Starred review from February 27, 2023
In Crooks’s immersive debut, a young Jamaican woman grapples with grief and finds her way in the 1980s English dub scene. Yamaye, 24, lives with her father on the outskirts of London and frequents underground dance parties with her friends, an Irish woman named Rumer and a self-assured Jamaican named Asase. One night at a club, Yamaye meets quiet artist Marlon “Moose” Bohiti. The two fall in love, but then Moose is killed by London police outside his woodworking shop, having been accused of attacking an officer. Meanwhile, Rumer returns to Ireland, and Asase, in a rage due to abuse by a local hustler, stabs a man and is sent to prison. Though a social justice organization rallies behind Moose’s case, Yamaye despairs: “Now I’ve been thrown overboard into a dark sea... nothing to hold on to but coldness and darkness for centuries to come.” From these depths, Crooks chronicles an incredible story of Yamaye’s struggles and triumphs. First, she’s exploited by a Bristol art thief and is forced into helping with his heists. Eventually, she channels her anger into gigs as an MC under the moniker Sonix Dominatrix. The rich descriptions of Yamaye and her friends skanking to the music are immersive and gesture at the spirits of Yamaye’s Jamaican forebears: “We’re dancing in darkness, skinning up with the dead. I feel them twisting around me, round and round, rattles on their wrists and ankles, broken-beat bodies of sound.” This is a triumph. Agent: Nicola Chang, David Higham Assoc.
