Self-Made and Blues-Rich is a concise history of African American music in the author's original poetry and ink-and-pencil drawings. The spirituals, blues, ragtime, jazz, gospel, rap, and more are captured in word and line that sing with black rhythms, timbres, and tones.

"This collection is like a finely compressed jewel of African American meanings. The graphics of the volume are a wonderful complement to the resonant poetry. The spirit of African American song and instrumentation is stunningly captured in an appropriately tailored space". -- Houston A. Baker, Jr. Professor of English, The University of Pennsylvania

"Both sensuously lyrical and poignantly vernacular, Jon Michael Spencer's poetry eloquently gives witness to the varied voices, rhythms, and gestures of black people and begs to be lifted from these pages and performed!" -- D. Soyini Madison Professor of Communications, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"It is not easy to effectively write poetry or make art about music. Yet Jon Michael Spencer has succeeded in doing both, with honesty, humor, insight, and all of the senses marshalled toward a deep understanding of African American expression and feeling". -- Richard J. Powell Professor of Art, Duke University