They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, published in 2017, is a collection of essays that explores the intersection of music, grief, and joy in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement. Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic, and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us is his debut essay collection. This collection transformed the music and cultural criticism genre; the MacArthur Foundation credits Abdurraqib with creating “a new form of cultural criticism, one that is informed by lived experience and offers incisive social and artistic critiques” (“Hanif Abdurraqib.” MacArthur Foundation). The essays transcend the musical criticism genre, becoming a narrative that explores how music has saved Abdurraqib throughout his life and allowed him to make sense of the trauma and violence directed toward the US’s Black population.

This study guide refers to the 2023 expanded paperback edition of the collection.

Content Warning: This guide obscures the author’s use of the n-word. The essays in this collection explore self-harm, suicide, police killings and beatings of Black people, rape, lynching, anti-Blackness racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, racist stereotypes, and anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination.