Imani Perry (2025): Black in Blues

There is a certain poetry with which Black life and experience have become identified, to the point of entanglement.
Feeling blue, having the blues, the dissonant harmonies, build-up and release of tension, and the dance of rhythms that have been carried over the deep, dark blue of the middle passage. Imani Perry captures them all in an impressive cultural history of the color blue and how it, and the feelings and sensations associated with it, came to color Blackness. And even though Perry carefully notes the American imprint on her own life, the amount of skill and care for detail devoted to the narrative surpass this fact by far. North and South of the Mason-Dixon line, the Caribbean, Europe and Africa become the canvas for this search for meaning. At the same time, it is an autobiography of sorts, setting out from the blue interior of her grandmother’s home. The stories Perry explores add emotional and spiritual depth the understanding of Blackness behind Curtis Mayfield’s “people who are darker than blue,” or simply Amiri Baraka’s “blues people.” From the West African admiration and prowess in creating shades of blue to the blue notes of traditional African scales, the dignity that came with it could not be suppressed, even when the global market began to trade the producers of blue in exchange for it. The images printed in the book portray everyday and artistic receptions of the color and its deeper meanings. Perry reminds of the inherent cosmopolitanism in Blackness, without losing sight of its particular micro-histories.