"Hold tight. The way to go mad without losing your mind is sometimes unruly." So begins La Marr
Jurelle Bruce's urgent provocation and poignant meditation on madness in black radical art.
Bruce theorizes four overlapping meanings of madness: the lived experience of an unruly mind
the psychiatric category of serious mental illness the emotional state also known as "rage "
and any drastic deviation from psychosocial norms. With care and verve he explores the mad in
the literature of Amiri Baraka Gayl Jones and Ntozake Shange in the jazz repertoires of
Buddy Bolden Sun Ra and Charles Mingus in the comedic performances of Richard Pryor and Dave
Chappelle in the protest music of Nina Simone Lauryn Hill and Kendrick Lamar and beyond.
These artists activate madness as content form aesthetic strategy philosophy and energy in
an enduring black radical tradition. Joining this tradition Bruce mobilizes a set of
interpretive practices affective dispositions political principles and existential
orientations that he calls "mad methodology." Ultimately How to Go Mad without Losing Your
Mind is both a study and an act of critical ethical radical madness.
