Poet Hanif Abdurraquib on curating at Brooklyn Academy of Music: “We’re building a world around the vastness of Black performance”

nme.com:

NME about curating Brooklyn Academy of Music’s spring 2022 music series to “build a world around the vastness of Black performance”.Through multiple books, including Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes on A Tribe Called Quests and A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, the National Book Award finalist and MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient has built a career focused on extending the “understanding of the multitudinous and global nature of Black performance.”With the intention of highlighting Black musicianship, celebrating the return of in-person communal experiences, and “expanding my imagining of what a live music concert can be”, the essayist and critic organised America’s oldest performing arts centre’s first foray into live music since the start of the COVID pandemic.The intimate and creative shows, which kicked off on February 25 and run until May 21, have featured Abdurraquib’s hand-picked selection of artists, including Moses Sumney, Bartees Strange, Devonté Hynes, and L’Rain, with performances from Mavis Staples and the premiere of Omar Offendum’s hip-hop musical, Little Syria set for next month.“It’s interesting to be in a position where you can do anything, because my initial response was, ‘Well I don’t wanna do anything’,” Abdurraquib told NME.

When BAM reached out and said, “We’ll give you Howard Gilman Opera House and this budget and the rest is up to you,” he found the proposition exciting – but also daunting – because, “That kind of freedom comes with an expectation that you will not mess it up.”However, once he “took that freedom and offered it to artists”, he wanted to see perform, asking them: “What would you do if you had time and a space to build something creative and challenge.