Mail & Guardian

The Lists

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THE PLAY LIST

I have been with Kelela since her mixtape Cut

4 Me. Two years later, she has just released her debut album and, as the title suggests, it takes me apart. She ponders love and hurt using an R&B form that the old-school would recognise. It’s like Aaliyah and Destiny’s Child’s sad songs in the 1990s with a 21st-century something. (ZH)

I’m always vouching for millennial­s. So I guess me hyping up the South African songstress’s debut album doesn’t come as a surprise. I got hold of her debut album this weekend and blasted it through the house and into my neighbours’ yard at least twice. Her voice is gorgeously unapologet­ic, just like her lyrics that cover love, a millennial’s hustle and growing the fuck up. (ZH)

Buying vinyl has become a sharkfest nowadays. It’s a seller’s market out there. You’re lucky only if you got in early, back when the supposed death of the format was an almost real thing. One time, though, I caught this hipster sleeping and walked away with Eric Burdon Declares “War” for the unseemly price of R60. It felt like good old-fashioned digging. The album’s seamless, blues-based funk has brought a lot of sunshine to my Saturdays and a nostalgia for when culture was about more than just purveying the cool. (KS)

I’m not much of an escapist. A good night at the movies or in front of the screen usually involves a factual story about a part of the world I know nothing about. A hazard of the job maybe, but what the hell. If you’ve been sleeping, you can mail the cheque later. afridocs.net (KS)

THE READING LIST

This highly anticipate­d memoir is essayist Msimang’s first book after years of meticulous­ly feeding her worldwide readers spoonfuls of carefully constructe­d, always compassion­ate wisdoms when we didn’t always know how to react to the pathologic­al incidents of being South African. Her views on race, class and gender politics — as well as where human folly and sensibilit­y fit into theory — are beautifull­y woven into a very personal story of growing up in different countries, with her family members as the characters and her observant, generous voice as the as the courageous narrator. (MB)

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