“Woman, woman, woman, strong woman…” – African Womanhood

A few weeks ago I was sitting smoking hookah in my room with a male acquaintance. Above my desk, I have photographs of my family, including a solo picture of my mother which, as the topic of family came up in conversation, I showed to him. He took a look and commented, “Wow, she looks like a strong African woman – I see where you get it from.”

Now, any other African woman would probably either not have given this a second thought, or would have taken it as a compliment. I, however, was steaming. Not because I have a problem with being told I resemble my mother – she’s absolutely beautiful – but because I thought I detected beneath the seemingly kind remark the lurking, negative undertone of “scary black girl” which the former term often seems to be a euphemism for.

I realise now that I reacted like a crazy person. But let me explain myself: first of all, in that photograph my mother looks, to quote another friend, like an O.G – but the kind that would have Frank Lucas running scared. In other words, like an intimidating figure – aka, the “scary black girl,” or woman. The moniker “scary black girl” has followed me around since I was nine years old, since when my family moved to England. Being tall, loud-voiced and opinionated hasn’t done much to make me come across as the sensitive, sweet and warm-hearted person that I am deep deep deep down (no, really, I am). But in a world where being an African woman doesn’t exactly endow you with all of the best opportunities the world has to offer, I don’t feel like I have a choice but to be tough. When I moved to England, my younger sister, another Nigerian and I were the only people of colour at my school. Hearing a white girl ask why our skin was the colour of poop, I felt like I had two options: cry, or punch her in the face (metaphorically speaking, of course). I chose the (metaphoric) latter option, and it became my way of dealing with all the adverse situations and general bullshit life has thrown my way. Fuck lemonade, I make kamikazes with my lemons.

So I fully understand why certain people, when they see me making my unsmiling, keffiyeh-ed up way across campus, may want to run in the opposite direction, or peg me as unfriendly or find me unapproachable. Shoot, I probably wouldn’t want to talk to me either sometimes, especially if I haven’t slept. But there’s more to this one image than meets the eye.

I told a male friend of mine about the comment that got me thinking about the phrase “strong African woman” to begin with. As I ranted on in self-righteous fury, he looked at me sideways and asked, “What is it about being called strong that you don’t like?” I paused. “Well,” I responded, “I think it comes with a particular stereotypical connotation when followed by “African woman.” It isn’t a bad thing on its own, but I don’t like people assuming I’m an emasculating, bossy person when they don’t know me.  I feel like that’s what people think of when they say that phrase.” He replied with something that made me stop and think: “I don’t think so. When I hear the words “strong African woman” I think of a person who is strong despite the limitations that come with being a woman and being an African.”

I’d never thought of myself that way. For me, my strong African womanhood was armour, something I used to protect myself from the world. It didn’t occur to me that it could also be a source of vulnerability. In many ways, I was buying into the very “stereotype” that I was offended by – because I believed that being vulnerable was a weakness I couldn’t afford, and one that my African mother hadn’t worked so hard for me to indulge in. My boy was suggesting something totally radical to me: that by letting your guard down, by not always being the tough one or the caretaker, you could still show strength.

Thinking back to my reaction that evening, and about the strong African women I know, his point totally makes sense. My very gangster mother, despite her fierceness, can also be very vulnerable. I’ve watched her sob, totally despondent over the loss of a relative with the kind of helplessness I associate with a small child. I’ve also watched her get herself up, wash her face and go on to make dinner for my father, putting her personal sadness aside for the wellbeing of those she loves. And that right there is the key – it’s the ability to be both “weak” and “strong,” to comfort and to be comforted in turn, that defines this strong African womanhood.

I asked Rational Chaos, and he too associates the phrase “strong African woman” with sacrifice as well as with taking no nonsense. It was interesting, though, because he also suggested that there was an antithesis to this woman, the “submissive African woman” for lack of a better term – one he imagined carrying a water bucket on her head, bowed by the weight of poverty and lack of opportunity. Interesting, because I’d never put the word submissive next to my idea of an African woman. Tradition and condition may require some of us to be poor dutiful wives, but even this requires a great deal of strength – to put aside your personal desires for someone else or for your culture. This is something I admire – and something I probably need to work on as I grow older.

As I type this I’m looking at the photograph of my mother that started this whole discourse. She’s wearing her Gucci shades, a red and silver gele (headtie) with matching wrapper, and striding purposefully forward, her eye catching something to her left. She’s powerful, she’s stunning – yet something about that sideways glance reminds me of the times I’ve seen her otherwise – mocking my niece’s dancing in her nightgown, tired from surgery, stressed out from work. But this image – the strong, beautiful African woman image – is what stays with me. I know I have her smile and her height… only time will tell if I have her strength too.

Thoughts in the comments section please.

P.S. The title is from Raheem DeVaughn’s “Woman” – love this track.

P.P.S. This piece is for two African men: the one who gently reminded me about writing on this blog, and the one who made me see how wonderful it is to be an African woman. I love you guys

Ten Questions (1): Shakira’s “She Wolf”

As a means of making myself blog more frequently, and in keeping with the “About The Young and Disenchanted” section of this blog that states that I love asking questions, I’m going to start a new segment called “Ten Questions.” It will entail me asking ten questions about various things I have seen that, for whatever reason, have piqued my interest and which I consider funny/educational/downright bizarre, or some combination of the three. Oh, and so I can have more fun with embedding videos

First up on the series, the following video by everyone’s favourite Colombian/Lebanese belly-dancing songstress, Shakira:

1. How on earth does one put on that black outfit?

2. Is she wearing two different shoes in said outfit?

3. Did she really howl???

4. Can anyone actually follow all of the lyrics of this song?

5. The weird shoulder dance: how/why?

6. Am I the only one secretly happy that she FINALLY dyed her roots to match the rest of her hair?

7. Would it be really very awesome to have a club in one’s closet, or would the noise on a Tuesday night get annoying after a while?

8. Who is her trainer/how can I have them on speed-dial immediately?

9. Is it me, or does she kind of look/dance like what Madonna would look like/dance like if she substituted half of her current creepily-high muscle mass for fat?

10. Does any of the above matter because her freaking HOTNESS is why I keep watching this over and over again?

Any and all answers to the above would be greatly appreciated.

“Who am I to judge one’s perspective?” – Hip Hop

I finally saw Nas in concert. It was at the New York leg of the Rock the Bells tour, and it was everything that I’d ever hoped it would be. He came out looking fresh in a white shirt and NY fitted, and performed everything from “Made You Look” to “One Love” (with Damien Marley mixing in his father’s track with it – I cannot WAIT for Distant Relatives to drop). The whole arena was going wild, everyone pumping their fists and getting hype. The energy all around me blasted away the tiredness I felt from getting so little sleep the night before, and I stayed on my feet rapping along like I had a record deal my damn self. Towards the end of the set Nas and Damien performed “Road to Zion,” at the beginning of which Damien asked everyone to put their lighters/cell phones/hands up in the air. Looking around at my fellow hip-hop heads in their thousands, faces illuminated by the electronic glow, all of us caught in the sheer passion and love we felt for this music, I couldn’t help but think of the many millions of souls around the world hip-hop culture has touched.

My first hip-hop memory is of listening to Snoop Dogg’s first album with my sisters (I’m going to discount my brief obsession with MC Hammer because a) I don’t directly remember it, it’s only from my family telling me I was a fan that I even know this and b) those damn harem pants). My dad was (and still is) a huge fan of Dr. Dre and purchased Snoop’s first album – Doggystyle – on cassette. It probably wasn’t the best thing for a 5 year-old to be listening to, but no one could tell me anything – I’d be rhyming along to “Gin and Juice” like I knew what liquor, Long Beach or weed were. One of the first things about rap music that fascinated me was the fact that rappers fit so many more words into the same 3 minutes and 30 seconds than performers of other genres do. My little brain was obsessed with how they came up with so many rhymes – some of them in the middle of lines – and coupled this with a beat that got people doing the head bop with a look of total and complete concentration, finished off with a catchy hook. It was magic to me then, and still is now.

The hip-hop I listened to when I was younger (particularly while my family lived in England) was heavily influenced by what my older sisters liked: Mase, DMX and Busta Rhymes were particular favourites, and probably the reason why I’m still an East Coast girl at heart. Trevor Nelson’s show on MTV, The Lick, further opened up the world of American hip-hop to me. My sisters and I would gather around the TV late Friday nights after our parents had gone to sleep, thirstily soaking up everything from the new Timbaland and Missy joints to The Roots’ latest (the first track by them I remember hearing was “You Got Me,” one of my favourite songs of all time). We didn’t only listen to rap – R’n’B was our shit too (R Kelly, Erykah Badu and Aaliyah – good times), and being a nine-year old girl living in England, I fell under the spell of the Spice Girls. Yeah, I said it – no shame in my game.

Ten years on my music tastes have expanded to include indie, grime, coupé-décalé and electronica, but I still go back to hip-hop despite all the talk of it being murdered by Soulja Boy and other ignorant-ass-dumb-chain-wearing-pseudo-rappers. I like to pride myself on the fact that I mostly listen to what people term as “conscious” rap (you know, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Dead Prez) and the OGs (A Tribe Called Quest, Wu Tang, Biggie), but I do still bump chart rap. I won’t necessarily buy Rich Boy’s or Rick Ross’ music, but I’ll be damned if I’m not the biggest boss that you’ve seen thus far. I made the distinction between my “club shit” and “real shit” a while ago (to be precise, circa December 2006 when I bought Nas’ “Hip Hop is Dead”), citing the over-commercialisation of the game and the lack of imagination that, unfortunately, the rise of the South has brought to hip-hop. Yes, rappers have always talked about money, cash and hoes (at least since the 90s), but they would more than occasionally bring up socio-economic and political issues like the struggles of the average young person coming up in an inner-city ghetto or the realities of police brutality, and do both with the flow that made you go “daaaaaaaaaaaamn!” But that was then. Now, if the Billboard Hip-Hop and R’n’B chart is anything to go by, sex, designer clothes and being strapped when you hit the club is all that defines the music that I fell in love with all those years ago, only now without the allure of clever wordplay or imaginative production. All new rappers seem to be mocking (or reflecting) the intelligence of their audiences, posteuring in their LV-upholstered SUVs. All hope is lost.

Or maybe not. Last weekend, I went to the album launch party of Blitz the Ambassador, a Ghanaian rapper based in Brooklyn. I was blown away first by the fact that he performed with a (seriously smoking hot) live band, his flow and the fact that he played the talking drum. I felt the way I did when I saw Nas perform a few weekends ago, the way I did when I first heard “With so much drama in the LBC/It’s kinda hard being Snoop D-O-double-G”: a bubbling excitement, chills down my spine, and a strange feeling of familiarity, because it sounded like the junction between my childhood and my present. Needless to say, I snapped up his album immediately and I love it. But of course, nothing can ever be that picture-perfect. Towards the end, Blitz made a little speech thanking everyone for their support and love, and then made that comment that so many of my favourite “conscious” artists have made before: “I don’t do this for the money.” Um, I’m gonna go ahead and call bullshit on that. Obviously, artists don’t create music solely for cash – the music industry is far too fickle for that to make sense (for better pay, I’d recommend construction or police work). There’s the drive to share a message with like-minded individuals, to be expressive, to do something that makes you so incredibly happy nothing else could compare. And I feel all of them on that. But seriously? If it really isn’t for the money, why can’t I get your album for free? And why do you get mad when people download your shit if it’s all about reclaiming the game and resurrecting hip-hop? And why don’t you stay underground rather than signing with a big record company? Understand I’m not attacking Blitz directly here, but speaking in general to the artists that look down their noses at the “coonery” of people like Gucci Mane and T-Pain (on a personal note, I’m going to add Kanye and Lil Wayne to my list of people who are making hip hop kind of unbearable). Yes, they lack artistry, but at least they’re being 100% honest about why it is they’re in this game. And they must, to some degree, believe that they’re truly making good music… although what that says about their mental state, I’d really rather not contemplate. All I’m saying is that hip-hop isn’t necessarily dead, but that the non-“conscious” rappers are a representation of one (unfortunate) direction it has taken. I don’t think this is a permanent evolution. I also think the “conscious” dudes need to get off their fucking high horses – YES you make better music, but it really isn’t that life-or-death serious. As far as I’m concerned, all the back and forth and haterade in hip-hop right now is doing nothing for its devotees. Basically, rappers: get the fuck back to making music that gets me so hype I act like a little kid who OD’d on candy, stop using Twitter as a forum for bitching at each other and make hip hop the only love of my life once more.

That’s just my very humble opinion. Hip-hop heads, let me know if you feel otherwise and shit.

P.S. Title is from my main man/future-children’s-father Common: first ever track of his I heard, and still one of my favourites of all time.

“Sometimes relationships get ill…” – Dating in College, Part III: Break-ups

I came to the realisation that nothing lasts forever early in my young and disenchanted life. When I was eight, my dad casually dropped the fact that we were moving from Nigeria to the UK into conversation while we were on a family vacation. Aside from the massive culture shock I suffered moving from Africa to Europe, I also lost all of the friends that I’d made at my primary school (oh Corona V.I…). This, by the way, was back in the 90s, way before Facebook and Skype. The only way we could have kept in contact was through letter or phone, but the crappy Nigerian mail system and my parents’ iron grip on any means of communication (I can’t be mad, them international calls are hella expensive) pretty much wrote that off. Of course, I made friends at my new school, but I couldn’t help but remember the ones that I’d left behind in Nigeria – Ada, Ezinne, even Ugochi who threatened to fuck me up that one time ‘cos I called him stupid. I don’t remember feeling particularly cut up about the abrupt ending to those friendships – I guess maybe at that age, your emotional bounce-back muscles are pretty flexible. If only shit stayed the same when you get older…

I’ve lost a couple friends along the way through less outwardly dramatic ways than moving to another country. There are the twins from my secondary school who suddenly stopped speaking to me one day, which for some strange reason didn’t bother me much (may have been that I’d made one too many Coming to America jokes about their Jherri curl juice – no jokes, they had Jherri curls). There’s the girl with whom shit stays awkward ‘cos we share the same friends, but we’re no longer on the same page. And, of course, there are the men.

The end of a platonic friendship is always pretty bad, but a romantic relationship is always the worst. I mean, think about it: getting romantically involved with someone generally involves putting yourself in a vulnerable position emotionally. There’s all kinds of corny text messaging, hand-holding (bleugh) and heart-to-hearts that have you believing you and this other person might really have a connection. As much as I want to convince myself that I’m immune to this relationship stuff, I have to admit I’ve had my moments when I crave that happy coupled-up feeling. The last time I had this feeling, it didn’t last long. The guy involved, well… let’s just say he caught me at a time when I was feeling particularly vulnerable. If I’d been my usual cool-calculated-and-perfectly-aligned self, maybe I wouldn’t have found myself agreeing to enter a relationship with someone I had previously just been acquaintances with. I soon realised that I needed to take a step back: me and the dude didn’t really know each other well enough for my commitment-shy self to be a quality girlfriend. And that’s where the problems began. I should probably explain that at this point, I wasn’t trying to end the relationship, but rather to slow things down and get my bearings. I didn’t think either of us knew each other well enough to place the label of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” on each other. Apparently that was equivalent to me saying that I wasn’t interested, and warranted being ignored in public and, I suppose, being “technically” being cheated on. What annoyed me was that every time I tried to bring up the situation, this dude would insist that he wanted to be with me, but then I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks on end. And yes, I could have called, but he was the one who had initiated the relationship – I thought it only right that he ask my ass on a motherfucking date, especially as I had put in work to let him know I was more than willing to give us a shot.

If there’s one thing I learned about myself from this experience, it’s that I truly appreciate the value of honesty. I think too few people have the balls to say what they really feel in a relationship situation. If, for example, you’re not really into a person you should let them know early on, rather than lie to both them and yourself in an attempt to avoid an awkward situation. For fuck’s sake, LIFE is a big ball of awkward situations. At some point you’ll inevitably end up being walked in on while on the toilet, say something dumb on the internet or have to end a relationship with someone. It sucks when you have to be the “bad guy” (or the one hit with a faceful of eau de poo), but you just have to (wo)man up, take two and talk it out. In the situation I described, I ended up being the one who had to take the initiative to clarify where we stood with each other time and time again. Like Amy, I wanted to say “YOU should be stronger than me.” Shame, instead he was longer than frozen turkey.

In the end we decided that we would be “friends” – a little tricky to do if you’re not friends before things get complicated, but I got tired of talking after a while. I think the reason why I got so wound up about the situation to begin with is of my compulsion to never leave end loose. Maybe it’s a result of my nomadic existence, but I hate not being able to draw a line under something and be assured that it won’t pop up again in the future to bug me. If a relationship ends, I want it to be more or less permanently so. Those friendships that ended with my moving to England are the perfect example of that – it’s sad that I lost my childhood friends that way, but we all knew the deal, accepted it and moved on with our lives. Of course, there are certain relationships you can’t ever really get go of, the ones that change you fundamentally, the ones where your heart still skips a beat when you see their name somewhere, or their number on your caller-ID. This wasn’t one of them. My point is: I think when two people (or at least one) realise that whatever drew them together in the beginning has evaporated into thin air, it may be time to just let it go, and that the ending process should be as quick and painless as possible.

Or maybe that’s never possible unless you move to inner Mongolia. Let me know.

P.S. Title’s courtesy of the legendary Roots crew (who I’m seeing for the 4^th time in concert next week ).

“I can talk to him ‘cos he understands/Everything I go through and everything I am” – My Boys, Part III (The African Edition)

I’ve written before on this blog about the group of Bolivian/Jewish/Asian/Texan guys with whom I have spent most of my time at college so far. That was six months ago. Looking back, I realise that I saw far less of them than I wanted to, for a mix of reasons, the main one being a particular extra-curricular activity that pretty much took over my life.

I was the cultural chair (read: cook) of my university’s African Student Association, meaning that a good proportion of my time was dedicated to feeding and arguing with a group of people of African descent. Monday nights I would roll up to our meeting place with armfuls of food and drink, curse out “these damn Africans who always expect to be fed like I’m their mother” and proceed to spend the next 4 hours joking with, getting mad at and making up again with my African peoples, in particular the men. I hate to admit that my life got too full to sustain as a rich a friendship as I wanted with my various groups of friends, but I realise that my increasing cultural and political awareness as an African made me gravitate towards people who shared my experiences and that I didn’t have to explain myself to. I could speak pidgin to them, or make some crack about Ghanaians and I knew they would get it. I didn’t have to apologise or feel awkward about the fact that I’m not an American, and that certain cultural contexts that are unique to the USA are lost on me. I don’t want to get too bogged down in the couldawouldashoulda of the first half of this year, so instead I’ll focus on why I decided to write this entry on the black men in my life.

A week ago, as I caught the 2 train back uptown after work, I noticed a young black dude get on the train at the same stop as me. He was pushing a stroller with one little girl in it, and holding the hand of another. I couldn’t help but smile at the adorableness of this man and his toddler-age daughters. He looked kinda harassed (the older girl was rocking a shirt that said “Big Sister AKA The Diva” so I guess the kids could have been a handful that day) but, damn. Something about the way he held onto their hands so tightly and made sure they didn’t get pushed around by the adults getting on and off the train touched me. It was right after Father’s Day too, and so it got me to thinking about my own father. My dad is kind of a G (as my friend A. would say, a Dominican-looking G). My first memory of him is of his being super tall, and having a big, big afro. Now I’m almost the same height as him and he gets his hair cut every week like clockwork, but he still seems like the coolest man ever to me. He loves Dr Dre, so much so that he bought the first Snoop Dogg album and let me and my sisters bump to it (I was about 5 at the time), but he’ll listen to Meatloaf too. The soccer team he supports? – “anyone but Man Utd,” and he always cheers for Arsenal (my team). He has the most amazing memory and I refuse to play Scrabble against him because the one time I challenged him, he whooped my arse something fierce. He rarely ever yells, and as long as you explain your motives for doing something he’s more than willing to listen and be supportive. He’s not always perfect, of course. There’ve been plenty of times where he’s made me incredibly mad and upset. But he doesn’t bear grudges, and he’s so gentle I feel dumb staying angry at him.

I read somewhere that a woman’s relationship with her father determines the way she relates with other men in her life. I guess the fact that I see my dad as my boy more than anything else is why my friendships with men are so important to me. I’m proud of him because he is a successful African man who’s worked extremely hard for everything he’s achieved in life, and who is remarkably grounded and humble. I’m thankful that I have such a bomb-ass dad. And I’m thankful that when he’s not around, I have a motley crew of other wonderful black men around me who understand where I’m coming from like he does, who keep me focused and challenge me to be better at all times.

I’m grateful for RationalChaos, my partner-in-ignorance, who always has something to say (usually something politically incorrect) to make me feel better. I’m grateful for my favourite DJ, who’s also an amazing listener. I’m grateful for the one I recently discovered is pretty much the same person as I am; just he’s from Jamaica and a dude – seriously, the extent to which we can finish each other’s sentences is disturbing. I’m grateful for the ones who have opened up new intellectual worlds for me, and with whom I have intense debates that expand my horizons and keep me asking questions. I’m even grateful for the one who broke my heart, because somehow we still manage to connect to one another and lose ourselves in our present, not linger over our past. Again, these men aren’t perfect. Sometimes they take the fact that I like cooking for granted, like I’m obliged to feed their asses. Sometimes they’re not honest with me, and I have to be the one who’s stronger than them, the issue-resolver and tension-ender. Sometimes they refer to me as “thuggish and unladylike” because I don’t like holding hands and shit. It’s okay though – I’ll happily take the good with the bad. From the bad ones I’ve learned when to know enough is enough, to know when someone is taking advantage of me and what level of bullshit I’m willing to tolerate before I request that they “call Tyrone.” With the good ones, I’ve been blessed with beautiful friendships I hope will last a lifetime – or at least as long as I keep cooking and they keep mixing tropical rum drinks. My brothers, I’m here for you, forever true.

P.S. The title’s from Angie Stone’s “Brotha.” Dang, I wonder where Angie’s at…

“Wait, let me guess boo – you probably like poetry” – Spoken Word

As I’m an English major, I guess it can be taken for granted that I’m a fan of all things literary: plays, novels and – of course – poetry. A couple weeks ago I went to a spoken word performance by Jessica Care Moore which may have been the illest thing I’ve witnessed in a minute. Seriously, that chick is fire. 

Anyways, I attended another poetry reading on my campus a few days later – this time, it was a guy reading. I have to give it to him: his poetry was pretty impressive. However, I was struck by the fact that every single one of his poems had him talking to a woman. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but some of his descriptions had me thinking, “Um, what’s extra hood?” For example, one poem compared his ideal woman’s nostrils to the Roman aqueducts, complete with bathing children frolicking in the streams of the snot life-bearing water which poured out from her. Yeah, anyway… I remember being told as a child by my English teacher that I lacked imagination. After I pulled a .45 on her I think what she meant to say was that I focused too much on “reality” rather than on the worlds that the mind could create. I won’t deny that I’m not much of a poetry-head – metaphors that encompass everything from the cosmos to termites and everything in between tend to be lost on me. I like the tangible, the rough around the edges, the things that I know and have experienced. I trust them more. That’s why I like Russian realist literature more than English metaphysical poetry. Escapism doesn’t appeal to me because there’s too much of the life right in front of me that I haven’t discovered yet for me to start wondering about what exists in another galaxy and whatnot.

Back to my point: this dude’s poetry – and the poetry of many other young black men – to me seems to build up a strangely unrealistic portrayal of the woman that they are speaking to or writing about. I love the fact that these men want to promote a positive image of the beautiful black goddess, especially as a woman who occasionally likes to fantasise that I could inspire a piece like “The Sun Rising.” Nonetheless, I feel scared as shit kind of intimidated by lines that invoke a woman whose back is an ageless baobab tree, whose curls are like the waves of the Sahara sands and whose eyes reflect the depths of the Nile. I mean, damn: I know I’m fly, but I’m not on that Maya Angelou/Nefertiti/Miriam Makeba tip yet. It’s funny because the dude actually read one poem that was an interesting departure from the rest. In it, he’s talking to a round-the-way girl with a weave in her hair, fake press-on nails and a quick-talking-bubble-gum-filled mouth. Not the most flattering description maybe, but that woman felt more real. I felt like I could identify with her more. I didn’t feel so egocentric imagining that the poem could be about me.

I brought up this topic with a guy and a chick that I know who both write, and they pointed out that they wrote their poetry with an unattainable ideal man/woman in mind. This totally makes sense – having some sort of Aphrodite/Apollo as inspiration – but this doesn’t mean that both men and women who write poetry or perform spoken word don’t use these epic descriptions to get more average-looking ass. And that irks me.

Look, I understand everyone needs a little head love. But that shouldn’t involve telling some Flava-Flav alike that you see your son’s smile in their smile. Because you don’t – what you really see is some crooked-ass teeth. AND you’re thinking about someone hotter, but because this person’s right in front of you, you’ll go for convenience over perfection. Obviously I’m exaggerating, but what I’m trying to say is that the dishonesty with which the poetic medium is used in the pursuit of hot sex on a platter kind of debases literature. This isn’t anything new – I’m pretty sure Shakespeare used his sonnets for seduction too. But the ways in which these spoken word artists spin lines to make these women (or men) feel special when it really isn’t about them… that’s just cold. I think that’s why I liked the poem about Shinequa (I’m not being facetious, that was the round-the-way girl’s name). It seemed to say “I see you and your flaws and your apparently ordinariness, and I love you for it, and I see past that Colour 4B Yaki to your unique beauty.” That to me means a lot more than being told about my aqueduct-esque nostrils and my thighs like the cosmos.

Maybe I’m missing the point of the poetry. I do like William Carlos Williams’ plainer style more than I do Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads. I’m not entirely sure what this says about my literary intellect, but I’m not too fussed about that. All I’m saying is: when it comes to love poetry, keep it real. Speak on it.

P.S. Dead Prez = amazing. Title is from “Mind Sex,” which is absolutely that bizness.

Bums

Go Girl – Pitbull 

 

 

“I party like a rockstar

Look like a movie star 

Play like an all star 

Fuck like a pornstar 

Baby I’m a superstar “

 

So I havent written anything in like a million years due to my ignorant ass living the life of a senior in college. Work hard and party hard. I m kidding about the work hard part. I play all the time. You know the cocaine and hard liquor lifestyle. I am kidding, I am a church boy. Speaking of which, Happy Easter to those who celebrate that and Happy Passover.

 

So why Go girl by pitbull and what the hell am i talking about. Apart from the fact that ladies shake their bums really hard when this song come on (I just created a bums playlist around this) and Mr Chaos used to have a hispanic fetish long ago but i have been cured by certain ebony princesses, now i am an equal opportunity employer. Talking of bums, your boy recently got back from a trip to vegas and actually went to my first strip club. My impression? Some of those girls cant dance worth ish.

 

“Go girl work it out 

’til u tired 

Just tryin’ to pay your tuition 

Liar “

 

Line from the same song. Well people, i beg to differ Stripping can pay tuition because in my true engineering fashion i proceeded to interview strippers at the strip club while getting lap dances and texting my blog partner while doing this(I multi task well) lol. And i found out that these girls make $1000 a night and the club takes 20 percent. That will pay for any college if you ask me, put some FAFSA in it and some work-study and you ll be fine. As usual I digress a lot from my original plan of discussion but i think that was a really necessary digression.

 

“So get your friends 

And I get my friends 

And we can be friends 

do this every weekend “

 

Ladies and gentlemen, todays sermon is about the importance of not creating a sausage feast/sharing. Ever tried to organize a party/get together with your boys and you invite the chicks you know and none of the other Negroes invite anybody. Have you ever had a female friend, knowing very well that you are with 3 other dudes brings only herself and you both know she got an extensive network of girlfriends. I find the issue of getting guys to come to a place with several girls is never an issue cos if I am in a place and overwhelmed by females, I would gladly call my homeboys to roll through if asked to. 

 

Ladies, we like good ratios. The minimum we would accept is a 1:1 ratio. I am sure you have been in a room with lots of guys and wonder why some are acting funny. it is sometimes as simple as they have looked around the room and made a mental note that the ratio is highly filled with sausage. Unacceptable! You might be asking yourself why is this kid fixated on this issue. It is perhaps cos i believe the best matchmaking happens when guy friends meet girl friends and they are left in a setting to mingle freely. Also, I personally hate the awkward matchmaking alternative in which my friend will introduce me to a girl and give me a wink wink and then magically disappear. The problem of good ratios could prevent a lot of party fights that break out. Those guys who are standing at the side of the party in winter coats even though its summer with their hands in their pockets would probably take them off if they were just more girls in the room. Of course, I might be a bit one sided but a dude will never refuse to invite his dude unless it will jeopardize ratio statistics. Also i will let you in on a little secret, if i get invited to something and i see there are 4 guys and 4 girls already going to this outing, i might be more prone to take my two feet and walk it out. Ladies, from personal experience I dont know why some girls purposefully hide their friends from their guy friends. Protectionism? or perhaps a need to be the center of attention, either way that is selfish. The good book says thou shall share and in the vein of the corny romantic movies, you never know if you prevented your guy friend from meeting ‘the one’. lol

 

Dudes, truly truly i say to you never expect the next dude to invite all the girls to your party or thing. I have a personal bone with this because back in sophomore year when my friends and I threw parties, everyone would expect me to invite all the girls to these parties and if I couldnt find enough girls to come, they would bitch and throw their little pouty faces. Have you seen some of these dudes pouty faces? It aint cute. In fact, I remember a friend of mine telling me that it was my responsibility to make sure another friend of ours got a girlfriend. My reaction was wtf, I am not responsible for another brother’s game considering that I always invited this friend to any event that was going to have ladies. 

 

In conclusion, guys and ladies be always aware of ratio at parties and try your best to make the ratio favorable. Formula for good parties from a guys perspective: lots of bums!

 

the general formula goes thus:

Good ratio+ Lots of drinks  + good/decent music + black light + whipped cream and yeah everyone in underwear, lol.

“I’m so self conscious” – My Boys, Part II

This entry title is a bit of a misnomer because it’s actually only about one of my boys. We lived on the same floor freshman year and bonded over our “third world-ness” (he’s South American, I’m African) and our love of food. Nearly three years on, I’d say he’s probably one of the people here who knows me best. It’s weird because on the surface we don’t really have that much in common: he’s a conservative white man and I’m a borderline socialist black woman. I listen to hip hop on my mp3 player while he pumps The Beatles and obscure Latin American artists out of his ridiculous speaker system. He drinks whiskey; I’m a rum-and-coke girl. I’m an English and Political Science major; he’s an engineer. Yet somehow over the past few years we’ve gotten to the point where our differences don’t really matter to either of us. We have our own little dynamic – he buys me dinner, I help him do his laundry. I tease him about how long he takes to get dressed to go out, and he lets me know when what I’m wearing isn’t what’s hot on the boulevard. Basically, our friendship is unconventional, awesome and uncomplicated. 

Or so I thought. Something he said during a recent phone conversation has made me question what it means for me, an African woman, to be friends with a white man. A few weeks ago we happened to be talking about STI testing: he’s never been tested, and I suggested that just to be safe, he should go. A couple days ago he was complaining about being unable to sleep properly, and so I suggested that he go to the doctor for a check-up. Remembering the STI testing, I asked him if had gone yet. He said no, and then asked me when last I had gone for an STI test. I told him I had one when I last saw the ob/gyn a couple months ago. He asked how it had turned out, and I replied that there were no problems. Maybe he thought I was being cocky or pushy, because he then said, “Yeah well, you know you’re black so you’re probably going to get AIDS at some point anyway.”

I need to explain something here: one important part of my dynamic with my male friends is our semi-insulting banter. We’re a pretty diverse group – white, black, Asian, Mexican, Jewish – so at some point or another, someone is bound to be blasted on account of their race. Everyone gives as good as they get – if the Mexican kid makes a comment about me being fresh off the boat, I ask him how heavy the border patrol is nowadays. There’s no room for political correctness with these dudes – after all, we’re socially aware students in New York City living the post-racial American dream. I’m saying this to make it clear that my friend’s comment about AIDS was not meant to be malicious on his part – it’s something that would, on the surface, fit in with our usual conversation style. But this comment felt entirely different to me. For once, my slick mouth failed me and I didn’t know how to respond. I felt as though two key parts of my identity – my colour and my gender – had been struck at with a force I wasn’t able to return. I felt totally exposed and extremly self conscious. Why? Because AIDS disproportionally affects black women and is a subject that is particularly close to my heart. Because there isn’t an equivalent statement that I could throw back at him, a white heterosexual male, that would carry the same meaning as his statement did for me, a black woman. Because I felt like my friend was stereotyping me, judging me, suggesting that my destiny was tied up solely in my sexuality and my race. The inequality of our positions in society, for the first time in our friendship, was glaringly obvious to me. And my position as the weaker one made me silent.

At the time we had the conversation, I was tired out of my mind (all-nighter the night before finishing two papers) and so I didn’t really think too much about it. A couple days ago, I decided to tell two friends (Rational Chaos and a Colombian/Puerto Rican chick) about the conversation and see what they thought. They both understood why the comment had hurt me, and recognised the need for me to react to being told something like that. It was interesting to me though that Rational Chaos, as a dude, thought that the comment had far more to do with race than the fact that I’m a woman. My female friend, however, agreed with me that those two aspects of my identity can’t really be separated, especially not in a situation where I’m dealing with someone who is my opposite on both grounds. Even more frustrating for me is the fact that I don’t think that I can make my friend see why his comment was problematic for me. He hasn’t ever been sexually harassed while out at night or had degrading comments made about him based on the colour of his skin. Every time I try to bring up the topic of gender or race, he gets impatient and accuses me of bringing up “hippy stuff.” How is possible that someone who understands how I feel about my family, another important part of my identity, starts to push me away when I want to discuss what it’s like being a black woman? Rational Chaos said to me that sometimes I have to let things slide – partly because of the fact that our conversations don’t tend to be PC in the first place, but also because in his opinion, there are bigger battles to be fought. While I accept that our banter will always have some pointed teasing, am I not allowed to draw boundaries over what I will and will not accept being said to me? If I were a black man and he had said the same thing to me, I could have responded, “Yeah, well your little dick isn’t big enough to contract that shit to begin with.” But I don’t have a dick. In this context he holds all the power. Is that something I should just accept as a fact of society, or shouldn’t he be sensitive to his privileged position in comparison to mine? At what point is my silence simply me compromising myself?

My female friend suggested that I think carefully about whether or not this was a turning point in our friendship – if we could continue on as we were, or not. I’m not planning on ending our friendship. He’s still my boy, no matter what. I realise now though that I have to challenge him to see things from my perspective more often. I know the white heterosexual male’s perspective inside out – it wrote the books I study from and the history of the world I live in. But this isn’t Hegel’s time any more – that shit has got to come to an end. If my friend can make the effort to understand Nigerian politics, then he can damn sure try to understand why his making a remark about me getting AIDS is a problem. I can’t end racism and sexism for the whole world – that’s a project that’s a little out of my reach. But I’m going to do my best to confront them when they come up in my personal life and out of the mouths of my friends.  

P.S. The first verse of Kanye’s “All Falls Down” makes me think about the complexities of the black female existence. Plus Stacey Dash is a bad chick, and Common’s sexy cameo as the airline employee in the video always makes me smile. 

“For My Culture” – Africa, Part II

Fact: I love South Asian dance.

One of my friends and I are the biggest bhangra groupies of all time – every time our university’s team performs we’re present with the quickness, sitting enthralled in front of the stage. I’m not entirely sure what attracts me (a Nigerian) and her (a Chinese-American) to South-Asian music/dance forms. Maybe it’s the incredible energy the performers give off on stage. Maybe it’s YouTube videos like this one. Maybe I should stop being so ignorant…

Anyway, this evening the aforementioned friend and I went to a fusion performance on campus. Fusion is kind of a mash of traditional South Asian dance forms and more Western styles like hip-hop and modern. And while I was blown away by the show (and by the ridiculous hotness of the NYU bhangra/hip-hop group), I left feeling rather sad.

You see, I’ve never been part of an event like that. The audience at the fusion show – which was in its seventh year – was packed full of supportive friends and family. Every person on the stage looked so incredibly proud and confident in their culture, like they were fully aware of the hundreds and thousands of years it was the product of. And I felt a little pang of envy watching them because I’ve never had the opportunity to express the richness of my culture in that way. And also because I’m not sure that if asked, I could even properly define what my culture is.

My family is from the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria – if you imagine Africa is shaped like a gun, we’re from the trigger (yes, we are that gangster). In that relatively narrow strip of land bordered by the Yoruba on the west and the Igbo on the east live a huge number of ethnic groups. However, I have never lived in the part of the country that I am technically from. I was born and raised in Lagos, the largest city, which is in the western part of the country. I’ve only ever visited my home village once in my life. Because my parents are from different tribal groups, they don’t speak the same language. As a result, my sisters and I don’t speak any Nigerian languages – we joke sometimes that Pidgin English is our “native” tongue. Growing up, this was never a problem for me (except for the inevitable uncomfortable moment with an elderly relative speaking Isoko to me and having to explain – politely, of course – that I didn’t understand what the fuck they were saying). I was never put in a situation where I had to really think about my culture or traditions. Those were vague concepts that I took for granted because I knew no one could ever deny me the name of my tribe or the nationality of a Nigerian.

But as I got older, I became more aware that my passive approach to my culture wasn’t something the people around me shared. Other Nigerian and African friends of mine – even those who weren’t raised in on the continent – speak their mother tongue fluently, know the history of their various ethnic groups in detail and go regularly to their home villages. I began to feel ashamed of myself. Why hadn’t I pestered my parents more to teach me at least one of their languages? Why hadn’t I asked my grandmother to tell me about Isoko traditions? Why did I think of Lagos first before Ofagbe when someone mentioned the word “home” to me? Was I somehow failing at being a true “African” because I didn’t know enough about these things?

I realise now that I was oversimplifying things. First of all, the word “culture” means vastly different things to different people, especially in the African context. The markers of cultural identification I listed above are ones that usually apply to people who identify strongly with their ethnicity because it was a fundamental part of the environment in which they were raised. My parents, like many people from our part of the country, left the region for Lagos after they completed their education to seek better job opportunities. Lagos is a very multi-cultural city which I am fortunate to have grown up in. But the physical separation I have from the land of my people as a result of living in Lagos has fed into the cultural distance I feel from it. I’m not entirely sure what the typical Isoko household is like, but I’m fairly certain my family does not quite fit the standard description. The heterogeneity of experiences in Lagos – the people of different backgrounds that I was surrounded by – is a world away from the rural quietness of my home village where everyone belongs to the same tribe: a tribe so small no one even knows how we ended up where we are today. I didn’t grow up the same way that my friends did and our cultural experiences are vastly different, so I can’t really compare myself to them.

So what does my culture mean to me? It isn’t something that I can present to other people through dance, the way the South Asians I watched tonight can. Nor is it something I can prove that I am in touch with through my knowledge of the language. Being an Isoko is important to me – something I realised at my sisters’ traditional weddings where for the first time I got to partake in a tradition that truly belongs to me and my people. But my own idiosyncratic culture transcends that. I am also a Lagos girl (even though I’m too chicken to ride an okada). I am also a proud green-and-white rocking Nigerian. I am an African who is learning more and more about the intersections between my life and the lives of others from places like Maseru and Addis Ababa. My culture is more than just words and a village – it’s my politics, my outlook, my way of telling the world, “Oi, look – this is me!” It is a product of everywhere I’ve lived, including the UK and New York. My culture is the kicks I sport here and the headtie I wear at home that makes me feel like a queen. It’s its own little fusion. It isn’t textbook, and it doesn’t make for a thrilling show, but I love it and embrace it all the same.

I know that was mad corny, but sometimes it has to be done. Humour me.

P.S. I snatched the title from this track. 1 Great Leap is a fucking amazing project. I also love the band Faithless whose lead singer/rapper, Maxi Jazz, is on the track: best electronica/rave track of all time is “Insomnia.”

“You got what I need…” – Dating in College, Part II

This is the first time I’m writing in about three weeks. And what an intense three weeks it’s been. A lot of family stuff has taken over my life, in both good and not-so-good ways, so all that, rather than writing, has been my focus. But now I’m back as the events of the past month or so have me feeling like my young and disenchanted self needs to get back to questioning and theorising and whatnot.

My two older sisters have gotten married in the past three months. It’s been so incredibly beautiful and moving for me to observe and share in all the love at both of their weddings. It has also been a pain in the ass, because I’ve been repeatedly put in situations where people, with the best of intentions, have attempted to set me up. I need people to realise this isn’t a buy-two-get-one-free kind of deal: I’m only 21. Can I please graduate before I get married off?? For real, I need my relatives to focus.

Anyway, one thing in particular I love about my sisters and their husbands’ relationships is the fact that they are so obviously the best of friends. Their whole banter, the ease with which they interact with one another – goodness, it almost makes this cynical girl fantasise about hand-holding and all that excellent shit. Almost. Anyone who knows me well is fully aware that I am not a romantic person. I don’t believe in “love at first sight” (although lust at first sight is a completely different story). I think the “average” romantic gesture is a largely mass-produced silhouette of an emotion whose real meaning is lost behind a generic bunch of twelve red roses. I also firmly believe that a real relationship is best started when the couple are friends first, rather than “romantically” attracted to one another.

Like I’ve mentioned before, I have a lot of male friends. I’m used to relating to dudes on that watch 24/play beer pong/shower together after playing basketball tip. I’ve even acted as wing woman for my guy friends, however ineffective that may have been. Now, this doesn’t mean that I want to be “just friends” with every dude who steps my way, or that’s necessarily the way it plays out. But I’m just more likely to consider dating a guy who I’ve gotten to know well on a platonic level. Basically, I need to be certain that we can be lovers and friends (shout out to Lil Jon). I got my reasons for this:

a)      It’s the relationship model I observed growing up. My parents are boys without a doubt – the way they talk to each other and generally chill shows that they are the best of friends. And they knew each other pretty well before they started dating (they were family friends). And going about a relationship that way led to a marriage that’s approaching a thirty year anniversary. Parents might not understand everything, but I think mine at least got the relationship thing figured out pretty well. Ditto my sisters. I reckon this method is tried-and-tested, and makes for a relationship built on a strong foundation – when you know a person that well it’s unlikely that you could be in a bad situation you couldn’t work through.

b)      It’s a trust thing. I’m slow to trust at the best of times, and being a relationship for me is the most vulnerable you can make yourself. If I’m going to make myself all exposed and raw for a motherfucker, I’d best be certain that it goes both ways. And, from my perspective, that’s best done when the person is your friend first. You’ve seen each other at your best and your worst and know all the ugly/sad/weird things about each other up front. There’s no need for that awkward phase when you’re trying to impress someone you want to date and can’t venture before them unless you’re primped within an inch of your life. Basically, I need to be sure that both of us can be completely ourselves with each other before we commit.

c)      If it doesn’t work out romantically, you’ll probably still have an amazing friend at the end of it all. And it’s a recession. We all need as many job connects friends as possible.

I asked a guy I know how he felt about this issue, and he took a different stance. He argued that being best friends can also cause crossing the friendship boundary a little difficult and awkward, and that when you’re not close friends to begin with, there’s the thrill of learning more and more about someone gradually while you’re in a relationship. Basically, you’ll end up best friends anyway, plus there’s more room for growth in the romantic relationship.

While this makes sense to me, I’m still a little sceptical. I’ve tried this latter approach, and it’s pretty much backfired. I think if you launch into a relationship because of a physical attraction rather than building a friendship first, you’re asking for way more shit than you’re prepared to handle, because if it fizzles out you may still be attracted to them, but at the same time you want to smack them with a baseball bat. And that how folks end up on the Channel 5 news. Also, when I say I want to be friends first, I’m assuming that it’s a given that there’s a mutual attraction between the two of us. So it’s more waiting a little to move to another level as opposed to crossing a boundary.

In summary: I’m going to stick to my guns and say the friends-first method is the way forward.

Different opinion on this? Let me know.

P.S. I went old school with the title – shout out to Biz Markie.

P.P.S. This is completely unrelated, but Jay-Z and Big Jaz’s respective flows on “Jigga What, Jigga Who” (which I was listening to while writing this entry) are ridiculous. The video’s kinda hot too. Check it.