black culture
Album: Janelle Monáe - The Age of PleasureWednesday, 07 June 2023
There’s been a good deal of discussion on “the socials” about how much Janelle Monáe’s sexy image is a new thing or a big deal.Casual viewers, still stuck on the suit-wearing image with which she crashed into public consciousness in 2010, have acted... Read more... |
Album: Steel Banglez - The PlaylistMonday, 22 May 2023
There is a truly fascinating story to be written about the hidden Punjabi influence on UK bass music. Maybe it’s natural for kids growing up with the huge booming sounds of dhol and tabla drums to gravitate to big bass speakers, but some of the most... Read more... |
Glory to Sound: Linton Kwesi Johnson, Brighton Festival 2023 review - a reggae rebel's life in musicMonday, 15 May 2023
Straight-backed at 70, Linton Kwesi Johnson wears the smart garb of a British Caribbean elder – trilby, cream jacket, West Indies maroon jumper and tie, grey trousers, blue socks and grey shoes. His voice has resonant, slow-rolling authority... Read more... |
Blue, English National Opera review - the company’s boldest vindication yet?Monday, 24 April 2023
Two recent operas by women have opened in London’s two main houses within a week. Both have superbly crafted librettos dealing with gun violence without a shot being fired, giddyingly fine production values and true ensembles guided by perfect... Read more... |
Ain't Too Proud, Prince Edward Theatre review - Temptations musical is none too temptingSaturday, 22 April 2023
Ain’t Too Proud? Ain’t too good either, I’m afraid. Which is a shame as there’s plenty of the raw material here that powers juggernaut jukebox musicals around the world, but this production has the feel of a cruise ship show with a much tighter band... Read more... |
Album: The Selecter - Human AlgebraSaturday, 15 April 2023
To music-lovers of the era, The Selecter are known as part of the 2-Tone ska explosion which blew up as the 1970s turned into the 1980s. The Selecter were right in the middle of that, their eponymous song on the B-side of The Specials’ debut single... Read more... |
Album: Dave Okumu and the Seven Generations - I Came from LoveFriday, 14 April 2023
It’s hard to think of an album that’s simultaneously as dramatic and as restrained as this. But then Dave Okumu has always put his music and ideas out into the world in the subtlest of ways.As a guitarist he’s been omnipresent for many years,... Read more... |
Diana Evans: A House for Alice review - lyrical sequel to Ordinary PeopleTuesday, 04 April 2023
Diana Evans specialises in houses, their baleful quirks and the meaning of home. In her acclaimed third novel, Ordinary People (2018), formerly happy, black couple Melissa and Michael live in a crooked, malevolent Victorian terraced house in south... Read more... |
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy, Apollo Theatre review - a turbo-charged, game-changing piece of theatreMonday, 03 April 2023
For a show that comes with a trigger warning about the themes of racism, gang violence, toxic relationships, sexual abuse, child abuse, domestic violence and suicide it will tackle, For Black Boys… is unexpectedly joyful.Its thorny subjects are... Read more... |
Black Superhero, Royal Court review - ambitious, but messySaturday, 25 March 2023
The act of idol worship is, at one and the same time, both distantly ancient and compellingly contemporary. Whether it is Superman, Wonder Woman or Black Panther, our love of the superhero is both an aspiration and an abnegation. Looking at a star,... Read more... |
The Sacrifice, Dada Masilo, Brighton Dome review - eye-popping dance from South AfricaFriday, 24 February 2023
The Soweto-born dancer-choreographer Dada Masilo has made her name telling classic European stories in African dialect. The last piece she toured in the UK was a striking Giselle in which the avenging Wilis were not undead brides but ancestral... Read more... |
Benjamin, Jaya-Ratnam, Harper, Milton Court review - black musicians take centre stageWednesday, 22 February 2023
This recital was a welcome opportunity to hear songs by a panoply of black composers – many of them women – ranging from Amanda Aldridge (1866-1956) to Ella Jarman-Pinto (b.1989), performed with extrovert glee by Nadine Benjamin, accompanied by... Read more... |
