Tyron, A Sun, and Citizen: An American Lyric
Featuring a podcast with Swamp Dogg.
Welcome to the thirty-fifth installation of The Q : your one-stop weekly newsletter of culture recommendations.
BEFORE YOU CONTINUE….As The Q expands, we are looking for more people to join our wonderful team! If you are interested, please check out the slide deck below detailing the various roles and experiences open for applications.
Album
Tyron by slowthai
While in its first half, TYRON maintains the hard-hitting bangers he’s known for, the second half of the project shows slowthai reflecting on where life has put him. It’s not a happy album, but it allows you to step into slowthai’s shoes and see his struggles for what truly they are.
Film
A Sun directed by Chung Mong-Hong
A Sun opens with one of its most morbid scenes, but the viewer is left in the dark about the violence to come. Light-hearted, classical music plays while two teenage men by the names of A-Ho (Wu Chien-Ho) and Radish (Liu Kuan-Tin), shuffle through the streets of Taiwan. They weave their way through the back of a busy restaurant and arrive at a roundtable where a group of people are sitting and eating. In a blink of an eye, Radish brutally uses a machete to slice the hand off a man named Oden (Chang Li-Tung), who is sitting at the table.
Book
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric is a book-length work of poetry that weaves together prose, photographs, and references to current events in order to paint a picture of race relations and invite a larger conversation about the way we see and talk about racism. It is split into multiple sections, alternating between short vignettes about every day micro-aggressions that black people in America face, and longer, more reflective works of poetry that serve as a reflection on the vignettes.
Playlist
Abby's "walking weather !!" features Arlie, Gus Dapperton, and KAMAUU
Abby’s favorite track:“Evening News“ by LAUNDRY DAY
Description: “‘walking weather !!’ is the playlist I’m most often listening and adding to. Full of folk, alt, indie, and pop (or some combination thereof) hits and new discoveries, the playlist is best listened to with headphones on long walks outside in the evening cold.
Podcast
Episode #35: Strawberry Milkshake and an Interview with Swamp Dogg
On this week's episode, Sam and Teresa interview Swamp Dogg over a glass of strawberry milkshake. Jerry Williams, a.k.a. Swamp Dogg, is a legendary soul and R&B musician, songwriter and record producer. His most recent release, Sorry You Couldn’t Make it Demos, dropped on February 2nd on Bandcamp, and features a collection of six Swamp Dogg demo tracks, recorded between the early 1970s to the early 1980s. Each of the songs was considered for inclusion on Swamp Dogg’s critically acclaimed 2020 album, Sorry You Couldn’t Make It. Swamp Dogg talks to Sam and Teresa about maintaining a career that spans decades, constantly reinventing himself, and his most recent collaborations.
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