Occasional thoughts on life, learning and creativity
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If American hip-hop – along with dancehall and garage music – are the parents, grime has since emerged from their shadow as the rebellious adolescent ready to forge its own path, becoming the voice of choice for British millenials tired of hearing tales of streetlife narrated from across the Atlantic. It’s for this reason I’ve……
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Originally a rapper, and then a poet, for the last year Tom Bishop has been occupying that loose sliding space that lingers between the two, the stripped down art known as spoken word. After connecting with him during one of his live performances last month at Sandbar’s grime and hip hop night, Mic Check, I……
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I think covering the Black Lives Matter rally in Manchester earlier this week is an experience I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Seeing people of every colour and from a range of communities gathered under one cause was both sobering and inspiring, as was listening to a range of speakers including community leaders, activists and……
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So I had the recent pleasure of sitting down with upcoming UK soul artist Samm Henshaw to interview him for Manchester-based newspaper, The Nubian Times. Samm, recently signed by Columbia Records, is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, keyboard player… basically he’s a ridiculously talented artist and, pleasantly, incredibly humble too. You can check out some of……
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I don’t own a television. The one I had broke four or five years ago and with technology being as it is (with smartphones and the internet and so on) I could never really figure a good enough reason to replace it. Which is likely the reason I only recently saw this commercial (see below)……
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Thrilling, moving, visceral – at some point you run out of words to explain the feelings that run through you after watching Michael Buffong’s stunning adaptation of King Lear. I went to the showing at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre last night and loved pretty much every minute of it. The dark, modern soundscape, the ridiculously……
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So I finally plucked up the courage to go and see Batman v Superman. I’d done my best to avoid the mounting number of mixed reviews. I’d held the negativity surrounding the release at arms length. I told myself, whatever my misgivings about the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman, and whatever the film’s flaws,……
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Let me explain… I was directed recently to this clip on youtube. Take a look first (it’s just over a minute long), then read on. So here’s the thing. I’m not ashamed to say that after watching it I couldn’t breathe for a full minute from the laughter. You know the kind of laughter I……
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So, in the lead up to Christmas I stumbled upon a drawing set someone had given me the previous year; a neat shallow tin of sketching pencils which, I thought, was a pretty cool gift, the kind of nostalgia-laden offering that had conjured up notions of taking stock and adjusting my lifestyle, i.e., I used……
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Now I suppose you could say I am sitting here for a number of reasons. For instance I’m sitting here because a car accident some years ago pushed my insurance premiums to such extortionate levels that to have kept the car anyway and paid them would’ve seemed somehow immoral. And so I didn’t, I got……
Micah Yongo 