Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason releases book ‘tackling issues of cultural, racial, and national identity’

Writer, lecturer and arts advocate Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason has today released her latest book focusing on the joys and challenges of raising a family of talented Black classical musicians in today's world. To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which takes its title from the 1969 Nina Simone song of the same name, draws on conversations between Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason, her husband Stuart and their seven children, all of whom are classical musicians.

To Be Young, Gifted and Black follows the success of Kanneh-Mason’s memoir, House of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons which, won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Storytelling Award in November 2021 and the 2022 ABO Award. It draws on conversations within the Kanneh-Mason family to offer an ‘unflinching examination of racism in the arts while celebrating the strength and creativity that define her family’.

Kanneh-Mason said, ‘This is a book very close to my heart, written from the intimate conversations we have with each other as a family of Black musicians and creatives. I tackle issues of cultural, racial, and national identity and I look at conflicting ideas of what it means to be young, gifted, and Black today. As successful classical musicians and performers, I examine how we encounter and deal with racism, and what is at stake when we risk speaking out about race. Acknowledging trauma, vulnerability, anger and passion, this network of private reminiscences, truth-telling, and confession forms a searingly honest and searching testimonial of a family in the context and in the times, we find ourselves.’

The new book follows a series of media ‘moments’ during which Kanneh-Mason’s children have received racist abuse. For example, when her eldest daughter, Isata, made her solo debut at the BBC Proms in 2023, and when her cellist son, Sheku appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2024 and shared his view that controversial piece Rule, Britannia! should not be included in the Last Night of the Proms, both were met by a torrent of online abuse. The book therefore explores the question: ‘How does a mother prepare her children to navigate a world where their brilliance is met with prejudice?’