THE PLAY LIST
Blood Orange: Cupid Deluxe:I prefer listening to artists backwards, playing their latest albums to death before tracking back their discologies. Listening to Blood Orange’s 2013 album after having indulged in 2016’s Freetown Sound is like eating all your vegetables and rice first and ending with the meat. Its pop sensibilities are the foundation of this homage to funk, disco and French house, a sound that can easily find refuge in Prince’s library or Donna Summer’s disco feet. (MB)
THE READING LIST
Ties that Bind: Race and the Politics of Friendship in South Africa, edited by Jon Soske and Shannon Walsh: After colleague Kwanele Sosibo finished reading some of the essays in this book, he gave it to me and I’m looking forward to devouring a subject that is still the most fascinating part of the legacy of apartheid, the meaning of race in intimate relationships between black and white people. I’ve started reading Lebo Mashile and Sisonke Msimang’s reading/performance “With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies”, first presented at the 2015 Ruth First Lecture. It’s still as visceral in its expository nature. (MB)
THE GAMING LIST
I’ve finished For Honor. Not the story mode — I didn’t bother with that. I mean the multiplayer. It’s a fishing game: you sit for ages waiting for a bite (to connect to a game) and then you thrash around for a few minutes before going back to waiting, perhaps idling away the time by reporting the awful players who have crafted Nazi emblems for themselves. But I’ve finally earned enough in-game credits to buy the pretty Flying Lys skin and hellfire emotes for my Peacekeeper, so I think I’m done. (@TheSerifM)