Damon Young, co-founder of Very Smart Brothas and a very smart brotha himself, released his first memoir titled, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker. The collection of essays include quirky and sensational stories about Young’s experiences growing up a neurosis-ridden, "awkward Black kid." While there is humor throughout the memoir, serious tones are highlighted in chapters about his mother's passing as well as the birth of his daughter Zoe. 

Readers walk through Young’s childhood in chapters like “Street Cred,” where he emphasizes his "downness" to his basketball teammates, and “No Homo,”  where he defends his sexuality to his peers. Hilarious chapters follow, in “Bomb-Ass Poetry,” “Broke” and “Obama Bomaya,” where Young accounts his often embarrassing dating life, struggling on a teachers salary, and his anxiety watching Obama sworn in as the first Black president. 

Blavity checked in with the newly-acclaimed author to get his insight on the success of his first book, and find out what he has in store for us next. 

Blavity: Thank you for taking our call today.

Damon Young:  No doubt, no doubt.

Blavity: So I read your "memoir in essays," What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker, and the title itself speaks volumes. How'd you come up with the title for your book, and what’s the meaning behind it?

Young: It's a funny story behind that. The original title of the book was A N***a Neurosis. My editor loved it, and my agent loved it, and everyone at HarperCollins. Then my editor talked to her people at Amazon, and her people at Barnes & Noble and they were like, "You know we love Damon. We’re excited about his book, but I don’t know if we can promote a book with that title. We can carry it but we can’t have banner ads in the front of the store that says n***a across it."

So I had to think of a different title. This time last year, I was on a plane to New Orleans going to Essence Fest, and I was working on some of the dialogue on the second draft, and "what doesn’t kill you makes you blacker" just came to me. As soon as I got off the plane, I immediately Googled it just to make sure it wasn’t already taken or someone’s bulls**t basement plan that never got off the ground. I saw it was available and I called my editor and was like, "Boom! We have a title now." 

What it means I think that we, as in Black people in general, should know by now that respectability is a f*****g fraud. Even if we try to assimilate or try to flatten your identity or culture out in a way to appease the larger white culture, it’s just not going to work. With that being the case, I think we should just allow ourselves to just marinate in Blackness and just embrace it. Be as Black as we can be. I think that’s where our salvation is and doubling down instead of trying to flatten it out. 

Blavity: Who would you say you write your memoir for?

Young: Me. [Laughs.] I am the target audience. I obviously would hope people enjoy the book, but I wanted to write a thing that I needed to write that I wanted to read. 

Blavity: I have to say my favorite chapters are “Bomb-Ass-Poetry,” “Broke,” “Living While Black Killed My Mom” and “Zoe.”  Was it difficult being transparent and sharing this much of yourself with complete strangers?

Young: Yes. [Laughs.] It was extremely. It was scary as f**k. I’ve compared it to one of those movies where you have to spend a night inside a haunted house. If you spend that night inside the haunted house you get a million dollars, but you still have to spend that night. That's what this whole process has been like, where revealing some of these things that are my deep anxiety, deep self-consciousness, deep neurosis, and sharing them with tens of thousands of people. Things that I’ve never said out loud even to people close to me. That was and still is scary as f**k. 

One thing that has happened since I’ve written the book is that the fear doesn’t subside. I've realized it doesn’t have to be a thing that makes me go the other way.  I have this anxiety, but it’s a thing that I have and it’s a thing I can work through. Talking to people about this and being in front of them answering questions about more personal, more vulnerable parts of the book has gotten easier. 

Blavity: Relating to the chapter about your daughter, what has fatherhood taught you? 

Young: I don't know if fatherhood specifically has taught me anything, but things I've learned since becoming a father. I think having children and writing this book really drove home the fallacy of performance. You read the book and I'm sure you saw much of it was me performing, me pretending things weren't true, me lying in a way to appease some aspirational notion of who I thought I was supposed to be.

I think that just having children and seeing them and seeing them grow and seeing these little humans, you want the best for them. It just reiterated that I want them to be comfortable being themselves. I don’t want them to have the same journey to being comfortable with their own skin that I did. So, as a dad, my job is to just reinforce this truth. That being vulnerable is fine, having anxiety is fine, all of that is part of what makes you human. It doesn’t mean there's something wrong with you, it just means that, that is a part of you. 

Blavity:  I love that! The internet can sometimes feed false impressions. What’s the biggest misconception you think there is about you?

Young: I don’t really think too much about how I am perceived by other people. I’ve had VSB [Very Smart Brothas] since 2008. I’ve been blogging since 2002. Who I am is pretty much out there. I'm pretty transparent, so if a person who's familiar with me has the wrong ideas about me then they haven’t been reading. 

Blavity: What do you want folks to take away from reading your memoir, especially young, Black men?

Young: More than anything, I want them to enjoy it. I wrote a book that I needed to write, but it’s also a book that I intended to be entertaining. I want people to laugh and enjoy it. There are some heavy chapters, like the one about my mom and some chapters in the middle are pretty heavy and deal with heavy things. I want people to just be like I really enjoy this book.

In terms of education, I hope the idea of performance is one that is really reiterated and driven home. They see that these things I’m experiencing; I’m not alone, I felt these things too. I hope they find themselves in it through my experience and through my vulnerability and revealing my anxiety and neurosis. When you deal with those types of things, it alters your mind a bit and can produce a bit of claustrophobia. You start to believe that you're the only one, particularly when you’re younger. Once you realize that you’re not the only one, it’s also how empathy is cultivated. When you see that we all have the same stuff inside of us, I'm not that special. [Laughs.] I mean, I'm unique because every human is unique. 

Blavity: How have your family and friends reacted to your memoir stories, especially those you mentioned by name?

Young: It’s been all love and support, especially from my dad and my wife. I let them know before I wrote the book that these are the things I plan on writing, and if you have any issues with it let me know. I’ll make whatever adjustments necessary. If you have any reservations let me know, and I’ll make whatever changes necessary. 

Blavity: Do you have any plans for writing another book in the near future?

Young: I kind of have to, I have a  two-book deal. [Laughs.] So it’s a requirement.  Right now, we are dealing with things that have happened as a result of the book. I just finished touring and it's the first month; I’ve had a long rest and been home since January. There are other opportunities that have popped up because of the book. Right now, my focus has been on getting a handle on everything that has happened as a result of this book. We’ll start thinking about book two probably next year.

Blavity: That's awesome! It's almost next year.

Young: Yeah, we almost there.

Blavity: Speaking of books, what books are currently on your summer reading list?

Young: That's one of the great things about not being on tour anymore is that I have more time to read. Some of the books I looking forward to reading are Ibram Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist and I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays by Bassey Ikpi. 

Blavity: What advice would you give to up and coming writers and bloggers?

Young: Just start writing. Read a lot. Create a schedule for yourself to write every day. One thing that helped me was being broke. You can be broke in Pittsburgh in a way that you can't be broke in New York City or D.C. Marry someone who is rich, if you’re trying to make a living as a writer. It helps to have money, so marry someone who has it. I didn’t do that, I married out of love. But if you want to marry for money, more power to you. 

Blavity: Thank you Damon. It was a pleasure talking to you. Where can the Blavity fam reach you on social media?

Young: @DamonYoungVSB on Twitter and Instagram. I also have my website damonjyoung.com, and also Very Smart Brothas. There are many ways to reach me and define me. So going back to your misconception question, if you have a misconception at this point, I don't know what to tell you. 

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker is available on harpercollins.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other places where books are sold.