In the 1960s and 1970s when most African countries became independent states, one of the fundamental ultimate goals of rising pan-African ideology was to consolidate aspirations of African unity. Part of those ambitions manifested in ideologically driven cultural festivals such as the Rumble in the Jungle, FESMAN and FESTAC 77 which were pivotal in nurturing [...]
If creativity isn’t about community in one-way or another it is dull at worst and provoking at best. Artists that manage to emphasize the spiritual, aesthetic and social elements of living are those that bring to us gifts of understanding. Artists that exemplify this idea are musicians like K’Naan, Baaba Maal, Nneka, Blitz the Ambassador, Fela, [...]
This is a cross-post On the second day of the UK riots I boarded a flight from Finland to London where I live. Before take off I went through tweets containing the #londonriots hash tag. I then tweeted my shock over the amount of racist comments to do with the riots. Three hours later when [...]
Note: The article you are about to read is a modified version of a commentary written in the Guardian by Tony Blair, today founder of the Africa Progress Panel and in my humble opinion, shamelessly self-assigned messiah on redeeming the failings of African leadership After substituting the word “Africa” for “Europe”, exchanging African news stories [...]
The Black History Walks website has a useful list of ways to help combat negative media portrayal of black people. Some of the suggestions are: Go out of your way to attend events, prove there is demand Buy original dvds with positive images direct from source Check out www.colourfulradio.com and www.voxafrica.com Read Frantz Fanon Wretched of the Earth and [...]
MsAfropolitan is taking part in Friday Late: Afropolitans at the V&A, the world’s largest museum of art and design. In “MsAfropolitan presents – The rise of Afropolitan Fashion” myself with the help of creative director Ola Shobowalewill conceptualize the contemporary creativity and beauty of Afropolitan fashion for women. Visitors will be able to experience the fusion of bold African patterns and [...]
After providing a critical commentary on Rihanna in an article in The Guardian some months ago I didn’t think I would be praising her any time soon. But I am feeling her new song ‘Man Down’ and the accompanying video. The actual song makes me feel like dirty dancing with a pleasant male specimen with the [...]
Thanks for all your recommendations to the ’7 Afropolitan artists to watch’ list. As I’m sure you will understand after listening to these three artists, I simply cannot choose. So I’ve got three runners up. 1. Blitz the Ambassador Seriously, you got to hit play and groove to this full album stream. Ghanaian, US-based emcee [...]
I attended the UN Women: The Opportunity of a Generation parliamentary event at the House of Commons today. Given the speakers; UN Under Secretary General (UN Women), Michelle Bachelet, Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, and Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, Harriet Harman, my expectation was to leave with a plethora [...]
1. Kay Elizabeth Kay Elizabeth is a vocalist living in London, born in California, of Jamaican and English heritage. Her unique sound and performance style has formed through her personal voyages through history, experience and education. Becoming disenchanted in her youth with American education and popular culture, Kay found her musical interests moving away from [...]
I don’t know what to make of the Finnish elections last weekend, where the nationalist True Finns party won 39 seats of a 200-seat parliament. The Nigerian elections, which have led to violent clashes in Northern Nigeria where hundreds of people have now died, sadden me even more so. To make sense of things, I [...]
Apart from lyrical gratification, what do you get when you fill the Royal Festival Hall in London Southbank with artists like Senegalese superstar and advocate of women’s rights Baaba Maal, Speech Debelle, VV Brown, Eska, Krystle Warren and Annie Flore? You get a powerful evening of inspirational female voices from across three continents aptly title [...]
I get many emails especially from young women asking about feminism, and who inspired my feminism. In another post I quoted the poet Jessica Horn about her mothers influence on her feminism. And personally, her words resonate. I was raised by a woman that I have come to recognise as a revolutionary mother, who used the [...]
The world of science has on several occasions declared that race is biologically meaningless, but yet accepting this idea as general knowledge seems curiously hard to accomplish. The sooner we can understand the fallacious construct of race, the sooner we might begin to speak about multi-racialism with the kind of sensible thinking that it requires. However, the [...]
in·spi·ra·tion Stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity. Thursday 03/02/11: Experienced lack of stimulation of the mind resulting in a low level of feeling towards activity = leth·ar·gy I’ve been feeling sluggish this week, and particularly yesterday. I tackled work assignments in the morning, went to an interesting [...]
One of the challenges, and also opportunities with writing an opinion blog like mine is having to take a stand on the range of topics you write about. Whether it’s feminism, women’s libidoes, pornography or natural hair, when you take a firm stand on something you can appear to be unable to relate with the opposing side. [...]
In his book ‘Society must be defended’, written in 1976, Michel Foucault speaks about historical revisionism, hinting to a an earlier statement made by Winston Churchill who said that “History is written by the victors”. These discussions are still relevant today. A significant amount of historical narrative is still being written by those with the [...]
With artists like Beyonce and Jessica Alba recently claiming to be feminists, it might be the case that we will soon see an F-word revival. That would be awesome. Yet feminism is not simply about being an independent or successful woman. It is about recognizing and taking a critical engagement with structures that may oppress [...]
After a shopping round in town today I decided it was about time I watched the video that has the high street in plumes, namely ‘Runaway’ by Kanye West. My head is now fuzzed with thoughts about chicken breasts and I’m vegetarian, so it’s not because I want some KFC The short story is that I [...]
Obama is so P.C. (politically correct) he makes me think of Boris Johnson as a revolutionary. I know – black people have no need to moan about racism anymore in this ‘post-racial’ world of ours. We have reached equal racial status now. Whether black, white, Asian or Jewish, none of us have to deal with [...]
Some people can be emotionally draining. They don’t necessarily mean to be, but their energy somehow manages to soak yours up leaving you drained of flavour like that last scoop of ice cream you’ve had in the freezer for a wee while too long. Recently I had such encounters and instead of feeling less affected [...]
Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion ~ Jean-Luc Godard When it comes to beauty, all women have to find a way to feel adequate and love themselves amidst [...]
I probably should not title a blog post like this. After all, both my parents and maybe even some of my friends parents and who knows, maybe their parents parents read my blog. However, with the news of Laurence Fishburne’s daughter, Montana Fishburne (aka Chippy D), deciding to go into the porn industry at 19yrs, [...]
When you blog you get to write what they call killer posts. This label is perhaps a tad of an overstatement, because quite simply what writing a killer post means is you’ve written a post that’s so good it goes bananas in google rankings and make you famous over night because it’s so informative and [...]
‘White America’ has now caught up with the idea that a pert posterior is a turn on. After years of skinny being in fashion, this summer, even Hollywood agrees that if your hindquarter looks anything like Kim Kardashian’s or Beyonce’s then you are an official owner of summer 2010’s hottest trend. Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes, loves [...]
For many years I’ve kept this secret, but I’m now ready to get out of the closet and reveal that I am straight. Yes, heterosexual. I know, I know, it’s controversial for a woman to be straight nowadays, but I’ll try to cope with the discerning looks from passersby when I walk hand in hand [...]
In pop star diva world, the competition is on as to who can identify the skimpiest accessory to wear and become the ultimate male fantasy. There’s something for every man’s desire; the housewife, the she-wolf, the inmate, the rock star and the sex slave/uber woman (this last Kelis video would be ok if only they [...]
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