This opening is representative of the best moments in Energy Never Dies, where the writer introduces an odd and even humorous thread to the reader and then follows the line of thought across a wide and surprising rhetorical landscape. If one were to simply read the opening and closing paragraphs of each of the 10 essays that compose this book, they would not even scratch the surface of the expanse that Contreras deftly navigates across the space of a few pages.
The book, in many ways, feels akin to Contreras’ background as a DJ. Thinking of each essay as a mix where we move easily, though at times abruptly, from the silly to the serious to the historical to the personal and beyond.
Contreras breezily weaves together memoir, political history, oral history and a deep musical knowledge that defies easy categorization. While the book does hold Black Chicago as a central concern, we still see a wide discussion of topics that fall outside of that primary focus, from the history of a popular game of chance in Cuba to prominent discussion of white Chicago artists such as trumpet player and Chance The Rapper collaborator Nico Segal.