Substack: Why BBC's Champion deserves a second series

I can’t think of another TV show that looks or sounds like Champion. You might hear someone kickin’ a 16 on Top Boy. Feel the instant island warmth of likkle patois in the dialogue of a Small Axe special. Or find Nicole Lecky’s Mood and appreciate how financial insecurity and fear of failure are tightly bound up for aspiring musicians. How race and gender influence their chances of success.

But to take us into the heart of Lewisham borough (my home) and examine sibling rivalry in the music business over eight episodes through the lens of a fragmented British Caribbean family… That feels fresh, immersive and long overdue.

I am still stunned that there won’t be a second season, particularly after leaving us on a major cliffhanger after a shocking betrayal. Let’s rewind and consider what made it so absorbing from all angles.

Read more on my Substack, Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Also in this issue: listen to a radio documentary about genius Charles Stepney, Paul Mescal on the pull in Islington, sports science is obsessed with men, Samantha Morton is an exemplary human being, subcultures aren’t what they used to be, time to stop being extremely online, Avril Lavigne is dead (maybe) and can I play you some music?

Substack: A new identity in Electronic India

Growing up as a chubby and shy brown boy in 80’s/90’s Brighton, I yearned for more role models who looked like me. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciated the dedication of grafters like my parents who went from cut-short careers in radiography and accountancy to monotonous seven-day weeks in newsagencies. But when you’re a kid, safe can be boring and routine mind-numbing. There must be something else.

Where were the artists? The rebels and risktakers. The mavericks and mould-breakers we could follow. Someone to stoke our defiance, slap the need for approval out of us and say, go on, express yourselves. Bust out of that straightjacket of an acceptable profession, be it medicine, banking or law.

Is this a reflection of my sheltered childhood or my narrow window to the world at the time? As a graduate of a bohemian seaside town who was immersed in popular culture and wondering where he fit in, I doubt it. But let me think…

We had Handsworth-born ragamuffin Apache Indian storming up the UK charts in 1993 with ‘Boom Shack-A-Lak’, which found its way into the comedy Dumb and Dumber. Cornershop, fronted by Tjinder Singh, reaching number one in 1998 courtesy of a Fatboy Slim remix. Who else?

Goodness Gracious Me causing a stir on British TV by royally taking the piss. Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia raising eyebrows with Karim’s horny escapades as a bisexual adolescent who’s raging against his mixed race in 70’s Britain. The Asian Underground movement (an umbrella term used to cover the likes of Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney, Asian Dub Foundation and State of Bengal) carving their own lane in the UK music industry.

How we claimed swaggering, somersaulting Prince Naseem Hamed as one of our own, particularly the Muslim South Asians, even though he’s of Yemeni heritage. At a stretch, let’s add “that bass player from No Doubt” playing in the background, as Aziz Ansari quipped on stage. (His name is Tony Ashwin Kanal, by the way. And respect is due.)  

So you can imagine my shock and excitement when I discovered that Ahmedabad, in my family’s homeland of Gujarat, was a hotbed of electronic music experimentation. And not a decade ago or whatever. Way back in the 1960s!

Read the full story on my Substack, Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Also in this issue: The Holdovers rekindles my love of cinema, the best of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Michael Jackson back in the spotlight, Carl Weathers RIP and the late Neil Kulkarni destroys Oasis.

Substack: Throwing bricks at glass ceilings

Tell me, what’s more compelling? To have a writer appraise music in a competent yet bookish manner or to read them bringing it to life like a novelist? So much so that it means almost as much to you now as it did to them then. Crossing from the world of what happened and why – the play-by-play – into the realm of characters, conflict, tests and obstacles.

From mixtape drops and nods to your ‘endz’, to triumphant arrivals on the national stage that feel like collective wins because you’ve been on the long journey with them, “throwing bricks at glass ceilings” as Kano rapped. Taking some heavy losses too, it must be said.

I’m not talking about a pure expression of fandom or an I-was-there awareness of a genre’s genesis, both of which have merit. This is different. It’s the ability to chronicle the times in anything other than a straight line. To look behind demographic shifts and hit records. To see the turning points and setbacks with an acute sense of time and place. Complexity and precarity. Cause and effect.

To join the dots between past movements and evolving scenes like you’re explaining your family tree. How we get from Cecil Morris’ Peoples Community Radio Link (PCRL) pirate in 80’s Birmingham to West Midlands grime entrepreneur Despa Robinson, who co-founded the label StayFresh and started the artist management and media company BE83. Aniefiok ‘Neef’ Ekpoudom has achieved this and so much more in Where We Come From.

Read the full story on my Substack, Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Also in this issue: a poem for all ages, why friendships feel like admin, the curious world of crisp flavours, age-gap relationships, Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi and it’s Fred Again … again.

Keeping an open mind

It's easy to knock Aviva Studios. Long delayed and well over budget, emblematic of the much-maligned Northern Powerhouse, some fear it's a catalyst for further gentrification in Manchester and an inaccessible vanity project solely for the elite. If you’re up to speed, local publication The Mill ran a useful report earlier in 2023.

But watch the recent Imagine special and the potential of this place as both a collective experiment and invitation will come through. The team at Factory International, some of whom I have worked with, are trying to get to a stage where unconventional, exciting, large-scale work is pioneered in Greater Manchester throughout the year (not just during MIF) together with local artists of different ages and backgrounds and other members of the community.

How can the building and the organisation help to facilitate that? To what extent can the making of culture here be collaborative and equitable? Who gets to be 'creative'? How do you balance big ambition as a world-leading cultural enterprise with the need to offer value for money locally and appeal to different communities across the region? Are they willing to adapt without prodding by the public?

The Matrix-inspired Free Your Mind – conceived by Danny Boyle, Boy Blue, Es Devlin and Sabrina Mahfouz among others – is as spectacular a proof of concept as you will see in an arts venue.

It all began to make sense for me when I saw the gleeful faces of young students from the School of Digital Arts (SODA) at Manchester Metropolitan University as their work was projected above performers during the show. It could be a significant moment in their careers and anyone who comes through the in-house Factory Academy.

Similarly, the sense of civic pride and purpose felt by members of the Factory Assembly as their vision for a people's photo exhibition becomes a reality on the walls and floors of this once bare and unfamiliar space.

I wasn't able to get up north to watch Free Your Mind in the flesh but we can all experience it another way when BBC2 broadcasts a performance on Sunday 31/12 at 6.55pm. Critics and audiences have raved about it.

Fingers crossed, they run a second season. The building and city are integral to the performance though. So prepare to make the trip, Londoners.

PS In the wake of Sault’s extraordinary live debut in London – an immersive, multidisciplinary presentation that defied pragmatism and blew minds with its scale – I think the time has come to reassess what live performance looks like. Time to dream bigger.

Substack launch: Through the lines

Gareth Southgate and his England team have provided plenty of drama over the past seven years. Now they have become stars on a different stage in a show that really gets under the skin of football fandom and national pride. Here is a short extract from a long read, the first offering from my free bi-weekly newsletter about arts and culture. Get it here.

Gareth Southgate and his England team have provided plenty of drama over the past seven years. Now they have become stars on a different stage in a show that really gets under the skin of football fandom and national pride.

[body] Early into James Graham’s play Dear England, affable Gareth Southgate (Joseph Fiennes) meets his new coaching staff after reluctantly answering the SOS to be caretaker manager. He ambles into the room with a Partridge-like grin and a bag of muffins. This hasn’t been billed as a comedy but I’m struck by the tone.

Is this going to be a slapstick take on this barmy land and our complex relationship with football/failure? Comic relief with a side order of self-deprecation? That’s a big part of it judging by the revolving cast of caricatures, anyone from the ghosts of miseries past (Graham Taylor, Fabio Capello, Sam Allardyce) to the current crop of mimicked stars (those poor Harrys).

However, as the story moves on from tournament to tournament the plot thickens. We see Southgate try to change the culture around the international team, meeting sizeable resistance both internally and in dark corners of the terraces and internet.

The crestfallen penalty misser from Euro 1996 went on to manage Middlesborough for several years (until relegation) before taking important roles in FA youth development and leading the U21s into Euro 2015. So Southgate was no patsy – experienced in the bitter lows of sport, aware of the unrealistic demands of the fan base, familiar with St George’s Park and the whims of the FA.

But even he probably underestimated the scope of the task. A task that appears very clear on the surface: just win us a bloody cup with this Golden Generation. To get there he would have to perform open-heart surgery on the squad and reconnect them to the supporters.

But why a play and why now, when we haven’t won anything? The answer lies in the scale and complexity of the challenge as England manager. How the fortunes of the team determine so many people’s feelings about their country and themselves. This is psychodrama at the extremes of human emotion, ripe for adaptation.

Read the full piece in the first dispatch of my newsletter Bluejeans & Moonbeams.