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Podcast: Arts & Ideas
Episode: From Blackface to Beyoncé
Description: Hanif Abdurraqib, the American poet and essayist, has written a book in praise of black performance challenging stereotypes and recovering figures including the magician Ellen Armstrong who performed along the Atlantic seaboard in the 1900s, the dancer William Henry Lane described by Dickens and Merry Clayton, the gospel singer who performed on the Rolling Stones song Gimme Shelter. He joins New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei and Dawn Walton, founder of Eclipse Theatre Company for a conversation with Matthew Sweet looking at how attitudes towards black performance have changed - or not.Hanif Abdurraqib's book is called A...