Tones: Hip-Hop Opera (Brixton House)

AD | "Only people who know their roots grow to be the biggest trees."

🎭 Tones: A Hip-Hop Opera

Writer & Performer Gerel Falconer

⏳️ 1hr

💰 From £18

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Age +15

📅 4 Feb - 15 Feb 2025

📌 Brixton House, Brixton

Jerome, AKA The Professor has battled through his Blackness for as long as he can remember. Through this lyrical play, Jerome explores what it means to be Black, through childhood to adolescence. What happens when your identity is challenged? What happens when you compromise your Blackness to heighten your prospects? Jerome takes us on a stark journey of identity, social class, education + race.

This was a very interesting yet important play. Despite the title, I wasn't expecting the play to be as lyrical as it was, it took me a while to find my flow, but Jerel delivered bars upon bars for an hour - I'm sure his throat was happy for a reprieve at the end 😆

As we know, with Hip-Hop, the music serves to tell a story & Jerome executed this aspect of storytelling so well for the audience.

My favourite aspect of this play was the exploration of the complexities of 'Blackness'. As we all know, there are varying degrees of what it means to be Black in modern-day society. Jerome is perceived by others as the "coconut" Black, in other words, he articulates himself well, he is well educated, his future appears to be a far cry from his council estate block. His peers sneer at his "posh, white boy voice," while Jerome is left reeling & reconsidering what it means to be Black.

I personally don't think that this was helped due to his families expectations of him, and the constant criticisms of his cousin, who is seen as the one without prospects to the family, but to society is seen as the 'real' Black one. It's funny how the perceptions of Blackness differ depending on the viewer.

This also tied in nicely to the theme of microagressions. The way in which Jerome was perceived by his white peers fed into their use of microaggressions against him, which was very sad to see.

Overall, I really enjoyed this play & I think it holds a very important discussion surrounding Blackness for our young Black boys & men.

🎭🎭🎭.85