This is a clearinghouse post where I will compile links to all of my pieces so that it’s easy for people who want to read what I have to say on specific topics to find what I have written.
Here is the list of my 100 favourite rap songs. Here is the list of my 100 favourite rap artists. Here is the list of my 150 favourite songs I’ve ever heard, in the entirety of popular music, with no regard to genre. Here is the list of my 100 favourite films.
I also intend to eventually post lists of my 50 favourite rap albums and of my choices for the 200 or so “greatest” rappers of all time.
Here is a document that elucidates my choices for the greatest rappers who fit into a variety of specific categories. That’s a subject I return to somewhat frequently, so there are other documents to that effect to be found elsewhere around these parts. I’ll link you do them later.
Pieces paying tribute to some of my favourite underrated rappers can be found here, here, and here. A piece of which I am particularly proud which celebrates “rap music’s birthday” and which I update on the 11th of August every year, is to be found here. Additionally, I have written reflections of varying lengths about Drake, Ariana Grande, Griselda, the Insane Clown Posse, Detroit rap, my ideal rap collaborations, and much else.
I have eulogized Nelson Mandela, Little Richard, Christopher Plummer, MF DOOM, Phife Dawg, Gift of Gab, Mac Miller, Black Rob, David Gulpilil, Shock G, Coolio, the Bahá’í martyr Mona Mahmudnizhad, and (less glowingly) Sheldon Adelson and Robert Fisk.
I have plans to write eulogies for Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Courtney Lonergan, Tashbih Sayyed, Craig Mack, DMX, Sean Price, Biz Markie, Christopher Hitchens, Ian Holm, Max von Sydow, Michael Gambon, Edward Yang, Tarek Fatah, Dariush Mehrjui, Earl Cameron, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Ousmane Sembène, Philip Seymour Hoffman, James Gandolfini, John Prine, Toots Hibbert, Aretha Franklin, Bruno Ganz, Bibi Andersson, R.B. Greaves, Lee Moses, Charles Bradley, Jeanne Moreau, Paul Sorvino, Sharon Jones, Ronit Elkabetz, Levi Stubbs, Terence Davies, Desmond Dekker, Rashad Khalifa, Prince Far I, Sugar Minott, Heavy D, Freaky Tah, Jimmy Wopo, Young Pappy, Khaleel Mohammed, and Michael K. Williams as well, among others.
I have paid tribute to Scarface, Kool G Rap, Freddie Gibbs, Mos Def, Brother Ali, Black Thought and Big Daddy Kane, Raheel Raza and Denis MacEoin, the Canadian rap titan The Legend Adam Bomb, the Reverend Shawn Newton, and several members of my own family, usually on, or around the time of, their birthdays. I have in mind to eventually post tributes to Rakim, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Shad, and others.
Here is my attempt to explain the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as thoroughly and fairly as I can. Here is a piece expressing my basic view of Zionism, and here is one in which I explain why I don’t support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel.
In October of 2023, in the wake of what was likely the worst terrorist attack in the history of Israel, I published this angry jeremiad excoriating people who support Hamas and all other bloodthirsty anti-Zionist and Muslim supremacist terrorists: https://tinyurl.com/AgainstHamas
Here is a speech I gave to an audience of my allies and friends at Muslims Facing Tomorrow and the Progressive Muslims’ Institute of Canada. I have also discussed Islam and Islamophobia, and what I view as my responsibility to comment thoughtfully and accurately on the global jihad ideology without engaging in Islamophobic hatred, here, here, and here.
I am particularly proud of this piece arguing that to blaspheme the sanctities of fascists who will try to kill you if you don’t live the way they want you to is a good and noble thing to do. A good friend of mine offered some gentle and polite but still forceful criticism of my perspective on that issue here.
I have expressed opposition to Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and his Pakistani and Nigerian fellow travellers here. I have in mind at some point to write many more pieces explaining my ideology, which combines intersectional feminism with opposition to the global jihad ideology, and likewise twins socialist economic and domestic policy preferences with a robustly hawkish foreign policy and an opposition to totalitarianism and supremacism both inside and outside the West.
A piece on my relationship to my religion, the Bahá’í Faith, is here, and some of my favourite selections from Bahá’í Scripture can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here. Additionally, here is a piece written to coincide with Yom Kippur in which I examine my relationship to the Jewish tradition in which I was raised.
This post will be updated with links to more stuff as things progress.