Black Thought does not disappoint in his new memoir The Upcycled Self, but I can’t write honestly about the book without saying why I was so invested in reading it in the first place.
I claim the Bronx as home because everything missing within it and everything there that was intended to destroy me became what I used to write, to draw, to absorb hip hop culture. But I was born in Philly and raised in its too quiet working class suburbs. My mom’s family was rooted there by way of the South.
So I claim Philly as a creative inspiration too, since I spent the first six years of my life there. Those were pretty tough years for a little girl: I grew up in the shadow of family trauma, had a stint in foster care, and with my mom, relocated to New York City in the midst of the crack era to start over.
Years after I decided I would be a writer in my adopted hometown of the Bronx as an adult, as a college student, in the 90s, I met my first backpack rappers — suburban kids who knew the lexicon of the street by way of MTV and stars in their orbit but could tell me nothing about MC Lyte or EPMD or Boogie Down Productions. Bless their hearts; they did, however, play the beautiful sounds of The Roots on the college radio station, and that was how I heard hip hop and live music together for the first time. That was when I kind of fell in love with Questlove and Black Thought’s artistry.
After that, I listened to just about everything The Roots released. When I left college and became a reporter, I moved every six months to a new city. In Sept 2001, I arrived in Seattle just as the world would change forever. By day, I worked in one of the last two-newspaper towns left in America, writing about 9/11 and a recently discovered serial killer. At night, I let myself be immersed in a Roots fan site where music lovers argued with one another about music and the best rappers alive. Then I was really hooked.
You may not need to know all this to understand why I loved The Upcycled Self so much, but I think it’s relevant. The crystalline clarity, empathy and confidence of Black Thought in a song like Water, the way his voice flows like liquid on You Got Me, or even just to hear the raw ability that seems polished and sophisticated anytime he freestyles is something that inspires me and has for a long time. That clarity carries over on the page in a stunning parallel that is refreshing to read.
It’s not just that Tariq Trotter (Mr. Trotter? Feels weird, but respectful) is talented in many ways, it’s that he is a Black man, and Black men in this country are hunted from the time they are born until the day they die. Mr. Trotter is a man who is hunted who is from where I was born and survived the brutal murder of his mother, multiple trials of her killer and also, multiple trials of his own. But he still made music, made art, forged his way. And therefore, I feel affirmed and empowered by his story to do the same — to allow what could have stopped me before I began to forge me, to shape the beauty of the words and stories I offer the world.
I can’t tell you how many books I try to read all the time; I stopped keeping track because what I’m after is quality over quantity. But I can tell you that few memoirs move me as a creative like this one. Black creatives offer this world a reinvention of ourselves and our stories, the selves that have been stolen from us and stories that have been shaped by others about who we really are and how what we offer to the world is the spine of global culture.
Part of what I loved most was Mr. Trotter’s clarity about where the paths of his life converged and where they split. I loved his honesty about how some dreams he pursued didn’t come to fruition, but he found another way — or the universe found another way for him. There is such valuable writing in The Upcycled Self about how the effects of a house fire when he was a child permanently changed how he views life and permanence, the way street life impinged on his life even as he tried to steer clear and focus on creating art.
Like I said earlier, I’m a little biased, but I enjoyed The Upcycled Self a great deal. I hope you will, too.
"The crystalline clarity, empathy and confidence of Black Thought in a song like Water, the way his voice flows like liquid on You Got Me, or even just to hear the raw ability that seems polished and sophisticated anytime he freestyles is something that inspires me and has for a long time. That clarity carries over on the page in a stunning parallel that is refreshing to read." Joshunda! I love this, and also you are making me order his book.
So you were on Okayplayer, too? 🖤
I listened to the audiobook recently and I love the conversational tone in his rendering (complete with the “you knows” and “ums” That were not distractions but verbal asks: “are you with me? Can you relate?”); I really felt like Tariq was talking to me. It was an endearing listen.
The book confirmed for me that 1) Blackthought (and ?uestlove) are indeed geniuses, 2) Black mothers 🥹, and 3) the cultivation of Black boy genius in such a violently racialized society is all too serendipitous.