Author | Lightnews

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 1d

‘Every person who plays jazz is a genius. Duke Ellington, Herbie Hancock: these guys set whole new ways of thinking, expressing music and interpreting—but all of the artistic pursuits go beyond the mind, to inform an intelligence of the soul.’

Julian Joseph OBE

the magic and Black genius of jazz music with Julian Joseph OBE

YouTube video by Busy Being Black with Joshua Rivers

youtu.be

1

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 6d

I need the human at Descript who wrote 'what will you do with your one wild and precious Underlord delay' to know that it did go unnoticed 😂

Reposted by Joshua

Caleb Ward @calebw.bsky.social · 8d

In a 1984 recording of her teaching in Berlin, at one point in a discussion about racism, Audre Lorde booms over the nervous laughter of her white students: “GUILT IS AN IMPERFECT FORM OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE!”

The whole room falls silent.

Does Guilt Make Us Better or Worse? #philosophy #emotions #guilt

YouTube video by Myisha Cherry PHD

m.youtube.com

1 8

Reposted by Joshua

Healing Justice Ldn @healingjusticeldn.bsky.social · 8d

ROOTWORK: Rallying Together for These Times ❤️‍🔥

A UK-wide tour of workshops with @nkem-ndefo.bsky.social @lumostransforms.bsky.social. In this moment of polycrises there is no structural change without deep inner-led change that uproots & attends to root causes.

www.eventbrite.com/cc/rootwork-...

Orange textured background. Photo of Nkem Ndefo in the foreground with a psychedelic effect and orange colour overlay. Bold white text reads: Rootwork: Rallying together for these times. 5-22 Nov. London. Bristol. Sheffield. Leeds. Glasgow. Embodied self-awareness as a foundation for liberatory relational & collective work.

Orange textured background. Bold white text reads: We get free together. London 5 Nov. Bristol 8 Nov. Sheffield 18 Nov. Leeds 20 Nov. Glasgow 22 Nov.

2 1

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 23d

For listeners playing Kevin Quashie Bingo, that's shot number 3,789. Please drink responsibly 💀

Our Miraculous Hearts with Phoebe Boswell: pod.link/1355469484/e...

2

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 24d

Touché, Phoebe 💀

🎧 pod.link/1355469484/e...

#podcast #blackart #healing

2

Reposted by Joshua

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 29d

'All I wanted to do was be a painter, but I was dissuaded by a white man tutor. He said, "I don't get what you're trying to say. What I suggest you do is stop buying paint and instead spend your money on Miles Davis records and go and hang out in Brixton."'

pod.link/1355469484/e...

2 1

Reposted by Joshua

Karim Wafa-Al Hussaini @karimwafa.bsky.social · Aug 30

A system cannot fail those it was never built to protect.

— W.E.B. DuBois

5 64 280

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 26d

Even as we destroy what confines and degrades us, we build, we grow, we nurture, we deepen, we bear witness. It can’t be a coincidence that we can do what makes us most human with tears in our eyes.

https://thedancingboy.substack.com/p/dont-get-got-get-god

Don't get got, get God

It is very unserious to suggest that the divine is blood-thirsty and murderous.

thedancingboy.substack.com

3

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 26d

'What I'm most enchanted by is finding soft moments to exist beyond production, labour or service. I’m delighted by my ability to advance through life this way, with that perfect balance of grace and grit'.

https://www.busybeingblack.com/black-marvellous/elijah-mckinnon

The imaginative work of becoming undone

Elijah McKinnon is the executive diva of OTV, and an imagination worker turning dreams into reality with decisive, intersectional and enlivening action across the media ecosystem.

www.busybeingblack.com

1

Reposted by Joshua

Decolonial Conference @decolonialconf.bsky.social · 27d

Submissions to our call for proposals are due October 3, 2025!

On April 6-7 2026, we will have the in-person conference and on April 8 it will be entirely online. Online attendees will have access to some in-person sessions, pending presenters' consent to being recorded.

#decolonialconference

1 19 17

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 27d

'Lynching postcards would be kept and maintained and preserved [as] correspondence or communication of intimacies that travelled across state and international lines: this was viral culture.'

https://www.busybeingblack.com/black-marvellous/legacy-russell

Rehumanising the Black Meme

Legacy Russell is a curator and writer who shows how Black people have shaped viral culture, revealing the economies of extraction that predate the internet and pointing towards collective world-building.

www.busybeingblack.com

1

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 27d

Meaning must be wrung from what’s left of this spirited trunk, raised to broken and begging lips, where a curling and tumescent sapling, all thrust, pulse and promise will decipher directions to the disinherited king.

Fit for a King

A solitary pirate sails down the dusted cunt of my back, the only remnant of the life that used to surge here.

open.substack.com

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 27d

A friend messages with a spell / the wind moving through the trees sounds like the ocean / I am hoisted up and flung into the air / a kamikaze of legs and arms / a child adored and alight / sun-kissed and screaming with giggles

https://thedancingboy.substack.com/p/the-magicians

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 27d

Thank you 🥹😭 When I tell you this conversation has been working on me. How willing am I to illustrate myself in willow charcoal, to entrust myself to others? 😭😭😭😭

1

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 28d

'I think trauma does things to you that are non-linear, and with all the best intentions, and all the will in the world to want to learn from the lesson, you still find yourself putting walls up.'

https://pod.link/1355469484/episode/YjNjNzg2YmEtOTZlYy0xMWYwLThhZGEtOTczMWIyNmY2NjU2

1 2

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 28d

I'd love to know how our conversation lands with you 💙

1 1

Reposted by Joshua

🎃Spooky Season🎃 @aderonx.bsky.social · 28d

Bookmarked this for tomorrow! That statistic inspired me to learn how to swim this year, not only did I learn - I now practice 2-3 times a week! 🏊🏿‍♀️

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 28d

When Phoebe Boswell learned that 95% of Black British adults don't swim, she invited couples, friends and family members to hold each other in the water. Their courage called her back to her first love.

https://pod.link/1355469484/episode/YjNjNzg2YmEtOTZlYy0xMWYwLThhZGEtOTczMWIyNmY2NjU2

1 1 1

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 28d

The children, possessed with their survival and rabid with betrayal, covered themselves in the blood of the complicit, set alight what was left of the pretences and disappeared into the woods.

https://thedancingboy.substack.com/p/the-end-of-days

1

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 28d

Her decision to illustrate herself in willow charcoal on the walls of the gallery was a gesture of trust that I found difficult to comprehend. I couldn’t understand myself as just as delicate: to my mind, I deserved my pain.

https://thedancingboy.substack.com/p/you-must-surrender-your-armour

3

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 28d

When Phoebe Boswell learned that 95% of Black British adults don't swim, she invited couples, friends and family members to hold each other in the water. Their courage called her back to her first love.

https://pod.link/1355469484/episode/YjNjNzg2YmEtOTZlYy0xMWYwLThhZGEtOTczMWIyNmY2NjU2

2 3

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 29d

just as you begin to feel you figured it out / you will harden into stone / boy-cum-comet ablaze / and you will plummet / and they will weep for you / in the valleys you felt so trapped in.

https://thedancingboy.substack.com/p/wild-horses

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 29d

'All I wanted to do was be a painter, but I was dissuaded by a white man tutor. He said, "I don't get what you're trying to say. What I suggest you do is stop buying paint and instead spend your money on Miles Davis records and go and hang out in Brixton."'

pod.link/1355469484/e...

2 1

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 29d

'I would take a photo of myself in whatever state I was in, and I would draw that onto the wall. It was in willow charcoal because it can be damaged very easily, and I wanted there to be this sense that I'm making a bid to trust you to protect it, to protect me.'

pod.link/1355469484/e...

1 1

Joshua @busybeingblack.com · 29d

Just in: a tender meditation on grief, healing and courage with Phoebe Boswell, a multidisciplinary artist creating portals that return us to our miraculous hearts.

pod.link/1355469484/e...

#busybeingblack #art #podcast

1 3