What The Reviewers Say

Rave

Based on 18 reviews

Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest

Hanif Abdurraqib

What The Reviewers Say

Rave

Based on 18 reviews

Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest

Hanif Abdurraqib

Rave
Jennifer Szalai,
The New York Times Book Review
Pays attention to the larger changes in the culture, but its overall tenor is warm, immediate and intensely personal.
Rave
Geoff Edgers,
The Washington Post
Riveting and poetic.
Rave
LILY MEYER,
NPR
In his two previous books... Abdurraqib demonstrated his expertise at compressing massive emotions into minimal space. Here, he takes that skill up yet another notch. He has a seemingly limitless capacity to share what moves him, which means that to read Go Ahead in the Rain, you don't need to be a Tribe Called Quest fan: Abdurraqib will make you one. His love for the group is infectious, even when it breaks his heart.
Rave
Maria Esquinca,
The Adroit Journal
... lives up to its title.
Rave
Carlos Orellana,
Booklist
Much more than a musical biography; it’s also a deeply personal tribute to the classic hip-hop group.
Rave
Peter Dabbene,
Foreword Reviews
Doesn’t attempt an arm’s length, scholarly approach to analyzing the group and its music; instead, Abdurraqib speaks from his own experiences, often in the form of questioning or appreciative open letters to members of the band. It’s a bold conceit, but if the book loses a bit of reserved objectivity in the process, it gains much more: an emotional grounding for why the group was so important to the author, and, by extension, why their music should matter to readers, too.
Positive
Tiana Reid,
Bookforum
A risk of this kind of project is the nostalgia of the longtime fan (wasn’t everything better back then?) but Abdurraqib subjects the backward-looking myths that have sprung up around the group to critical scrutiny.
Positive
Joshua James Amberson,
The Seattle Times
Considering the book is a slight 200 pages, it’s a feat that Abdurraqib fits inasmuch as he does.
Rave
Nitish Pahwa,
Slate
Part biography, part autobiography, part historical narrative, and part collection of letters—most addressed from Abdurraqib to individual members of the group—the book sees Tribe through Abdurraqib’s eyes.
Positive
Chris Vognar,
Houston Chronicle
If Abdurraquib stopped there, with his thoughts and feelings about Tribe, Go Ahead in the Rain would be a fine book. But he doesn’t. He goes deep into ’90s hip-hop, perhaps the genre’s most fertile era.
Positive
IAN THOMAS,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In framing a Tribe Called Quest as underdogs, Mr. Abdurraqib gets at what made them great. More specifically, in Go Ahead in the Rain, the author gets at what made a Tribe Called Quest great to him when he was a kid struggling to find his place and his voice.
Positive
KYLE COCHRUN,
PopMatters
Fandom aside, this book is on point. In Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest, Abdurraqib blends his talents as both culture critic and personal essayist.
Rave
Annie Lloyd,
Full Stop
When Hanif Abdurraqib writes about music, he writes about its potential to bridge generations and peers, and he builds his narratives from the seeds of his own feelings.
Positive
Alexis Petridis,
The Guardian
... Abdurraqib is blessed with a keen eye for a particularly telling fact, and what seems like digression invariably turns out to make a wider point about music or culture.
Positive
Jonah Raskin,
New York Journal of Books
Indeed, Go Ahead in the Rain is all over the place and with great ease.
Rave
Stephen Kearse,
Pitchfork
[Abdurraqib’s] exploration of A Tribe Called Quest uses his love for the group to leverage remarkably sharp insights about the band and himself. Forthright without being solipsistic, the book is a marvel of criticism and self-examination.
Rave
MILES JOHNSON,
Barrellhouse
One of the many feats Abdurraqib’s writing accomplishes is a deft threading of topics that, at first glance, are disconnected.
Rave
Kirkus
Avoids the temptation to oversell his subject while maintaining a tricky structural balance. He somehow does full justice to the musical achievements of Q-Tip and his crew, to the influence of the musical world on this singular group, and to how deeply the experience permeated the young fan who might not have become a writer without their inspiration.