The book exalts the Black Performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space from midcentury Paris to the moon and back down again to a cramped living room in Colombia, Ohio. Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines whether it's the twenty seven seconds in " Gimme Shelter" in which Merry Clayton wails the words "rape, murder" a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt-has layers of resonance in Black and White cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib's own personal history of love , grief, and performance.