My City Need Something - by Christopher R Rogers (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

And I know that lately / My city has been crazy.

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.

And I don't know what it is but my city need something / I swear we need something different but I don't know what it is.

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.

Review Quotes

"A historiography of a Black Existence that blooms with the care and criticism of its poetry and photography. Full of Rogers' beautiful odes and missives on everyone from Nathaniel Mackey and Lorraine Hansberry to Rakim "PnB" Allen and Tina Campt, and set alongside karim brown's loving glimpses of city life, this book tugs hard at the drawstrings of its sweatsuit and keeps the reader tight and ready, exactly where we want to be." --Anne Ishii, writer and musician based in Philadelphia and New York, and the program director of United States Artists

"I appreciate that it's not a traditional text--you can open any page and find a "word" like a holy book. My City Need Something is a collaboration that feels like a barber shop conversation." --Jeannine A. Cook, owner of Harriett's Book Shop and author of It's Me They Follow

"Incredible and inspiring. karim brown's photographs capture the block's electricity, Chris Rogers's writing carries us through its griefs to hope, and together they expand the horizons of our dreams." --Elias Rodriques, author of All the Water I've Seen is Running

"A meditation on our lives interwoven with fibers that bind us to love despite pain and alienation. Christopher Rogers and karim brown's analyses, prose, and images press us into meditating on Nina Simone's wish to feel free, thus this text enables us to become so." --Joy James, author of New Bones Abolition and editor of Confronting Counterinsurgency

"This lyrical testament to the power of Black community in Philadelphia and beyond combines finely wrought essays by activist and educator Rogers (How We Stay Free), vibrant snapshots from photographer karim brown...a radiant vision of a hopeful Black present and future." --Publishers Weekly

"My City Need Something is a genre-blurring work of nonfiction that reads like a layered record blending essays, reflection, and visual storytelling to capture the texture of contemporary Black life in Philadelphia. It reflects on organizing, resilience, and everyday joy while wrestling with the city's realities. Drawing inspiration from a song by the late PnB Rock, the project channels both urgency and hope, urging a grounded, community-centered commitment to change and honest self-examination." --Octavia McBride Ahebee, poet and author of Praise Song for the Gravediggers

About the Author

Christopher R. Rogers, Ph.D is a Philadelphia-based cultural organizer and educator hailing from Chester, PA with more than a decade of experience in supporting radical arts, culture, and community-building. He's currently a Facilitator with the W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition & Reconstruction and co-coordinates the Friends of The Tanner House, incubating a revitalized National Historic Landmark rowhome that Dr. Carter G. Woodson once dubbed the "center of Black intellectual life in Philadelphia." He's previously published with Common Notions as Lead Editor for How We Stay Free: Notes on a Black Uprising (2022) alongside novelist Fajr Muhammad.

karim brown is a documentary photographer and teacher from Philadelphia. He has roots both in West and North Philly where he has been committed to documenting Black folks ways of knowing and doing. Keeping the Black Philadelphia community and its people at the forefront of his mind, karim uses photography to intimately engage with folk in the community.