Nawal Arjini Interviews Hanif Abdurraqib at The Nation

A Tribe Called Quest, coming of age, and music of the 1990s are the subjects of a conversation between Nawal Arjini and Hanif Abdurraqib at The Nation. Abdurraqib's latest book is Go Ahead in the Rain, which combines memoir and music journalism to discuss the impact of A Tribe Called Quest on his life. "Go Ahead in the Rain is an unconventional work of criticism," Arjini writes, "both because of the level of autobiographical detail and the author’s open devotion to his subject." From there: 

But retreating to a critical distance would constitute a betrayal of the depth of feeling that Abdurraqib has for Tribe. While the book urges fans to learn how to be comfortable not understanding their favorite artists, Abdurraqib thinks the fans themselves are worth a second glance—what are their cultural contexts, their experiences, their intents?—and makes an implicit argument for a criticism that works toward connection. At the heart of Go Ahead in the Rain are questions about ourselves; it asks how and why we love artists, and what we can do with that love.

Nawal Arjini: What made you so interested in the interpersonal dynamics of A Tribe Called Quest, and what does thinking about them this way—as a group of people instead of celebrities or icons or even artists—afford that more typical critical standpoints don’t?

Hanif Abdurraqib: I talk a lot about Tribe as older siblings, because that’s how I imagined them. My parents are from New York, and I always had this mythology around it. Tribe offered me a way to feel like I had a window into their particular brand of New York. Tribe was so unique in how they archived and built a landscape around where they were from. So many artists, to me, are people I feel close to, feel I owe a debt to. I understand that I’m not best friends with A Tribe Called Quest—but fostering that closeness also helps me, as a critic, hold artists accountable for the ideas that they pushed.

Read more of their conversation at The Nation.