Afro-Chic

Dresses for this season that I lurve...

Striking colours and love the safari stylee

Check out that neck line...

Oh my goodness. I'm too overwhelmed to comment

Sharp!

I've been dropping the Afro-chic for the last two years, even more convenient that is in this season- not that I am a follow-fashion.

I'm starting to find jeans such an uncreative form of dress; I love them, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to be bound to them. It's time to get feminine in the African way...

This season's style has lent me impetus to raise the style bar: there are so many fabulous designs out there.

To find more, look on Facebook for Shadders, a collective of designers and designs.

Also, Aschobi has some great stuff and some stunning photography.

Will post more soon tips soon...

Looking forward to being delighted by your outfits this summer, Afrochicsters!!!

Knowing Me

I stumbled upon this on the British Council website and I just had to share it with you.

This is a poem written by Benjamin Zephaniah. I wanted to share it for those who don't know this piece of work, as I think this is a poem worth knowing. Feel the Flava!

Knowing Me

According to de experts
I’m letting my side down,
Not playing the generation game,
It seems I am too unfrustrated.
I have refused all counselling
I have refused to appear on daytime television
On night-time documentaries,
I’m not longing and yearning.
I don’t have an identity crisis.

As I drive on poetic missions
On roads past midnight,
I am regularly stopped by officers of the law
Who ask me to identify myself.
At that point I always look into the mirror
Point
And politely assure them that
What they see is me.
I don’t have an identity crisis

I have never found the need to workshop dis matter,
Or sit with fellow poets exorcising ghosts
Whilst searching for soulmates.
I don’t wonder what will happen to me
If I don’t eat reggae food or dance to mango tunes,
Or think of myself as a victim of circumstance.

I’m the dark man, black man
With a brown dad, black man
Mommy is a redskin black woman,
She don’t have an identity crisis.

Being black somewhere else
Is just being black everywhere,
I don’t have an identity crisis.
At least once a week I watch television
With my Jamaican hand on my Ethiopian heart
The African heart deep in my Brummie chest
And I chant Aston Villa, Aston Villa, Aston Villa,
Believe me, I know my stuff.
I am not wandering dark into the rootless future
Nor am I going back in time to find somewhere to live
I don’t want to live in a field with blades of grass
That look just like me, near a relic like me
Where thunder is just like me, talking to someone just like me,
I don’t just want to have sex with me, diversity is my pornography,
I want to make politically aware love with the rainbow.
Dig dis
Dis is me.
I don’t have an identity crisis.

I have reached the stage where I can recognise my shadow.
I’m so pleased with myself.
When I’m sunbathing in Wales
I can see myself in India
As clearly as I can see myself in Mexico.
I have now reached the stage
Where I am sick of people asking me if I feel British or West Indian
African or Black, Dark and Lonely, Confused or Patriotic.
The thing is I don’t feel lost,
I didn’t even begin to look for myself until I met a social worker
And a writer looking for a subject,
Dis is not an emergency
I’m as kool as my imagination, I’m, more caring than a foreign policy,
I don’t have an identity crisis.

I don’t need an identity crisis to be creative,
I don’t need an identity crisis to be oppressed.
I need love warriors and free minds wherever they are,
I need go getters and wide awakers for rising and shining
I need to know that I can walk into any temple,
Rave at any rave
Or get the kind of justice that my folk can see is just.
I am not a half poet shivering in the cold
Waiting for a culture shock to warm my long lost drum rhythm,
I am here and now, I am all that Britain is about
I am happening as we speak,
Honestly,
I don’t have an identity crisis.


Wonderful. Some of the words have been changed from the original. I'm not sure why. Maybe it made the British Council nervous, but regardless, I doubt its political pertinence could be denied. I performed this piece at the final showcase in my third year of Drama School, back in 2004. Reading it now, it seems have even more relevance, potence, rhythm and depth. That is the sign of a good writer. One can always find more juice in it, no matter now many years pass.

Please post comments: I'd love to hear what you think.

x