Erykah Badu: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Erykah Badu recorded and released Mama’s Gun in the year 2000. At the time of its release she was 29 years old.  I specifically mention her age at the time of recording because it is crucial to the significance that this album has to my life currently. I have always been a fan of Ms Badu’s music, her various tracks form a big part of the soundtrack to my life and whether I’m in the mood for hiphop, soul or rnb, Badu has a song for every occasion. Despite my deep appreciation for her craft, I have never resonated as strongly as I do now with the album Mama’s Gun. Standing on the precipice of 30, I have a new found appreciation for this album, all the songs seem to speak to the uncertainty, questions, confusion, rejection, longing and anticipation that the end of a decade bring. being 29 and navigating through the fact that your 20′s are coming to an end then trying to figure out what this means as you head towards this new era in your life is tricky. Compounded with black womanhood, 29 is an age that seems to present more questions than answers and these feelings are so well articulated in Mama’s Gun. The pinnacle of the album which also happens to be last song on the album is green eyes, a melodic sensation in its own right, Badu performs a haunting rendition of it during her Tiny Desk set. It is hands down her best performance of this song and the catalyst that caused me to go back and revisit Mama’s Gun in its entirety. Essentially three songs stringed together to form one comprehensive medley, green eyes is the story of the various motions one experiences at the end of a romantic relationship. The longing, the regret, love, unanswered questions and pain and all the range of emotions one feels about a relationship they had invested themselves in at a young age are communicated against the backdrop of a cleverly crafted instrumental arrangement. Erykah Badu’s entire aesthetic appeal during this Tiny Desk performance is the kind of content I didn't know I needed until it came into my life and while i grapple with these growing pains it is the kind of content that makes this mess of 29 just a little bit more bearable. 

dvsn - Too Deep (Official Audio)

Umm. Can a song make you pregnant cause I think I’m pregnant.

My faves, my guides...these womxn, these feminists keep shaking the table and challenging the status quo, they literally breathe life into me through their work. Meet them and be inspired. 

“Black Quantum Futurism purports to give its practitioners the ability to both envision a future and collapse it into an existing reality.”

This article centers the concept of time within the scope of Afrofuturism, a concept that I have always had keen interest in. I am particularly impressed by how time is explored in this article and in a lot of ways the author has captured some of what I’ve been working on regarding time, afrofuturism and its relationship with African spirituality. 

“Ijeoma Umebinyuo, author of Questions for Ada, speaks life into our hearts and minds through her mastery of the written word.  Although she acknowledges pain, she refuses to forget a woman’s capacity for restoration. Here are 11 of her quotes that will set your soul on fire no matter what mood you’re in.”

Weary- Solange

I'm weary of the ways of the world Be weary of the ways of the world I'm weary of the ways of the worldI'm going look for my body yeah I'll be back real soon You going look for my body yeah I'll be back real soon I'm going look for my body yeah I'll be back real soon But you know that a king is only a man With flesh and bones he bleeds just like you do He said "where does that leave you" And do you belong? I do I do

Be leery bout your place in the world You're feeling like you're chasing the world You're leaving not a trace in the world But you're facing the worldI'm going look for my glory yeah I'll be back real soon I'm going look for my glory yeah I'll be back real soon I'm going look for my glory yeah I'll be back real soon/But you know that a king is only a man With flesh and bones he bleeds just like you do He said "where does that leave you" And do you belong? I do I do

Being black and a woman in a world that hates black people and women means that you are constantly fighting some battle. constantly challenging a racist and sexist status quo. It exhausts you, drains you leaves you feeling...weary. When Solange says shes weary of the ways of the world shes saying that shes disillusioned by the circumstances that she didn't ask for but is subjected to. When she says shes going to look for her body, shes going to look for her glory, shes saying that she’s stepping away from a world that hates her and is going to a place of peace, a place where she can draw strength. She is declaring that she is removing herself from the pain, the hatred and the hurt and retreating to a safe space where she will do the self-work she needs in order to return stronger. Solange is weary, I am weary, we are weary. This song, which is a prayer , a mantra and a manifesto all in one reminds us that sometimes our survival depends on knowing when to retreat, knowing when to say “I need to go and look for me but I’ll be back real soon.” 

Sometimes a song finds you when you need it the most. I didn’t even know I needed this song until I heard it today. This line in particular is so specific to how I’m feeling at this moment:  

“As time flies, way above me For you I've cried, tears sea-deep Oh glory, the prayers carry me.”

Sometimes life is hard and unfair for no reason at all, in a strange way that can’t be articulated in words, I feel that Rihanna is expressing those burdens in this song. It’s such a beautifully underrated masterpiece. 

Cassper Nyovest - Destiny [Feat. Goapele] (Official Music Video)

So obviously the Afrofuturist in me is losing her mind. I am so excited about this video and the contribution it gives to the realm of black science-fiction, Africans and technology and other related elements of Afrofuturism. This is an arena that we rarely witness being explored by South African artists in particular, artists such as Simphiwe Dana and Spoek Mathambo have been doing the work of futuristic representation for a while now but on a greater scale, it is a largely unexplored perspective. It is necessary to see us represented in this light for a plethora of reasons, chief among those being the idea of what is possible, what is attainable since technology is perceived as a European invention and something which Africans have no knowledge or ability to partake in videos such as this expose that misconception and places in at the centre of advancement. This video is an important inclusion to our variety of storytelling narratives and is a beautifully woven tale of how the past, present and future coincide and are always happening at the same time. 

I decided on you.

Certainty

iAzania aksiyo yethu.

Youth month always an interesting time for me, I find myself introspecting and thinking deeply about my mortality. It seems strange I know that for someone so relatively young I ponder mortality as much as I do. I however do not find this strange at all. I believe that my blackness informs so much of my willingness to embrace death and this is attributed to a number of reasons which I will unpack. Death as they say is an inevitable part of life and will at some point visit us all, as much as this is true for all people death for black people in the historical context is something that has been and continues to be closer than it has been for white people. As people who have faced violence, torture, the threat of death and death itself through slavery, colonization, apartheid, lynching’s, Jim Crow laws and countless other atrocities at the hands of the western world, we understand quite intrinsically the brevity of human life. Our lives continue to be threatened by police brutality, racism, and poverty, unjust systems that result in an inability for us to access basic services such as water and sanitation and adequate healthcare. We are sleeping under bridges, sleeping in shacks, working in the belly of the earth for little or no pay. Black women take long and hazardous trips from their homes in the townships to the suburban areas where they work as domestic workers in offices and homes where they are further exposed to a range of life threatening instances from harmful cleaning products, dog bites and nefarious male bosses who take advantage of them. To be black is to walk side by side with death, it is to have death whisper to you, to have its breath on your neck and to be ever aware that at any given moment it can permanently wrap its cloak around you.

At this juncture, I want to touch on the spiritual relationship that black people have with death. As with most non-western cultures black people from the African continent, the islands and the diaspora have a strong relationship with the spirit world via our ancestors and nature. For us, death is the end of life and not the end of our relationship with those that came before us and as such black people seemingly display the propensity to fear death less. The way we grieve, our rituals and the continuous communication with the spirit world depict an inexplicable understanding black people have that the physical and the spirit world are intertwined, what is manifested in the spiritual comes to pass in the physical. When considering the youth of ‘76 and my own mortality I am cognisant of this aspect and one crucial aspect of activism which has in the past couple of years become ever present is the willingness to die for the total emancipation of my people.

There comes a moment in an activist’s life when you make peace with the possibility that whatever it is you are struggling for will not be realised in your lifetime, even if you are to get old and die of natural causes. In this moment you are not certain of this likelihood because it is a possibility just as much as it is a possibility that your ideals could be realized the very next day, but the possibility of death is powerful in the sense that it defines the rest of your activism. It defines how you proceed going forward, your energy, your dedication, your relationship with your family, intimate partner and fellow activists and your reaction to the realisation of this possibility determines your understanding of your role as an activist. When you begin to seriously consider the possibility that your ideals may not be realised while you are alive and you continue with the struggle anyway and with even more conviction, you have I believe, transcended a level of physical activism and you are now revolutionary spiritual warrior.

When I look at some of the great black revolutionaries throughout the ages, the ones who have shaped my activism, I recognise this trait in all of them. With their own mortality looming, they gave their last breaths to the struggle, there came a time in the midst of the battles with those great injustices that they realised that they will most likely die before the proverbial Promised Land would be reached. It is the same with the youth of 76, taking to those streets at the height of apartheid, they were not certain of safety they were not certain of the fall of Afrikaans, some may have even predicted that they would not make it back home alive. They died on their way to Azania.

We are still on the way to Azania and during this journey one thing has been abundantly clear to me and it is that when you are an activist, you are not an activist for yourself. You do not challenge authority, the status quo, demand justice for yourself alone. You carry the spirit of those that came before you and you fight equally, perhaps even harder for those that are coming after you. What the youth of 76, miners in Marikana, the Bambatha rebellion and fallists of the Feesmustfall movement have in common is that all their struggles: a living wage, free quality, decolonized education, eradication of an oppressive language, freedom for black people in our land are the fruits of Azania. We continue to plant seeds for fruits that we may never reap, we strive for an Azania that may never be ours and we do this because we know that the state of blackness transcends the grave. The spirit of our ancestors, of our black God has carried us thus far, in equal measure we hold God and our ancestors in our spirit and in our minds, as we continue to strive towards the day when we can reclaim everything that has been taken from us.

Yes, iAzania aksiyo yethu who are currently on the ground and in the trenches. We fight for it, we are struggling to see the day when it rises from South Africa’s ashes but we also know that in all likelihood we will not be here to physically witness and see this happening but we know that we will be here. We will be in heart and minds of those who will receive it, our spirits will carry them to Azania.

So today is the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter and the philosophers stone and I decided to finally find out which house I belong to by doing the sorting hat quiz on Pottermore. If you’ve ever read any Harry Potter books you will know that the house that the hat sorts you into is quite pivotal to everything Hogwarts related and even beyond the school gates. It speaks to your character, personality, family background, friendship circles and basically all the elements that come together to influence and form the person that you are. I have always been a huge Harry Potter fan and in the beginning, when I first encountered the story at primary school I (like most kids) was team Gryffindor. In hindsight I don’t think I necessarily liked Gryffindoor but as is predominant in storytelling propaganda, they were described as being the good house that has the good guys. Slytherin was depicted as the evil house as evidenced by their house emblem which is the snake and those belonging to Slytherin were nasty, pompous and unscrupulous people so naturally I gravitated towards the good and dignified Gryffindor house. As I got older and started to understand the nuances in human nature and in life I found Gryffindoor less appealing and instead I started drawing parallels between myself and some of the Slytherin qualities which include ambition, determination and courage. These happen to be values that I aspire to at all times espouse. Slytherins are also risk takers, they aren’t afraid of a challenge

The funny thing about being sorted into Slytherin is that I do not like snakes, at all. I consider them to be evil and deceitful animals so the irony of identifying with some the serpent’s characteristics is quite intriguing for me. It speaks again to nuance, a point which I briefly touched on earlier in this segment. We seem to be obsessed with binaries; it’s good or bad, dark or light, sweet or bitter. We force ourselves to exist in binaries which is where a lot of our strife comes from since life is not a binary experience. There is constant fluidity in the human experience, overlapping grey areas where all these opposite characteristics overlap and this is what I love most about the Slytherin house. Those belonging to this house often have such single minded determination that makes pursue their goals at any cost, they consistently look out for number one and in a world that celebrates self-sacrifice and always putting yourself last that is deemed to be a character flaw, the makings of someone who isn’t considerate or caring. This ofcourse is untrue since looking out for yourself does not automatically makes one an evil, vile person, it just means that you value yourself enough to save your own life. On the other hand Slytherin does indeed have a fair share of really malicious people who have used these qualities of determination and steadfastness to terrorize others in order win at any cost. This is where nuance and separation of issues becomes important; to understand that personal choices are just that-personal and cannot be attributed to an entire house. That being said I am really glad that the sorting hat recognized greatness in me by placing me in Slytherin, I can’t think of a more perfect representation of my character than this complicated, misunderstood yet ambitious, determined and truly genuine house. I’m a proud Slytherin.

On the first Thursday of every month in Johannesburg, galleries, museums and other cultural attractions are open to the public where various kinds of exhibitions take place. on the 1st of June this year (2017) I decided to attend my very first First Thursday event and I chose the Being her(e) exhibition. This was an all African, all women exhibition curated by two black women  Refilwe Nkomo and Thato Mogotsi. Located at Constitution Hill, the exhibition is a display of work by black women from all over the continent who, through their art are exploring the themes of femininity, sexuality, power, identity and beauty. The curators did a brilliant job of walking us through the artworks and explaining what each piece means, how it impacted them personally, what the artist is trying to convey etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this evening and was impressed by the way these incredibly talented black women artists had used light, form, performance and in some instances technology to tell their stories as well the stories of black women across the continent  but it was only when we reached Aida Muluneh’s section that something shifted inside of me. As we made our way to her artwork my eye is caught by a large framed photo of a woman standing in the middle of what looks like a train station. She’s dressed in a blue robe, her face is painted white with black dots running all the way  from the top of her forehead down to her neck, her hair is a majestic afro that has been pulled back and she is staring intently into the camera. Behind her in the distance are two women in the same robe with the same features but have been zoomed out who look like duplicates of her. Everything in this picture made me stop and want to know more about this woman, where is she going? Where is she from? Does she feel displaced, like she doesn't really belong anywhere or is that she belongs everywhere but doesn't want to be anywhere and is that why there are 3 versions of herself in this picture? Obviously these are my own projections informed by personal experiences that I have now transferred to this photo but that is the power of Aida’s artwork as I came to discover. It makes think deeply about the way in which you exist in the world, how as a black woman you navigate space and time. When I see the painted faces I cant help but think of what this means about the masks we wear, about constantly having to appear as one thing whilst being something completely opposite. For me I see that a lot of Aida’s art depicts the life of someone holding multiple identities at one time, someone who exists in the present world but also equally exists in the past and is constantly balancing their existence between these two worlds. My favourite series of Aida’s work is ‘The world is 9′ because all the images from this photo set are emotive and each one has set me on a journey of wonder and contemplation. 

As if Aida couldn't get any more iconic, in the bulk of her work she uses herself as a muse so it is her face that we are seeing painted and immortalized. Aida Muluneh is an artist whose genius we can never fully understand and that’s ok, ours is to appreciate her gift, to find ourselves in her art, to marvel at her brilliance  and boy do we  marvel. 

Dr Willie Parker is a real life hero. A Christian who serves from a place of revolutionary love. 

A Christian Doctor Who Performs Abortions Explains His Convictions

In a given week, he might drive between Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi — states where anti-choice legislators are working to end abortion entirely with waves of new restrictions. He says, “What I’m doing is right, because it’s always right to help people.”

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GIFS VIA.

This is what a real, qualified OBGYN will tell you about what women feel when they get an abortion

Dr. Willie Parker, who is trained as a gynecologist and OBGYN, is a hero for the pro-choice movement because he’s honest about the undiscussed aspects of getting (or not getting) an abortion. Watch how he gives a consultation.

You’re as cute as a shiba inu! :D

As a baby academic who also happens to be a woman and black, this video is so pertinent to me. Academics are always expected to behave and present information in a specific way, what I love about Terri is that she is completely herself and disseminates information in a manner that is in tune with her character. The complexities of race, culture, femininity, relationships are also addressed so candidly by her in a way that is both informative and inviting. In a nutshell, Terri is highly knowledgeable but she still keeps it G.