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'One of the most rewarding pieces of hip-hop criticism ever written' Jeff Chang 'Brilliant' Giles Peterson 'Will Ashon's dazzling study gets to the heart of hip hop, pop culture and the history of contemporary America. Essential' Matt Thorne 'Each of these chambers contains wonders of history, destiny and mythology' Margo Jefferson Will Ashon tells, in 36 interlinked 'chambers', the story of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and how it changed the world. As unexpected and complex as the album itself, Chamber Music ranges from provocative essays to semi-comic skits, from deep scholarly analysis to satirical celebration, seeking to contextualise, reveal and honour this singularly composite work of art. From the FBI's war on drugs to the porn theatres of 42nd street, from the history of jazz to the future of politics, Chamber Music is an explosive and revelatory new way of writing about music and culture.
In litter-strewn Epping Forest on the edge of London, might a writer find that magical moment of transcendence? He will certainly discover filthy graffiti and frightening dogs, as well as world-renowned artists and fading celebrities, robbers, lovers, ghosts and poets. But will he find himself? Or a version of himself he might learn something from? Strange Labyrinth is a quest narrative arguing that we shouldn't get lost in order to find ourselves, but solely to accept that we are lost in the first place. It is a singular blend of landscape writing, political indignation, cultural history and wit from a startling new voice in non-fiction.
An original and profound portrait of contemporary Britain told through the testimonies of its inhabitants. SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2023 'A spectacularly enjoyable and compelling reading experience . . . funny, moving, surprising and thought-provoking. It humanises literature in this toxic moment.' MAX PORTER, author of Lanny 'Seemingly simple yet so deeply profound, The Passengers is an absorbing insight into the lives and minds of so-called ordinary people: their hopes and fears and idiosyncrasies at a specific moment in time.' CLIO BARNARD, director of Ali & Ava and The Essex Serpent 'A nation's psyche comes to the surface. The Passengers is not just an oral history of th...
Friday 28 July 2019: Eleven years after Jay-Z became the first hip-hop artist to headline the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, Stormzy finally became the first English rapper to follow suit. The South London rapper, wearing a customised stab-proof vest designed by Banksy, put in an explosive performance and finished his set by thanking many of the “legends for paving the way,” name-checking the likes of Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, and Giggs. Yet British rap has a nuanced, rich, and often misunderstood history that factors in socioeconomics, gender, identity, music industry disruption, and innovation. Despite how unlikely it looked for decades, UK rap is now firmly part of pop music and the greate...
John Osborne has long been a fan of radio - from late night sessions of John Peel to Test Match Special at dawn, he has always enjoyed tuning in to the riches of our best broadcasts. When his dull temporary job became drearier than ever, John decided to remain attached to his headphones all day to listen to some of Britain's more unknown stations as well as revisiting the mainstream to fully experience the breadth of our radio output. The result is a funny, disarming ride through aspects of Britain that are uplifting, informative and sometimes plain bizarre. Throughout his month of intensive radio listening, John flits through talk radio, sports shows, dips into the mainstream and the minori...
An exploration of the much-derided English suburbs through rap music. There are many different Englands. From the much-romanticized rolling countryside, to the cosmopolitanism of the inner cities (embraced by some as progressive, multicultural enlightenment and derided by others as the playground of a self-righteous metropolitan elite), or the disparagingly named "left behind" communities which, post-Brexit, have so interested political parties and pundits, demographers and statisticians. But there is also an England no one cares about. The England of semi-detached houses and clean driveways for multiple cars devotedly washed on Sundays, of "twitching curtains" and Laura Ashley sofas; of cul...
Fiction and essays inspired by Paris from more than 70 Anglophone writers -- A MoveableFeast for the twenty-first century. "When good Americans die, they go to Paris", wrote the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde in 1894. The French capital has always radiated an unmatched cultural, political and intellectual brilliance in the anglophone imagination, maintaining its status as the modern cosmopolitan city par excellence through the twentieth century to today. We'll Never Have Paris explores this enduring fascination with this myth of a bohemian and literary Paris (that of the Lost Generation, Joyce, Beckett and Shakespeare and Company) which also happens to be a largely anglophone construct -- one ...
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
The 1990s was the decade in which the Soviet Union collapsed and Francis Fukuyama declared the 'end of history'. Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Google was launched and scientists in Edinburgh cloned a sheep from a single cell. It was also a time in which the president of the United States discussed fellatio on network television and the world's most photographed woman died in a car crash in Paris. Radical pop band The KLF burned a million quid on a Scottish island, while the most-watched programme on TV was Baywatch. Anti-globalisation protestors in France attacked McDonald's restaurants and American survivalists stockpiled guns and tinned food in preparation for Y2K. For those who lived through it, the 1990s glow in the memory with a mixture of proximity and distance, familiarity and strangeness. It is the decade about which we know so much yet understand too little. Taking a kaleidoscopic view of the politics, social history, arts and popular culture of the era, James Brooke-Smith asks – what was the 1990s? A lost golden age of liberal optimism? A time of fin-de-siècle decadence? Or the seedbed for the discontents we face today?
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.