Check Out My New Song ‘O Palestine’, Released to Support Vital Humanitarian Relief in Gaza
With just two days to go until the unforgivable second anniversary of the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and with hopes diminishing that the ‘Peace Plan’ pushed by Donald Trump will actually bring the grotesque and seemingly endless murder of Palestinian civilians to an end, the timing seems appropriate for the release of ‘O Palestine’, a new song of mine, which I wrote in the early months of Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip, expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people, and opposing the genocide and western support and complicity.
The song was recorded as a collaboration with my son Tyler (beatboxer The Wiz-RD), on which I play guitar, Wurlitzer piano and Hohner Bass 2, with Tyler beatboxing, and it was produced by the great Charlie Hart, best known for working with the late Ronnie Lane, who also produced The Four Fathers’ last album, Songs of Loss and Resistance.
It’s Back! ‘Frankenstein: How To Make A Monster’ Blows Minds at Hackney Empire, Now Heads to Canterbury on UK/Ireland Tour
A week last Friday, at Hackney Empire (the legendary Grade II listed theatre in east London), BAC Beatbox Academy, a group of young beatboxers, singers and rappers based in Battersea Arts Centre in south west London brought back to life their show ‘Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster’, the top-rated show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2019, which was in the early stages of a British Council-backed world tour — having wowed the Adelaide Fringe in February and March 2020 — when Covid hit, and everything ground to a halt.
The performance at Hackney Empire on March 11 — when the theatre, with support from Hackney Council, put it on as a free performance for 11-18 year olds — marked its return after two years, and it was a raging, resounding success.
Devised over two years (from 2016 to 2018) by six members of the Beatbox Academy (including my son Tyler), under the direction of Beatbox Academy founder Conrad Murray and visiting director David Cumming, and with wonderfully powerful choreography and lighting, the show takes the themes of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’, and, eschewing a linear narrative, updates them via reflections on alienation and the dangerous power of social media in a largely impressionistic manner.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
