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Summer of Hamn

Hollowpointlessness Aiding Mass Nihilism

by Chuck D
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

The tragedy of gun violence is depicted in annotated illustrations that illuminate a society gone hamn; from legendary hip-hop artist Chuck D (Public Enemy, Prophets of Rage, etc.)

—Selected for the In the Margins Book Awards 2024 Nonfiction Recommendation List

"With his latest work of graphic nonfiction, Chuck D uses his art and hip-hop rhymes to show how the US has been held hostage by gun violence and a growing sense of hopelessness . . . A focused, fresh, urgent text filled with pictures worth 1,000 words and rhymes worth thousands more." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

IN SUMMER OF HAMN, legendary hip-hop artist Chuck D takes on gun violence with rhythmic, inventive writing and passionately raw art. He has long spoken out against gun violence, including how it intersects with rap and hip-hop culture. Summer of Hamn is the bound journal Chuck D carried with him in the summer of 2022—a summer marked by a particularly high rate of gun death.

In these pages, victims are memorialized, politicians are skewered, and vehement pleas to eradicate gun violence are made. Jaw-dropping statistics (40% of all personal guns in the world are owned by US citizens; there are 100 million more guns in the US than there are citizens) intersect with poetic reflections ("Another mall shooting seems normalized in Columbus / Raining outside in Ohio / Raining inside folks panic / Inside hearing shots bust"), all written in Chuck's hand over vibrant, utterly original, neoexpressionist ink and watercolor art.

This book is the follow-up to STEWdio the debut trilogy on Chuck D's Enemy Books imprint, in which he invented a new medium—the "naphic grovel"—a bound journal brimming with his observations and reflections of current events in both art and prose. Summer of Hamn is the second release on the imprint.

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    • Kirkus

      Starred review from June 1, 2023
      With his latest work of graphic nonfiction, Chuck D uses his art and hip-hop rhymes to show how the U.S. has been held hostage by gun violence and a growing sense of hopelessness. Unlike the sprawling yet powerful collection Stewdio, which tried to make sense of the chaos of the early period of the Covid-19 pandemic, the author's latest has a tight focus and engaging structure. The Public Enemy frontman draws impressionistic portraits of news events and then crafts a rhyme to explain it. "At every turn this summer, so much visible hate...Salman Rushdie...is bum rushed and stabbed on stage in Western New York State," he writes to accompany a poignant sketch of the incident, including the looks of horror from the audience. The bulk of the events Chuck D chronicles are shootings--at a convenience store in California and a shopping mall in Ohio, or the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe--and the continuing disastrous effects of climate change, including flooding in Las Vegas and Texas. This is heavy material, but just as Flavor Flav provided enough levity to balance the hard-hitting subject matter of Public Enemy's albums, Chuck D's outside interests--basketball, space exploration, and, of course, hip-hop--lighten the mood enough to keep readers moving through this compelling narrative. Few recaps of the summer of 2022 would include drought's effect on Lake Mead, a critique of Ye's fashion designs for The Gap, and the importance of the trade of the Utah Jazz's Donovan Mitchell to the Cleveland Cavaliers. But that's how Chuck D's fascinating mind works, and this chronicle of his interests is both brilliant and relatable. He closes with a poignant plea: "Indian summer awaits to cool down the heat and the hate...Protect your fam this fall...The end of hamn." A focused, fresh, urgent text filled with pictures worth 1,000 words and rhymes worth thousands more.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 30, 2023
      Public Enemy front man Chuck D follows up Stewdio with a striking graphic narrative archive of gun violence and collective misery during the summer of 2022. He takes note of WNBA player Brittney Griner’s detainment in Russia, student debt crises, and alarming climate disasters, but focuses on the issue that dominates that summer’s media cycle: “guns... guns... guns.” Gun violence rips through the narrative—as well as grocery and convenience stores, malls, football games (“a coach, a father, another Black man slain”) and state parks, in mass shootings and murders that the artist sees as arising from a “disunited state of America.” The text’s lyrical rhyme scheme underscores the gravity of the work’s themes and showcases the rapper’s deadly skill with a pen. (“NATO doesn’t include any of the Black world word on its position... thus NATO stands for no African thoughts or opinion.”) Bold portraits, sketched in dark watercolors and inks, are most poignant in two-page spreads, where the scope widens and brighter color dashes highlight emotion. There are lighter moments and touches of humor, as well as introspective personal asides, in which he thrills at riding an e-bike at age 62 (“done changed my living life”) and recounts how his great-grandfather helped design New York City’s Flatiron Building. Readers will also find memorials for icons who died in 2022, including Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics and the Delphonics’ William Hart. But reminders of America’s brutal pastime are never far away: “40 percent of the worlds guns owned... 400 million guns in a place 300 million call home.” The sudden tone shifts feel like an apt parallel for the contemporary pattern of “mov on” between interruptions of mass shootings. It’s a bristling and necessary catalogue of collective anguish.

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