The Monday Media Diet with Christine Kakaire

Christine Kakaire (CK) is a music & culture journalist, critic, teacher and editor based in Berlin, Germany. Have a great week. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

I’m a Berlin-based, Ugandan-Australian creative person. I’ve had a lot of different jobs in the music industry over two decades, but what suits me best is being a culture journalist, writer, critic and teacher. My sweet spot is any point where Black critical and feminist thought, nightlife subcultures, popular music and my studies in cultural anthropology are able to converge. I’m the person behind the Black Creative Database (which launched as part of Black Artist Database), and I write a little editorial column for a giant behemoth nightclub in Berlin that a lot of people have heard about. Along with being obsessed with music and culture, I’m also one of those skincare bores with separate 10-step daily routines for morning and evening. I will gladly talk you through the minutiae of each product if you let me! I also hand-make a little bodycare products line called buttery that is perpetually either going into or emerging out of hibernation.

Describe your media diet.

My media diet was irrevocably changed in 2020. My ability to be still and concentrate on media of length essentially vanished that year. My appetite for news media and films and books and DJ mixes only recently started to return, so in the meantime my diet has consisted almost exclusively of academic papers, podcasts, newsletters and YouTube. 

My go-to G.O.A.T. podcasts will forever be The Read and Still Processing, but for other shows I gravitate towards podcasts with a specific cultural focus. Lolita Podcast by Jamie Loftus absolutely floored me, it was devastating at points. It is wide-ranging and illuminating and compassionate, and tries to make sense of the Nabakovian Lolita archetype that’s so stubbornly embedded into contemporary culture. Bottom Of The Map is an impeccable show made in Atlanta by a hip hop scholar and a music journalist who are both women, all about the history and culture of southern rap music. Authentic: The story of Tablo, is a fascinating series about a Korean-Canadian hip hop superstar who became the focus of an unhinged conspiracy theory, and it touches on the ‘model minority’ myth and class tensions within South Korean society. The Oldest Profession is made by a comedian and a historian who are both former sex workers, and they’ve created a podcast and broader advocacy project around the lost or hidden histories of sex workers. For nerdy music stuff I really love Hit Parade; I have no idea what the host Chris Molanphy looks like, but I like to imagine him wearing thick glasses and a bow tie, surrounded by piles and piles of Billboard music chart data points.

On YouTube there's a generation of young BIPoC female and non-binary creators who put together beautifully researched, entertaining and incisive video essays. For Harriet set the gold standard for Black feminist analyses of popular culture, and she begat gifted creators like Tee Noir, Khadija Mbowe and Mayowa. I love Mina Le’s deep contextual dives into fashion and aesthetics, and Be Kind Rewind’s poignant essays about women in film.

What’s the last great book you read?

The one book I’ve been able to devour in the last year is the only self-help book I’ve ever purchased: Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab. As a person who realised late in life that I’m terrible at setting boundaries it has been a godsend!

What are you reading now?

Last year a dear friend, the brilliant author and historian of science Edna Bonhomme, formed a Berlin collective of BIPoC writers called Kitchen Table (named in tribute to the feminist press of the same name). It’s an inspiring and supportive crew, and I love that we’re able to share ideas and resources and explore each others’ published and unpublished work on a regular basis. Some folks from the group whose work I’m reading now include another friend, South African spiritual healer and writer Goitseone Montsho who contributed an essay to a recent anthology about interracial relationships. There’s also Zara Rahman, who writes about identification technologies (she’s also crowdfunding for her book Machine Readable Me which will be in the next drop from indie publisher Inklings), Charmaine Li who publishes an online magazine, ONEIRIC.SPACE, about the conscious mind’s relationship to dream states, and Chitra Nagarajan’s book about the lives of queer Nigerian women.

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What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

I don’t buy print magazines frequently as it’s an expensive habit to maintain as a freelancer, so when I do pick one up my approach is ridiculously ceremonial: I need silence, I have to be comfortable. Socks, blanket, cushions fluffed and arranged for maximum comfort. I’ll do one complete scan through, cover to cover. Then as time and attention span allows I'll read whichever features have sparked the most interest. I’ll keep it close to hand over the next few days so I can pick it back up and read the rest in phases.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

For anyone like me who is still figuring out how to healthily engage with news media, I’d suggest following journalists who specialise in the topics you care the most about. Recently I’ve been enjoying the work of Palestinian writers, including journalist and political commentator Mariam Barghouti and writer and poet activist Mohammad Elkurd. From America, Olayemi Olurin is a New York public defender and political commentator who has some sobering insights into carcerality and prison abolition, and Cerise Castle’s reporting on the police gangs within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is just… phew. 

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone? 

Skin Rocks, which will be familiar to anyone who is similarly demented about skincare products.

Plane or train?

Train, no question. I live in Germany, and although it’s convenient to bop around the continent by plan, the hurry-up-and-wait nature of flying just melts my head. It might only be a 60 minute flight, but there’s still four door-to-door hours of standing in queues and waiting in holding pens. I’d rather plop my stuff down on a train for four hours, get comfortable, look out the window at the changing landscapes, wander to the buffet car when I feel like it, check email if I feel like it, stream a show if I feel like it.

What is one place everyone should visit?

This is very basic, but any coastline where you can gaze out onto a peaceful, unbroken sea horizon.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into. 

My entire life is a rabbit hole, but I can tell you about one that I’m fighting off right now: Ancient Rome. I’ve always only been interested in modernity, at school I hated ancient history and dropped it as soon as I could, so I don’t know where this sudden interest has sprung from. I’m resisting it because Ancient Rome is an information void that I fear I’ll never be able to escape. To try and get past it I’ve allowed myself just one source of information, The History of Rome podcast, because it’s like 200 episodes long and extremely dry. I assumed the novelty would wear off but here I am like a fool, eight hours deep and deeply invested in the outcome of the Punic Wars!

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Christine (CK)

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