My Debut Essay Collection, "Everything And Nothing At Once" And Why It Matters Now
A major published book. A musical soundtrack. A collaborative merch capsule. A tour recap. A practice in artistic liberation.
Hi, y’all. Sorry for the extreme absence. I been living, breathing, being—showing up as a father, a community member… and an author. On June 4th, I released into the world my debut essay collection, Everything And Nothing At Once: A Black Man’s Reimagined Soundtrack For the Future via Holt/MacMillian. The book has been in the making for years.
Growing up, the only thing I ever wanted to do was be a rapper. Not a doctor. Not a lawyer. Definitely not a cop. Not a firefighter. A rapper. My older brother Dwain would make me videotape Video Music Box and Rap City, and through that I would find my voice. And I rapped y’all. Like, really well.
But while I was doing that, I was also reading Toni Morrison (my North Star.) And Nikki Giovanni. And Sonia Sanchez. And Saul Williams. And I would get older and watch Carlos Gomez and Mahogany Browne and Yasiin Bey. And I would perform with Flako Jimenez and Elisabet Velasquez (who, without her love, I would not have connected to Folio Literary, my literary agency.) And then I had my daughters and I realized the limitations I found in rap did not exist in essays. So I started writing essays.
So when the manuscript of essays I had compiled over 6-7 years of writing became my book of essays, I knew so much of it needed to connect to all parts of me. This is where the first-ever major published book soundtrack, nonfiction. came into play. And this is where the Philadelphia Printworks merch capsule came into play (with 100% of net proceeds going to Therapy For Black Men.). It’s me experimenting with my art as living, breathing language of protest—there is no one way to publish a book. Or record an album. Or style your liberation.
This is why it was so important for my tour to feel less like and more like home—from our launch moment in Brooklyn at the Black woman co-working space Babel Loft alongside the Black woman-owned bookshop Adanne Co. and hosted by my ride or die Tyron Perryman, to DC with Rob Hill Sr., all the way up to LA at Reparations Club with Cyrus Aaron, and back to the northeast at the oldest art school in New Jersey, the Ducret Center of Art with longtime friend Cindelle, each stop was about language and love, community and liberation
While we are forced to sit and sift through multilayered grief and multiple genocides, it is easy to see art as frivolous. But as we head into one of the most storied section climates of our time, with book bas consistently on the rise, it becomes clear that our art gets to be a salve; a solve, and a balm for what aches us. Art gets to be our call to action. The more we practice as an art form and a form of deliverance from all the binaries that bind us, the better we become as a collective.
So, write the books. Host the exhibits. Make the art. Start the revolution.
Everything and Nothing At Once, the nonfiction. soundtrack, along with the Philadelphia Printworks x Joél Leon merch collab, are all available for purchase.
P.S. - thank you to my brother-in-arms
for literally making me write this 🫠RIP Sonya Massey
Reading your book now. Amazing story telling. 💕