Welcome to the website of the writer Diran Adebayo
Life is simple, not easy. Do what you already know you should.
There’s a specially commissioned piece of mine, called ‘An Adult Story’, in the recently published, Empire Windrush: Reflections on 75 Years & More of the Black British Experience (editor: Onyekachi Wambu) (publisher: Publisher : Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Available in print, kindle and audio. Some excerpts:
‘…There have been many positives to emerge from the social justice
movements of recent times…but one of the most striking consequences equally surely has been the calcification of a certain sentimentality around the presentation and discussion of the black subject, particularly the black diasporan subject, in our media and public spheres.
‘Black as fight, this being whose inner and outer is variously endangered from cradle to grave. One whose life is bigger than themselves somehow. Political, problematised (“Today, on ‘Business Weekly’, the black people who loved their hair but have hated it since coming into contact with whites…”), in need – of future empowerment; if a youth, often, of saving from a fall. Perhaps, if she’s an upcoming biracial artist and you’re a radio arts interviewer looking to freshen the pot, you start these days with a question about the troubles of finding a place, though some may hear shades of tragic mulatto.
‘Such an artist will often find their work couched within the hitherto low, treacly, persuaders of‘celebration’ or ‘inspiration’, the language of a Hallmark greeting card. Some will collude in this themselves…These received phrases reach their zenith across the land in Black History Month but any month will do…
‘What is now glutinous fug has long time hovered…
‘How do we as cultural producers expel the fug, resist its intrusiveness? …
‘Everyone wants lives that have the weight of story: to live in historic times and/ or have a grandiose sense of self. Understandable, but we must be careful of the stories we tell ourselves or that are disseminated on our behalf…One can envisage a time in a 1000 years, as technological advances increase the ability to choose biological traits via digital coding, when… the number of people claiming and self-identifying as black is increasing while the number of people who actually are black, in the sense of having significant recent and ongoing black blood, has withered in the diaspora, a little like the fate that has befallen Native Americans… ‘
© Diran Adebayo 2022
Summer 2022
A recent Radio 4 ‘Front Row’ appearance reviewing a few things alongside fellow guest Katie Puckrik and presenter Tom Sutcliffe:
An ‘Observer’ review of the ‘Some Kind of Black’ adaptation here:
Look out for the two-part radio dramatisation of ‘Some Kind of Black’ which is airing shortly on BBC Radio 4. (Episode one, Sunday March 20, 3 pm, Episode two, Sunday March 27, 3 pm, to be precise, and thereafter on BBC Sounds). I’ve adapted it as an audio play, it’s been produced by the estimable Abigail Le Fleming for the Beeb, and directed by old mucker Femi Elufowoju Jnr, hot off his acclaimed ‘Rigoletto’ for Opera North.
It’s quite a musical take on a music-inflected novel – I think over 40 tunes in there that the Beeb have – in some cases – the more Underground items – been struggling to get the rights for?
Fans of nineties hip-hop, soul, jungle etc. will not be disappointed, but there’s also ragtime, hymns, Afro-beat, even ‘The Smiths’:)
Pretty cool, and rare, to have a second go at a published work. A chance to right the odd wrong. Of course, this a streamlined version and something you hope stands as an independent animal….
A short history of the word ‘Simp’…
I seem to have been involved in something…
What Does Simp Mean? – The New York Times
(can’t seem to get the link to work, but you can google the article)
Who knew! For more word coinages from my books, check out, ‘The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Terry Victor and Eric Partridge, where there are a score and more mentioned.
‘Sault’
A link to a TV interview I did in late 2020 for a German arts show, TTT, on channel ARD, where I spoke about my thoughts on the Black Lives Matter summer and Race in the UK currently, all apropos a discussion about the fine new mystery band, ‘Sault’: https://www.ardmediathek.de/daserste/video/ttt-titel-thesen-temperamente/die-band-sault-politisch-wuetend-mysterioes/
Some thoughts on an Oxford university portrait I sat for a couple of years back from photographer and subject at: https://oxfordandcolonialism.web.ox.ac.uk/diversifying-portraiture
Book news ? My novels ‘Some Kind of Black’ and ‘My Once Upon A Time’. are now available as e-books (Lume) at the usual e-book outlets. The print editions are also available, of course (‘Some Kind of Black’ now in its ninth reprint!) – please see ‘Books’.
There’s also a consideration and (partly sporting) memory of Europe in my essay, ‘The Footman’s New Clothes’ in ‘Locating African European Studies: Interventions, Intersections, Conversations’ (Routledge, 2020).’
Quite a chunky, new piece of mine in ‘Spiked Review’ (2019). It’s an adapted extract (new first paragraph) from a longer book essay called ‘The Footman’s New Clothes’ that coming out in this ‘AfroEuropeans’ volume, of which more anon, but this part is, essentially, on Racism and how we (UK black artists, activists and other interested parties) might move beyond the dominance of that issue/ frame to help prod Europe to more progressive pastures… Worth checking out
www.spiked-online.com/2018/09/28/racism-fatigue
And a golden oldie: a talk/ reading from a residency at Georgetown University…
This was a fun photoshoot, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Spitalfields Crypt Trust. The photographer, Lawrence Watson, is a music industry legend, and it was great to do something with him and for a fine cause..
.
www.bjp-online.com/2016/06/celebrities-photographed-with-recovering-addicts
You wait half a lifetime to cross paths with the great film director Ken Loach and then twice in a hurry…
Between us, Disability rights campaigner Dr. Marie Tidball. We all featured in this ‘Diversifying Portraiture’ campaign of Oxford University… theguardian.com