Having just released his debut album, Bloodline, the singer discusses his fractured identity, survivor’s guilt and how he took solace in Mumford & Sons

Long before he started packing out theatres and earning millions of listeners with his poetic folk-pop, Mon Rovîa began life in Liberia at a time when many of his country’s youngest were armed with assault rifles and forced to fight as child soldiers in a brutal civil war. After his mother died, his grandmother needed help raising his sister, brother and him, and placed him with a white missionary family from Florida. He was the only member of his family to escape the war. “That is something that weighed heavy on me as I grew,” he says. “Why was it me? Why couldn’t my siblings come, or why wasn’t it one of them?” It would be years until he knew what became of them.

Today, his stage name – he was born Janjay Lowe – is a stylised version of the Liberian capital Monrovia; his songwriting addresses his fractured identity, and the spectre of colonialism that surrounded him in Liberia and the US, applying emotional intimacy to global realities. His approach, he theorises, “starts with people trusting that you’re not afraid to be vulnerable in your own way. Then you start talking about the bigger picture.”

Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
Despite never being a huge pop force after her years as Disney star Lizzie McGuire, fans come from Brazil and Saudi Arabia for Duff’s charming, self-deprecating return

It’s fair to say that US actor-singer-writer-entrepreneur Hilary Duff has never been a force to be reckoned with in pop music. Her songs and albums have neither been particularly critically acclaimed nor commercially dominant; many people would know her only as Lizzie McGuire, hero of the Disney Channel sitcom from the early 00s. But for the 38-year-old Duff’s first live performance in 18 years, she’s met with a sold-out crowd screaming back every word of her music like they are all universally adored hits. Duff seems overwhelmed by the rapturous reception. Fans have come from Brazil, Saudi Arabia and all over Europe, and they are often so loud you can’t hear the woman on stage.

But after the shock wears off, Duff shows no signs of rust and her fierce sincerity combined with girl next door charm infuses the night with euphoria and escapism. When she jumps up and down on the stage’s sofa singing Why Not, you get the sense that this is how everyone in the crowd once sang the song in their adolescence. She’s also not afraid to poke fun at herself and her past: she brings three fans on stage to recreate the low-energy dance choreography of her 2007 single With Love that went viral on TikTok in 2021.

The 17-song set expertly sprinkles five new numbers from forthcoming album Luck … Or Something in between fan favourites such as 2015’s criminally underrated Sparks and 2003’s So Yesterday to keep the mood elevated. Time has made Duff’s voice more textured and refined, adding new depth to songs like Fly and Come Clean, though the twee Someone’s Watching Over Me, a ballad about self-acceptance, is cloying.

The biggest noise of the night comes with the one-two encore of her new single Mature and the Lizzie McGuire classic What Dreams Are Made Of. A wild singalong ensues complete with pink butterfly confetti as a giddy Duff jumps for joy on stage. It’s an emotional conclusion that takes this devoted crowd to new levels of noisy rapture and proves that Duff could easily put music at the centre of her portfolio career.

The Number of the Beast lights up an unforgettable scene in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple thanks to director Nia DaCosta expertly blending ‘craziness and romance’

There were laughs of surprise around me in screen three of the Everyman in Muswell Hill, north London, as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple drew to its conclusion. Without giving too much away for those who haven’t seen it, Ralph Fiennes dancing semi-naked among piles of human bones to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast is not how you expect one of our greatest thespians to deport himself on screen.

“Alex Garland chose that song,” says the film’s director, Nia DaCosta. “He wrote it into the script. And you can’t get better than that in a film about satanists.”

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Musician who drove much of the band’s ferocious sound and co-wrote many of its biggest hits was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2023

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Rob Hirst, the drummer and founding member of Australian rock band Midnight Oil, has died aged 70.

Hirst was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer in 2023. The band confirmed his death on Tuesday afternoon.

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The Justice Department is investigating Lemon after he reported from an anti-ICE protest at a church