Check out this new music radio player that Diesel has created. I’ve been listening to it this afternoon and I’m impressed. Some cool DJ’s with top music…

Want this player for your own site? Visit http://www.goviralnetwork.com.

Sophia Blackwell goes to the theatre

Having seen last night’s performance at the Oval Theatre, I feel a bit cheap about writing in my last blog how many women on York Racecourse fancied the writer/actor Mojisola Adebayo. Nothing but the truth, but last night confirmed for me that Mojisola is more than just a pretty face and a lovely compere. If that sounds like a crap compliment, compering is a hard, stressy job- part ringmaster, part psychologist, part snake-oil salesman- and someone who can put their performers and audience at ease like her is a gem to be treasured. She’s more than a poet; more than the sharp, diplomatic workshop facilitator at YLAF who guided two very different writers and a large audience of potentially easily-narked lesbians through tales of poverty, politics and sexual abuse, without ruffling anyone’s rainbow feathers. She impressed me then, and last night, she moved me.

In her play Muhammad Ali and Me, Mojisola plays a character strongly similar to her- a gay girl child growing up black and alone in London- and the boxer that a generation worshipped, Ali, who the heroine has a fantastical friendship with. As imaginary friends go, you can’t get much better than that. In different times and places, the girl and Muhammad grow, learn to say no, and fight for more than the hand they’ve been dealt. She never fails to convince- as a trembly-lipped child, a frustrated teenage ‘thesbian,’ or as Ali himself- cocky, un-educated, surprising, always passionate and convinced of how ‘pretty,’ he is- performing tricks for the ladies, lecturing on the state of Islam and refusing to fight for a country that treats him like ‘a nigger,’ when he’s the World Champion.

Moj’s main foil is Charlie Folorunsho, a remarkably multi-faceted actor who also slips masterfully from character to character- he’s Moj’s cockney foster-mum Ange, ‘You’re ‘avin’ a bubble bath, incha?’ her deadbeat son Jimmy, Malcolm X, a girls’-school headmistress, a scarf-wearing luvvie director- and for one unforgettable moment, a blonde-wigged Giant Haystacks in a strangely padded red leotard. The other actor, Jacqui Beckford, performs primarily in BSL- she has a ‘referee,’ persona but also takes on various roles she performs silently. The way she uses her face and body to support the two more vocal characters is admirable- a sinuous, generous performance.

When I saw Moj perform a section of the play at YLAF, she told the lyrical, legend-like tale of Cassius Clay’s birth and childhood. I waited for her to recite it again, but in the play, this speech is given to Folorunsho. He delivers the speech in the persona of Moj’s father, a stone-faced, Scripture-reading Nigerian accountant who leaves her in Care when she’s five years old. Sitting on her bed alone, she imagines him telling her the story of how Clay learned to fight for justice. As the cadences of the story wash over her, her face seems to fill up with light, and just watching her, at that point, is enough to break your heart.

I wanted to share a video of Wallis. She was signed to Island but recently dropped. My own feeling is that she wasn’t willing to compromise her artistic integrity and form some more mainstream, radio friendly tunes (which the major labels hanker for)…but anyway, If you want to see an ace performer with a tonne of integrity and a great band go see her live! I’ve been to a few of her gigs (she even performed a guest slot at my Behind The Mic back in the Spring) and she is brilliant; so colourful and passionate. In fact, I tend to walk away post gig having believed I’ve encountered the rainbow in a musical form!

Hope you enjoy…

(For some reason YouTube keeps playing up and there’s sometimes a comment apologising that the video is no longer available, well it is!…clicky this if you’re having trouble >http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nqADz-W0uOM)

A lovely guy emailed me the other day asking if I fancied organising a gig with him so I checked him out on youtube and woah! I instantly emailed him back and said ‘yes please’. I hadn’t encountered laptapping with the guitar before. Very cool. He’s got skill. It also got me to thinking…why not organise a big gig with artists who approach their instruments in unique ways? Jake Morley with his laptapping, Roxy with her violin played like a guitar/ percussion instrument and perhaps Nathan Flutebox Lee? Could be interesting…

Here’s the guy who emailed me, Jake Morley..