We need to ensure the legacy of black and brown cultural activism

Black and brown artists have always given us that power to resist, but we need to work together to maintain their legacy writes Nusrat Faizullah Read More

Music Across Pipelines: Songs from Standing Rock

by Priya Parrotta Natarajan, edited by Adefemi Adekunle   And here we stand, at the doorway, to this hallway life brought us here, to this crossroads of lost hope and undeniable promise where we choose between paths, beyond rightness or wrongness that will bring us to the brink of the planet’s exhaustion, or the age of… Read More

An unwelcome home: to be a migrant in today’s Britain is a daily struggle

by Kiri Kankhwende  It almost sounds like the start of a joke: three migrants walked into a bar. One of us had received some bad news on the way to the #OneDayWithoutUs rally on Monday and we needed to stop and talk. My friend, a non-EU migrant, had just found out that his work visa… Read More

FGM as spectacle: the dehumanisation and commodification of the black girl

Warning: the following post contains images that readers may find graphic or disturbing. by Firdos Ali  Last week, FGM campaigner Hibo Wardere broke the news that Sky had filmed the mutilation of a little girl in Somalia and intended to broadcast the footage in the UK. FGM campaigners who had seen the footage were in… Read More

Why Do We Need Activism?

by Shane Thomas “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” – Dr. Cornel West I think of myself as a hopeful pessimist. I don’t think things will turn out alright. I don’t believe in the milk of human kindness. I don’t think we collectively learn from history. But I always hope… Read More

Why Black people in France are still invisible

by Aude Konan “I am fed up of fraternity without equality. What’s the point of fraternity if it doesn’t work with equality. What’s the point of fraternity if it’s just a joke in poor taste. Fraternity doesn’t work if we’re not equal.” – Leonora Miano[1] A new French study has revealed that racism is on… Read More

Where Has Television’s Anger Gone?

by Shane Thomas As a child, one of the personal highlights of my week was being allowed to stay up late to watch Spitting Image on a Sunday night. The show used caricatures of puppets to satirise and lampoon those in the public eye, especially Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. Not long after David Cameron was… Read More

The 10 Most Scandalous Moments in Black Music in 2014

by  Aaron Lee What a year it’s been for black music. With no Kanye or Jay album out, detractors named 2014 hip hop’s worst year. The MOBOs continued to wobble between celebrating black excellence and simply throwing more trophies to non-black stars of the moment. André 3000 said the recent OutKast reunion tour made him… Read More

The Blueprint of Structural Inequality

by Scot Nakagawa When discussions of racism come up, folks are quick to remind me that race is not a real thing – it’s just a social construct. I agree. Race isn’t “real” in the sense that it’s not based in biology and it sure isn’t based on geographic difference. I mean, just check out… Read More