To Be Young, Gifted and Black

An impassioned defence of Black excellence in the arts.

What does it mean - and how does it feel - to grow up as a Black artist today?

’This exceptional book, written with a mother’s love for her seven creative children, sensitively offers profound and original insights and perspectives that enrich our culture. I feel so much wiser for reading it.’ Bernardine Evaristo

When Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason’s eldest daughter, Isata, made her solo debut at the BBC Proms in 2023, she could not have been prouder. Watching years of hard work transform into a transcendent performance was profoundly moving, both as music-lover and parent.

All fractured when her younger daughter turned to her in tears a few days later, having read online abuse about her sister. Isata, it was declared, did not deserve to be there. How do you prepare your child for the fact that no matter their talent, technique or dedication, they will be told they do not belong?

Through conversations with her extraordinarily gifted family, Kanneh-Mason explores what it’s like to come of age in these turbulent times, when Black artistic self-expression is so often met with disparagement and abuse online - and offers a hopeful, powerful way through.

Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason is a former lecturer in English at Birmingham University. Her memoir, House of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons (also published by Oneworld), won both the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Storytelling Award and the 2022 Indie Book Award for non-fiction. Kadiatu has seven children, all of whom are world-class classical musicians, who have performed both together and solo at major concert halls around the world.