World-renowned hip-hop artist Jason “Timbuktu” Diakité’s vivid and intimate journey through his own and his family’s history - from South Carolina slavery to twenty-first-century Sweden.

Born to interracial American parents in Sweden, Jason Diakité grew up between worlds - part Swedish, American, black, white, Cherokee, Slovak, and German, riding a delicate cultural and racial divide. It was a no-man’s-land that left him in constant search of self. Even after his hip-hop career took off, Jason fought to unify a complex system of family roots that branched across continents, ethnicities, classes, colors, and eras to find a sense of belonging. 

In A Drop of Midnight, Jason draws on conversations with his parents, personal experiences, long-lost letters, and pilgrimages to South Carolina and New York to paint a vivid picture of race, discrimination, family, and ambition. His ancestors’ origins as slaves in the antebellum South, his parents’ struggles as an interracial couple, and his own world-expanding connection to hip-hop helped him fashion a strong black identity in Sweden.

What unfolds in Jason’s remarkable voyage of discovery is a complex and unflinching look at not only his own history but also that of generations affected by the trauma of the African diaspora, then and now. 

Paid In Full Words and Music by Eric Barrier and William Griffin © 1987 Universal - Songs of Polygram International, Inc. and Robert Hill Music. Peter Piper Words and Music by Darryl McDaniels and Joseph Simmons © 1986 Protoons, Inc. It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) Words and Music by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills © 1932 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC and EMI Mills Music, Inc. in the U.S.A. I Know You Got Soul Words and Music by Bob Byrd, James Brown and Charles Bobbitt © 1971 (Renewed) Crited Music, Inc. Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud Words and Music by James Brown and Alfred James Ellis © 1968 (Renewed) Dynatone Publishing Company. Who’s That Knocking by The Genies © 1959 (Renewed) Time Music