1 Mathieu Kassovitz’s ‘La Haine’
I feel like it’s a timeless movie, sadly. It’s
about riots in the wake of a police-brutal-
ity killing in Paris, and it’s something that
resonates today. It’s a story of adolescent
malaise and marginalization and what
that combination can do. But it’s also a
hilarious film. It’s a very youthful film.2
Short stories by
Saadat Hasan MantoHe has written about the horrors of parti-
tion. He has written about displacement,
about how these labels of nationality and
identity are fluid. It’s like building a hut on
quicksand, and that speaks to my own
experience as a child of immigrants.3
‘Go to the Limits of Your Longing’
By Rainer Maria RilkeIt speaks to a spirituality that I can just
get down with — this idea that divinity
lives in the shadow of our actions. I also
loved this line, “Let everything happen to
you: beauty and terror.” That’s an incred-
ible invitation, and something that brings
me back to part of why I choose to act.4 ’90s Multiculturalism
In the ’90s there was this moment of cele-
brating multiculturalism in the U.K. San-
jeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal created
“Goodness Gracious Me,” this ground-
breaking sitcom like “Key & Peele” or
“Chappelle’s Show.” With hits like “Bend
It Like Beckham” or “Bhaji on the Beach,”
suddenly we were on the screen. Simi-
larly, in music, Bally Sagoo coming up
with these remix cassettes where you’d
take hip-hop beats and Bollywood beats. I
pay homage to this in a short film called
“Daytimer.” A big part of this culture was
daytime raves, because South Asian girls
with strict conservative families weren’t
allowed out at night.5 Aziz Mian’s ‘Main Sharabi’
Aziz Mian was iconoclastic. He was
deeply controversial. “Sharabi” means
alcoholic, and what he says in the song is,
“I’m an alcoholic, I’m an alcoholic.” And
what he’s talking about is the intoxication
of divine energy.6 Mos Def’s ‘Black on Both Sides’
It’s an album that keeps on giving. I revis-
ited the track “Love” the other day. When
I first came to this album I was a teen-
ager. When I’ve returned to it now in my
mid-30s, I’m recognizing like, oh, wow,
he’s referencing bell hooks when he talks
about, “Is this the pain of too much ten-
derness?” You know, when bell hooks
talks about how men might run from love
because of the pain of making yourself
vulnerable.7 British Rave Music
Whenever I finished a film in America, I
used to give people USB sticks of a
playlist that would educate them on U.K.
rave music. U.K. Apache’s “Original Nut-
tah” is a great primer into what jungle
music is. You’ve got a British-Iraqi guy
who has named himself Apache Indian,
rapping in a mixture of cockney slang and
Jamaican patois.8 South Asian Art
I got to know Salman Toor’s work when I
was preparing for “Sound of Metal.”
There’s this amazing piece called “East
Village Apartment.” It’s this Pakistani
guy who’s in his apartment, and he’s got
all these books on his table about Indian
painting and Pakistani history. He’s try-
ing to do his best to understand where he
comes from. But he’s got his head tilted
back in exasperation, and out the window
you see a downtown mosque. And he can’t
bear to look at the mosque and he can’t
bear to look at the books.9 Alocasia Zebrina
Alocasia zebrina is a beautiful plant be-
cause it’s like the elephant ear, but it’s
stripy like a zebra on the stems. And
what’s crazy about it is how much they
arch toward the sun. They’re so cheeky.10 His Mum’s Do Pyaaza Recipe
“Do pyaaza” means from two onions. It’s
a very simple curry dish that during lock-
down my mum taught me. My mouth is
watering as I’m talking about it. It just
tastes like home to me.Riz Ahmed Flits From Rilke to British Rave
Riz Ahmed, the British actor, rapper and activist, tends to
speak in paragraphs filled with vivid details. But in his latest
role, as a punk-metal drummer who loses his hearing, he
learned a different way to express himself. “It really forced
me to step out of my comfort zone,” Ahmed said of “Sound
of Metal,” which premieres in theaters on Friday and on
Amazon Prime Video on Dec. 4. In a Zoom interview from
Twentynine Palms, Calif., where he has been shooting “Inva-
sion,” Ahmed elaborated on his cultural essentials. These are
edited excerpts from the conversation. KATHRYN SHATTUCK
‘A big part of this
culture was daytime
raves, because
South Asian girls with
strict conservative
families weren’t
allowed out at night.’ANDREW TOTH/GETTY IMAGESsWhich is your favorite Mariah Carey? Torch song titan? Pop ballad
queen? Glass-shattering R&B sniper? Hip-hop-minded genre melder?
All are crucial to how the singer and songwriter has navigated three dec-
ades of pop stardom, with astonishing highs and some unfortunate lows.
On a recent Popcast, the New York Times pop music critic Jon Caraman-
ica spoke with Allison P. Davis, a features writer at New York magazine
who profiled Carey ahead of the release of the singer’s memoir, “The
Meaning of Mariah Carey.” They discussed how the elusive chanteuse
has been adjusting to 2020, the things she did and did not reveal in her
book, and the range of her contributions to the intersections of pop, R&B
and hip-hop. The full conversation, edited and excerpted here, is at
nytimes.com/popcast.
JON CARAMANICARace is a huge topic
of discussion in this book. Mariah
speaks candidly about the challenges
of growing up with a white mother
and a Black father and the identity
confusion that left her with — how it
created tension not just in her family
interactions, but eventually in her
career, and in her romantic life as
well.ALLISON P. DAVISI do think that of all
the moments that she’s starting to get
her due in ways that she hasn’t before
— as a songwriter, as a hitmaker, as
just a great self-aware character —
this book was the biggest one, where
in 2020 we can finally look at identity
in a really different way and acknowl-
edge how screwed-up it was for her.
It’s still something she’s unpacking
because she has two kids, and watch-
ing them grow up and trying to help
them be who they are fully, she has to
continuously reckon with her own
childhood.CARAMANICALet’s go back to the
mid-90s. There wasn’t yet a language
for a pop singer who had natural
hip-hop tendencies who then em-
braced hip-hop. I think what that
conversation was, especially after
reading the section of this book deal-
ing with Tommy Mottola, the music
mogul who had been crucial to build-
ing her career, was that no one at her
label was investing in her being that
person, even if that person was closer
to who she actually was on the inside.
There are so many great stories in the
book of her interacting with rappers
in ways that are completely comfort-
able, and then Tommy Mottola freak-
ing out about it.DAVISShe was telling stories about
the mid-90s and like, “Oh, I’m back-
stage at this award show with this
rapper or this hip-hop producer.”
That’s a Mariah that sounds like so
much fun to hang out with. And
you’re like, “All I want is a memoir of
that.”CARAMANICACan we talk a little bit
about fans? The way that Mariah
writes about her relationship with her
fans is probably the most astute and
sympathetic portrayal and represen-
tation of a fandom and what a fandom
can actually mean to a performer that
I’ve ever read or heard any famous
person describe.DAVISShe kept saying she wrote the
book for her younger self and for her
kids, and she was writing it for the
fans. I do feel there is a genuine and
true intimacy, and her fans — their
loyalty is hard won because they stick
with Mariah through all of the ups
and downs. That’s also fascinating
because it’s enduring, and I think that
her fans are a little bit older than the
average fan group, just because
they’ve been there from the begin-
ning.CARAMANICAShe describes a scene of
seeing fans behind police barricades
waiting for her when she was doing a
performance in Schenectady in 1993.
She goes on for about a page having a
realization that she’s basically being
trapped making music, making vid-
eos, living with Tommy, having an
entirely cloistered-off life. And all of a
sudden she realized that it’s almost
like she has this entire energy source
that she didn’t know that she had. I
found it really moving and maybe the
purest description of what it might
mean to be loved by hundreds or
thousands, or millions of people
whose names you don’t know, but
what generative power that could
give a person.DAVISThe thing that impresses me
about her is that you could just be the
kind of person that takes all that in
and lets the power just wash over
you, and it’s something you’re vam-
pirically drawing from, but she wants
to give the energy back to her fans.
And not just in a way where she’ll put
on a good show, but in these real ways
where she really engages with her
fans. It seems more symbiotic than
anything.PLAYBACK
Torch Singer, Pop Balladeer:
The Many Mariah Careys
PAUL NATKIN/WIREIMAGE, VIA GETTY IMAGESTHE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020 AR 3Headliner
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