Hi 👋, welcome to the latest edition of the recommendation newsletter.

Dis-Content brings you unique, algorithm-free recommendations every week.
Music, movies, reading, and memes, we cover it all.

Videos🎬

I don’t know about you but Conan ’s farewell episode seems to be all over the internet. On Youtube. On Twitter. Well, at least, on these two mediums.

It is an achievement though. 28 years in a high intensity job. Monday to Friday. Constant grind. Got to appreciate the tenacity and of course, the humour of the man. Here is my absolute favourite Jack Black making an appearance on the finale. Of course, he put on a show.

Leaving Conan aside, I never understood the difference between the various talk show hosts. Are there supposed to be some themes behind each? How late is late night and how late is the late-late show? Moreover, in the past few years, usually it is a white dude called Jimmy being funny and talking to good looking people.

Which brings us to today’s video. Why do all Late-Night Talk Shows look the same?

What is the secret? A tradition which stuck or does the answer lie in the history of performance art.

Music🎵/Movie🎥

Today’s music and movie recommendation is the same.

This is Detroit in the the 60s. The legend goes that once there was a man called Rodriguez. A singer-songwriter, Rodriguez put out two albums, Cold Fact, and Coming from Reality. Cold Fact sold less than 10 copies. Coming from reality fared not much better.
One night, after he finished his performance in a local Detroit bar. He thanked the audience and pulled out a gun and blew his brain in front of the audience. Another story was that he set himself on fire. When it came to Rodriguez, there are many legends.

One legend, that is definitely true, is that a single copy of Cold Fact somehow reached South Africa. Living through an apartheid, with censorship all around, the youth of South Africa found a hero. Someone who could speak their language. Rodriguez, a flop in America, became the voice of a revolution in South Africa. Imagine an entire generation singing the two albums, word to word, cover to cover.

People wondered who Rodriguez was but no one knew for sure. There were stories. Mostly about his aforementioned death. But the curiosity remained. Who was this Dylan equivalent who slipped through the sands of time. A poet. A prophet.

Searching for Sugarman is a documentary about two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock n roller, Rodriguez.

The entire documentary is on Youtube. Watch it.
Go in cold and please, please, do not watch the trailer. Spoilers galore.

Directed by Malik Bendjelloul, Searching for Sugarman, won Best Documentary at Oscars, Sundance, and Baftas. Malik passed away soon after the release, this was the only film he got to make.

Here is the Cold Fact album:

Before you go.

Joanna Jankowska - Second Life Syndrome, 2012

And on that note, we bring this edition to an end.
Any typos you came across were totally on purpose :)
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