140 x 190mm, 112 pages, Black & white printing, Perfect bound, Softcover, 2026

Moving between word and image, the call-and-response collaboration between writer Christopher R. Rogers and photographer Karim Brown improvises a contemporary portrait of present-day Black Philadelphia, replete with the unfinished activism present since the transnational upsurge of the George Floyd Uprising.

Arriving five years after the crucible of that period, this experimental essay-as-LP challenges Black Philadelphians to prioritize the urgency of reckoning with our own hang-ups and half-steps and to reground ourselves within the daily, prefigurative life-work of rehearsing Black liberation. This is a hyperlocal, future-forward recommitment to ongoing principled struggle and a hopeful model of contemporary self-criticism.

The title takes its inspiration from the late, beloved Uptown Philadelphia rapper PnB Rock, whose successful mixtape single “My City Need Something” challenged us all to strive for clarity in a ubiquitously-consumed, and altogether presumed, Black suffering in a city resplendent with Black joy.

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