They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

Formal music criticism—the practice of assessing or judging music—dates back to roughly the 18th century. Many of the earliest music critics were musicians themselves, and elements of musical theory have always loomed large in the field. At the same time, the nature of music as an art form has challenged efforts to systematize musical criticism and encouraged more subjective responses; many elements of music are irreducible to language and therefore difficult to represent in an argumentative text, much less critique.

Though some forms of traditional and folk music began to attract anthropological interest in the 19th century, popular music genres (e.g., rock) did not receive much critical attention until the mid-20th century. While the closely related field of music journalism tends to address the layperson rather than the musical expert, it grapples with many of the same questions that have defined music criticism from its earliest days, including how to weigh formal criteria when discussing music and whether judging music’s value even makes sense. These questions sometimes intersect with another, which rose to prominence in the later 20th and early 21st centuries: the extent to which social constructs like race and gender shape the musical landscape, from its creation to its reception.

Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us clearly shares this concern, but it also departs from “traditional” music criticism in some ways. Instead of simply analyzing the album, song, or artist, Abdurraqib roots music in a social, historical, or personal context that enhances the reader’s understanding of both the music and the world. In this way, he is a descendant of the American music critic Lester Bangs (1948-1982), “a stylist who reflected directly the energy and wild rebellion of rock-and-roll, attempting to evoke through his prose the energy and spirit of the music itself” (“Lester Bangs, 33, Rock Critic for Many Publications, Dies.” The New York Times, 2 May 1982). Abdurraqib’s writing has this same “energy,” and he is unafraid to turn his critical eye toward his own experiences. Additionally, Abdurraqib is a poet, often incorporating more poetic language into his essays. In this way, he also descends from the Black poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967), whose work famously drew on the rhythms of jazz and the conventions of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). While Abdurraqib’s style makes his brand of criticism the distinct, it also places him on one side of a longstanding debate field. Just as Abdurraqib does not use academic language in his writing but rather diction and syntax accessible to his audience, he largely avoids value judgments. What matters to him is not principally a song’s pedigree or innovativeness but rather Enthusiasm, Joy, and Community in Music.