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Lyricist. Writer. Activist.
What a life this man has had! He had a hard start, living in one of the least affluent areas of Birmingham (UK), and running away with his mother to escape a violent father. The 1980s saw race riots, miners strikes and demonstrations against police brutality. Zephaniah and his dub poetry were at the forefront. By the 1990s he was a household name, and not just at home in the UK - he travelled and performed around the world.
I really admire this man. He hasn't had an easy life: he was in borstal as a teen, lived a life of crime for a while and decided for himself that he didn't want to live his life as a criminal where he would most certainly end up dead. HE turned his life around. He stands by his beliefs as well. A brilliant, self taught man, who sets a sterling example for all.
  
    London Zoo by The Bug

    London Zoo by The Bug

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    Album

    London Zoo was born of three key moments. An introduction to the thriving Dub-Step scene (of which...

The Krinar Experiment
The Krinar Experiment
Charmaine Pauls | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Krinar Experiment (Krinar Kindle World) by Charmaine Pauls
The Krinar Experiment is the first book in the Krinar Kindle World that I have tried, simply because I am a big fan of Charmaine Pauls. It is a complete standalone, you do not have to have any prior knowledge of the Krinar before you start reading this book.

Drako is a Krina, entering Earth's atmosphere for the first time, and his pod wasn't up to dealing with earth's atmosphere. He loses his invisibility, and then crash-lands in the middle of a sports stadium in South Africa. He is captured by the Secret Service and tortured. They call Ilse in to heal him, as they have plans that don't include him dying. The attraction between Drako and Ilse is instantaneous, but there is a big (read MASSIVE) misunderstanding between Ilse and Drako. This eventually leads him to kidnapping her... and I'll let you read the rest for yourself.

Now, I'm going to be perfectly honest here - I love Sci-Fi Romances, and I love Charmaine Pauls, but I didn't love this book. I enjoyed it, yes, but I didn't love it. Why? Well, for a start, that misunderstanding I mentioned? Yep, it's a biggie, but Drako acts like a jerk about it, and refuses to hear anything that Ilse has to say. Also, the things that he does is borderline dub-con, but is given the approval because she gets wet, and then asks for it. I've read dub-con before and never had an issue with it, but something about this just sat wrong with me.

There is an amazing amount of detail in this book, but you are never overloaded. With good characters, and bad, there is someone for everyone. There are no editing or grammatical errors that disrupted my reading flow, and I did thoroughly enjoy this story. I would be happy to read more in this series, and definitely recommend it for those who want more from this world.

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and my comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
  
TK
The Krinar Experiment
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Krinar Experiment is the first book in the Krinar Kindle World that I have tried, simply because I am a big fan of Charmaine Pauls. It is a complete standalone, you do not have to have any prior knowledge of the Krinar before you start reading this book.

Drako is a Krina, entering Earth's atmosphere for the first time, and his pod wasn't up to dealing with earth's atmosphere. He loses his invisibility, and then crash-lands in the middle of a sports stadium in South Africa. He is captured by the Secret Service and tortured. They call Ilse in to heal him, as they have plans that don't include him dying. The attraction between Drako and Ilse is instantaneous, but there is a big (read MASSIVE) misunderstanding between Ilse and Drako. This eventually leads him to kidnapping her... and I'll let you read the rest for yourself.

Now, I'm going to be perfectly honest here - I love Sci-Fi Romances, and I love Charmaine Pauls, but I didn't love this book. I enjoyed it, yes, but I didn't love it. Why? Well, for a start, that misunderstanding I mentioned? Yep, it's a biggie, but Drako acts like a jerk about it, and refuses to hear anything that Ilse has to say. Also, the things that he does is borderline dub-con, but is given the approval because she gets wet, and then asks for it. I've read dub-con before and never had an issue with it, but something about this just sat wrong with me.

There is an amazing amount of detail in this book, but you are never overloaded. With good characters, and bad, there is someone for everyone. There are no editing or grammatical errors that disrupted my reading flow, and I did thoroughly enjoy this story. I would be happy to read more in this series, and definitely recommend it for those who want more from this world.

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and my comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
  
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ClareR (5911 KP) rated Fire Rush in Books

May 11, 2023  
Fire Rush
Fire Rush
Jacqueline Crooks | 2023 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This is an incredible debut novel. Yamaye is a young black woman who is immersed in the Dub music scene of the 1970s and 1980s. She spends her free time clubbing at The Crypt (it really is a crypt) where Dub music is the music that young black people all want to listen and dance to. Yamaye works so that she can go clubbing and buy the clothes that she wants to wear there (which all sound very cool, by the way).

But there’s a cloud that hangs over Yamaye’s life. Her mother left when she was young, and she has been raised by a father who seems thoroughly heartbroken by his wife’s departure. There’s also the spectre of racism and police brutality looming over her. Yamaye becomes involved in police brutality protests, and then becomes embroiled in a gang in Bristol, leaving London and her troubles there behind. Or so it seems, because it looked to me like she was just swapping one set of problems for another.

I loved this book, and I wish that it had come with a playlist on Spotify (the actual book may well have a playlist, but I read the NetGalley download) - but never fear! I went looking myself, and was ably assisted by my 16 year old drumming mad son. Now he LOVED the music, and regularly drums along to these new bands and songs that he has discovered for himself.

This is an engaging, exciting story with a vibrancy through its descriptions of inner London as much as those of rural Jamaica. The Jamaican patois was for me the icing on the cake. It made such a distinctive voice (quite literally!), and I soon fell into it’s rhythms.

It’s a book that reminded me of how I felt about music as a young woman (ok, it was different music, but still!) and how it crept into everything in my life.

Themes include: race, misogyny, police violence, oppression of people of colour, gangs, the legacy of slavery, music and belonging. At least these are the themes that I could pick out!

It’s an amazing book - just read it!
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Monkey in TV

Mar 4, 2018 (Updated Mar 4, 2018)  
Monkey
Monkey
1978 | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
The Nature of Monkey is Irrepressible
Only mildly unhinged Japanese adaptation of the famous Journey to the West stories, which became a cult TV show when exported to the UK, Australia, and South America. Classic 16th century Chinese novel is transformed into something almost indescribable; a mixture of off-the-wall humour, hyperactive martial arts sequences, and cheesy special effects - the English dub may take a few liberties with the original scripts as well.

A representative episode sees our heroes visiting a small village terrorised by a giant catfish monster, which proceeds to eat three of them; they end up going to a disco which is held in the bad guy's stomach, before persuading him to vomit them up so they can fight him and his followers. Frequently silly, and the low budget often shows, but made with relentless energy and cheerfulness; hugely imaginative, often genuinely very funny. A generation of UK viewers grew up able to sing the theme tune 'Monkey Magic' (and misremember the name of the show as a result).
  
    Abdullah Hakim Quick

    Abdullah Hakim Quick

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    Podcast

    Shaykh Abdullah Hakim Quick, PhD, is the Head of our Islamic History and Homiletics Department. His...

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John Lydon recommended Pretties For You by Alice Cooper in Music (curated)

 
Pretties For You by Alice Cooper
Pretties For You by Alice Cooper
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"At 7 I contracted meningitis. It affected my brain, and I slipped into a coma. I spent a year in hospital, and during that time music didn’t play much of a major part. It was very, very hard to get to grips with myself, and it took a good four years to recover my memories. Music wasn’t really there. “By 10, though, I was running a mini-cab service, doing the bookings, which was the best job ever. The money was great so I started buying music. He added: “I was going to two record stores at that time: one in Finsbury Park, run by a sweet little white-haired old lady, that used to have nothing but Jimi Hendrix and big, deep, dense, dark dub—it was always full of Jamaicans. The other one was run by two long-haired chubby fellows who had great taste. That’s where I picked up Alice Cooper’s Pretties for You. It was a long time before he became popular. Pretties for You is a really good example of bad artwork."

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