It’s Tippa Irie’s first ever book

TIPPA IRIE is a global reggae icon, and a pioneer of the Black British music scene and last week he dropped his long-awaited book, ‘Stick to My Roots’.

The top radio DJ, record producer, successful performer and owner of his own studio has enjoyed an incredible career which spans 40 years, which shows no signs of stopping yet.

From being pushed by his family into entering talent competitions as a young boy in South London to a Grammy nomination for his work with The Black Eyed Peas, this memoir is compelling in telling the truth behind Tippa’s determination to succeed against the odds.

While there are hopes and dreams, there is also great challenges and trauma.

Speaking to the Voice Tippa said: “Writing “Stick To My Roots” is quite special for me because it has given me the opportunity to tell my real story through my own eyes and experience, rather than someone else telling it for me.

“My story speaks to what life was like growing up in the UK, not only for me and my family, but so many other people with Caribbean roots.

“Music has been my savior among deep traumas in my life. I will never stop creating, and through this book I’m finally able to share what I’ve experienced both in life and in music.”

‘Stick to My Roots’ includes wonderful memories and testimonies from some of the many stars Tippa has worked with including UB40’s Ali Campbell, Wyclef Jean and Maxi Priest.

There is so much love for Tippa, not least because of his willingness to work with established names as well as emerging artists and the encouragement he has offered to so many newcomers over the years.

Despite his international standing, Tippa Irie is known for his humility and immense pride in where he started.

“To truly understand reggae and its lyrical content, its origins and its movements, from Toots and the Maytals to the anthems of Dennis Brown, Daddy U-Roy, Bob Marley and the Wailers, to know true roots music, you must first understand the journey of the Jamaican people.

“The elders taught us that to know where you are going, you must first know where you’re coming from.”

Guinness aims to bring more women into Notting Hill Carnival’s sound system

It’s Tippa Irie’s first ever book

Malorie Blackman calls for year-round black history in schools

By Adina Campbell

Community affairs correspondent

One of the UK’s most successful children’s authors says schools should teach black history all year round.

Malorie Blackman said history lessons should tell “the whole truth” of the British Empire, such as Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.

Schools in England are not currently required to teach any black history.

Adding it to the curriculum would help prevent those speaking out against racism being accused of “race-baiting”, the former children’s laureate said.

“For some people, they don’t want anything taught that makes them uncomfortable,” Blackman told BBC News.

But history should not be about “cherry-picking the best bits” and she looked forward to Black History Month – October in the UK – becoming redundant because the topic was being taught all year round.

“If you’re talking about the history of Britain, then that history includes black people and people of colour,” Blackman said.

“My [ancestors’] history did not start with slavery. Black people have been in this country since Roman times, if not before.”

The curriculum in Wales changed this year to include diverse experiences of people belonging to ethnic minorities.

And if other parts of the UK followed suit, Blackman suggested, it would help address racism.

“Hopefully, we can get past this nonsense of people saying you should go back to where you came from and so forth, which I still get when I mention this subject,” she said.

“Let’s talk about the full history, embrace it warts and all, so that we can learn from it.”

The Department for Education did not provide a response to Blackman’s comments.

But it says the current curriculum in England gives teachers the freedom and flexibility to include black voices and experiences.

The Scottish government says its curriculum provides opportunities to teach black history all year round, if teachers want to.

Best known for young-adults’ series Noughts and Crosses, recently turned into a BBC drama, Blackman’s work has played a significant role in diversifying children’s literature over the past 30 years, exploring race and identity issues.

Her new memoir has been published through the rapper Stormzy’s brand, Merky books, created to increase representation in literature.

There had been progress, Blackman said, but there remained room for improvement.

“We still need more books from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, working-class authors and books from and about neuro-divergent children,” she said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-63291527

Olympic medallist Anyika Onuora to launch autobiography My Hidden Race in Liverpool

Olympic medallist Anyika Onuora is launching her autobiography in Liverpool next month.

Anyika will discuss her athletic career, growing up in Liverpool and the nuances of being a black northern woman. The former sprinter made her Olympic debut at London 2012, competing in the 100m and 200m. In 2015, she won the 4x400m relay bronze at the World Championships in Beijing. A year later she won her first Olympic medal in the 4.400m relay in Rio.

Anyika’s debut autobiography, My Hidden Race, is an unflinching testimony of what it takes to pursue your dreams as a Black British woman against all odds. Revealing her life for the first time with complete fearlessness, Anyika uncovers a world that often takes place far from the spotlight of the Olympic torch and shines an intense light on the brutal reality of professional sport for many black females.

My Hidden Race is being released on June 9 and to celebrate its launch, Anyika will be in conversation with Mia Thornton, from Black Ballad for its second regional event of the year. Black Ballad tell stories, host events and create experiences for, by and about black women that they won’t get anywhere else.

The event takes place at Chapters of Us, on Simpson Street, with doors opening at 6.30pm. Guests will have the opportunity to join in with an audience Q&A, network and chat with like minded black women, and purchase a copy of My Hidden Race, signed by Anyika herself.

Tickets also include a goodie bag with haircare products from ABV Organics and Wakati Hair. This event is open to everyone, with reduced priced tickets for Black Ballad Members. Visit blackballad.co.uk for more information.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/olympic-medallist-anyika-onuora-launch-24000139

Remembering the amazing life of Olaudah Equiano

A BBC Radio 4 will mark the 225 anniversary of the death of the forgotten black British hero. MARC WADSWORTH produced the programme

ON TUESDAY afternoon (May 24), a new BBC radio docu-drama, made by myself and fellow producer Deborah Hobson, will chart the life and times of a remarkable but forgotten black British hero, who died 225 years ago. The Amazing Life of Olaudah Equiano is being broadcast at 4pm on BBC Radio 4.

Sadly, programmes like this made by black independent production companies like ours, The-Latest Ltd, are rare. When I asked a Radio 4 executive commissioner if she knew of any others working with her history department she said a forlorn “no.”

It’s as if, in British broadcasting, the game-changing Black Lives Matter movement, spearheaded by radical youth demanding change, had never happened.

An outstanding autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, was published in 1789, and became a bestseller in the author’s own lifetime. It ran to nine editions and attracted support from many notables. Among the aristocrats Equiano managed to charm to sponsor its publication was Prince Frederick, Duke of York.

He also got prominent figures to do national newspaper book reviews, including leading women’s rights campaigner Mary Wollstonecraft.

By any standards, the life of Olaudah Equiano was incredible. An Igbo born in the kingdom of Benin, in 1745, in what is now Nigeria, Equiano was enslaved as a child. He was transported to Barbados, where he stayed for just a couple of weeks, and then to the British North American colony of Virginia. He also spent time on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

Equiano, played in our programme by Tayo Aluko, was bought as a boy by Royal Navy lieutenant Michael Henry Pascal, who forcibly renamed him Gustavus Vassa, after a reforming Swedish king in a play the officer liked. Equiano became Pascal’s unpaid servant.

Equiano was taught to read, write and do maths on British naval ships he was on where classes for crew were common. Later, Robert King, an American Quaker and merchant, bought Equiano and encouraged his slave to earn money by working as a trader with him.

Equiano became a gauger, a weights and measures person who inspected bulk goods aboard ships that were subject to tax. That meant he was too valuable to his master to be put to work as simply a plantation slave.

In 1766, Equiano did something that was very unusual at the time when he bought his freedom from King for an equivalent of £10,000 in today’s money — the same amount his master had paid for him. It is significant King was a Quaker because they were in the forefront of the abolition movement.

As a sailor, Equiano had a life of travel and adventure. But it was as a free man living in London in the 1780s that he found fame when he became involved in the abolitionist movement.

Most British school children are taught white MP William Wilberforce was the most significant campaigner for the abolition of slavery. But Equiano proves that is not the full story. Outside parliament, Equiano, working with people like Thomas Clarkson, who briefed Wilberforce, were arguably just as important.

Equiano’s book, the first of its kind written by a former slave, played a huge role by shocking British society with its vivid description of the horrors of the Atlantic Ocean Middle Passage when human cargo from Africa were transported in appalling conditions from Africa to the Americas and Caribbean.

Some academics put the number of slaves at 15 million over 400 years — more than a million of them dying at sea.

Equiano died in 1797, 10 years before parliament outlawed the British slave trade. It was almost 30 years later that slavery itself was abolished in British territories. There are some places in the world where it still exists today.

The Amazing Life of Olaudah Equiano will be shown on Tuesday May 24 at 4pm on BBC Radio 4.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/amazing-life-olaudah-equiano

Mirror Books scoops GB athlete Onuora’s ‘fearless’ story

Mirror Books has scooped My Hidden Race, the life story of Team GB athlete Anyika Onuora, which promises to reveal the “brutal reality” of professional sport for many Black females.

The publisher bought world rights from David Luxton at David Luxton Associates, for publication on 31st March 2022.

Its blurb explains: “My Hidden Race is the story of Olympic medallist Anyika Onuora, who stood on the podium at every major championship in athletics. This book won’t go into detail about the technicalities of her sport or the beauty of the Olympic spirit, however. In the era of the Black Lives Matter and Me Too, this is an unflinching testimony of what it takes to pursue your dreams as a Black British woman against all odds. This three-time Olympian will lift the lid on the reality of life as a Black female athlete in Britain in a way that nobody else has done before her. Nothing is off the record. She is revealing her life for the first time in this book, with complete fearlessness. There have been far too many years of silence caught in a system. Now Anyika is determined to make up for lost time and use her story to inspire and heal others.”

Onuora said: “Writing this book has been one of the most painful, but also rewarding experiences of my life. I spent the last two decades of my life as a professional athlete, reaching the top of my sport. On the track I felt free, but off it, I was carrying weight that I eventually could no longer hold. In this book, I will show the often brutal reality of life as a Black female athlete, far beyond the podium and the flashing cameras at the finish line. Despite experiencing insufferable pain, I kept pushing the limits on what was considered possible, both as an athlete and as a woman.

“For so many years, I was unable to tell my full story, for fear of destroying my career and even my life. Those days are over, and I’m tired of waiting. In My Hidden Race I have revealed my truth, and my great hope is that I will inspire others to do the same.”

M.d. of Mirror Books Steve Hanrahan added: “Some of the awful things Anyika has had to live with are hard to take. But her unbreakable spirit, natural ability and determination make her a true Olympian on and off the track. She is an incredibly strong woman with a voice that will resonate and we are delighted to be working with her on this extremely important book.”

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/mirror-books-scoops-gb-athlete-onuoras-fearless-story-1274950

David Harewood’s memoir set for release in September

Birmingham-born actor David Harewood is to tell his story in his upcoming autobiography – more details on it here.

The actor David Harewood has gone on to make quite a name for himself over the past few years across a string of productions such as Homeland and Supergirl. Furthermore, he was nominated for a BAFTA for his documentary Psychosis And Me, and his film and TV work continues to build.

Behind the stories of his successes though are real struggles, and he’s detailed those in his first book, which happens to be his upcoming memoir. It goes by the title Maybe I Don’t Belong Here: A Memoir Of Race, Identity, Breakdown & Recovery, and it’s set to be published by Bluebird on September 2^nd 2021.

It’s available for preorder now, and you can find more details on it here.

Finally, here’s the synopsis..

In this powerful and provocative account of a life lived after psychosis, critically acclaimed actor, David Harewood, uncovers devastating family history and investigates the very real impact of racism on Black mental health.

When David Harewood was twenty-three, his acting career beginning to take flight, he had what he now understands to be a psychotic breakdown and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. He was physically restrained by six police officers, sedated, then hospitalized and transferred to a locked ward. Only now, thirty years later, has he been able to process what he went through.

What was it that caused this breakdown and how did David recover to become a successful and critically acclaimed actor? How did his experiences growing up Black and British contribute to a rupture in his sense of his place in the world?

Maybe I Don’t Belong Here is a deeply personal exploration of the duality of growing up both Black and British, recovery from crisis and a rallying cry to examine the systems and biases that continue to shape our society.

David Harewood’s memoir set for release in September

First memoir from award-winning comedian Gina Yashere

GINA YASHERE has penned her first ever memoir, Cack-Handed, available to purchase later this year.

Touching upon issues of social class, racism and sexuality, Cack-Handed is a collection of eccentric and uproarious stories that reveal how Yashere’s upbringing as a child of Nigerian immigrants in working-class London became the foundation of her incredibly successful career as an international comic.

The co-executive producer and writer of the CBS hit series Bob Hearts Abishola also chronicles her odyssey to get to America and break into Hollywood in this lively and humorous literary offering.

According to family superstition, Yashere was born to fulfil the dreams of her grandmother Patience.

The powerful first wife of a wealthy businessman, Patience was poisoned by her jealous sister-wives and marked with a spot on her neck. From birth, Yashere carried a similar birthmark – a sign that she was her grandmother’s chosen heir, and would fulfil Patience’s dreams. Yashere would learn to speak perfect English, live unfettered by men or children, work a man’s job, and travel the world with a free spirit.

Is she the reincarnation of her grandmother? Maybe. Yashere isn’t ruling anything out.

In Cack-Handed, she recalls her intergenerational journey to success foretold by her grandmother and fulfilled thousands of miles from home.

This hilarious memoir tells the story of how from growing up as a child of Nigerian immigrants in working class London, running from skinheads, and her overprotective mum, Yashere went on to become the first female engineer with the UK branch of Otis, the largest elevator company in the world, where she went through a baptism of fire from her racist and sexist co-workers.

Not believing her life was difficult enough, she later left engineering to become a stand up comic, appearing on numerous television shows and becoming one of the top comedians in the UK, before giving it all up to move to the US, a dream she’d had since she was six years old, watching American kids on television, riding cool bicycles, and solving crimes.

First memoir from award-winning comedian Gina Yashere

Mo Gilligan to publish autobiography

• Mo Gilligan is to publish his autobiography on 2nd September
• That Moment When: Life Stories from Way Back Then will focus on turning points in his life
• He says: “I genuinely never imagined that I would ever get the opportunity to write my own book”

Mo Gilligan will publish his autobiography in September.

Titled That Moment When: Life Stories from Way Back Then, the book will focus on particular moments in the stand-up comedian’s life.

Publishers Ebury Press explain: “You might know Mo as the history making stand-up comedian, BAFTA-winning presenter of The Lateish Show, Masked Singer judge and social media mega star. Now, get to know Mo like never before in his highly coveted first book That Moment When, where he guides us through up the turning points, the good times, the challenges and the lessons learned in a collection of the moments from the decade-long grind that led to where he is today.

“Journeying through childhood memories in South London, embarrassing teenage experiences, reminiscing about school days and old school raving, the behind the scenes of his first comedy gigs, the creation of the original Geezer and becoming a viral sensation, selling out national tours in minutes and becoming one of TV’s most in-demand stars. Mo will share the stories behind huge milestones in his life – the moment he decided he wanted to be a comedian, the moment he went viral, the moment he realised he was a little bit famous (and how he dealt with it), the moment his Netflix special dropped globally in 190 countries, smashing into the UK Top 5 and of course, the moment he won his BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance.

“In amongst the laugh-out-loud observations, raw life lessons and candid storytelling Mo will also explore his biggest influences and motivators – including the unsung heroes of the Black British comedy scene, the importance of reflecting his community and the power of spreading joy through laughter.”

Mo Gilligan says: “The last few years have been so incredible for me, but there was also a decade’s worth of grind before I got any kind of break. In That Moment When I get to share all those stories, all the highs and lows and moments that made me. I genuinely never imagined that I would ever get the opportunity to write my own book, so this is another amazing one to add and I’m so grateful to everyone who has helped make this happen.”

That Moment When: Life Stories from Way Back Then will be released in hardback, eBook and audiobook format on 2nd September. It is available to pre-order now.

https://www.comedy.co.uk/shop/news/6292/mo-gilligan-book/