I really enjoy Hanif Abdurroqib’s way of writing; it’s educational, informative, poetic even, in some chapters. He captures description without over-analyzing, but still giving enough information and detail. The description I found that I liked best from his book lays on page 143, where he wrote, “If I told you that my homies and I got so close to the promised land we’d imagined that we could rest our palms on the clouds outside the gates, you might understand why we’d want to get there again, despite the fact that it might not be the healthiest endeavor for us.” Leading up this quote, Hanif had been writing about a documentary on A Tribe Called Quest, as well as the band reuniting years later. He explains how at the heart of any documentary lies some sort of conflict or tragedy, but how this is a type of documentary that the public wants to see, because who wants to really see a documentary about a band that once was, who made money, kept their friends and rode off into the sunset with no harm done by the music industry. I liked this quote because I think that so often, fans forget that the musicians they admire or love are human beings, too, and that sometimes, specifically for bands, a reunion isn’t always necessary. For me at least, this quote is a reminder that we should enjoy and appreciate the artists whom we love while they’re here right now, making the music we love.

In his podcast covering Ian Curtis, this same type of feeling came up. At one point early in this episode, Hanif talks about Curtis’ epilepsy and depression, how lyrically, his anguish and sadness over his diagnosis comes through, since much of Joy Division’s music centers around these similar types of feelings written in this similar tone. I found it interesting when Hanif said that for awhile, he loved Ian Curtis more as an “idea”, early on when he first listened to New Order and Joy Division, because Hanif himself suffers from epilepsy, and while he remarks that his is way less severe than the kind Curtis experienced, nonetheless, he still felt a connection in the way Curtis wrote, describing him as a “writer’s writer”. I also liked how Hanif explained that he himself began adjusting his approach to himself after listening to Curtis’ writings on sadness and anguish, being somebody who also experiences these similar feelings. He says that Ian’s “work is a window to that particular closet of emotions”, which sounds to me almost like a nostalgia for a person you never met or spoke to, but whose words you can relate to on a deep level, almost as if you wrote them yourself. I think this part of the episode is reminiscent of one of the ways music should make the listener feel, especially when you’re able to find an artist that becomes very special and close to you, you can feel as if they’re in your mind, feeling what you’re feeling and turning it into music. That is music.