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Aug 6

'You need to lower your expectations': top tips from Indian Matchmaking

“Compromise and adjustment is what I tell all my clients – you need to lower your expectations,” says Sima Taparia. Speaking over video c...

Jul 16

'I’ve seen how uprisings have come from pain': Idris Elba on Black Lives Matter

“History maketh the man,” says Idris Elba. The actor is quoting his late father, a man who he has spent the past two years playing a vers...

Jul 7

'What if my kids are scared of me?': Alex Brooker on life as a disabled dad

Last year, Alex Brooker was swimming in the cold waters of Lake Windermere, struggling to reach the shore. The comic and TV presenter beg...

Jun 30

‘It’s like we just fell on to this planet’: the rise of psych-rockers Khruangbin

Onstage, the Texan trio Khruangbin are a strange sight to behold. At their sold-out show at London’s near-5,000 capacity O2 Academy Brixt...

Jun 16

Bootsy Collins: 'We're all funky, just not all of us know it'

At the age of 17, William “Bootsy” Collins packed up his homemade bass guitar and left home to tour the world with James Brown. He was he...

Apr 10

Lockdown with Limmy: Trucking, tweeting and the joy of Mrs Brown's Boys

Brian Limond is coping remarkably well with the coronavirus lockdown. “I don’t like going out, so I never really leave the house,” he say...

Mar 13

‘History needs to be set alight’: Shabaka Hutchings on the radical power of jazz

Shabaka Hutchings has been thinking about the end a lot. “For there to be a change, there needs to be the end of what we want changed,” h...

Feb 29

On “Dark Matter,” Moses Boyd Proves Free Jazz’s Dancefloor Potential

Since its emergence in the mid ’60s, free jazz has maintained a reputation as not so much a musical style as an academic institution—a pl...

Jan 12

Motsi Mabuse: ‘People didn't expect black people in ballgowns’

Motsi Mabuse is remembering the rough dance halls of apartheid-era South Africa and the shocking sights she would see as she took her fir...

Dec 14, 2019

Alex from Glastonbury: ‘I still get recognised all the time’

Of all the events at this year’s Glastonbury festival – Stormzy’s headline set, David Attenborough giving a speech on the climate crisis ...

Dec 3, 2019

Sax, riots and racism: the radical jazz of Soweto Kinch

It’s rare to see Soweto Kinch without his saxophone. Six foot tall and most often dressed in black, he can usually be found, sax in hand,...

Nov 18, 2019

Treating mental health with an app: Chips with Everything podcast

I spoke on the Guardian's flagship technology podcast, Chips with Everything, about the growing market in digital therapy apps. You can l...

Aug 31, 2019

Gary Crosby: 'Young, black men had to be intimidating – they were terrified'

If you find yourself lost in the catacomb-like basement of London’s Southbank Centre on a weekend, you’ll probably stumble across Gary Cr...

Jul 28, 2019

Anglo-Indian musician Sarathy Korwar: 'There's no singular brown voice'

Sarathy Korwar likes to define himself as an “outsider”. Outside popular music, outside the British Asian experience, outside Indian cult...

Jul 28, 2019

Hip-hop horseman: Fab 5 Freddy gallops through Renaissance art

There’s something of the Renaissance man about Fred Brathwaite, AKA Fab 5 Freddy. A graffiti artist turned film-maker, producer and curat...

May 20, 2019

Troy Deeney: 'It got too exhausting being the tough guy'

Troy Deeney would like you to know that he is a “nice guy”, despite his reputation as one of the most intimidating players in English foo...

May 20, 2019

Blue Note boss Don Was: 'Jazz can't become synonymous with pop again'

'Journeyman' is a term often used to describe Don Was. At 66, the Detroit-born bassist and producer charted in the 1980s with his funk-fu...

Apr 29, 2019

Gilles Peterson on the U.K. Scene, Brownswood, Starting a New Festival

Being a curator has become a defining ethos for the 21st century. With digital platforms bombarding us with choice, a curator’s purview—o...

Jan 4, 2019

'Rappers are really growing up': Tiffany Calver, the new voice of BBC rap, on 2019's hip

At 24, Tiffany Calver might worry that she has already peaked as a DJ. Initially writing for the pioneering grime platform SBTV and the b...

Dec 28, 2018

Nardeydey's Shirley Tetteh: 'I was so into jazz, I thought everything else was trash'

Jazz fans often speak of a formative moment that leads them to the genre, often a gateway album such as Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. For ...

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