Rapper Lil’ Kim to headline both Vivid Sydney and Melbourne’s 2026 Rising festival
The pioneering female rapper Lil’ Kim will headline both Vivid Sydney and Melbourne’s Rising this year, as each festival revealed its programs on Wednesday.The performances at Sydney’s Carriageworks and Melbourne’s Festival Hall will be Lil’ Kim’s first Australian shows in 15 years, celebrating her landmark multiplatinum records Hard Core – which turns 30 this year – and The Notorious KIM.Both Vivid and Rising are staged annually in winter.Rising’s artistic director and chief executive, Hannah Fox, said the 51-year-old rapper, who broke out as a member of Junior MAFIA and was mentored by the Notorious BIG, was on “a really exciting return to form”.“Hard Core and Notorious KIM really did carve a path – there are so many women rappers and femcees now who absolutely followed in her tiny footsteps, her funked-up, sex-positive vibe,” Fox said.
“No one was calling her a feminist icon in the 90s.I don’t know if we’d have got tracks like WAP without her.She really is a trailblazer.”Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morningKae Tempest, a poet whose latest album, Self Titled, is an “irrepressibly joyous” celebration of the trans community, will perform at Rising and Vivid as well, as part of a national tour.Joining him at both festivals is the rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) and the musician Brian Jackson, who will celebrate the life and career of Gil Scott-Heron, the influential spoken word artist and Jackson’s longtime collaborator.
Other acts appearing in the two cities include the singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon; the Palestinian rapper Saint Levant; French Senegalese neosoul singer Anaiis; and Seun Kuti, the Afrobeat musician and son of Fela Kuti, who will perform with his father’s band Egypt 80.Music acts so far only announced for Melbourne’s Rising festival include the septuagenarian multi-instrumentalist Kahil El’Zabar, who has played with Nina Simone and Stevie Wonder; the electronic artist TR/ST; and the US band Wednesday.Raven Chacon, a First Nations composer from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation, will stage his Pulitzer-winning work Voiceless Mass in St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne on opening weekend.“It might not be such an obvious one in the program, but I think it’s going to be a really fantastic [night],” Fox said.Rising is also headlined by Florentina Holzinger, the gleefully gross-out Austrian performer who memorably staged her “bloody ballet” Tanz at Rising two years ago.
Set in the year 1816, the famous “year without summer” after the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, the show about biohacking and ageing has been a huge hit in Europe with tickets for the Berlin dates selling out in minutes.In Stuttgart, her opera Sancta left 18 audience members needing treatment for severe nausea, and caused the concertmaster to faint.“Florentina would probably hate me saying this, but there is a tenderness in this work, in amongst all the iconoclastic feminist body horror spectacle, which is really beautiful,” Fox said.“It is about our quest for endless youth and immortality, alongside this unhinged belief that we can invent our way through climate disaster.”Rising will also stage the inaugural Australian Dance Biennale, to celebrate contemporary dance from all over the country and internationally.
This will include a pop-up dance academy called Land of a 1,000 Dances in the Flinders Street Ballroom, where the public will be able to attend classes on ballet, bootscooting, jive, TikTok choreography and even the Melbourne Shuffle, a rave dance that began in the city in the late 1980s,The Aotearoa hip-hop group Royal Family Dance Crew, who have won the World Hip Hop Championships three times in a row and choreographed the Super Bowl, Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Lady Gaga, will lead the public in a free dance event at Federation Square in addition to their already sold-out show at Hamer Hall,Other dance groups in the biennale include Lucy Guerin Inc, Northern Irish dancer Oona Doherty and Chunky Move, who will also present a show at Sydney’s Carriageworks for Vivid,Sydney’s Vivid festival program is split into four categories: lights, music, minds and food,Alongside the light walk, which involves 43 installations and projections along a 6.
5km walk through the city, Vivid Lights will feature the 23m-tall Molecule of Light, a laser and sound installation by Chris Levine; and Obstacle, a pulsing corridor of light that traverses 45m along the harbour.The music program features a series of already announced shows from the US, including alternative pop musician Mitski, as well as performances from Mogwai, Matt Berninger of the National, and Earl Sweatshirt & MIKE.The “minds” program – formerly “ideas” – will include talks from two Oscar-winning film-makers: Anora’s Sean Baker and Nomadland’s Chloé Zhao, whose Shakespeare biopic Hamnet is up for seven Academy Awards this year.Music interviewer Zane Lowe, Pulitzer-winning art critic Jerry Saltz and commentator Roxane Gay will also be appearing.The Vivid food program will include dinners designed by several celebrity chefs – among them Yotam Ottolenghi.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the outstanding produce and beverages of New South Wales,” Ottolenghi said in a statement.Vivid festival will run 22 May to 13 June and Rising festival will run 27 May to 8 June.
Middle East war creating ‘largest supply disruption in the history of oil markets’
Oil markets are facing the “largest supply disruption in history” as the war in Iran continues to block tankers from shipping millions of barrels of crude each day, the world energy watchdog has warned.The International Energy Agency (IEA) said the supply shock ignited by Iran’s effective blockade of the strait of Hormuz meant the world faced a deeper crisis than after the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and the 2022 outbreak of war in Ukraine.The warning came as Iran issued a statement that was said to be the first from its new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, to call for the vital trade artery to “remain closed”, in a blow to hopes of a resolution to the crisis.In response, global oil prices passed $100 (£75) a barrel on Thursday as widespread Iranian attacks on energy facilities in the Middle East overshadowed a vast release of government reserves.In an attempt to calm concerns over oil supplies, the IEA ordered the largest release of government reserves in its history on Wednesday, when its 32 members unanimously agreed to release 400m barrels of emergency crude
Antibiotics need coordinated G7 investment | Letter
Recent coverage of the pipeline of new antibiotics (Pipeline of new drugs to fight superbugs is ‘worryingly thin’, experts warn, 11 March) is a timely reminder that antimicrobial resistance is one our most urgent health crises. The reason the pipeline is so thin is a fundamental market failure.One of the most logical ways to protect antibiotics is to limit their use to the most essential cases, but this means fewer antibiotics sold. If revenues are limited, companies have less incentive to invest in developing and manufacturing new antibiotics. This is where policy intervention is crucial
UK regulator examines IT glitch that enabled bank customers to see others’ accounts on app
The UK information regulator is examining an IT glitch that enabled some customers of Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland to see other users’ transactions when they logged into their banking app.The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it was “aware of an incident affecting some online banking services” and that it would make inquiries.Worried bank customers posted on social media they feared they had been hacked when they checked their account and were greeted with the details of other people’s finances, including cash withdrawals and benefits payments.In a Facebook post, the consumer champion Martin Lewis said people had been messaging about “being shown other people’s transactions”.In response, the founder of MoneySavingExpert was inundated with close to 2,000 comments from worried bank customers
Middle East war creating ‘largest supply disruption in the history of oil markets’, as Brent crude hits $100 again – as it happened
Time to recapOil prices have jumped again after a statement from Iran’s new leader said the crucial Strait of Hormuz should remain closed.Brent crude has climbed by 10% to over $101 a barrel, on track to end the day over the hundred dollar a barrel mark for the first time in the crisis.US crude is also up 10% at $96.55 a barrel.Crude prices jumped after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei apparently called for national unity and said that all US bases in the region should close or face attacks
John Lewis pays first annual staff bonus in four years as profits rise
The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose has paid an annual bonus to workers for the first time in four years after underlying profits rose by 6%.The retail group’s 69,000 employees – which it calls partners – will share £35m, the equivalent of 2% of salary, after it recorded an increase in sales and profits. The payout amounts to about one extra week of pay.Sales at the John Lewis Partnership rose 5% to £13.4bn and profits increased to £134m in the year to 31 January, slightly behind expectations in what the chair, Jason Tarry, called “a subdued market”
Welsh Water to pay £44.7m after ‘unacceptable’ sewage works failings
Welsh Water is to pay a proposed £44.7m after the industry regulator found “serious and unacceptable” breaches in the supplier’s sewage and network services.The water authority for England and Wales, Ofwat, said the non-profit Dŵr Cymru, or Welsh Water, failed to properly operate, maintain and upgrade its wastewater network to ensure it could cope with levels of sewage.Ofwat also found the company also did not have “adequate processes in place or oversight by senior bosses”.The planned enforcement package will include £40
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