Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Sensational salsa session
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
Ran Kan Kan + Gerardo y su Rambacha
Old Fire Station, Oxford
RAN KAN KAN have been stalwarts of the Oxford music scene and a magnet for the city’s best budding salsa musicians since 2011.
Tonight, they've put together a fantastic bill, beginning with a masterclass in rumba dance from Ariel Rios, followed by a chance to put new-found skills to work with a performance by Gerardo y su Rambacha.
This powerful act play authentic Cuban rumba, a mesmerising and evocative art form viscerally stripped down to drums and voice. In rumba, the “traditional” — at least by modern Western standards — relationship between these two is reversed, with vocal chants providing a repetitive rhythmic base for the freer and more varied, even melodic, phrasing of the drums.
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