New book on Dean Blunt examines Blackness in Britain

South London-based press collective the87press is publishing a book on Dean Blunt.

Written by scholar Dhanveer Singh Brar, Beefy’s Tune (Dean Blunt Edit) is “about Britain (through Blunt’s indifference to it), and about Blackness in Britain (through the depth and complexity of Blunt’s feeling for it),” according to the publisher. It centres on Blunt’s 2016 Babyfather album, BBF Hosted By DJ Escrow. It’s available now to order via the87press.

“Dean Blunt is the most important British artist of the current century because he fundamentally does not care about Britain,” the book’s description reads. “His importance makes it shocking that such little critical attention has been paid to his work. His indifference explains it.”

Beefy’s Tune (Dean Blunt Edit) is the87press’s first non-fiction book. The small, experimental press and events collective was formed in 2018 by poets Kashif Sharma-Patel and Azad Ashim Sharma and architect Devin Maisuria, with an aim to highlight “literatures from neurodivergents, queers and people of colour.”

Brar’s second book is titled Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early Twenty-First Century and will be published in May 2021.

Read an excerpt from Beefy’s Tune (Dean Blunt Edit) here.