Paula Akpan

This well-observed novel about five South London half siblings is just as immersive as the author’s bestselling debut Queenie
Candice Carty-Williams’s 2019 debut novel Queenie became a bestseller with its touching, vivid portrayal of an adrift 25-year-old. People Person is just as immersive as it follows five south London half-siblings who share little more than a father who never stuck around.
The focus of the story is directionless Dimple Pennington. She is 30, an aspiring lifestyle influen...

At just 19, reggae star Koffee (Mikayla Simpson to her friends and family) cemented her brisk rise to fame with a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album, becoming both the youngest person and first-ever woman to win the accolade. With only the critically-acclaimed 2019 EP, Rapture, to her name, no one was more surprised than the Jamaican artist herself, as she admitted to the Evening Standard: “I didn’t know the world would show me so much love so quickly.”

Koffee’s hotly anticipated debut album ...

Back in 2020, a 15-year-old Black girl on her period, come to be known as Child Q, was victim to a strip-search by Met Police – without parental consent.
The reasoning? Teachers believed she smelt of cannabis.
When the child safeguarding review on Child Q was released earlier this week, it was revealed that the child was taken to a medical room by two female officers, with no appropriate adult. An intimate search was carried out, in spite of her being on her period.
No drugs were found, and s...

In Nigeria, much of Western Africa and throughout the African diaspora, everyone knows what you mean when you lament all the “wahala”. Nigerian pidgin that translates as “trouble”, it might even be paired with the classic refrain: “See me, see trouble”. With both phrases emblazoned across the front of Nikki May’s debut, the novel could spell only drama and chaos.
We follow the lives of three best friends in their thirties living in London. Ronke, Simi and Boo are all black women of mixed Nige...

Join tmrw:CLUB to read our intimate interview and exclusive shoot with Ray BLK.

Living through two years of a pandemic, and about to enter a third, has been life-altering for everyone – this has been no exception for Rita Ekwere. Publically better known as Ray BLK, the award-winning south London artist, whose 2016 breakthrough track ‘My Hood’ catapulted her to fame, was forced to pause – something that was not always feasible amongst the EP releases of Durt in 2016 and Empress in 2018, tourin...

"We’re trying to express and exemplify that Black history is [not] something for just one month," says the Black History Walks consultant.
Courtesy of Dr Michelle Yaa Asantewa
Over the last few years, discussions around Black British history and the importance of teaching it in academic settings have become increasingly common. Black communities have begun to ask why history books traditionally skew so white and why Black people in Britain have been denied the ability to ground ourselves in t...

The acknowledgements section of Candice Carty-Williams’s new book, Empress and Aniya, includes a list of the friends who helped her when she was young. “I thought about how grateful I was for the friends, and their families who took me in. If it wasn’t for them, 15-year-old me wouldn’t have been safe in any sense of the word,” she writes.
The author, now 32, greets me at the door of her south London home with a warm smile and a pair of lurid green Crocs for me to slip into. She worked as a ma...

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan. Duggan is one of many people to have died or been seriously injured during an interaction with British police, yet no officer in the UK has been convicted of murder following a death in custody since 1969, and only two have been found guilty of manslaughter. In ‘Those Left Behind’, we meet British families from different generations who have lost loved ones to police brutality.
Having just turned 40 in 2008, Sean Rigg...

Today marks the last day of Love Island 2021, with the live final slowly creeping towards us. That means we’ve spent the best part of two months in front of the TV every evening, but it’s perhaps best if we don’t dwell on that too much. What we cannot ignore, however, is that this latest series of Love Island has incurred the highest number of Ofcom complaints in the show’s six-year history.
A colossal 33,500+ complaints have been made to broadcast watchdog Ofcom since the series kicked off t...

Ten years later, police officer who killed Susan Alexander's son Azelle Rodney got off a murder charge.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan. Duggan is one of many people to have died or been seriously injured during an interaction with British police, yet no officer in the UK has been convicted of murder following a death in custody since 1969, and only two have been found guilty of manslaughter. In ‘Those Left Behind’, we meet British families from diff...

With contestants like Jake playing strategically to stay in the villa, the mechanics of Love Island are more visible than ever before. A hot single looking for love? As if. Jake’s eyes are glued on the cash prize.
With just a week to go ’ Love Island​’s live final next Monday, we’re preparing ourselves for the end of a season that, despite a rocky start, has kept viewers hooked night after night. And during its final weeks, as the villas cooled down post-Casa Amor, some extreme metadynamics h...

Police removed Christopher Alder from hospital after he'd been assaulted on a night out. Soon after they reached the station, he was pronounced dead.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan. Duggan is one of many people to have died or been seriously injured during an interaction with British police, yet no officer in the UK has been convicted of murder following a death in custody since 1969, and only two have been found guilty of manslaughter. In ‘Those Le...

Ahead of the ten-year anniversary of Mark Duggan's death, we spoke to four generations of British families impacted by police brutality.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan. Duggan is one of many people to have died or been seriously injured during an interaction with British police, yet no officer in the UK has been convicted of murder following a death in custody since 1969, and only two have been found guilty of manslaughter. In ‘Those Left Behind’, w...

Sometimes when watching reality TV, all you want to do is reach your hands through the screen and turn a contestant’s head in the direction of the drama you know is imminent. As a viewer, it’s uncomfortable when you’ve been purposefully shown more than the person you’re watching and you’re waiting for that penny to drop. It’s something that Love Island viewers became more than familiar with last week, as we waited to see what Millie’s fate would be.
Let’s recap: the boys were shipped off to C...

With Casa Amor approaching, we recap who got dumped, who’s giving us the ick, and the fascinating case of Toby: a man apparently doomed to an eternity of pulling ex-partners for chats until they forgive him.
Well, it has been quite a week. Or rather, the Love Island producers are finally churning out the content that we pay our TV licence for.
Jake popped the question to Liberty and, when she said ​“I love you”, promptly broadcast it to the rest of the villa without saying it back. A public v...