Rediscovered Jessie Ware’s record earlier this week, and have been unable to stop playing my favourite track off it, Sweet Talk. It’s Sade 2.0, basically, and I AM HERE FOR IT. Inevitably, I went and watched the video again, and was charmed anew by its cuteness. Little Jessie, making all the faces of older Jessie, [...]
At a party in a pub around Christmastime, I met a woman who said she had been in love seven times in her life. My mind was blown. “Seven times?” I asked incredulously. Inwardly, I screamed “WHO ARE YOU, WOMAN?” Seven is a lot, but really, so is one: I can’t say I’ve ever been [...]
Last week on my Tumblr dashboard, Cord Jefferson (an excellent writer/editor person in NY) posted a video of Jon B’s ‘Are U Still Down?’. This is the video: Cord’s commentary went as follows: “Without Jon B. there would be no Drake. Belee dat.” And that’s the exact moment I fell in love with Cord Jefferson. [...]
With the shock passing of Whitney Houston this past weekend (I wrote something about her for the Guardian here), it’s been the perfect time for the media to showcase their spectacular ignorance/laziness when it comes to the identification of black and ‘urban’ performers.
I read a fantastic piece on Jezebel several months back, written by Danielle Belton of The Black Snob. The article was about the tiers of commercial celebrity gossip which exist within mainstream media. Citing the then-recent Alicia Keys/Swizz Beats nuptials, Belton explained why the mainstream media did not mention the controversy surrounding their union – [...]
Was feeling a little ‘meh’ when an old Spotify playlist threw this up. It’s a goody – I danced, I sang along, I reloaded it three times in the style of the pirate radio stations of my teen years. If you’re having a crappy day, this’ll make you smile. I can’t decide if I like [...]
Seriously, someone needs to tell Mos Def that I’m tired of waiting for him to come sweep me off my feet. His presence is only half the reason why I can’t stop playing this video, found via HarlemLoves. The music – a reworked version of New Orleans jazz legend Smokey Johnson’s song It Ain’t My Fault - also features Lenny [...]
Continuing the theme of May i.e. The Month of Lovely Things on Yoruba Girl Dancing, I did a lovely thing on Monday night. I went to see one of my favourite bands in the whole world, Flight of the Conchords, live in concert for the first time. I love them. I know people say that all [...]
A few months ago at Stoke Newington’s Rose and Crown pub quiz, a question came up that only three people in the entire pub knew the answer to. The question was, “Who released the album Secrets in 1996?” I didn’t even hesitate. It was, of course, Toni Braxton. I have loved Toni since the early 1990s, when [...]
Janelle Monáe is impossibly cute and impossibly talented. I first heard of her a few years ago when she appeared in Idlewild, the OutKast film. Next I heard of her was when she released Many Moons, an old school stomper of a track, with a Fifth Element-type manic video, and Andre 3000-esque dancing. It’s not [...]
A few things that have caught my ear/eye this past couple of weeks. A report in America, by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, found that the median wealth of single black women amounts to just $5, even in the prime of their working years. This is compared to $42,600 for single white women. I listened [...]
Please excuse the incoherence that’s about to unfold. So there I was in the gym yesterday, running 10 kilometres (WOO!) to nowhere, when the new Timberlake and Timbaland video came on. Accordingly, and with the appropriate amount of consideration behind it, here are a few rambling thoughts on R&B videos. (FYI, I’m including all mainstream ‘Black’ [...]
Ach. It takes a mighty man to bring the Black Friday feature (Tagline: “Cos the rest of the week ain’t Black enough!”) out of premature retirement. It takes a special man to leapfrog the bureaucracy and make Black Friday happen on a Thursday…But kudos, John Mayer. You did it. You managed to shake off the state [...]
The office where I’m temping at is pretty cool considering that it’s another manifestation of you know, The Man Inc.. While the work isn’t the most stimulating I’ve ever done (no offence to the HR specialists, but it is HR), it’s diverting enough. The team I work with is lovely and best of all, I get to [...]
Many years ago, my sister took me along to a comedy showcase at one of the most fantastic, diverse and yet criminally underrated theatres in London, Theatre Royal Stratford East [Gerry Raffles Square, E15]. That evening, we sat in the packed audience, enjoying the comedic talents of Geoff Schumann, Curtis Walker and I think a young(er) Richard [...]
