March 2021 was Brown and beautiful. I read Arundhati Roy’s Azadi and Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar (thoughts loading), danced to Priya Ragu’s Chicken Lemon Rice and spent a lot of time listening to one album in particular.
"Every woke Brown millennial girl worth her salt has nursed some sort of crush on Riz Ahmed"
= laughing emojis. This is so true! His art and especially his music and the long interviews he gave about his identity as a British Asian Muslim man who grew up in Wembley in the 1980s are one of the things that motivated me to pursue a PhD in Sociology! And Where you from is so, so powerful.
In case useful: his chapter in Good Immigrant really resonated with me when I lived in London. Also there's a good hour long interview with him on Louis Theroux's podcast. Finally, his performance in the HBO limited series The Night Of is fab.
Yes! I've been meaning to read The Good Immigrant, but you know, getting it here is a whole thing. I've been hearing such good things about "The Night Of" too so I guess I'll have to get on it ASAP! Thanks for your recos, keep 'em coming!
This is such a good piece of writing Nas! I am ashamed to say that I have only discovered his work very recently (this newsletter edition is giving me FOMO). I'll start with his albums - he sounds fascinating. Ready to develop that Brown crush and join the bandwagon!
The Long Goodbye is just so good! Every time I listen to it again I notice a new, incisive verse I hadn't paid attention to before and aaah, just fall in love all over again. Happy to have you on the team, there's no going back now 💀
"Every woke Brown millennial girl worth her salt has nursed some sort of crush on Riz Ahmed"
= laughing emojis. This is so true! His art and especially his music and the long interviews he gave about his identity as a British Asian Muslim man who grew up in Wembley in the 1980s are one of the things that motivated me to pursue a PhD in Sociology! And Where you from is so, so powerful.
In case useful: his chapter in Good Immigrant really resonated with me when I lived in London. Also there's a good hour long interview with him on Louis Theroux's podcast. Finally, his performance in the HBO limited series The Night Of is fab.
Yes! I've been meaning to read The Good Immigrant, but you know, getting it here is a whole thing. I've been hearing such good things about "The Night Of" too so I guess I'll have to get on it ASAP! Thanks for your recos, keep 'em coming!
Beautiful post! I didn’t know all this about Riz and I’ll have to check out his music. See “The Night Of” if you can. He’s amazing in it.
His music is where he really shines in my opinion. This guy can rap! And yessss, I'll try to make time to see "The Night Of" as soon as I can!
This is such a good piece of writing Nas! I am ashamed to say that I have only discovered his work very recently (this newsletter edition is giving me FOMO). I'll start with his albums - he sounds fascinating. Ready to develop that Brown crush and join the bandwagon!
The Long Goodbye is just so good! Every time I listen to it again I notice a new, incisive verse I hadn't paid attention to before and aaah, just fall in love all over again. Happy to have you on the team, there's no going back now 💀