S Reignite

  Earlier this month, the 65 th annual Grammy awards took place in Los Angeles and saw former member of One Direction and now successful solo artist, Harry Styles win Album of the Year for his third album Harry’s House . After he won there was immediate debate online about whether Beyoncé’s sixth album Renaissance was snubbed for the award. This argument was fuelled by fans who noted Beyoncé has never won the Album of the Year Grammy despite her influential albums Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016) being nominated in this category. In my opinion Beyoncé isn’t being snubbed by the Recording Academy, she is being pigeonholed. Although Beyoncé is the most decorated female artist in Grammy history, many of her wins have come in the R&B categories including, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), which to me is clearly a pop song. Adding to this, in the summer when Renaissance lead single Break My Soul came out, I was surprised t...

'I think we feel a lot of pressure that we have to produce some kind of evidence as to why you feel marginalised, or some sort of statistical data. But if you feel some type of way, it's truth on its own. Your feeling our its own truth.' – Saredo The second book from the #MerkyBooks  imprint within William Heinemann, a part of Penguin Random House UK,  written by University of Cambridge graduates Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi is a well written manifesto about the struggle of black women in the education system. The book manages to include varied aspects of racial torment that the two authors, their fourteen interviewees and many like them have experienced, in a relatively short book. It integrates quotes from their interviewees seamlessly and uses them as a springboard for conversation. It has many quotable moments from the start with information that is shocking to read such as the blatant racism from within the University of Cambridge and the struggle to ...