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

Possibilities...

Since the commencement of this year, so many opportunities have arisen, not always profit-making, but fabulous none the less. I have been thinking that now is the time to gather as much free training and work/travel opportunities that are available to the under 30's before it is too late. From The Genesis Young Director's program to Catch 22's Journalism course, Stronglinx projects for free cultural excursions to a multitude of acting opportunities: I am up for them all. The strange thing is that, since I began to shape and sculpt the shape of my year, all these other things have cropped up and these 'things' are in a particular realm: Performance.







I made a decision late last year to allow myself the privilege of exploring all of the facets of my interests and to not worry about the confusion this will cause others in how I am perceived professionally. I simply love literature in all its forms, as well as acting, directing, social development and activism. Angela Davies, Maya Angelou to name a couple of my inspirations are all of these things: why not I too? However, strangely, as soon as this concept had settled into my consciousness, I found that audition after audition started flooding in. Moreover, these were not normal bit part auditions that come up, these are for fully-fledged regular parts in teevision, lead roles in films and meetings for superb, culturally-potent, theatre productions.

Why is it that when you are ready for something else, the acting potential bowls in the lure you back into the fold? And it seems the more confident you are about your other goings-on, the acting possibilities raise their game so that you simply cannot ignore the fabulousness of the ventures. A brilliant bummer.

I am determined to remain focussed on gathering professional mettle to strike out in a variety of ways, whilst remaining devoted to working on my craft. My agent calls me Delboy. Being from Peckham; in terms of location this is a fairly accurate nickname. However, I am not sure whether I like it or not. Is being a multi-faceted professional too 'wheeler dealer like? Am I asking for too much? How many things are we able to explore before are labelled 'Jack of all Trades and Master of None'?

I also have a part-time job, which is contract-based, for a year with possibilities of renewal. BTW, the contract ends at the end of March and their is no sign of a verdict, as yet, based on funding. If I am made an acting offer, do I take it only for the gig to end a few months later and then be officially unemployed? Or do I do the 'sensible' thing and refuse all possibilities until my post is secure (if ever)?

Oh Gosh.

Questions from a determined young woman.

Moving home at 27

This weekend, I spent with my family. At 27, why does that seem unglamorous? I guess because, as consumer culture stipulates, I'm meant to be out glugging grog with my girls; head flung back in wild abandon, and swinging my hips in rhythm. Mission: to attract an eligible bachelor-cum-mate to overcome the neurosis of being late-twenties and not knowing if it will all be OK. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that such antics are bad, slutty or inappropriate. On the contrary: they are utterly natural. Nor was I without my invitations: dinner with friends on Friday night, the movies with friends on Saturday night and a luxurious sauna, steam bath and swim in a salt-water pool on Sunday. Any right-minded person would view this as a rather satisfactory weekend: as I did. However, I turned all of these offers down. Why? To spend time with my family.

After a busy week in Hamburg, visiting friends, having business meetings, shopping, and spending time with my boyfriend; arriving back to the UK with 20 minutes sleep the night before, dropping my suitcase at home, throwing a cup of coffee down my neck and flying out of the door to run a theatre workshop with 18 highly excitable 13-17's; I simply wanted to go home and crash out in front of the telly to catch up on Eastenders.

Waking the next day, on Saturday morning, to the deep, soothing rumblings of my brother's voice requesting something or other of my Mother; Mum's gentle, cooing reply and the sound of Cleo meowing for -you guessed it- food- created a pleasant relapse to five years old. I woke with a quiet and private excitement, wanting to join in the early family functioning, brekky, tea and indiscriminate winding-up.

There is something to be said for living back at home after years of flat-shares and the likes. After sharing a gorgeous and well-attired apartment with a young man for 18 months (who was perfectly lovely but a little strange); I felt that I was maintaining a household that could do with a little bit more sharing of the soul. It caused some mortal embarrassment to return to the maternal nest. I felt I should be living with a partner/husband/fiance and if not, at least a very good friend. They, I must add, have insisted on getting married, moving in with boyfriends and most of them, choosing to leave the UK altogether. I was and remain delighted for them and yet, I have this horrid sensation of being left behind. These irrational and neurotic sensations aside, I have to say that moving home was one of the best decisions that I could have made.

Sharing family meals, having a sense of belonging, a raised disposable income, regular and mutual teasing sessions with my younger brother as well as Monday nights with the same Lil' bro watching America's Next Top Model: I have to say that I am perfectly comfortable. Not that they don't piss me off; off course they do, that is expected and perfectly natural. But, my point is that: I think there is something right about living with family.

Why do we move out to live in exorbitantly-priced apartments with strangers, shovelling down last night's take-away and worrying about whether our wages will stretch to the rent, bills; the new Louis Vuitton scarf and the deposit on the holiday with the girls in the summer? Your crockery in separate cupboards from your roomie, like a halls-of-residence nightmare? Especially as I have never lived in halls: during my three years at drama school, I lived in a fabulous loft apartment with views over Central London, with good friends. Why did things seem to be going backwards? I was living the single-girl-about-town dream but was pretty limited in how to consistently afford to look the part. Meanwhile, some oligarch, property Fat-Cat is living cushy as anything, dressed as dapper as Tom Ford on a good night, with all the trappings and splendour of affluent life? Unless your parents are sadly deceased, living overseas or psychopathic, why put oneself through the hassle? Living with the family, the costs are shared, the bills are shared, the (sorry to be gooey) love is shared; you eat together, laugh together, moan at each other with no repercussion and moreover, Mum just loves her babies coming home.

She says I must stay here until I'm married. I'm not sure about that but hey, Maggie Hobson or not, I am totally over flat-sharing. For me, it's a Mugs' Game.