Nephew: A Memoir in 4-Part Harmony

Asante’s follow-up to his debut memoir, Buck, focuses on his nephew Nasir’s recovery and healing after being shot at a graduation party. This story is a lyrical dialogue between Assante’s half-brother Uzi and Uzi’s son Nasir, but it also draws on the writings of other family members. The author introduces Nasir to his family’s history and Uzi’s love of rap music in order to keep Nasir off the streets that took Uzi away from his son and their family home years before. By expertly weaving prose and rap lyrics into the fabric of this story, the author succeeds at creating a listening experience in which his family’s harmonious words are truly “cut from the same cloth as the African griot.” The audio offers a brilliant layering of Asante’s, Dion Graham’s, and Adenrele Ojo’s voices, which play off one another as family drama unfolds. Each part of this confessional sheds light on Black experiences in the U.S., and Nasir’s section is the fifth part that draws on the works of Langston Hughes, Aretha Franklin, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, and George Moses Horton, to name a few.