Jeffrey Boakye - Author
Featured books by Jeffrey Boakye
I Heard What You Said
Before Jeffrey Boakye was a black teacher, he was a black student. Which means he has spent a lifetime navigating places of learning that are white by default. Since training to teach, he has often been the only black teacher at school. At times seen as a role model, at others a source of curiosity, Boakye’s is a journey of exploration – from the outside looking in. In the groundbreaking I Heard What You Said, he recounts how it feels to be on the margins of the British education system. As a black, male teacher – an English teacher who has had to teach problematic texts – his very existence is a provocation to the status quo, giving him a unique perspective on the UK’s classrooms. Through a series of eye-opening encounters based on the often challenging and sometimes outrageous things people have said to him or about him, Boakye reflects on what he has found out about the habits, presumptions, silences and distortions that black students and teachers experience, and which underpin British education.
Other books by Jeffrey Boakye
Musical Truth
Music can carry the stories of history like a message in a bottle. Lord Kitchener, Neneh Cherry, Smiley Culture, Stormzy . . . Groundbreaking musicians whose songs have changed the world. But how? This exhilarating playlist tracks some of the key shifts in modern British history, and explores the emotional impact of 28 songs and the artists who performed them. This book redefines British history, the Empire and postcolonialism, and will invite you to think again about the narratives and key moments in history that you have been taught up to now. Thrilling, urgent, entertaining and thought-provoking, this beautifully illustrated companion to modern black music is a revelation and a delight. 'Engaging and accomplished . . . perfectly judged for young readers.' Guardian
Musical Truth
Music can carry the stories of history like a message in a bottle. Lord Kitchener, Neneh Cherry, Smiley Culture, Stormzy . . . Groundbreaking musicians whose songs have changed the world. But how? This exhilarating playlist tracks some of the key shifts in modern British history, and explores the emotional impact of 28 songs and the artists who performed them. This book redefines British history, the Empire and postcolonialism, and will invite you to think again about the narratives and key moments in history that you have been taught up to now. Thrilling, urgent, entertaining and thought-provoking, this beautifully illustrated companion to modern black music is a revelation and a delight.
Black, Listed
AFRO-CARIBBEAN. COLOURED. ETHNIC MINORITY. IMMIGRANT. BAME. URBAN. WOKE. FAM. BLACK. These are just some of the terms being wrestled with in Black, Listed, an exploration of twenty-first century Black identity told through a list of insults, insights and everything in between. Taking a panoramic look at global Black history and contemporary culture, this book investigates the ways in which Black communities (and individuals) have been represented, oppressed, mimicked, celebrated and othered. Part autobiographical musing, part pop culture vivisection, it's a comprehensive attempt to make sense of blackness from the vantage point of the hilarious and insightful psyche of Jeffrey Boakye. PRAISE FOR BLACK, LISTED: 'This book gives a voice to those whose experience is persistently defined, refined and denied by others' David Lammy, Guardian 'A panoramic exploration of black identity' Elle 'Urgent, timely reading' AnOther Magazine 'Inventive, refreshing and humorous' Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other 'A truly radical book, which manages to be unflinching and constantly entertaining' Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller
Hold Tight
HOLD TIGHT is the book that kick started the 'Grime Library'. Bursting into bookshops in July 2017 to rave reviews and a sold out event at Rough Trade East, HOLD TIGHT paved the way for Grime-related books such as Wiley's Eskiboy (Penguin 2017), Dan Hancox's Inner City Pressure (4th Estate 2018), and DJ Target's Grime Kids (Trapeze 2018, now being made into a television series). This new edition of HOLD TIGHT features new chapters for 2018, a brand new introduction from Boakye and a brand new cover. Celebrating over sixty key songs that make up Grime's DNA, Jeffrey Boakye explores the meaning of the music and why it has such resonance in the UK. Boakye also examines the representation of masculinity in the music and the media that covers it. Both a love letter to Grime and an investigation into life as a black man in Britain today, HOLD TIGHT is insightful, very funny and stacked with sentences you'll want to pull up and read again and again.
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