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Bedroom rapper : Cadence Weapon on hip-hop, resistance and surviving the music industry / by Pemberton, Rollie,1986-author.;
Includes bibliographical references.Bedroom Rapper is a book for obsessive music fans who are looking for the definitive take on what's happened in the last two decades of hip hop, from Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton: Pitchfork critic, award-winning musician, producer, DJ, and poet laureate. Tracing his roots from recording beats in his mom's attic in Edmonton to performing with some of the most recognizable names in rap and electronic music--De La Soul, Public Enemy, Mos Def, Questlove, Diplo, and more--Polaris Prize winner Rollie Pemberton, a.k.a Cadence Weapon, captures the joy in finding yourself, and how a sense of place and purpose entwines inextricably with a music scene. From competitive basement family karaoke to touring Europe, from fights with an exploitative label to finding his creative voice, from protesting against gentrification to using his music to centre political change, Rollie charts his own development alongside a shifting musical landscape. As Rollie finds his feet, the bottom falls out of the industry, and he captures the way so many artists were able to make a nimble name for themselves while labels floundered. Bedroom Rapper also offers us a wide-ranging and crucial history of hip-hop. With an international perspective that's often missing from rap music journalism, he integrates the gestation of American hip hop with UK grime and niche scenes from the Canadian prairies, bringing his obsessive knowledge of hip-hop to bear on his subject. Rollie takes us into New York in the '70s, Edmonton in the '90s, the legendary Montreal DIY loft scene of the 2000s, and traces the ups and downs of trusting your gut and following your passion, obsessively. With a foreword by Gabriel Szatan, music fans and creators alike will relate to the dedication to craft, obsessive passion for what came before, and desire to shift the future that is embodied in every creative project Rollie takes on.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Cadence Weapon, 1986-; Pemberton, Rollie, 1986-; Rap musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The skin we're in : a year of Black resistance and power / by Cole, Desmond,1982-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."In May 2015, the cover story of Toronto Life magazine shook Canada's largest city to its core. Desmond Cole's "The Skin I'm In" exposed the racist practices of the Toronto police force, detailing the dozens of times Cole had been stopped and interrogated under the controversial practice of carding. The story quickly came to national prominence, went on to win a number of National Magazine Awards and catapulted its author into the public sphere. Cole used his newfound profile to draw insistent, unyielding attention to the injustices faced by Black Canadians on a daily basis: the devastating effects of racist policing; the hopelessness produced by an education system that expects little of its black students and withholds from them the resources they need to succeed more fully; the heartbreak of those vulnerable before the child welfare system and those separated from their families by discriminatory immigration laws. Both Cole's activism and journalism find vibrant expression in his first book, The Skin We're In. Puncturing once and for all the bubble of Canadian smugness and naïve assumptions of a post-racial nation, Cole chronicles just one year-- 2017-- in the struggle against racism in this country. It was a year that saw calls for tighter borders when African refugees braved frigid temperatures to cross into Manitoba from the States, racial epithets used by a school board trustee, a six-year-old girl handcuffed at school. The year also witnessed the profound personal and professional ramifications of Desmond Cole's unwavering determination to combat injustice. In April, Cole disrupted a Toronto police board meeting by calling for the destruction of all data collected through carding. Following the protest, Cole, a columnist with the Toronto Star, was summoned to a meeting with the paper's opinions editor and was informed that his activism violated company policy. Rather than limit his efforts defending Black lives, Cole chose to sever his relationship with the publication. Then in July, at another TPS meeting, Cole challenged the board publicly, addressing rumours of a police cover-up of the brutal beating of Dafonte Miller by an off-duty police officer and his brother. When Cole refused to leave the meeting until the question was publicly addressed, he was arrested. The image of Cole walking, handcuffed and flanked by officers, out of the meeting fortified the distrust between the city's Black community and its police force. In a month-by-month chronicle, Cole locates the deep cultural, historical and political roots of each event so that what emerges is a personal, painful and comprehensive picture of entrenched, systemic inequality. Urgent, controversial and unsparingly honest, The Skin We're In is destined to become a vital text for anti-racist and social justice movements in Canada, as well as a potent antidote to the all-too-present complacency of many white Canadians."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Black Canadians; Discrimination in criminal justice administration; Discrimination in law enforcement; Minorities; Police brutality; Police misconduct; Police-community relations; Race discrimination;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The lonely century : how to restore human connection in a world that's pulling apart / by Hertz, Noreena,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An economist takes on the most urgent social issue of our time, exploring the evolution of the global loneliness crisis, the sweeping impact of social isolation during the coronavirus, and the opportunities a post-Covid world presents to reverse these trends-by finding new ways to reconnect with each other, our communities, and even our democracy. Even before the global pandemic brought terms like "social distancing" into the vernacular, loneliness was well on its way to becoming the defining trait of the twenty-first century. Today, nearly half of adults in the United States report feeling lonely, and more than twenty percent of millennials say they have "no friends at all." All around us, the fabric of community is unraveling. And technology isn't the lone culprit. Rather, the crisis stems from the dismantling of civic institutions, the radical reorganization of the workplace, mass urban migration, and decades of neoliberal policies that placed self-interest above the collective good. On one hand, the prolonged period spent under lockdown has accelerated these trends: from remote work to contactless commerce to the hollowing out of shared public spaces. On the other, it has sharpened our awareness of the toll isolation takes on our families, our communities, and our mental health. This is not merely a mental health crisis. Loneliness increases our risk of heart disease, cancer, and dementia. Statistically, it's as bad for our health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It's also an economic crisis, costing us billions annually. And it's a political crisis, as feelings of marginalization fuel divisiveness and extremism around the world. In The Lonely Century, readers accompany Hertz as she "rents a friend" in Manhattan, attends a "how to read a face" class at an Ivy League university, and meets Japanese nursing home residents who knit bonnets for their robot caregivers. Along the way, she urges us to ask ourselves what kind of world we want to create, post-pandemic: one where we retreat further into our self-isolating bubbles and remain ever-fearful of others, or one where we are more committed to reconnecting with one another, and with the democratic process itself. From compassionate AI to new models for urban living to the ingenuity unleashed in finding new ways to stay connected in the era of social distancing, The Lonely Century offers a hopeful vision for how to heal our fractured communities and restore connection in our lives. In the wake of Covid-19, this is not only more urgent, but more possible than ever"--
Subjects: Interpersonal relations.; Loneliness; Social media; Loneliness;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Empty mansions : the mysterious life of Huguette Clark and the spending of a great American fortune / by Dedman, Bill.; Newell, Paul Clark,Jr.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed a property listing for a grand estate that had been unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled into one of the most surprising American stories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Empty Mansions is a rich tale of wealth and loss, complete with copper barons, Gilded Age opulence, and backdoor politics. At its heart is a reclusive 104-year-old heiress named Huguette Clark. Dedman has collaborated with Huguette's cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have had frequent conversations with her, to tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter who is born into an almost royal family of amazing wealth and privilege, yet who secrets herself away from the outside world. Empty Mansions reveals a complete picture of the enigmatic Huguette Clark, heiress to one of the greatest fortunes in American history, a woman who had not been photographed in public since the 1920s. Though she owned three palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, they sat vacant while she lived out her final two decades in a New York City hospital room, despite being in excellent health. Her father was self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, who at the dawn of the twentieth century was one of the richest men in America. Huguette's inheritance afforded her untold luxury: gorgeous paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls, lavish gifts for her friends, the freedom to pursue her own work as an artist, and, most important, the privacy she valued above all else. The Clark family story takes the reader nearly the entire span of American history in just three generations. The same Huguette who held a ticket for the return trip of the Titanic was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11. In this scrupulously detailed account, we meet Huguette's extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her noble French boyfriend, the nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives seeking to inherit Huguette's $300 million fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, some never before seen, Empty Mansions is a touching story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Clark, Huguette, 1906-2011; Clark, Huguette, 1906-2011; Clark, Huguette, 1906-2011.; Clark, William Andrews, 1839-1925; Collectors and collecting; Eccentrics; Heiresses; Mansions; Recluses;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Furious hours : murder, fraud, and the last trial of Harper Lee / by Cep, Casey N.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."The stunning story of an Alabama serial killer and the true-crime book that Harper Lee worked on obsessively in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird. Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted--thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante's trial was Harper Lee, who had traveled from New York City to her native Alabama with the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research seventeen years earlier. Lee spent a year in town reporting, and many more working on her own version of the case. Now Casey Cep brings this nearly inconceivable story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South. At the same time, she offers a deeply moving portrait of one of the country's most beloved writers and her struggle with fame, success, and the mystery of artistic creativity"--"The stunning true story of an Alabama serial killer, and the trial that obsessed the author of To Kill a Mockingbird in the years after the publication of her classic novel--a complicated and difficult time in her life that, until now, has been very little examined. Willie Maxwell was a Baptist reverend in Alabama; he also happened to be a serial killer. Between 1970 and 1977, his two wives and brother all died under suspicious circumstances -- each with hefty life insurance policies taken out by none other than the Reverend himself. With the help of a savvy lawyer, Maxwell escaped justice for years. Then, the teenage daughter of his third wife perished. At the funeral, the victim's uncle shot the Reverend dead in a church full of witnesses--and was subsequently acquitted of the murder, thanks to the same savvy lawyer who had represented the Reverend for all those years. Sitting in the audience during the trial was Harper Lee, who had traveled from New York to her native Alabama with an idea of writing a book about the case. Now, Casey Cep brings this nearly inconceivable, gripping story to life on the page: from the shocking murders to the chicanery of insurance fraud to the courtroom drama. At the same time, it is a vividly told, elegiac account of Harper Lee's quest to write a second book after To Kill a Mockingbird, and a deeply moving portrait of this beloved writer's struggle with fame, success, and the mysteries of artistic creativity"--
Subjects: True crime stories.; Maxwell, Willie.; Lee, Harper.; Serial murders; Murder; Trials (Murder);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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