Jason Timbuktu Diakité

This was absolutely one of those books that you find yourself reading by happenstance—I had never heard of the Swedish rapper and hip-hop artist Jason Diakité before picking up A Drop of Midnight, although he is apparently quite successful. Here he writes about what it was like growing up as the son of a Black American man and a white American woman in Sweden during the 70s/80s. Diakité's experiences with growing up biracial in a very ethnically homogeneous country and his discovery of show more rap are intertwined with reflections on his fraught relationship with his father and memories of the trip he took to the American Deep South to find out something about the experiences of his enslaved ancestors.

I found this an interesting and thoughtful read, and respected how much Diakité was clearly working to grapple with the complexities of his family's past. (And wow, it is complex and full of trauma. For instance, in the 1950s, his grandmother sent her children, including Diakité's father, from New York City to Nigeria to be raised in what she saw as a more uplifting and Afrocentric environment—by themselves.) However, it's a little disjointed and repetitive, and I felt that Diakité rarely settled into enough of a groove to let him go deep on a topic. Still, an engaging read from an unusual perspective. show less

Jason Diakite is a Swedish rapper, hip-hop artist. He was born in Sweden to an American white mother and an American Black father. In A Drop of Midnight he tells the story of his family. Beginning with his father’s early life in South Carolina and moves to Harlem, Army service in Korea and then to Sweden. The author made several trips to the US South to explore and document his family history. While Jason was conflicted by his mixed ancestry as a child he sees it differently now. Rather show more than seeing himself as divided by his African and European/American parts he is multiplied by wholes. Jason Diakite performs with the stage name of Timbuktu. He has won the Swedish Grammy award eight times. My fault that I hadn’t heard of him before I read this book. I will look for Timbuktu on Pandora. show less

This is one of the most unusual books I have ever read. After reading in the past year or two books by American authors Ta-Nehisi Coates, Paul Beatty and James Baldwin, I was amazed by this book not least because it tells the same story, but this time the story is being told by Swedish author Jason Diakité. It is the same story, but it is also a very different story. Every human being is unique. Read it!

6/10