On M&G’s Lists: Gary Clark Jr, Brent Staples and Making South Africa Great Again
The Reading List
Brent Staples — Parallel Time: Staples, a veteran New York Times’ editorial writer, published this masterstroke of a memoir in 1994, the same year that Nas’s Illmatic was released. I wasn’t going to go there but since we are in the post-Dylan Nobel prize era I will. It is the Illmatic of memoirs. Not because it is his best work but for all the other reasons that make Illmatic the ultimate memoir. (KS)
Sisonke Msimang’s latest New York Times article, titled Making South Africa Great Again, about our country’s reckoning with its true, flawed nature, seen against a backdrop of rainbowism and possibly having to forget our exceptionalism in the same way that the United States is unravelling. (MB)
The Play List
Gary Clark Jr — The Story of Sonny Boy Slim: This album is by no means new but it does feel ageless. Perhaps it’s in the way Clark moves from blues to R&B to hard rock as if Elvis and the Stones never happened. Besides, anyone who takes career advice from Cody Chesnutt is a winner in my book. (KS)
Donald Byrd and Voices — A New Perspective: I bought this album after a housemate brought home a vinyl version after a trip to Linden’s Recordmad. The 1964 riff of Byrd’s jazz trumpet, Herbie Hancock’s piano and Kenny Burrell’s guitar among others fused with a choir makes for a time-slowing, jazzy hymnal. (MB)
Via Mail & Guardian
PHOTO: Sisonke Msimang’s latest New York Times article is on The Lists this week. (Photo: Reuters)
