No Skips: Mos Def - Black on Both Sides

Hello,

A new season is upon us — and so is the next No Skips party! We're thrilled to welcome Dominic Wagner, who performs as Cazeaux O.S.L.O., joining us on July 6 to listen together to Mos Def's landmark 1999 debut, Black on Both Sides. Tickets here.

This month's First Chapter book is Virginia Woolf's 1929 polemic A Room of One's Own, selected by guest curator Teju Cole — novelist, photographer, and one of the most singular thinkers writing today. Teju will be joining us LIVE, and it promises to be a special evening. Tickets still available.

Thanks to everyone who braved the rain and made it along on Monday for this month's No Skips party. What a way to welcome in winter by listening to Kind of Blue on the centenary of Miles Davis's birth.

Noteworthy:

If you're looking for your next book, I highly recommend June's 'First Chapter' guest curator, Teju Cole's most recent novel, Tremor. Cole is one of the most distinctive voices writing today, and this book is no exception. It's a hard one to describe; meditative, precise in its prose, and unsettling in the best way. No writer has influenced and shaped my thinking quite like Cole.

For something shorter, don't miss my essay in the June issue of The Monthly in which I analyse Emerald Fennell’s Brontë adaptation, Wuthering Heights, through the lens of Susan Sontag’s critique of the romantic, non-political, race-obsessed films of fascism.

If you're in Melbourne, make time for Retrograde, a new play by Ryan Calais Cameron, currently showing at the Melbourne Recital Centre until June 27. It tells the story of a young Sidney Poitier's career-defining encounter with Hollywood powerbrokers, set against the McCarthyite pressure on Black performers like Poitier and Paul Robeson to denounce communism. Donné Ngabo, who plays the young Poitier, is a revelation.

On the subject of Paul Robeson, there's a remarkable documentary about his life made by an East German filmmaker in the 1980s that is well worth your time. It's thoughtful and offers a rare perspective on Robeson. Best of all, it's streaming for free on Kanopy (all you need is a library card).

For your ears, Malcolm after Mecca from S.O CRATES, from the band led by July's 'No Skips' guest curator, Dominic Wagner. It is urgent, and blends jazz-infused boom-bap, soul, and spoken-word poetry. Support local music!

For podcast listeners, Boycott! from ABC Rewind, hosted by Sisonke Msimang, is essential listening. It tells the story of how South Africans resisted apartheid and the role that Australians played in that struggle.

And if you find yourself in Sydney, Tony Albert's major survey exhibition I Am Not Your Souvenir at the Museum of Contemporary Art is not to be missed. On view until October.

See you soon,

Santilla