Blimes Brixton is a hip hop artist from the Bay Area, California. Her debut album under the Blimes Brixton moniker was Castles, released in 2019 on her own all-female record label, Peach House, and her most recent album with musical partner Gifted Gab is out now! Talk About It includes hit singles Magic, Shelly's & Hot Damn feat. Wu Tang's one & only Method Man. Blimes started her music career as a battle rapper and has now progressed into a fully-fledged artist with a backlog of hits, cementing a name for herself in hip hop. She is an incredible lyricist with the biggest heart and toughest work ethic I know. We talk about Blimes' conflict between battle rap (which heavily relies on insulting your opponent) vs her warm-natured, empathetic personality, learning to stand up for yourself both personally and professionally, and the call from Method Man that changed her life just as she was considering quitting music.Listen to Talk About It by Blimes & Gab on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/album/7MGeQ8aDEq0OHPpIxykQtZ?si=OeLMsQqaRh-OxGF3KuK3wgBlimes Brixton on social media:@blimesbrixton / @blimesandgabBLM petitions that still need signing:https://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-mandatory-life-sentence-for-police-brutalityhttps://www.change.org/p/govia-thameslink-justice-for-belly-mujinga-justiceforbellymujingahttps://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylorhttps://www.change.org/p/prefeitura-do-rio-de-janeiro-justice-for-joāo-pedrohttps://www.change.org/p/alabama-governor-kay-ivey-willie-simmons-has-served-38-years-for-a-9-robberyhttps://www.change.org/p/us-senate-hands-up-acthttps://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-investigate-the-killing-of-tamir-ricehttps://www.change.org/p/texas-governor-i-want-sandra-bland-s-case-reopenedhttps://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-police-accountability-act-of-2020https://www.change.org/p/united-states-supreme-court-justice-for-kendrick-johnsonhttps://www.change.org/p/justice-for-regis-korchinski-paquethttps://www.change.org/p/it-s-never-your-fault-raise-the-age-of-consent-in-nigeria-from-11-to-18Black literature:Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie“The only reason you say that race is not an issue is because you wish it was not,” says Ifemelu, the protagonist of Adichie’s 2013 novel, an engrossing story and sharp-eyed look at the non-American black experience in the United States, in Adichie’s native Nigeria, and beyond.The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness By Michelle AlexanderAlexander is an American civil rights lawyer and legal scholar; in her ground-breaking book she analyses the rebirth of a race-based caste in the United States: millions of Americans are locked behind bars and relegated to second-class citizenship by the criminal justice system. Devastating.The Fire Next Time by James BaldwinFirst published in 1963, Baldwin’s book was a bestseller in its day and is just as necessary now – alas. Taking the form of two essays, one a letter to his then 14-year-old nephew, Baldwin’s voice is as powerful and influential as it ever was in looking at systemic racism in the United States.Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-LodgeGal-Dem called this debut “the black British bible”. It began with a 2014 blog post addressed to those who refused to recognise the structural racism of British society, to those who “truly believe that the experiences of their life as a result of their skin colour can and should be universal.” It’s a dramatic recognition of what she calls “white denial”.Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine EvaristoWinner of the 2019 Booker Prize, Evaristo’s novel follows the lives of a dozen British people, predominantly female, predominantly black. The different storylines of the characters – who range in age from 19 to 93 – are engrossing and empathetic, portraits of struggle, imagination and perseverance.Brit(ish) by Afua HirschHirsch is the daughter of a black Ghanaian woman and a white English man; her book is part memoir, part history, part polemic, an interrogation of her own identity and an examination of the roots of prejudice, taking to task those progressives who claim they “don’t see colour”.Barracoon: The Story of the ‘Last Black Cargo’ by Zora Neale HurstonHurston is best known for her novel Their Eyes were Watching God, first published in 1937. She was an anthropologist as well as a novelist: Barracoon is the fruit of Hurston’s interviews with Cudjo Lewis, née Oluale Kossola, the last survivor of the Atlantic slave trade. Hurston couldn’t get it published in her lifetime; it first appeared in print in 2018.Citizen by Claudia Rankine“Part documentary, part lyric procedural,” wrote Dan Chiasson in the New Yorker of this book-length poem which won the 2014 National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Poetry. Haunting, personal, closely-observed, Rankine brings contemporary American racial politics into tight ...
