
Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for the Real James Brown
Kill 'Em and Leave is more than a book about James Brown. Brown embodied the contradictions of American life: He was an unsettling symbol of the tensions between North and South, black and white, rich and poor. After receiving a tip that promises to uncover the man behind the myth, James McBride goes in search of the "real" James Brown. McBride's travels take him to forgotten corners of Brown's never-before-revealed history, illuminating not only our understanding of the immensely troubled, misunderstood, and complicated Godfather of Soul, but the ways in which our cultural heritage has been shaped by Brown's enduring legacy.
Buy this book at Amazon- Publisher
- Random House
- Year
- 2016
- ISBN-13
- 9780679645627
- Genre
- Biography & Memoir
- Topics
- James BrownSoul music historyRace and American culture
Awards
- Los Angeles Times Book Prize for BiographyShortlisted(2016)
Other awarded books from James McBride
If you liked Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for the Real James Brown, you could also like these

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
James McBride
1 win · 5 score

Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story
Timothy Tyson
0 wins · 4 score

Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War
T. J. Stiles
0 wins · 3 score

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
Hanif Abdurraqib
0 wins · 4 score

Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black
Gregory Howard Williams
1 win · 8 score

A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance
Hanif Abdurraqib
1 win · 12 score

Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South
Winfred Rembert† and Erin I. Kelly
1 win · 12 score

Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
Kevin Sack
0 wins · 4 score

The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X and Alex Haley
1 win · 5 score

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
Manning Marable
1 win · 29 score

Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
Kevin Boyle
1 win · 20 score

Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism
Thomas Brothers
0 wins · 4 score

Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
Imani Perry
0 wins · 3 score

Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary
Joe Jackson
1 win · 6 score

Black Like Me
John Howard Griffin
1 win · 5 score