Let Me Taste is a fictional, artistically written hip hop love story told by Karasi Burgundi, the main character of the book Laced Bloodline (2011). Karasi kept a journal throughout her trying journey to safety; these pages often provided refuge to escape the horrors of unimaginable mental and emotional anguish she and her family faced during the days of and following Hurricane Katrina. Let Me Taste is Karasi’s collection of journaled entries fused as one story, etched in poetry, revealed in dreams and with intimate pizzazz, expressed with ole school hip hop lyrics and alongside struggle and grief - all in search of sweetness and sanity. The author’s commentary, found at the end of the story, briefly explains the resilience of a politically oppressed group of people situated densely in one geographical space. Harris points to thriving underlying generational beliefs and behaviors, subsisting with shared culture, which is lived experience regardless of whether it is researched with logic or seen through an empirical lens. Shared culture, passed through generations, is life for constructively defined black communities in New Orleans.

A tale told from within a tale, Let Me Taste is a lyrical rollercoaster of storytelling. The characters (every single one, a main idea) dance across each page: naked and discovering at every turn. This is New Orleans, this is blackness, this is hip hop…this is life in motion. Dr. Kendra Harris’ brilliant word artistry, supported by her study of human nature, does not disappoint.

• Asia Rainey-Ani, Nine Pages Media