➤ MARLON JAMES, from p.32
appealingly wry. “So, I do what everybody
who is not American do”
— he intentionally code switched
into Jamaican patois, what some
on the island prefer to call nation
language — “we watch American
trash.”
“You watch America and trash
America, or you watch America
and trash?” Jones said, teasingly.
“Yes,” James responded.
The audience laughed at the
comic exchange.
“I have always been a pop culture
nerd,” James said in seriousness,
adding that he was once a
music writer in Jamaica. “My theory
about this is: when you grow up
in a former British colony, culture
is twice removed from you. Meaning,
one, we could never afford it,
and, two, for the most part it is
considered something like putting
on airs. It took me a long time to
realize that Shakespeare wasn’t
stuffy, for example.”
James recounted how as a child
growing up in Jamaica he voraciously
read any literature he could
lay his hands on, whether stuffy or
trashy. When he somehow came
across the Jackie Collins novel
“Hollywood Wives,” he read it in one
sitting. “I got up the next morning,
looked myself in the mirror, and
said, ‘I’ze a man now!’”
Just as Collins’ book was made
into a television series, James’
“Black Leopard, Red Wolf” is on
its way to the screen. The rights
to the book have been bought by
actor-turned-producer Michael B.
Jordan for screen adaptation. With
“BLRW,” Jordan, who starred in
the box offi ce smash “Black Panther,”
launches his own production
company, Outlier Society, under
the aegis of Warner Bros. Entertainment.
➤ KESHA, from p.32
Kesha’s musical theater kid.
“Rainbow” tends to be remembered
now for its two hit singles,
“Praying” and “Woman,” both of
which are tied to Kesha’s struggles
to regain control of her career and
life. “High Road” was made with
the assumption that she can take
that control for granted. The tone
of “High Road” is celebratory, full of
loud, bombastic choruses that are
out of fashion in 2020 pop. Even
James will serve as an
executive producer.
“I’ve always been devoted to
fantasy and that can be a tricky
thing when you’re a Black person,”
James said.
He spent more than two years
researching the history and traditions
of the regions of Africa upon
which to base the narrative and
characters of “Black Leopard, Red
Wolf.” Yet, he said, his infl uences
also encompass American comic
books like “X-Men.”
The idea to write an Afrocentric
fantasy novel, James said, came
from an “argument over the casting
of ‘The Hobbit.’”
When James denounced the
lack of racial diversity in the cast,
his interlocutor responded that it
was irrelevant in the imaginary
world created by the author J.R.R.
Tolkien. In the end, James recalled,
he said, “You know what?
Just keep your damn ‘Hobbit!’”
and embarked on the writing of
a narrative that satisfi ed his own
cravings.
“It felt like a homecoming to me,”
he said about this, his fi rst writerly
venture into the fantasy genre.
One question mark remained
in the negotiations with Warner
Bros., he said. “How queer are we
going to keep it? That was the elephant
in the room.” The jury is still
out, so to speak.
“Are you an Afrofuturist?” Jones
asked, referring to the cultural
and intellectual movement engaged
in interpreting technology
and science fi ction through African
frames of reference.
James fell pensive for a moment
before answering, “You have to
look forward and back at the same
time. Because all our problems are
in the present.”
when she’s not rapping, Kesha
draws on the swagger of hip-hop.
But given what Kesha’s been
through, this album proves she
can balance refl ection and dancing
all night, sometimes on the
same song. After the emotional
catharsis of “Rainbow,” she’s now
more interested in fi ghting for her
right to party.
KESHA | High Road | RCA/ Kemosabe
| rcarecords.com/artist/
keha/
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