CONTENTS

I.

Chance The Rapper’s Golden Year

A Night In Bruce Springsteen’s America

Carly Rae Jepsen Loves You Back

The Night Prince Walked On Water

ScHoolboy Q Wants White People To Say The Word

The Weeknd And The Future Of Loveless Sex

II.

I Wasn’t Brought Here, I Was Born: Surviving Punk Rock Long Enough To Find Afropunk

Under Half-Lit Fluorescents: The Wonder Years And The Great Suburban Narrative

All Our Friends Are Famous

The Return Of The Loneliest Boys In Town

Brief Notes On Staying // No One Is Making Their Best Work When They Want To Die Searching For A New Kind Of Optimism

Death Becomes You: My Chemical Romance And Ten

Years Of The Black Parade

Defiance, Ohio Is The Name Of A Band

III.

Fall Out Boy Forever

IV.

Ric Flair, Best Rapper Alive

It Rained In Ohio On The Night Allen Iverson Hit Michael Jordan With A Crossover

There Is The Picture Of Michael Jackson Kissing Whitney Houston On The Cheek

Black Life On Film

Tell ’Em All To Come And Get Me

Burning That Which Will Not Save You: Wipe Me Down And The Ballad Of Baton Rouge

Rumours And The Currency Of Heartbreak

V.

February 26, 2012

On Kindness

In The Summer Of 1997, Everyone Took To The Streets In Shiny Suits

Nina Simone Was Very Black

Blood Summer, In Three Parts.

August 9, 2014

Fear In Two Winters

On Paris

My First Police Stop

Serena Williams And The Policing Of Imagined Arrogance

They Will Speak Loudest of You After You’ve Gone

Johnny Cash Never Shot A Man In Reno. Or, The Migos: Nice Kids From The Suburbs

The Obama White House, A Brief Home For Rappers

The White Rapper Joke

On Future And Working Through What Hurts

November 22, 2014

Surviving On Small Joys

VI.