the culture that consumed me: edition one.

rent free's january round-up/ recommendations.

i wrote earlier this month that i was an amalgamation of all the art i had ever consumed: that who i am is inseparable from the books and films and paintings i’d come into contact with. i know that i am not alone in this. i bet you can remember the album you listened to non-stop while you were crushing on that guy or girl in your english class. when you hear the chorus of that frank ocean song, you still can’t help but blush, brought back to those moments.

it would not be an exaggeration to say that culture is just as monumental as marking the passage of time to me as tangible dates are. my grandmother passed away the same year the first hunger games film came out; i sat for my a-level exams the same year dave released his debut album psychodrama. i fell in love to the sound of blue neighborhood, and had my heart broken for the first time with a copy of beloved in my backpack.

our attention is expensive- there are men, gluttonous for power, currently throwing millions of dollars at proposals designed specifically to have a monopoly on it. there is so much noise, so much to see and read and not enough time to engage with it all. it can be hard to know what is worth spending our finite lives on; life is too short to sit through a shit film, or to subject yourself to a colleen hoover book. i’m also tired of leafing through recommendation lists where the same five pieces of work by the same demographic (read: white artists) are pushed onto readers, where nothing exciting or new is explored. nothing with melanin or that escapes the creative bounds of the west.

so many of you expressed wanting to get back in touch with your artistic curiosity. consider this series your monthly guide, sharing the cultural works that made me feel and think in a climate dripping with ambivalence. we don’t do nonchalance on this corner of the internet. if you want to be the hot, cultured, well-read babe you vowed to be this year, read on. grab a notebook and pen: screenshot away.

these are the bits of art that made life worth living this dreary january. may they bring you as much relief and joy as they did me.