The Next Next Level

Leon Neyfakh

Juiceboxxx is talking to his audience. “What we’re gonna do right now,” he says, “is we’re gonna go to that place called the next level. How many of you motherfuckers know about that? That next level…that’s what your fuckin’ parents warned you about. That’s what your teachers warned you about. That’s what your local city alderman warned you about! They said, ‘Hey man, don’t go to that next level, ‘cuz if you go to that next level, you’re never gonna come back!’”

Juiceboxxx jumps around, the audience screams. “Well, I’m here to tell you folks, that tonight, and only tonight, at the Passion Lounge in Brooklyn, New York, not only are we gonna go to the next level, we’re gonna go to the level above the next level. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to the NEXT NEXT LEVEL! Who’s with me?”

Juiceboxxx is a not-so-successful white rap artist approaching thirty who has pursued his art since a teenager. The author is a journalist of the same age who has followed Juiceboxxx from afar – ever since seeing him perform in a church in suburban Chicago when they were both 16.

The ‘next level’ is a metaphor for Juiceboxxx’s career. At this point, having struggled for so many years – sleeping on sofas, performing for tiny audiences – Juiceboxxx is trying to figure out a way to get to the next level. He’s thinking he needs to branch out, maybe broaden his music, get a bit more poppy, distance himself in a way from some of the ‘noise’ musicians with whom he’s been fraternising and identifying all these years.

But Juiceboxxx is committed to what he does – the music and the movement and his friends – in a deep and mysterious way, so moving on is not straightforward. The author is there to document what happens.

It’s a fascinating book that raises big questions: What is art? Why do some people devote their lives to making it? What makes those people different to other people, like the author, who wish they could make art, but in the end are content to enjoy art, write about it, pursue their professions – and fall into the category of “critics”?

Juiceboxxx doesn’t fully understand why he does what he does. He’s aware of the price that he pays, the grind of it, but he doesn’t want to stop. He likes touring. He likes putting his life into words. As Neyfakh explains, ‘Watching him from three feet away as he plays through the glorious “21 on the 101”, I see a guy who has successfully turned the raw materials of his life into art that will prove timeless – if not for a million people, then at least for me, and for Willy, and for lots of others who love Juiceboxxx and would be devastated if he ever gave up.”

Neyfakh is a kind, smart young writer. He adores Juiceboxxx, he loves what Juiceboxxx does – he is dying to have a bit of what Juiceboxx has – and there’s a kind of embarrassment to these feelings that he conveys very well. His own parents are Russian Jewish immigrants to America. He embraces American popular culture in a way they cannot understand. And so you get a beautiful mix of his own story, plus thoughts about art, plus the drama of his burgeoning relationship with Juiceboxxx, who has agreed to a series of interviews.

It was a short, gripping book that shone a light on my own life. Unlike Neyfakh, who seems to have concluded at age 30 that he will never be an artist, I have continued to nurture that fantasy. This book did nothing to dispel that. It only intensified the yearning to make something of my own.

It’s terrible to have those feelings and not find the courage to embrace them and act on them.

The paradox of The Next Next Level – one that Neyfakh is far too humble and modest to notice – is that in writing a book of such brilliance he has created a wonderful work of art.