Another month, another set of recommendations.
Here’s some sounds, words, images, and echos I’ve been sitting with. As usual, these finds have caused stirrings, reflections, and pinpricks of recognition.
Awaiting CMAT’s new album Euro-Country, out later this month. As a songwriter, CMAT captures anguish in a deliciously subtle way. The title single taps into the psyche of a generation defined by the fallout of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger era, an economic boom which saw one of Western Europe’s poorest countries transform into a beacon of prosperity. Post-2008, these hopes and ambitions were reduced to the desolation of an empty shopping centre. All you can do is dance around in the ashes of a dream, preferably wading in the ground floor fountain. “I think we're gonna die trying / I wish we weren't this way.”
Darat al Funun’s video archive consistently offers up gems. Launched in 1988 by the artist Suha Shoman, the Amman-based artistic hub has been a leading incubator of research, criticality, and experimentation in the region. (On more than one occasion, I’ve found a book in its library stacks that has transformed the direction of a project). Here’s Mourid Barghouti reading poems in the summer of 1994. I also appreciated Jacob Ross discussing the weight of Caribbean literary legacies in 2001.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in Oxford. Richard, a charismatic busker, is a local fixture, belting a truly unpredictable array of songs on Cornmarket Street almost daily. He has an incredibly droll sense of humour, and I’m glad someone interviewed him. He’s such a gas.
I love when an artist milks the living daylights out of a song. Benin City-raised Shallipopi’s “Laho” is my earworm of the summer, though it feels like a new version drops on a biweekly basis. The latest, a collaboration with Puerto Rican idol Rauw Alejandro, is a testament to the culturally unstoppable forces of Afrobeats and Reggaeton, arguably the two most globally dominant musical genres of our times.
The Deep South Books and Archive. South African poetry press Deep South hosts a free-to-access digital archive of interviews, performance videos, articles, reviews, and newspaper clippings relating to their authors. This includes writers like Taban Lo Liyong, Ari Sitas, and Lesego Rampolokeng (a favourite of mine). It’s a real treasure trove. Here’s an excerpt that’s stayed with me, from an interview with Rampolokeng and Ike Mboneni Muila.
“There is also this moral point that's always being poked in our faces, that you have to write for the masses. But those masses are not defined, you just have to write for the masses, and there is this standard that's being placed on just how high the word should jump or not for it to be celebrated. I've always believed that if you say this is the level the masses are, and pitch the word at that level, what you're actually doing is contributing to keeping those masses at that level. I don't go with that at all.”
I loved this essay on Bolaño, the “perfect outsider” and friend. It’s about the kind of imbalance in status and success that often unravels cherished friendships. In this case, it doesn’t. Friendship can force you to confront your own patterns of self-denial. Sincere friends recognise in you the gifts you refuse to accept. They are the best of mirrors.
What does it mean to give something back without being subservient? What does it mean to leave something behind, regardless of citizenry? Some questions posed in this conversation between anthropologist Laure Assaf and writer Deepak Unnikrishnan on guest editing Wasafiri’s UAE Issue. I’ve been a fan of Unnikrishnan’s work for years, and so many of the writers and thinkers featured in this issue have deepened and complicated how I see the Gulf, in all its entangled hyperreality. The region’s emerging literatures reflect the relentless and disorienting pace of change in Gulf society. Paradoxically, so much opens up when the pageantry of belonging is off the table. The foundations are shakier, and more interesting questions can be asked. A highlight from this exchange:
“I think speaking about belonging is a done deal for some of us. Call us second or third generation, long-term transplants; just don’t call us third culture. Talking about belonging, claiming shit, felt edgy even close to a decade ago. Not anymore. Partly because the country has recognised the need to push/urge some people (and their children) to stay, which explains schemes like the Golden Visa, or pushing adverts celebrating everyone’s place in the country. And once the state has begun to participate in conversations about belonging, it is time, in my opinion, to recalibrate and think about other things. This doesn’t mean transience goes away, but transience is felt differently by different parts/classes of UAE society. There is also more to the transient experience than thoughts about the homeland. Frankly, some of us have been transient for so long, we need to be called by other names; and we have other interests besides pining for home.”
That’s all for now. A languid summer awaits, but I’ll keep sharing what excites me here and elsewhere.