Kuba Shand-Baptiste’s cultural highlights

Kuba Shand-Baptiste is an award-winning author, journalist and podcast host. Soon Come (2025), her debut novel, is published by Dialogue Books. Kuba hosts her reality TV podcast, All That Trash, with Sarah Bodenham. Kuba’s work – including essays, features and poetry – has been featured in numerous publications including The i Paper, The Guardian, The Independent, GQ, Stylist, British Vogue, The Irish Times, Dazed and more, earning widespread acclaim. She is an engaging public speaker who has participated in panel discussions, lectures and radio shows. She’s currently working on her second novel.

Book: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Something about the times we’re living in gave me a hankering to revisit Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? a couple of months ago. Weirdly, it made for quite a fun read. Perhaps ‘fun’ is the wrong word. ‘Affirming’ is probably closer. Anyway, it was a somewhat comforting accompaniment to the daily onslaught of AI, war, climate crises and rising inequality. Not necessarily because we’re a little way off from catching up to the dust-laden, android-overrun, eugenicist world that Dick created, but because of the philosophical questions it raises about humanity, and the hope it inspires in dealing with the issues we face in today’s world.

https://www.orionbooks.co.uk/titles/philip-k-dick/do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep/9781399607742/

Live Music: Soundtrack to the Apocalypse by Soweto Kinch/LSO

When I went to see jazz musician Soweto Kinch at the Barbican late last year for a one-off performance of his upcoming album Soundtrack to the Apocalypse with the London Symphony Orchestra, I knew it would be brilliant. An accomplished saxophonist, rapper, composer and producer, his ability to parse complex topics through music has been apparent for years. But I wasn’t quite prepared for how arresting it would be. A blend of visual art and music, it soared through topics like facism, Israel’s unrelenting onslaught against Palestinian people, consumerism and propaganda with such grace and power that I left with my jaw open. I can’t wait for the album’s official release. If you want a chance to see him, you can find him at the Southbank Centre this summer as part of Steel Pan Reimagined at the Royal Festival Hall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWssL5HdOIE

Book: Giving a Damn: Racism, Romance and Gone with the Wind by Patricia J. Williams

As odd as it may sound for someone who has spent most of my career interrogating the myths that colonialism and slavery have inflicted on the world, one of my favourite films is Gone With The Wind (1939). I’ve always been struck by its enduring success as white supremacist propaganda. I jump at any chance to analyse it in the context of its impact on American and, to a large extent, British (mis)understandings of slavery and race (it was, after all, the highest-grossing film in the UK in the post-war era until the 1960s). So when I came across Patricia J. Williams’ Giving a Damn: Racism, Romance and Gone with the Wind last month, I devoured it. A legal scholar and key figure in the establishment of Critical Race Theory, Williams’ analysis is incredibly illuminating. Whether or not you’re a fan of the film, it’s a brilliant short read.

https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/giving-a-damn-racism-romance-and-gone-with-the-wind-patricia-williams?variant=32753441308750

Album: Sexistential by Robyn 

I’ve been a casual fan of the criminally underrated Swedish pop pioneer Robyn since I was a teenager. I’ve always loved her quiet power, not just in her voice, but in her grasp on songwriting, performing and her ability to carve out a sound so influential that younger fans often make the mistake of thinking she’s copying newer artists. Sexistential, which covers everything from motherhood to phone sex, to love, to the general conundrum of life, is both fun and profound. Whether you’re listening to it while washing up or losing yourself in its electricity at one of her concerts, it’s a huge triumph. I cannot wait to see her perform it live in a couple of months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbgJQ0f1AUc&list=PLxA687tYuMWiiANNlmu7j7g8X0nKfRzTq&index=1

Theatre: Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney 

I hadn’t seen director Nancy Medina’s production of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy on its original run in Bristol a few years ago, so I was stoked to see it arrive at Stratford East late last month. A beautiful story about a group of boys in a choir at an American prep school, it managed the difficult feat of being both funny and moving while presenting what felt like an authentic representation of boyhood, teenage angst and sexuality.

https://www.stratfordeast.com/whats-on/all-shows/choir-boy/1800

Favourite WritersMosaic writer

I’ve loved Vanessa Kisuule’s work for years. I’ve seen her perform live a couple of times, the first time being completely by accident while tagging along with someone at – I’m pretty sure, but I could be wrong – the Roundhouse Poetry Slam at the last minute. Regardless of wherever I first came across her poetry, her command of her craft has always been impressive, inspiring and deeply relatable from the moment I came across it. Big fan.