Arts & Culture

Week of May 19 ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries playwright Samuel Beckett wrote the play...

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In one of her poems, Emily Dickinson tells us, “The...

Kelly Vance reviews a movie about the Bay Area's innovative arts scene, 'Tell Them We Were Here', and sits down the Renee De Guzman, Senior Curator at Oakland Museum of California to hash out if Sadie Barnette's work could be considered Afrofuturism, "for want of a better term.".

Author and co-founder of Nerds of Color, Shawn Taylor reviews Ayize Jama-Everett's graphic novel that mines racial stereotypes for Jungian "Shadow work" on the global Black psyche.

Famed music journalist Mosi Reeves meditates on the criminally overlooked contributions of Oakland's Gregory "Shock G" Jacobs after his untimely death this April.

Arts Editor D. Scot Miller profiles Oakland Museum of California's upcoming exhibit, Mothership: Voyages in Afrofuturism, and runs down the history of today's hottest topic.

Lou Fancher sits down with performer Lisa Ramirez to discuss adapting T. S. Eliot's famous poem, 'The Wasteland', for the post-pandemic stage.

j. poet writes about the mercurial and fluid music and approach of Scatter Swept, a psychedelic band with strong African origins, and their new album, 'Unfolding'.

Michael Berry reviews former East Bay Express Editor, Michael Mechanic and his unflinching portrayal of the super-rich as both parasitic and spiritually impoverished in his new book, 'Jackpot'.

Week of May 5 ARIES (March 21-April 19): Created by Leonardo da Vinci in the...

Aaron Carnes writes about Quentel the Cryptid’s new album, ‘Shadow Box' and their promise to the audience to provide a full, sensory experience that transcends the typical rock concert.

j. poet speaks with author and songwriter Zoe FitzGerald Carter about her latest album, 'Waterlines', and the pleasures and perils of producing an album during a pandemic.

Film critic Kelly Vance covers the cryptic, and surprising, film 'Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache'. An unexpected treasure about living in the present and how difficult that can be.

Lou Fancher sits down with 'Queen Sugar' author, Natalie Baszile, to discuss her latest book on America's Black farmers, 'We Are Each Other's Harvest'.