Kareem's Weekend Boost
5 Things to Watch, Read, or Listen to This Weekend (Sept. 30-Oct. 2)
Another weekend and I have a few suggestions I hope you’ll enjoy. I’d love to hear from you about your responses to these works. But only after you’ve tried them.
LISTEN (music)
Dear Love by Jazzmeia Horn and Her Noble Force
This September 2021 release showcases Horn’s tremendous range of vocal styles. Ably backed by Her Noble Force, Horn can give us traditional Ella Fitzgerald-type stylings on “Lover Come Back to Me” or the more vigorous power on “Where Is Freedom!?” Listening to this album is like spending an evening at a great jazz club.
You can listen to the song here:
One of the aspects of jazz that drew me to it so many years ago was how interwoven it is with Black culture. Jazz is a language as specific as English. It’s influenced by the folk music of Africa, but reinterprets that music to express what it is to be Black in America. To give Horn’s beautiful album some historic context, here is South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, singing the Xhosa song, “Qongqothwane,” known as “The Click Song,” because English speakers couldn’t pronounce it.
You can listen to the song here:
WATCH (TV)
Love on the Spectrum (Netflix)
Now in its second season, this Australian reality show about young people on the autism spectrum looking for love puts most other reality shows to shame. After watching the open honesty and sincerity of these mostly twentysomethings, it’s hard to look at the entitled, whiny, bratty cast of other romance-based shows who are looking for Instagram followers more than love. You can’t get through a single episode without feeling a deep emotional connection to the cast and rooting for them to connect with someone else. It is the Super Bowl of reality shows in which the stakes couldn’t be higher and our hearts couldn’t be more committed.
Watch trailer here:
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