The Frank 5

My latest culture recs

GRIP

Mood as hell.

Serpentwithfeet’s third album, GRIP, is more than just a lush, sexy, and moody R&B album. It’s an incredibly strong piece of Black queer art that could easily get lost in the abundance of new pop music being released right now, so I implore you to give it a listen. This album is sexy, it’s passionate, it’s about fucking, it’s about what happens after fucking. It’s romantic. It’s inspiring. I’ve had it on repeat since it dropped. It’s perfect writing music, it’s perfect sex music, it’s perfect go listen to it right now music.

The Ally

Itamar Moses’ new play at the Public Theatre stars Josh Radnor as a dramatic writing professor who signs a manifesto at the behest of a former student. The manifesto is to get justice for the student’s cousin who was shot and killed by campus police for a crime he didn’t commit. There’s just one other thing about the manifesto.

It ties violence against Black Americans to violence against all oppressed peoples globally. It calls for sanctions on the apartheid state of Israel, and continues: “failure to do so will leave the United States complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.” After the professor signs the manifesto, with some hedging, he’s then thrust into a campus-wide debate on Israel and Gaza.