Wow.
I went to the Deep Vellum’s inaugural Music & Literature Festival (https://www.deepvellum.org/festival) on Saturday, July 11, 2026, at the behest of my daughter who has been following the main act, Mr. Hanif Abdurraqib, for a while now. She has a few of his books and has met him, chatted briefly about basketball, and here we are.
A festival that’s flava in y’all’s ears
The festival was a three-day affair, from July 10-12, and the headliner night we went to was so much fun! Mr. Abdurraqib was awesome! What a phenom at the mic. What a wonderful view into his life and experiences—his upbringing from Ohio, his journeys in critiquing music, especially the punk scene—the man is a writer.
After his readings, which author readings are always a treat, because not only do you hear how the author wanted it presented, the passion, the dictation, the recitation, you sometimes get the background behind the missives, like in this instance, why does Mr. Abdurraqib write so much about Marvin Gaye? Well, he told us why. Mr. Abdurraqib talked about reading and watching his interviews and how crazy good and how just simply crazy they were.
From one of his essays in 2021, as taken from udiscovermusic.com : “I am confronted with the reality of what Marvin was carrying within when he made it (What’s Going on). The concurrent losses, and traumas, and confusions. He was holding all of that, on top of holding the instability of a country that didn’t make the same sense to him as it used to.”
He also name-dropped like crazy about the Black punk music scene in Detroit, Memphis, Houston and Ohio. I am not familiar at all with any music scene, much less Black punk, so I had to try to memorize everything. Memorize? For sure. Taking out your phone to look something up while it’s going on is the same as getting your camera ready to catch a breaching whale. Blink and you miss something.
Plus, I felt it would’ve been rather rude. You know?
So, with my overwhelmed mind, inundated with name-drops here and there, cultural anecdotes acá y allá, I tried to remember to look up Carl Craig, and Alternative Press and a whole host of other things, so I could fully understand what he was imparting. Who are these people and what are these institutions and how have they helped shape the Black music scene? Turns out, they did a lot. That’s a rabbit hole for another day.
Gatekeepers of culture
So what does this have to do about children’s literature?
After the readings of his poetry and essays, Mr. Abdurraqib had an interview with Mr. Lawrence Burney, writer, editor, critic, and founder of True Laurels, an independent magazine covering Baltimore’s music and culture scene. Mr. Burney was on top of things with great questions that really brought out more of what made Mr. Abdurraqib get where he is today, both physically and mentally.
Some of the things that really struck me was Mr. Abdurraqib’s assertion that Black punk music infrastructure wasn’t being supported by cities these days. Mr. Burney brought up social media and how, nowadays, some acts can be discovered merely by a viral TikTok. However, they both agreed this wasn’t a sustainable way to promote and maintain fresh voices in music.
There was something about being in person, something about being at a venue, or at a house show, being physically present that is really missed when you watch or listen solely through a screen or ear pods. The atmosphere, the vibe, adds to the overall reception in one’s mind.
Mr. Abdurraqib said Detroit was letting venues that played Black punk acts get closed. That Detroit, amongst other cities, were letting others, who have no stake in Black arts and culture, be gatekeepers. These others decided who, what, where and when.
House shows were becoming a scarcity because the houses that were offering house shows were now being bought out for commercial purposes; thus raising the prices overall for housing, which led to regular people, who would have wanted to have house shows, being priced out of those houses.
So, Mr. Abdurraqib talked about cities that proactively try to bring back or keep venues that cater to Black art and culture. Proactively make laws where housing is affordable, so they may be used for house parties and spreading of arts and culture.
So, in my mind, I was hearing all this and I was thinking wow!
Then, I think, wow.
Gatekeepers to children’s education
What if we apply this thought process to children’s literature through education, especially in black and brown communities? There are gatekeepers that say hey, we are pouring money in those kids’ educations, they have the brand new iPads, top of the line AI instruction, the Promethean Board—the high-tech, digital, probably 30x more expensive version of an 80’s overhead projector, what are you saying we aren’t putting your money where our mouth is? We’re spending money on these kids!
But…but…but…is the money being spent wisely? Fort Worth Independent School District increased their funding from $700 million in 2015 to over $1.1 billion in 2026 to serve a district that has, according to an article from Fort Worth Report, lost nearly 13,000 students since 2019 and expects to lose more than 6,500 by 2030.3
What’s going on here? We are losing students, yet, the budget to teach these children are rising? The inversion would be fine if it increased the productive output. But, when we look at FWISD’s reading scores from the Fort Worth Report—
—we can see that FWISD third graders (and if we break it down, we are talking about the predominantly Black and Brown schools that suffer the most in disparity of scores) are still lagging behind Texas in general, (averaging 10 percentage points) over the past eight years in reading proficiency. All that extra money for little to no progress? What is going on here?
I know this: when my kids were in the FWISD, they started limiting the time for libraries in school. Just like they started cutting the nurse hours. The school nurse was in the school maybe once or twice a week if lucky. As of late, now they’re doing it to school librarians. And they wonder why FWISD literacy rates and reading proficiency scores went down?
And now the FWISD is taken over by the state of Texas? The state has little to no stake in the education and literacy of children in Fort Worth. They are so far removed from the city, its people and its children. Gatekeepers with no stake in the matter are now making major decisions in the education of Fort Worth’s children.
Back to Mr. Abdurraqib’s and Deep Vellum’s Music and Literature Festival. I should’ve attended all three days. I wish I did. As it was, I only attended the headliner day, Saturday, and I loved it. We need more of that. More of intellectual stimulation, where we study culture, especially Black, Brown, and other people’s of color, music and literature, and the melding and the melting of it all.
Can we keep the gatekeepers of Fort Worth’s children’s education and therefore, their cultivation of literature to those who have a stake in the matter? That is, the community they’re in. In other words, Fort Worth City itself? Localize the oversight rather than broaden it out to state level, which has seemingly caused a mass exodus of teachers in its wake. Shorten the circle of influence to those who a.) knows what’s going on in that community and b.) have a stake in the matter.
This is our community! Not some bureaucrats in Austin!
What can we do?
Can we use festivals like Deep Vellum’s to inspire, stir the mind and pot, synergize, and collaborate? Make plans that further ideas for the children in our neighborhoods?
Can we use festivals like Deep Vellum’s to encourage the growth of Black and Brown children’s literacy rates?
Can we use festivals like Deep Vellum’s to remove gatekeepers of Black and Brown music and literature?
As to gatekeepers of children’s literature for Black and Brown communities via outside of school avenues, like the Big Five of Publishing…well, another rabbit hole for another day.
Thank you, Mr. Abdurraqib and Mr. Burney. Thank you, Deep Vellum for having a venue to express these ideas. And thank you if you read this far. Let’s keep fighting for our children’s culture and literacy.
Jennifer