| | | Oumou Sangaré: Timbuktu review – sweet and tender sorrows | | by Kitty Empire May 1, 2022 | | (Oumsang/World Circuit)
This subtle, highly accessible album finds the Malian superstar lamenting the political turbulence of her homeland from afar One of the most compelling aspects of Malian superstar Oumou Sangaré’s music has been the interplay of her hard-hitting subjects – forced marriage, war – and her sinuous, easygoing tunes. Her authoritative voice is often offset by an all-female chorus, supplying the solidarity her songs invoke. But Sangaré’s range encompasses tenderness and suffering too, rarely more so than on this hugely accessible record that reaches across borders in subtle but inveigling ways. West Africa birthed the lope of the blues – see Sarama, a song discouraging jealousy – but there are resonances here, too, of many different folk-fingerpicking techniques, and lush effects applied to the guitars, koras and kamele ngoni. Timbuktu, Sangaré’s ninth outing, is named after the legendary city, one sacked by Islamist insurgents a decade ago, and stands in for the political problems ongoing across west Africa. And although this album was written at her new house in Baltimore, when Sangaré got stuck there during lockdown, many of these tracks look to her home region of Wassoulou, whose sung heritage and stringed instruments she has turned into an international world music phenomenon. This activist and businesswoman flexes hard for her community’s progress on Wassulu Don, but on Demissimw, a lonesome ballad about children affected by war, her sorrow is front and centre. Continue reading... | | | | | African photography gets a showcase at pioneering London gallery | | by Rob Walker May 1, 2022 | | Spotting a gap in the market, two friends have set up Doyle Wham to spotlight the continent’s neglected talent Of the hundreds of galleries in London, none has been given over exclusively to the growing and vibrant market for African photography. Until now, that is. Doyle Wham is the creation of two young Londoners who are eschewing Britain’s “elite” art scene to open what they say is the country’s first ever gallery dedicated exclusively to African photographers. Continue reading... | | | | | Children's book on the Queen's jubilee given cold shoulder by schools in Wales and Scotland | | by Vanessa Thorpe May 1, 2022 | | Details released of tale about Queen’s 70-year reign, which is felt to be too ‘Anglocentric’ by devolved governments The platinum jubilee children’s book due to go out to every state primary school pupil to celebrate the Queen this month will not be welcomed in all Welsh or Scottish schools. On the request of the Scottish and Welsh governments, schools in those regions will be asked instead to opt-in to receive copies. Continue reading... | | | | | Kate Nash: 'Giving up would have been so easy' | | by Michael Segalov May 1, 2022 | | Kate Nash signed her first record deal at just 19 – and her 2008 song, ‘Foundations’, is a generation’s anthem. Then her world unravelled. Here, the musician reveals how wrestling saved her – and why when life gave her lemons it didn’t make her bitter Early in the summer of 2019, only weeks before a documentary about her was due to go live on the BBC, Kate Nash found herself in a state of total panic. Five years in the making, when the recording had originally kicked off for Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl, its producers had planned to make a film capturing Nash’s life as she knew it then: a late 20-something singer – known to most for her chart-topping, era- defining 2007 debut album Made of Bricks – continuing to carve out a career for herself out of the spotlight as an independent recording artist. There’d be struggles, yes: going it alone in the industry is a relentless hustle. But nine months into filming, Nash’s world unravelled in ways she could never have predicted. Work was already stalling; music execs were uninterested in both her own punk-rock offerings and the more commercial pop lyrics she was attempting to sell. Then she discovered her money was gone; her manager had been misappropriating – or at least misspending – it. A lengthy legal battle ensued and Nash was forced to move back home to north London with her parents unable to make rent, flogging her belongings for survival. Although talk of her personal life and mental health went mostly unspoken in documentary’s final cut, it’s clear to see she was quite seriously struggling. Continue reading... | | | | | Casablanca Beats review – Morocco's vibrant school of hip-hop | | by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic May 1, 2022 | | Nabil Ayouch’s grittily authentic tale of a rapper turned teacher helping his students find their creative voices is a class act The Arabic title of Franco-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s empowering hip-hop fable translates loosely as “rise your voice”, while in France, where the film competed for the Cannes Palme d’Or, it’s known as Haut et fort – “high and loud”. Both monikers perfectly capture the vibrant spirit of this stirring street musical, described by its creator as arising out of “the desire to make a film to give voice to young people”. On one level it’s a patchwork of popular cinematic tropes, combining the strength-through-music themes of films as diverse as 8 Mile and School of Rock with the inspirational classroom formats of everything from Blackboard Jungle to Dead Poets Society. But there’s also a strong whiff of the discursive politics of Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom, mixed with the accessible rebellion of Jafar Panahi’s Offside or Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang – a heady brew indeed. Real-life rapper turned teacher Anas Basbousi keeps things close to home as new teacher at an arts centre in the Sidi Moumen district of Casablanca, an area still stained by the spectre of fomenting terrorism. On his first day, Anas boldly spray-paints the wall of his classroom, only to be told that it’s not his classroom – it’s a classroom, one that is used by others who don’t necessarily appreciate his rebellious free-form vibe. Tensions increase when Anas meets his class, played by screen first-timers scouted at Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen (a cultural centre co-founded by Ayouch), whose real lives inspired their fictional on-screen alter egos. As each student takes the floor to show the new teacher what they can do, he dismissively bats aside their efforts, accusing them of failing to use their authentic voices and reducing one misfit to tears for bragging about a life that bears little resemblance to his own. Continue reading... | | | | | | | Director of new Bob Marley movie casts actor with no musical training | | by Dalya Alberge May 1, 2022 | | ‘I was more interested in his acting,’ says Reinaldo Marcus Green in his decision to choose a rising star of British film and theatre to play the king of reggae He was the king of reggae, a giant of Jamaican music whose life was cut short in 1981, aged just 36. Now Bob Marley is to be celebrated on the big screen with a film that will be shot in London and Jamaica this autumn. Kingsley Ben-Adir, a rising star of British film and theatre, whose previous roles include Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, will play Marley in the Paramount movie. Continue reading... | | | | | Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK by Simon Kuper – review | | by Tim Adams May 1, 2022 | | A penetrating analysis of the connections that enabled an incestuous university network to dominate Westminster and give birth to Brexit is perceptive and full of surprises At a “slave auction” at the Oxford Union in 1987 – an “opportunity to buy your favourite union person for the evening” – there was, according to the university newspaper, frenzied bidding for the services of the kilt-wearing 19-year-old Michael Gove. He went for £35. Gove was known at the time as one of the three pre-eminent orators in the small world of the university debating chamber – the others were Nick Robinson, future BBC political editor, and Simon Stevens, until recently chief executive of NHS England. The previous year’s union president, Boris Johnson, failed to show up for the slave auction and was sold in absentia. Johnson’s own rhetorical style differed from the self-conscious rigour of his peers. He had learned, Simon Kuper writes, in debates at Eton, “to defeat opponents whose arguments were better simply by ignoring their arguments”. He offered instead “carefully timed jokes, calculated lowerings of the voice, and ad hominem jibes”. In this manner, he had won the election to union presidency with the help of various self-described “votaries in the Boris cult”, including Gove and future Covid sceptic Toby Young. Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK by Simon Kuper is published by Profile (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply Continue reading... | | | | | |
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