The introduction theorizes deathlife and sets out some contextual considerations regarding its function. The history of the United States in relationship to Blackness is a history of demise—an often-denied performance of what this book names deathlife, which critiques the perspective that life and death are distinct. Over against cultural production that seeks to distinguish life and death, one of the more compelling narrations of this configuration comes from hip hop culture. In certain ways, hip hop culture—particularly the lyrical content of rap music—offers a language, an alternate grammar and vocabulary, for articulating the nature and meaning of deathlife. The introduction, in setting out this argument, offers the methodological and theoretical underpinning (for example, Afropessimism and Black moralism) for the larger book.