The Queer Books to Read in 2022 – Dazed

808s & Otherworlds: Memories, Remixes, & Mythologies announces a bold and incendiary new voice in Sean Avery Medlin. Against the backdrop of the Phoenix suburbs where they were raised, Medlin interrogates the effects of media misrepresentation on the performance of Black masculinity. Through storytelling rhymes and vulnerable narratives in conversation with both contemporary Hip-Hop culture and systemic anti-Blackness, 808s & Otherworlds pieces together a speculative reality where Blackfolk are simultaneously superhuman and dehumanized.

From the gut-wrenchingly real stories of young lovers unmythed by segregation or former classmates appropriating Black culture, to the fantastic settings of Hip-Hop songs and comic characters, Medlin weaves a tapestry of worlds and otherworlds while composing a love letter to family and self, told to an undeniably energetic beat.

 

“808s & Otherworlds: Memories, Remixes, & Mythologies purrs with variety and energy, with riffs on Black masculinity, anime, gaming, rap, gender identity, and dislocation in Phoenix’s western suburbs. The drum machine in the title (the Roland TR-808) is a perfect tease to the rhythm of Medlin’s words rendered in prose.” —Michelle Beaver, The Los Angeles Review of Books

“Don’t sleep on the unpredictable 808s & Otherworlds… an elegant mash of memoir, poetry, tales of appropriation, thoughts on Black masculinity, Hulk, Kanye.” —Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune

Sean Avery Medlin (he/they) is a gamer and Hip-Hop nerd, whose only wish in this world is to watch an unproblematic Black sci-fi T.V. show. Till then, Medlin teaches creative writing and guides cultural work for organizations across the U.S., while also creating rap, poetry, prose, and performance. 

Dead Ink, 2013, 132pages.