research in the book?

Hanif Abdurraqib

So, most of them are things that I knew vaguely or knew enough about, but not always that I knew extremely well. The art of research was revelatory to me in the process. You know, with the Bernie Mac thing, I was like ‘well I know that performance and I've seen that performance, but how can I get to the bottom or see what else was happening during that performance or on stage?’ How can I find something that I did not understand before and that was a process with much of the book where it was like well, I know this thing or I know this broadly, but I got to find out more. And then when in the finding out more, there was more to find out. The more you find out, the more there is to find out, right? You know, it's sent me down some really delightful rabbit holes and I learned a lot. I’m very thankful for that process but on the baseline, I didn't know, you know, I knew the broader stories.

Casey Bailey

Yeah, and I think I'm sure I'm not the only person who has read the book and in some ways is cursing you for the fact that I am now going to go and research so many things that I wasn't going to look up. And I'm not researching them for a book that I'm writing, I'm just researching them because you wrote a book.

Hanif Abdurraqib

I told someone else, you know, like my research all comes from the excitement I got reading something that someone else wrote and then you know that research is going to help you down the road, I think.

Casey Bailey

Oh, it will. It will and even if it didn't, which I'm 100% sure it will, I know I will enjoy it. Obviously, when you're writing a book like this, you can only go so deep and you can only put so much information in before, you know, you've written too much about a particular subject. So, for me, I know there's going to be even more and little gems that probably you know, but couldn't fit in or work around in the book. That chapter also was the first point where I started to think about form in the book. Because in that chapter, I’m quite sure that that’s the chapter, where the end of each paragraph leads into the start of a new paragraph in the kind of language used.

Hanif Abdurraqib

Yes, it’s like a sonic bounty.

Casey Bailey

Yeah. You know, the book is presented kind of as a collection of essays, perhaps. But how much did you…were you conscious of playing with form?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Yeah, I mean, I was trying to be playful and thoughtful. And also keep myself engaged. And also ask myself, what the mode of storytelling needed. Because, you know, sometimes I think that the mode of storytelling is asking for a different shape. And so much of that process was me just saying, okay, well, what can I provide, that will make this a worthwhile and exciting, visual experience for a reader but also, what will make it an exciting experience for me to pursue these curiosities in a way that is as multitudinous as what I'm pursuing in the book.

Casey Bailey

I often kind of find myself getting lost in kind of moments that maybe weren't planned. And so, there's the Epilogue for Aretha, in the book. And you talk quite vividly about Aretha Franklin creating this gospel album. There's a British rapper called Guvna B, who you might be aware of, I think of Mary Mary, who obviously have made some amazing music, Kurt Franklin. And when I think of these artists, there's this thing that you touched on around how gospel music can almost be just for entertainment. And it can be just for salvation. But if you come at it just for entertainment, you can't help but be elevated into this kind of space of, whether it's holiness or spirituality. There's something about it, that takes you there and that's something that I know very well as someone who isn't necessarily a religious person. When I listen to Guvna B, or when I listen to a Kirk Franklin song, I feel that elevation. And I wonder, within this book, there is so much that is interesting. And there's so much that is entertaining, that you could come to this book and read it not necessarily wanting to receive all of the depth of this book. But you can't get away from it. And I wonder if there was an element of making this book as entertaining as it is, to pull people into: yes, you might enjoy this story about me being at the airport sharing this conversation with this man on the day that the Formation video dropped, but you're not going to get away from the fact that when I put a BLM sticker up at work, somebody felt the need to take it down. Were you consciously pulling people into something that might be deeper than they expected?

Hanif Abdurraqib

It's a by-product of the work, you know. I think it's a by-product, the way my mind works is essentially attempting to convince people. The magic trick is that some things are always happening, you know, there's always terror or discomfort happening under even the brightest moments. So, these things have to exist concurrently. They exist concurrently for me in my living and so they, by default, have to exist concurrently for me in the in the work and so you know, that feels important.

Casey Bailey

The language in this book, the use of what I would just call poetry, but poetic language in the book is so strong. And I would imagine that at times, you could probably pull certain lines from the book and represent them as a poetry collection, and you’d probably win an award for it. I found that interesting because I kind of came at this book, expecting less poetry than I received when I read your poetry collections. But how fine is that balance between being poetic and dealing with things that are very literal? I think about the end of the chapter where you speak a lot about Wu Tang, and everything starts turning into beats. How much are you conscious of the poetics? How much trust are you putting in your readers who might not necessarily read poetry?

Hanif Abdurraqib

I don't really think about it, you know, because I'm not really governed by genre. I'm just trying to kind of, I think, articulate, you know. I think there's so much stuff in my mind, that's kind of a mess, you know? Yeah, you know, kind of balance that in the work and in my own head. And so, the only question I'm ever asking is, how do I balance this efficiently? And with the most kind of thoughtful, and careful language possible? And if that language can also simultaneously approach some level of beauty, then that's a bonus, you know? But yeah, the question is always, always, always, like, how do I get to language that is both efficient, articulate, and holding some beauty within it. And if that, I think, is what people would call poetic then I'll happily take that.

Casey Bailey
Something that I really appreciate around the structure of the book is these little shorter essays around ‘On times I forced myself to dance’. And they were, you know, often really funny, still very deep in their in their content, but very personal to you. At the point when you decided to create those, I don't know how best to describe them, because they're almost like prose poems, diary entries. And it's interesting that you say you don't really overthink about, you know, is it poetry? Is it an essay? You're just writing and putting it across in the best way. When did you decide to put those into the book, and what made you spread them out in the way that you did? So, they start each section of the book?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Well, those were just writing exercises at first, in between my first and second draft, to kind of hone what I wanted the book to say, and how I want it to be said, and I had about 20 of them. And we went through and picked out the ones that felt the most interesting and most exciting. And it felt like they were kind of guiding, without even thinking about it. They were kind of guiding the themes of the sections that we landed on. And that was it. Yeah, those were all kind of just like, free writes that I was doing while editing. Because it helped me kind of recentre the book’s playfulness and the book’s kind of bending of form and presentation. But I never entirely expected it to take hold the way it did.

Casey Bailey 

We end with ‘On times I forced myself not to dance’, and you know, I personally, I cried reading that chapter. And I always wonder at times like this, and it's a conversation I also had with Caleb Azumah Nelson when I spoke to him about his book Open Water.

Hanif Abdurraqib

I'm big fan of Caleb, big fan. 

Casey Bailey

Yeah, that book is just stunning. And I'm so excited about what he's going to do next. But in reading that chapter, I mean, it's the case throughout this book, and I know already that is the case through your poetry but I'm interested in your take on it. How complex is it when you present that level of vulnerability on the page? First of all, how difficult is it to do that? Second of all, how difficult is it then to exist kind of in a world where everyone has seen that and taken that and sometimes want that from you?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Well, the only way that I can effectively do that is if I don't think about the needs and desires of others, right? If I don't think about what people might project onto me because of what I'm sharing. And that's really the only way that I can. Because I believe in vulnerability, and I believe in a type of vulnerable language and storytelling that helps illuminate the journey I'm on as a writer and as a person. But in order for me to really be immersed in that I do have to divorce myself from whatever expectations people might have. Or project on me, because I can't respond, I can't kind of hold all of that. If I tried to, I think, if I thought about it, if I tried to respond to all that it would make me more hesitant and more reluctant to tap into a type of openness and that type of openness and vulnerability is what I'm constantly reaching for. 

Casey Bailey

Well, yeah, and I think that one of the things that I did discuss with Caleb is that kind of, once you present yourself in this way - and I always joke that I am the happiest poet with the saddest poems. And so, people meet me, and I talk to them and it's all laughs and jokes, it's like okay, so I’m coming to perform, and I go up on the stage, and I come off the stage, and those same people are looking at me very differently all of a sudden. And there's that real balance of managing, yes, I have, yes, I feel like this. And yes, I have felt like that. But that doesn't need to be the centre of every individual experience that you have with me. And I kind of wonder, then, in the writing of it, what is your process, or is there a process of getting this level of very honest vulnerability? And there's never the feeling of, you're telling me more than you need to, there's never the feeling of you're telling it for effect. It always feels very much like this is genuine and important to tell. How do you draw that line and make sure that you're being honest, and you're allowing yourself to be vulnerable without kind of performing it for people? Because you've achieved that so well, particularly in that last chapter. I would love to know if there's a way that you go about achieving that.

Hanif Abdurraqib 

Yes, yeah. I mean, I think that I just have a built-in understanding of boundary, right? Like, I know, when I'm pushing myself, I always have, I know when I'm pushing myself and I know when I'm pushing myself too far, or sharing too much. A big part of this is because I live with anxiety. And so, it's important for me to understand, when I'm exerting myself beyond my comfort zone. And at this point, when I'm writing I have a switch, you know, I know when I need to turn off the faucet, so to speak. Yeah, it almost happens organically now. And that allows me to push myself to a place that I know is safe, but also revelatory. And to have that balance is really useful.

Casey Bailey

There are real moments of kind of attaching or anchoring, is probably the phrase I’m looking for. They anchor this book in your own, not necessarily upbringing, but your own kind of adolescence and your own growth. And I'm thinking specifically around the beef chapter, the James Brown, and Joe Tex, Nino Brown and the Sandman. And I'm thinking about my own growth, my own kind of process of growing up in Birmingham and in England, and so much of it connects, you know, around, being able to make somebody laugh might be the difference between you ending up in physical conflict or not. There's a part around the fact that probably most of the people you’re with could have handled the dance off very well. But why would they fix the issue through a dance battle when they can throw hands and that, like struck very much to me as something I was very familiar with. I would imagine a lot of people who read it, are not necessarily familiar with that environment. But you've still kind of anchored it so well within that environment. Was there a conscious decision that this book would kind of be rooted not just in the information and the facts about these people and their stories but about how that connects directly to how you grew up and how you came to be who you are?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Yeah, I mean, those things are all interwoven to me, I think. The way I grew up and the people I grew up alongside are really woven into the fabric of who I am and the things I've seen and survived and built into my living also kind of informed who I become, for better or worse sometimes for worse, honestly, not always better.

Casey Bailey

Yeah, I hear that.

Hanif Abdurraqib 

And, you know, those things deserve space in the work too. They deserve space in my writing, and they deserve space, in the universe of stories I'm telling. In the case of if I am to be vulnerable about who I am, I need to be vulnerable also about who I was because those two things are intertwined and cannot be separated.

Casey Bailey
You know, in your acknowledgments you're gracious enough to say that all of your work is a kind of summary of what you've read, who you are, who you've been around. And I would love for you to just signpost anyone who's listening at the moment. I don't want to narrow this down to writing because I know you're a huge hip hop head, you’re a big music fan. And you clearly have a great kind of base of reference for all different types of performative arts. What would be the things that you would say to somebody you should check out? You should definitely look into this or listen to that, or whether those are current things or classic things? What would be your signposts be to say, okay, I'm feeling like I want to get my creative juices flowing. What should I be looking at? What would be inspiring?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Oh, currently, I love Dave’s new album.

Casey Bailey

How amazing is this album please?

Hanif Aburraqib

Yeah, really impressive. I think it might be better than his first album, I love Psychodrama. I think it might be better than that. You know, it's tough. Because, you know, he's so young and so gifted. And it's really hard to follow up an album, like Psychodrama which, you know, we want everything in. But most importantly, it was just that's a hard mountain to scale and he did it. And, you know, there's a lesson there, I think, in staring down one's past self, and to not think about the work as conquering your past self. But think about the work as intertwining with that version of yourself that achieves something in getting back there. I mean, I think the new album is great. So, let's say Dave's new record.

Casey Bailey

Can I just, I almost want to jump on that. Because I think there are a couple of tangents here that I'd love to explore. So, somebody said to me recently, that they feel like a lot of the songs on We're All Alone in this Together could have been on psychodrama. And they kind of said it as a bit of a slight. But you know, there's something about us pushing, and this is creatives of all different forms, that he created. For me personally, Psychodrama is such a phenomenal album. And he has now created another phenomenal album. And in an attempt to pull it down or to find an issue with it seems like well, this is just like that amazing album that you just wrote. How much are we pushed to do something different for the sake of doing something different? Rather than continue to create what is great work? What are your kind of thoughts?

Hanif Abdurraqib

The new album is a continuation of yeah, it's in a lineage of this work. I don't believe that someone has to extend themselves towards something different. I would rather see someone create, if they can, to create robust and layered work within a comfort zone that is efficient for them. That's all I want to see.

Casey Bailey
 Absolutely.

Hanif Abdurraqib

And I think Dave achieved that massive achievement. So I'd say that. Adrian Matejka’s new poety book Somebody Else Sold the World is great. Ariana Brown's new poetry book We Are Owed is really great. You know, those were the three ones that I'm most spending time with. Today's James Baldwin's birthday, so people should read The Devil Finds Work. 

Casey Bailey

Always. Okay, and now the kind of, maybe the penultimate question. What is going to be next? This is the worst question to ask people, right? You've just created this amazing piece of work. And really, what you probably want to do, like what I want to do, is spend some time with it, because I'm spending some time with it myself. But what is the next thing that we're going to see from you? What are you excited about that you're working on or looking towards at the moment?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Resting for a bit, it’s been a busy era. So, rest, hopefully, but you know what, in a few years I have a book, I'm writing a book about basketball, and about growing up in a golden era of basketball movies and that should be out in like 2024. And I'm currently going to pick up some work on that after I get a little rest. But resting is a big thing right now.

Casey Bailey 

I feel like rest is very, very deserved. Thank you for your time. Thank you for writing the book and continuing to write because it really is a blessing. And a pleasure to be able to be like here at a time when you've written a book and I can read it and then talk to you because it's exceptional. So, thank you so much.

Hanif Abdurraqib

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to tell us about it – leave us a review or a rating and find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. 

You can download our latest podcast episodes, every Thursday, from all the places you would normally get your podcasts and find transcripts of our episodes in the shownotes and on our website at www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.