Curious Sounds: A Dialogue in Three Movements

A collaborative book by two extraordinary Black artists about finding beauty in the chaos.

Roger Mooking is well-known as a celebrity chef and the host of such television shows as the Cooking Channel’s Man Fire Food and Everyday Exotic; he is also a recording artist with five albums to his credit and a visual artist who creates immersive experiences that merge the visual, sonic, and culinary arts. francesca ekwuyasi is a writer and filmmaker who won wide acclaim for her award-winning, bestselling debut novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread. These two enormously talented Black artists join forces in Curious Minds, a book of art, stories, and conversations that illuminates the journey to find solace and perspective in an increasingly hyperactive and distracting world.

Inspired by the fact that the average human attention span lasts 8.25 seconds, Curious Sounds is a collection of small bursts of light, color, and words that explore how time shapes and defines the world, especially from a Black perspective. Comprising three parts, which mirror the arc of a life—the Learning, the Living, and the Leaving—the book is a series of fleeting moments and visuals that help us to discover the beauty in our own chaos.

Roger Mooking is a celebrity chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, and visual and recording artist born in Trinidad and raised in Canada. He is the host of such television shows as Man Fire Food, Heat Seekers, Greatest of America, and Everyday Exotic and has appeared as a guest judge on such programs as Chopped and Guy’s Grocery Games. As a musician, he has released five solo studio albums and won a Juno Award as a member of the soul/R&B trio Bass Is Base. francesca ekuwyasi is a writer, filmmaker, and visual artist. Her debut novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread, won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ+ Emerging Writers from the Writers’ Trust of Canada, was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award, a Governor General’s Award, and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and was runner-up in the 2021 edition of CBC’s Canada Reads competition.