Welcome to JP’s UK Culture Picks , your one-stop monthly column for all the best in UK music and culture! Expect everything from my favourite tracks and albums of the month to random YouTube finds, fire food spots to club night recommendations. You can find me on IG: @josephjppatterson .

Black British music and culture, despite having been at the forefront of British popular culture for the best part of two decades, are gradually being pushed out of the mainstream conversation. And if we’re being completely real, the shift in energy has been hard to ignore for a minute now.

The rise of the brazenly racist far-right, coupled with Trump’s push to scrap DEI programmes across the States, has had a knock-on effect around the world, with the creative industries also feeling the impact. The George Floyd/black-square era—when all those big corporations were tripping over themselves to champion Black voices and creativity—is well and truly over, sorry to tell you.…