NATAAL MAGAZINE ISSUE 1

� A Magazine Celebrating Global African Visual Art, Fashion, Music & Culture

Issue 1

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Words XX XX Photography XX XX

NATAAL

� A Magazine Celebrating Global African Visual Art, Fashion, Music & Culture

Issue 1

EDUN.COM

265 LAFAYETTE ST, NEW YORK

WELCOME Back in 2015, the Nataal team originally came together through our shared desire to celebrate the ever-expanding creative energy coming out of, and inspired by Africa.

What started as an online platform naturally grew, along with our extended family of talented contributors around the world, reaffirming our belief in the need for a global media brand dedicated to these vital new voices in fashion, visual arts, music, film and culture.

From this digital jump off, Nataal expanded into curating a series of talks, events and exhibitions, and significantly, we partnered with Red Hook Labs in Brooklyn to create our annual group show, New African Photography, which is now in its third thrilling year (flip to our Gallery section on page 289 to find out more). These real-life moments have given us invaluable opportunities to engage directly with audiences in different spaces.

And now, the time feels right to grow again by bringing Nataal into print with this, our first, independent, biannual publication. We want to showcase, collaborate with and bring together artists, both emerging and established, who are building diverse narratives in and about the spirit of Africa. As indefinable and impossibly vast as the term ‘Africa’ even is, it is certainly inspiring a fresh generation of thinkers and doers to embrace a multidisciplinary, cross-cultural approach to shining a bright and glorious light on the continent and its diaspora. We hope this inaugural issue of Nataal creates a much needed home for this positive and inclusive dialogue, and that it speaks to our unique readers — whether you’re picking up this publication in London or Lagos, Atlanta or Accra, Cape Town or Copenhagen, or beyond.

So, what does Nataal actually mean? We’ve discovered it can refer to many things, and it depends on who you ask, but we like the apt Fulani definition: Image, Reflection, Abundance.

With love from team Nataal

Luxury skincare for women of colour eparaskincare.com

FRONT MATTER 5 11 12

WELCOME TEAM CONTRIBUTORS UPFRONTS

14 AYANA ON PHUMZILE 25 LILI LOPEZ Renowned photographer Ayana V An artist on a journey of self-discovery Jackson in conversation with her mentee, through her short film series, Undone Phumzile Khanyile 26 OLUBIYI THOMAS 16 EPARA Belanda Hitam go to battle for the The new word in luxury skincare designer’s AW18 collection

by Nigerian entrepreneur Ozohu Adoh 28 MUTHONI 17 I.AM.ISIGO

DRUMMER QUEEN Embrace warrior style with Bubu Ogisi’s The latest album from Kenya’s boss lady Mino collection imagines many female voices 18 NAKHANE Say a prayer for the healing sounds of this all-giving musician and actor 20 ATANG TSHIKARE Delving into the fantastical world of the multidisciplinary creator 22 YINKA SHONIBARE MBE The artist discusses the human form and headlessness in some of his most celebrated works 23 FALLOU Alassane Sy’s new short film explores the resilience of London’s African community in the face of extremism 24 ANGEL HO & QUEEZY Activists using togetherness to resist the othering of brown, non-binary bodies

CONTENTS

29 STELOO The sound and fashion artist breaking boundaries in Accra with his experimental aesthetics 30 CALEB FEMI London’s most recent Young People’s Laureate shares his words of wisdom 32 THREAD The cultural centre connecting people and driving change in rural Senegal 34 SOMETHING FOR YOU Get to know the heartbreaking songs and smooth moves of S4U 35 MAMI WATA Africa’s magical ocean waves inspire this new surf brand 36 SHINGAI SHONIWA The singer’s new solo material summons up Ancient Futures

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FEATURES 64 MAKI OH Amaka Osakwe’s ever-evolving stories of style and substance

38 SUPER YAYA Rym Beydoun’s interplanetary fashion takes off from Abidjan and lands in Beirut with a cosmic bump

70 YOUNG FATHERS Three’s company for this one-of-a-kind, close-knit group

44 SERPENTWITHFEET The confessions of a choirboy turned macabre and tender soon-to-be star

50 ZEITZ MOCAA Africa’s first major museum of contemporary African art 54 GO TOGETHER Rolling deep with five of South Africa’s creative collectives

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NEW MARRAKECH ENCOUNTERS Nataal’s art and fashion odyssey through Morocco’s ochre city 84 PETITE NOIR Noirwave gets all grown up with Yannick Ilunga’s new sounds NATAAL

FEATURES

86 MONEY MUST BE MADE Lorenzo Vitturi dissects the many layers of commerce and chaos that make up Balogun market in Lagos 98 THE WAY OF MEAT A short story by NY-based author, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

102 90’S BABY KICKBACK Nigeria’s SoundCloud generation is taking over, ready or not

110 BALOJI The musician’s artfully curated mission to find 137 Avenue Kaniama 120 VERSAGE Knock-off fashion’s flow from Lagos to Guangzhou, and back again

126 MIKE & QUIET The afropunk revolution was pioneered in South Africa by this design duo 132 BLINKY BILL Keeping it chilled with the positive Pied Piper of Nairobi’s alternative music scene

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2MANYSIBLINGS MEET PETER KARIUKI Oliver Asike and Velma Rossa hail the unsung talents of one of Nairobi’s original street photographers

CONTENTS

134 MOMENTS IN CONGO Viviane Sassen explores the areas around Lake Kivu to capture the environment and its people

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FASHION 142 154 166 180 188 198 212 220 236 252 270

GOING OUT EDUN SWEET & TENDER REBELS DAYDREAMING COLOUR PLAY A STUDY IN DEVOTION PERFECT IMPERFECT WEST COAST ROUTES MAME ONLY ANARCHISTS ARE PRETTY GALLERY

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FATOUMATA DIABATÉ

300

RUTH OSSAI

322

RAHIMA GAMBO

308

ALICE MANN

330

RONAN MCKENZIE

336

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316 KEYEZUA

DIRECTORY

NATAAL

TEAM Founder ALASSANE SY

Co-founder & Creative Director SARA HEMMING

MAME

by Julia Noni

Design Director BENJAMIN JOHNSTON AT STUDIO JOHNSTON Art Director LAUREN BARRETT Designers ALBERTO HERNÁNDEZ TIM WAN

WRITERS Matilda Alehke, Grace Banks, Miriam Bouteba, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Valeria Costa-Kostritsky, Alix-Rose Cowie, Karen Day, Katie de Klee, Allyn Gaestel, Nosmot Gbadamosi, Emma Gilhooly, Ayana V Jackson, Will Larnach-Jones, Deon Maas, Rob Marriott, Hauwa R. Mukan, Kerri von Geusau, Marie-Louise von Haselberg PHOTOGRAPHERS Kent Andreasen, Iwan Baan, Arielle BobbWillis, Micaiah Carter, Jasper Clarke, Fatoumata Diabaté, Kadara Enyeasi, Jermaine Francis, Rahima Gambo, Rudi Geyser, Ross Hillier, Adama Jalloh, Liz Johnson Artur, Keyezua, Nico Krinjo, Benedicte Kurzen, Vic Lentaigne, Alice Mann, Ronan Mckenzie, Tyler Mitchell, KristinLee Moolman, Maganga Mwagogo, Lakin Ogunbanwo, Jolade Olusanya, Ruth Ossai, Julia Noni, Mishael Phillip, Viviane Sassen, Elina Simonen, Antonia Steyn, Joyce Sze NG, Lorenzo Vitturi, Kyle Weeks STYLISTS Gavin Mikey Collins, Virginie During, Edda Gudmundsdottir, Nathan Henry, Sabrina Henry, Jonathan Johnson, Nell Kalonji, Gabrielle Kannemeyer, Cynthia LawrenceJohn, Ian McRae, Naomi Miller, KK Obi, Kusi Kubi, Saranne Woodcroft

TEAM

Editorial Operations Manager SARAH BARNES Chief Sub-editor ANANDA PELLERIN Brand Partnerships REMI AJANI SEPHORA ABRO

HAIR STYLISTS, MAKE-UP ARTISTS, MODELS, CASTING AGENTS, SET DESIGNERS, PRODUCERS, ASSISTANTS Emmanuel Adjaye, Sinita Akello, Alani, Roxane Attard, Wale Bello, Tytiah Blake, Ann Marie Campbell, June Campbell, Ffion Campbell-Davies, Caroline, Bess Chann, Qual Chan, Chizoba, Rebecca Davenport, Masseck Diagne, Rhea Dillon, Ammy Drammeh, Eastwood, Gabriel Ejoni, Kirsten Engell Holm, Troy Fearn, Aurele Ferrero, Raisa Flowers, Claire Fulton, Kachie. E, Ania Egen, Asé Fisher, Rahim Fortune, Adot Gak, Jenny Green, Helen Haile, Cyndia Harvey, Saskia Hofmann, Isiah, Lou Jasmine, Jay Jay, Josie, Kabelo Khanye, Klein, Arnault Kononow, Raschelle Osbourne, Evi Luna, Luke, Eve Martin, Joy Matashi, Regina Meessen, Mignonne, Nigella Miller, Rudzani Moleya, Virginie Moreira, Mya, Rharha Nembhard, Dorita Nissen, Jonathon Nixon, Inyegumena Nosegbe, Winona O’Dell, Nelima Odhiambo, Nelson Oghenekewe, Mike O’Gorman, Olabisi, Eseosa Osayande, Athena Paginton, Camila Paiva, Erik Pascarelli, Rebecca Perlmutar, Dale Ratcliff, Dan Ross, Ama Rouge, Hannah Ryan, Dariana Ruiz, Liam Russell, Max Saward, Magdalena Siwicka, Joyce Souza, Sinjun Strong, Shae Stultz, Laura Sully, The Masons, Mame Thiane Camara, La Timpa, Stephanie Tiwo, Robbie Tomkins, Martin Tordby, Trey, Emmanuel Udume, Matt Wash, Dominique White, Claire Zaquine

Co-founder & Editorial Director HELEN JENNINGS

ONLY ANARCHISTS ARE PRETTY

by Kristin-Lee Moolman & Cyndia Harvey

Shoot Production BAKER KENT CAT CRAWFORD PROXSY PROD

Typeface Design HAAKON SPENCER & MATTHEW FENTON AT BRITISH STANDARD TYPE

Editorial Assistants HALIMA DIKKO JULIANA KASUMU BOLA MARTINS ALICE STRAFFORD

THANK YOU Tonia Arapovic, Maud Guarneri & Peggy Picano-Nacci at Boutiquologie, British Council, Stephen Davies, Design Indaba, Jennifer De La Cruz, Emilie Demon, Sunny Dolat, James Goodhead, Jefferson Hack, Sharif Hamza, Christina Hardy, Richard Hinzel, Brianna Ho, Jari Hämäläinen, Peter Jennings, Hanna Kelifa, Stevie King, Olya Kuryshchuk, Julien Labat, Glenn Max, Maria McCloy, Ethan Miller, Melody Micmacher, Jimmy Moffat, Jessica Murphy, Jackie Nickerson, Nii Agency, Chudi Okoye, Madeleine Østlie, Enyinne Owunwanne, Charlene Prempeh, Amina Sarr, Dudu Sarr, Mpho Sishuta, Laura Tabet, John Wilkinson, Chloe Williams Taylor, Liska Yealland, Conor Cronin PRINTING & DISTRIBUTION Logical Connections Ltd. For distribution enquiries: greig@logicalconnections.co.uk PRE-PRESS PHMedia NATAAL ON SCREEN Visit us at nataal.com Follow us at @nataalmedia

Nataal magazine is published by Nataal Ltd. 92–96 De Beauvoir Road, London, N1 4EN For all enquiries: info@nataal.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, reprinted or transmitted without permission from the publishers.

Although the greatest care is taken to ensure all information contained in Nataal is accurate, neither the publisher nor the authors can accept responsibility for damage resulting from the use of this information.

The views and opinions expressed in Nataal magazine are those of the contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff.

Every effort has been made to contact the copyright owners of the images and texts in this issue. Any copyright holders we have not reached, or to whom inaccurate acknowledgement has been made, are invited to contact us.

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CONTRIBUTORS

ADAMA JALLOH Adama Jalloh is a London-based, awardwinning photographer. Inspired by the flow of everyday life, her images capture genuine moments that speak to themes of identity, race and culture. She’s shot for i-D and Clash, and exhibited at Tate Modern. For Nataal, she takes portraits of Young Fathers, and works with a cast of curators, choreographers and dancers for the story ‘A Study in Devotion’.

Photo by LAUREN ASHI

ALIX-ROSE COWIE Alix-Rose Cowie is based in Cape Town where she works as a freelance editor, writer and photographer. Previously editor of creative showcase Between 10and5, she is currently editor of food culture magazine Chips! For this issue she meets noirwave king Petite Noir, and profiles the collectives shaping South African fashion, art and music.

KRISTIN-LEE K ristin-Lee Moolman is a photographer and filmmaker based in Johannesburg.

MOOLMAN Her work explores the various social and political landscapes of South Africa through utopian portraits. Her clients include Hood By Air, Edun and Burberry and she has exhibited at MoMA, Tate Modern and Somerset House. She comes to London to imagine a new breed of future rebels for Nataal.

Photo by IB KAMARA

MICAIAH CARTER New York-based Micaiah Carter creates compelling images that focus on the beauty of blackness and the African diaspora. His images have appeared in Wonderland, Sleek, Document Journal, i-D and TIME, and he’s worked with Converse and Adidas. He conjures up a magical dream world for Nataal’s story with designer Maki Oh. Photo by RAHIM FORTUNE

CYNDIA HARVEY Cyndia Harvey grew up in Jamaica and is based in London, where she has become a sought-after hair stylist. She has brought her fresh aesthetic to campaigns for DKNY, Kenzo and Calvin Klein, as well as to the pages of Vogue Paris, i-D and Dazed.

She shared her personal project, This Hair Of Mine, with Nataal at Labs last year.

Now she starts a riot with London’s young provocateurs for one of our cover stories.

NANA EKUA Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond shares her BREW-HAMMOND short story ‘The Way Of Meat’ in this issue. She is the New York-based author of Powder Necklace, and her short fiction has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Sunday Salon and Woman’s Work. She was a 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar and a 2016 Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence. She is currently at work on her second novel.

Photo by ESSIE BREW-HAMMOND

JULIA NONI Renowned fashion photographer Julia Noni studied in Düsseldorf and is based in Paris. Her clients include Dior, Courrèges, Harper’s Bazaar, Twin, GQ and US Vogue.

She journeys to Dakar with Senegalese model Mame Thiane Camara for one of Nataal’s cover shoots, which displays her nuanced attention to human gesture and a sense of place.

RUDI GEYSER After spending most of his twenties in the UK, completing a BA in photography at University College Falmouth, South African-born photographer Rudi Geyser returned home to gain a sense of identity through his work and create narratives around lesser-known subjects. His work has featured in Dazed and Thiiird.

Currently based in Cape Town, he shoots a fashion story across the Western Cape for Nataal.

KADARA ENYEASI K adara Enyeasi is a Lagos-based photographer whose work exhibits an understanding of form, space and perspective, informed by his training as an architect. He’s also a junior curator at the African Artists’ Foundation, and has exhibited with Nataal at Labs.

He shoots Nigeria’s SoundCloud generation for this issue.

TYLER MITCHELL Born and raised in Atlanta, Tyler Mitchell graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and his playful photography and film work zooms in on global youth culture. He’s been tipped by Dazed and the New York Times, and published the photobook El Paquete. He’s also worked for Givenchy, Ray Ban, Marc Jacobs and The Fader, and for Nataal he takes effervescent portraits of musician serpentwithfeet.

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NATAAL

Photography KYLE WEEKS. Model MAXWELL ANNOH. Styling KOBBY KLEIN

� ON SCREEN Discover our world at nataal.com Follow us at @nataalmedia

Renowned photographic artist Ayana V Jackson in conversation with her mentee, Phumzile Khanyile

Ayana on Phumzile From the moment Phumzile walked into my studio I knew my job be more done in terms of education for the black child in South as her mentor would be simple. Her series, Plastic Crowns, came Africa,” she says. “There is accessibility in terms of photography from so deep within her that only she knew how to extract it. From schools and learning to create works, but there isn’t really so much the onset it was conceptually and aesthetically sound. It was hon- access to the industry. So you find a lot of people studying and then est, it was relatable, it was… is… at once uniquely South African dying off, or they end up doing something they hate doing in phoand completely universal. It speaks to memory and the ways the tography just so they can create and make a living at the same time.” past and the present are conflated within the lived experience.

She, however, won the luck of the draw. It is now two years She offers us a glimpse into her private self as she grapples with a since our first encounter and I have had the pleasure of seeing her battle so familiar to her generation of South Africans: what does it work explode onto the international art scene. I’ve come across mean to be suspended above the crossroads, at the intersection it at major art fairs in New York, Paris, London, and of course her of tradition and modernity? native Johannesburg. I am at once a proud mentor, a gushing fan In the series, Phumzile places her own body within the aes- and an awestruck spectator. thetics of twentieth-century point-and-shoot photography. Perfect I asked her to reflect on her journey thus far. “The first good in their imperfection, the images evoke family albums that, like choice I made was to work with Afronova Gallery, because they our subconscious, are pregnant with decisive moments from our take the time to teach me things and walk me through the process. past but somehow remain concealed, hidden from public view. I’m finding that I’m learning while I’m doing these exhibitions and Phumzile unearths these memories, dusts them off and demands selling works. It’s rare to find a situation where people are willing reconciliation. “I just felt like I was suffocating from both the de- to be transparent about what’s happening behind the scenes.” mands of what acceptable photography was, and dealing with my To add to this, Phumzile is also a new mother. While she was grandmother’s expectations of what being a good woman is, so busy bringing her art baby into the world, she was also gestatthe project became a way for me to raise the middle finger to both,” ing her daughter, Azania. “Having a baby is hard in any industry she tells me. because I don’t feel like the world creates space for mothers So much of this was clear at first glance. As a result, I had who still want to excel at what they do best,” she reflects. “I don’t nothing to offer her as she continued on her creative journey. My want to choose between raising my daughter and being an artist. only role, I felt, was to give her space to grow, to play, to flourish, Thankfully I have my mom and sister and a supportive partner. If it while at the same time drawing the best map I could of the poten- weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to travel. It really is different for tial challenges she would face as an artist. When I asked her to women. It sucks because most male artists don’t have this issue, reflect on the experience, she said: “Studying doesn’t prepare you they just move the way they always have.” for how intense the industry is. You aren’t really given the scope of In this, and in many areas of Phumzile’s life, she shows incredwhat the industry needs from you. It’s hit and miss. If you’re lucky ible strength. It has been amazing to watch her take the reins of you’ll find someone to teach you the ropes or take you by the hand her career, as well as motherhood, with such a confident grip. As and guide you through.” an artist who hates to be asked about future projects, I refrained As an outside observer I couldn’t agree more. Phumzile is just from asking about hers, but I must admit that like many, I cannot one in a sea of amazing photographers and visual artists of her gen- wait to see what comes next. eration, but talent aside, what sets her apart is her interaction with the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg. “There definitely can PLASTIC CROWNS. Copyright PHUMZILE KHANYILE. Courtesy of AFRONOVA GALLERY.

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NATAAL

UPFRONT

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The new word in luxurious skincare by Nigerian entrepreneur Ozohu Adoh

Epara In the Nigerian dialect of Ebira, “epara” roughly translates as sourced from across Africa. She went on to research other “to cocoon”, which is exactly what Ozohu Adoh hopes her new essential oils and plant extracts, and soon hit on face and body loluxury skincare brand for women of colour does. Namely, wrap tions that worked wonders. Within just a few weeks of using her you up in nourishing, replenishing comfort. Launched last year, new formulations, the irritability had gone and her face was soft the face and body collection has been handcrafted using organic and clear. Soon friends and family were asking what her secret was.

African ingredients and botanical actives to cater to the specific “What I found is that it was pure ingredients coming out of Africa needs of darker skintones. “It’s a myth that black skin is so resil- that cured my skin,” she recalls. “This told me that what nature has ient,” Adoh says. “Wrinkles aren’t such a worry but you do have to provided on the African continent is suited for women of colour.” think about hyperpigmentation and dryness, and it’s important to Her next step was to work closely with a lab in the UK to superprotect your skin from damage caused by both free radicals and charge her methods with advanced scientific formulations, and air pollution.” develop a complete range of products that were not only free from Born in the north of Nigeria, Adoh attained her MBA at Oxford synthetics, mineral oils and harsh chemicals, but could also pass University and was a strategy advisor in the oil and gas industries clinical trials with flying colours. Key products now include the until her passion for skincare sparked an entrepreneurial eureka Comforting Body Cream, Moisturising Face Cream, Brightening moment. For a long time she suffered from a severe skin sensitiv- Night Balm, Hydrating Serum and Balancing Face Oil, which all ity that no dermatologist could diagnose, so she tried everything fight imperfections, while subtle, holistic aromas such as neroli, to cure it — from steroid creams to expensive cosmetics — to no ylang ylang and frankincense sooth and pamper. avail. Eventually she realised that there were no existing qual“Before clothes, jewellery, shoes or make-up, it’s your skin ity products on the market that catered to her needs, so she that must first be elegant,” says Adoh. “When women of colour decided to start making her own. use Epara, I want them to look and feel amazing. Because they’ve Adoh went back to basics with simple, trusted ingredients such chosen a brand that is customised especially for them, they can as coconut oil, shea butter, aloe vera and moringa oil — all ethically go out into the world each day exuding confidence.”

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Words ADA BERHE Photography JERMAINE FRANCIS

NATAAL

Do or die by donning Bubu Ogisi’s Mino collection

I.Am.Isigo Don’t be alarmed if you are overcome with an indomitable sense of fearlessness while wearing I.Am.Isigo’s SS18 collection, Mino.

Meaning “our mothers” in Fon, this season sees the Nigerian brand reference the Dahomey Amazons — a superior all-woman army dating back to the seventeenth century who protected what is now the Republic of Benin from invasion and slavery.

“With every collection I’m trying to explore different traditions across Africa, and with this one I was inspired by a road trip through Benin to research the country’s history of female empowerment,” designer Bubu Ogisi explains of how she discovered these deadly muses. They were not allowed to marry or have children, and swore their lives to the King Shark with their motto

UPFRONT

“Conquer or die!” “What appeals to me about the Mino is their androgynous nature and ruthless attitude," she says. "It’s a striking story that can help us all feel more confident in every aspect of our lives.”

Ogisi developed a special cotton cloth woven in Ouidah, Benin, in glistening shades of amber, ivory, tan and indigo.

The results are styled into grand kaftans or figure-hugging corsets and skirts. These compliment asymmetric tops and dresses or slinky kimono suits in crushed velvet, and can be layered over neutral mesh pieces to create looks that are more dancefloor than battlefield.

Ogisi studied in Paris and first launched her label in Accra before relocating to Lagos, where she rebranded in

2013. Previous collections have looked at the Wodaabe pageants of Northern Nigeria (Taboo), the cowgirl in Calamity Jane (East of West) and her own experiences of pregnancy (Blood and Bones). She has also broadened out into interior installations, furniture and art. Her minimal, playful designs are effortless to wear, yet are also subtle statement pieces to be kept in your arsenal — wherever you may roam. Like its creator, who has shown and is stocked everywhere from Durban to Geneva via New York and Nairobi, I.Am.Isigo walks its own unabashed path.

Make-up SINITTA AKELLO. Model QUAL CHAN. Styling HELEN JENNINGS. With thanks to the BRITISH COUNCIL’S EAST AFRICA ARTS PROGRAMME and TRIBE HOTEL.

Words BELLA ISIO Photography MAGANGA MWAGOGO

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Say a prayer for the healing and immortal sounds of this all-giving artist

Nakhane On stage Nakhane glistens. Kicking off the tour for his second album, You Will Never Die, in his newly adopted home of London, it’s as if, throughout the performance, his soul is seeping out of his lean body, through his heavenly voice and out across the room to join his tender, electronic, piano-led harmonies. “I’ve sworn to myself that I want to feel like I’ve been on a ten-mile run after every show,” he confides to me the next day. “I want to collapse because I’ve given so much of myself.”

Brought up in a deeply Christian family and community in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, life was not easy for “an effeminate, obviously queer boy”. This new music confronts his traumatic adolescence spent struggling to deny his sexuality, and eventual decision to walk away from his faith and those who refused to accept him.

The results are an astonishing audio catharsis dealing with desolation, vulnerability and lust. The cleansing of his emotions on songs such as ‘Presbyteria’ and the title track are palpable.

“It was difficult. I was writing about subjects I’d sworn I’d never touch. There were moments of panic and frustration,” he says of the four-year recording process. “But then I went to see a Tarot card reader who told me I needed to go back and visit all the places of my high school years, so I did. When I got home I went into a deep sleep and when I woke up I wrote ‘Teen Prayer’. I knew at that point there was nothing left inside me. I was finished.” The praise song is also fittingly the last one on the album: “Growing up

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we’d open the family meeting with a prayer and close with a prayer.

I wanted to have that symbol as well.”

Nakhane also gave his all to his first acting job in John Trengove’s 2017 film The Wound (Inxeba), for which he won Best Actor at the Durban International Film Festival. The movie received worldwide acclaim and was shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but it also sparked a vicious furore among South Africa’s Xhosa community. Haters claimed it revealed too much about the sacred rite of passage ceremony that most Xhosa men go through, but the real vitriol sprung from the film’s homosexual storyline. The movie was given a pornography rating in some provinces, and Nakhane received multiple death threats, forcing him to leave the country.

“It fucked me up, I won’t lie,” he admits. “But I had to stand tall because those people didn’t deserve to see me weak. And I’m forever grateful to everyone who rallied for me on social media.

That positivity around me was invaluable. If someone asked me to do it again, I’d jump at it. Xhosa is my culture and I love it, but no culture is perfect and it needs to be called out.”

Thankfully now the fuss has died down, and on Nakhane’s last visit to South Africa in December, for Afropunk Joburg, it rained love. “We played the new songs and people lost their minds,” he says. “This is an exciting time in my life. I’ve wanted to be doing this for as long as I can remember, and now I am here.”

Words HELEN JENNINGS Photography TARRYN HATCHETT

NATAAL

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Delving into the fantastical world of this boundary-blurring creator of wondrous objects

Atang Tshikare Atang Tshikare is an enigma. Not because he’s cagey or cryptic — minimalist style to create a range that translates mythical conin fact, the chatty South African artist eschews the archetypal cepts into tangible objects. “OKHA showed me what they were persona that goes along with his profession in favour of one of interested in and I said, ‘I can do that, but this is what I want to do,’” unfastened openness. No, Tshikare’s mystery lies in never know- he recalls. “I showed them my designs and they liked the ideas ing what he’ll get into next. His boundless creative energy — which because I had a story to tell. As a business they wanted a product, could be mistaken for childlike wonder if the results didn’t suggest a table with four legs and a flat surface. But what I did with them such a ruminative thought process — takes shape across myriad was something more artistic. If you look at ‘Metsing’, the table, mediums, from ceramics to furniture to sculpture. there are three pieces of glass not exactly the same shape, and it Tshikare started out drawing, following in his father, famed looks South African and good quality, but done by a person, not a political cartoonist Mogorosi Motshumi’s footsteps. “My dad has machine,” he explains. “My work has a personal essence. I give it been an influence on me but I didn’t want to do politics because a feeling first, and I then I think about the secondary thing like the I saw what it did to him with Apartheid,” says Tshikare, referring fact that it’s a chair.” to his father’s brief imprisonment, which took him from the family His most recent design piece, ‘Legae’, resonates on many home. “I was an adventurous type of person. I used to watch car- levels. Resembling two figures embracing each other, as well as toons in the morning and wonder about things that weren’t really the human heart organ, its biomorphic form also takes its cues there. I would make up my own stuff because it’s always easier from the vernacular architecture of the Nguni and Songhai people. and better to live in a fantasy than face the crap that’s around you. “This sculpture is sensual and specially made to be touched, so I love imagining; seeing something new and different.” feel free to move your hands softly across its body, and rub the And for several years that’s exactly what Tshikare did. Working black wood extensions.” at a studio called Zabalazaa Designs, he collaborated across Does Tshikare consider how his own role as a black artist, disciplines to add his illustrations to wallpaper, textiles and originally from Bloemfontein, plays a part in attracting the art sneakers. “Drawing on surfaces was always a passion, but and design worlds to his aesthetic? “The exotic part, I use that, around 2015 I realised I wanted to make stuff myself,” he recalls. I kind of trap people with it,” he says. “I take their perception of “I told my gallery and they hooked me up with design studio and what they imagine a black artist or a South African artist to be foundry Bronze Age, who showed me how to make a sculpture.” and throw them out the window so they don’t know what to think — Like seemingly everything Tshikare does, he went at the opportu- except that they really love what they see.” nity ready to learn but armed with his own vision.

But true to his nature, Tshikare also ponders the term that The upshot was on full display at DesignMiami/ 2016, as part defines him. “Each time I work it informs a whole world that I’m of Southern Guild’s showcase. “I never thought it would take off projecting,” he says of his larger plans, which span from making and be a massive thing,” says Tshikare, who acquired the skill hats with craftspeople in Lesotho to creating artworks that would to sculpt mostly for the satisfaction of being able to take his flat be accessible to people with autism. “So it’s easiest to say creator, narrative drawings and give them three-dimensional scope. But because even when you say multidisciplinary designer, you’re still his bronze, life-sized zoomorphic creatures, which toe the line saying design. And then there’s artist, because I’ve done paintbetween furniture and sculpture, became a focal point of the fair ings and I do drawings, so then where does it go? It gets hella and catapulted this creative polymath into a new artistic category. confusing for people. I think the word that I’ll stick with is creator.”

His prowess for large-scale works quickly garnered attention And we’ll stick with him, too, wherever his adventures take us. back home. Renowned South African interiors firm OKHA tapped Tshikare to collaborate on a three-piece, limited-edition furniture (Opposite right) LEGAE Photography HAYDEN PHIPPS for SOUTHERN GUILD. collection. Truly working together, they abandoned the brand’s (Opposite bottom) KAGGEN for OKHA Photography PETE MALTBIE.

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Words KAREN DAY Photography KOPE FIGGINS

NATAAL

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The legendary artist discusses the human form and headlessness in some of his most celebrated works

Yinka Shonibare MBE Nigerian-raised, UK-based fine artist Yinka Shonibare MBE In the French Revolution all the nobility lost their heads. Everything is one of the pioneers of a generation of post-colonial creators about the body is about power, particularly when you are talking who draw on both the symbolic and very real — often violent — about colonialism. I’m interested in the power struggles of the legacies of the past, as well as contemporary realities, to make body during the colonial era, and how at that time the rich — and complex, tactile work that is at once engaging and unsettling. His artists who were rich — were celebrating the body in over-the-top output — which often reframes art-historical moments — encom- glory, while other bodies were being repressed. passes many mediums and inhabits different spaces (he created the Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar GB Are you a political artist?

Square in London), and he is widely known for his installations YS I’m politically conscious, but I wouldn’t say I’m a political featuring bright African prints on Dutch wax fabric worn by head- artist. less mannequins. Here he explains how these seemingly anonymous forms address the exclusion of non-western, non-privileged GB Women’s bodies seem to feature in your work more reguperspectives and bodies from art, while also taking in issues of larly than those of men. Why is this? gender power dynamics in artistic representation.

YS In the late 1980s it was very hard for artists to represent

the female body in a positive way. It’s changed now, GB How did the headless bodies series come about? to some extent. I was coming up as an artist at that time, so it YS I’m asking questions about conventional canons of was the first exposure to the art world I really saw. I wanted to

art and the exclusion of non-western art. I wanted to use challenge that and ask a question about the difficulties faced in the now-iconic ways that bodies have been represented in west- creating images of the female body in art. The way the body is being ern art to create a new tradition that challenges tradition at the presented in art is changing, but, of course, there can always be same time. more change.

GB YS

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Why are your figures always headless?

Because they are designed as a working-class protest.

Q&A taken from: PLAY WITH ME: DOLLS, WOMEN & ART by GRACE BANKS, published

by LAURENCE KING. Image credit © YINKA SHONIBARE MBE. All rights reserved DACS / ARTIMAGE 2018. Image courtesy JAMES COHAN GALLERY. Photo STEPHEN WHITE.

NATAAL

Alassane Sy’s new short film explores the resilience of the African community in London

Fallou For his second directorial outing, filmmaker, actor and Nataal founder Alassane Sy is telling the story of Fallou. A young man sent from Senegal to the UK by his marabout — a West African spiritual leader — who has links to extremists. Fallou is on a mission to make his mother proud. We see him arrive in east London with the nebulous notion that he will “defend Islam”; a lost soul who appears willing to sacrifice his happiness in this life for the promise of paradise in the next.

The 30-minute work is a follow up to Sy’s debut short film, Marabout, which reveals the ways in which some of the poorest Senegalese youngsters can be exploited by the leaders of Koranic schools. As Sy says, “There is a connection between the films, but what I see in Fallou is in some ways the next step. We left Marabout with children and I feel as though one of them could become Fallou — if you grow up in that environment, why would you not be like Fallou?”

The title character, played by newcomer Fallou Galass Dia, is a representation

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of any young immigrant living in the UK. love and also to try something new — that His life is at a junction, torn between the was priceless to me,” Sy says. Equally forpressures of his religious education and tuitous was a recording of French radio the enticements that London has to offer, he found on which Senegal’s President yet trapped without the proper visa to be Macky Sall talks about the radicalisation of in the country. “Without that piece of pa- African youth, who, due to a lack of prosper you aren't allowed to do anything at pects, fall prey to fundamentalist propaall, so young immigrants can turn either to ganda. Playing in the background as the something positive like art, which doesn’t screen pans across beautiful Senegalese require papers, or to something a lot more scenes, these words drive home wider negative,” Sy explains. societal and political concerns.

London-based Sy, who was born in Ultimately, Fallou is a story of acceptMauritania and grew up in Senegal, has ance, freedom and the power of being starred in films including Andrew Dosun- made to feel welcome. The film shows how mu’s Restless City, Jonas Carpignano’s a sense of community and positive personMediterranea, and Joseph A. Adesunloye’s al relationships can shape someone’s path.

White Colour Black. His own storytelling “The best way to protect nations or people has been well received on the film festi- from this new form of terrorism is not necesval circuit and he is currently developing sarily in the hands of the police officers, or by his first full-length feature, Talibes. Fallou closing borders and checking up on people,” was shot on a budget of just £3,000, which Sy says. “Negative ideas sometime come means that, like Marabout, the majority of from the fact that people can't find their the cast are not formally trained actors. place. I think it's about re-teaching them “What I needed more than anything how to live together because people are the else was people who would do it for the biggest weapon against these threats.”

Words MIRIAM BOUTEBA Photography JASPER CLARKE

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Activists using togetherness to resist the othering of brown, non-binary bodies

Angel-Ho & Queezy “We are boss ass bitches,” Angel-Ho purrs in a soft, careful voice, “and we’re always thinking about how to channel positivity.”

The “we” in this self-affirming statement refers to Angel-Ho, DJ, producer and performance artist — aka Angelo Valerio — and their sister-in-crime, Queezy, fashion designer and performance artist Quaid Heneke.

The Cape Town duo have created their own femme personas through their dress and their art as a way to raise visibility and establish safe spaces for non-binary, queer and young people of colour in their still-segregated country. Among the vanguard of likeminded artists such as Athi-Patra Ruga, Umlilo and FAKA, Angel-Ho and Queezy are addressing race, gender and sexuality in ways that attempt to reclaim erased histories and rallies for an intersectional approach to identity in South Africa.

Angel-Ho grew up in Cape Town, while Queezy hails from East London in the Eastern Cape. “We met via social media. We both liked Lady Gaga at that time, which brought us together,” recalls Queezy. Angel-Ho studied fine art while honing their intense and sensitive soundscapes, and is co-founder of NON Worldwide alongside Chino Amobi in the US and Nkisi in the UK. The musical collective aims to “exorcise the language of domination” in mainstream society, and has hosted events at London’s ICA, the Berlin Biennale and PS1 in New York. Angel-Ho recently released their debut album Red Devil, its textural rhythms addressing “personal demons” in order to “find joy among the chaos”.

Queezy moved to Cape Town to study fashion and uses the medium to explore the art of drag, as seen in her 2016 documentary, Reckoning: A Fabulous Farewell To Toxic Masculinity, and

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boxing-ring inspired Gallery MOMO performance Club de Quaid.

Drawing on pageants, ballroom culture and vogueing, Queezy is a queen against all odds. “I started designing by draping, and at one point I draped fabrics all over my body, which felt like a chrysalis. After that I bought a long red wig and Queezy was born,” she recalls. “The name comes from the reactions I would see on straight men’s faces — let me embody that nausea. I also looked at rappers names — Lil Wayne is Weezy, Kanye is Yeezy. It’s playing with hyper normalisation.”

The pair have collaborated on films, soundtracks, installations, youth workshops, club nights, photography works and now the fashion concept Jacomina, which is named after Angel-Ho’s grandmother. “Her name means ‘a woman who is galvanising her thoughts and words,’” Angel-Ho explains. “She was a seamstress and ran a business from home. We want our brand to be super relatable and to get back to the idea of handcraft.”

Queezy elaborates on their process of co-creation: “We rip, tear, hand sew and trust each other in that moment. We let go of ego and put pride aside to focus on the task at hand. There’s enough shit happening in the world that we have to make sure our work is pure and true to the message. It has to be beautiful, too.”

Beyond conceptual wearables, Jacomina speaks to a new vision of inclusive luxury that the pair hope to evolve into a consultancy advising global brands on young African audiences. “We didn’t grow up with luxury but our perceptions of it have created another whole world of luxury in our heads, so the possibilities are endless,” says Queezy. “Our look is unique, so Jacomina has come at the right time and will have a ripple effect.”

Words ANANDA PELLERIN Photography RUDI GEYSER

NATAAL

An artist exploring self-discovery through her film series Undone

Lili Lopez Who are you when you are alone? What is has also been supported by Tribeca Film across film and photography, as well as success to you? What keeps you on the path Festival and Tumblr, and the latest series acrylic, watercolour, pen on paper and to self-creation? Lili Lopez asks these and gets under the skin of rapper Oddisee and chalkboard, through which she develother searching questions to her subjects photographer J. Shotti, among others. ops her geometric, minimalist aesthetic. in her short film series, Undone. The visual Lopez was raised in Paris by Sene- “I’m inspired by Africa, by home — I draw expressionist began this ongoing personal galese parents, and studied applied arts, what I see in my dreams.” Her commisproject hoping to explore the idea that life is photography and business before working sions include packaging for the fashion not about being, but about becoming. She in marketing for a music TV channel. She brand Studio One Eighty Nine, illustrations invites inspiring individuals in New York to then focused on humanitarian work, which for the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figshare their personal journeys and passions took her around the world for two years, ures and menus for the Brooklyn concept and, because it’s less about their achieve- before relocating to New York in 2014. store Sincerely, Tommy. Future projects ments and more about the fact that we are “I didn’t know anyone, or speak English, include establishing a creative consultanall a work in progress, the identity of each but just decided to get there and figure cy agency, shooting a personal project in subject is only revealed at the end. “I need- it out,” Lopez recalls. “I’m not a big city Senegal and Cape Verde, and directing a ed to hear other people’s stories to figure out girl, I like nature, so it was hard to adjust full-length documentary on immigration. my own issues and deal with them,” Lopez to the values and lifestyle.” But the city’s So when will she focus the Undone confides. “The process was therapeutic for energy gave her the incentive she need- camera on herself? “I tried answering all of them, but also helped me.” ed to go back to her original love of art. my own questions but I couldn’t. I’m very The first instalments featured artists “I started posting my illustrations on social private and am still learning how to open including poet Aja Monet and artist Dondre media and this led to commissions. That up. It’s important to step out of our comfort Green, and won the Best Web Series award built my confidence and I found my style.” zone and not be in fear of living authentic, at Bushwick Film Festival 2016. Undone Her multimedia practice sees her working vulnerable lives with one another.”

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Words ANANDA PELLERIN Photography J SHOTTI

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Belanda Hitam go to battle for the designer’s AW18 collection

Olubiyi Thomas For AW18 Olubiyi Thomas looks to the mid-nineteenth-century to take inspiration from Belanda Hitam — Black Dutchmen — a group of Gold Coast recruits to the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army who fought in Indonesia. “The story evolved while I was researching the history of how the Netherlands became the main manufacturers of batik, which was sold to West Africans and has become part of our identity,” says Thomas of the wax print that took the fancy of the soldiers, who then brought it back home. Dutch producers caught on and began to cater their prints to local tastes. “In some ways I felt I could relate to Belanda Hitam’s clash of cultures, wearing one’s uniform but still feeling estranged at times. One of their generals, Jan Kooi, became my muse for reflecting on a bygone age, heroism and cultural acceptance.”

Using vintage florals, waxed cotton, wool, linen and silk in muted shades, the collection combines military silhouettes with classic British tailoring. Key outerwear includes a quilted double-breasted jacket and a pink mohair overcoat. The magic happens when these are layered over raw-edged waistcoats, collarless shirts and voluminous cropped trousers to create elegant looks for men and — a first for Thomas — for women, too.

The designer’s own multicultural upbringing informs his whole approach to design, which is in part a reflection on post-colonial, contemporary style. Born in Lagos, his family moved to Glasgow when he was three. Excelling at fine art, he gravitated from painting to fashion and relocated to London to study menswear at Central Saint Martins. He worked at James Long, Craig Green, Alexander McQueen, Siki Im and De Rien, before establishing his eponymous brand for SS16. Inspired as much by Victorian cutting and Malian indigo textiles as by Yinka Shonibare and Hieronymus Bosch, Thomas has honed an appreciation for artisanal techniques and meaningful craftsmanship. He is now becoming known by discerning dressers worldwide for his deconstructed, elongated styles that exude an accomplished ease. So who would he love to dress? “Gaika, FKA Twigs, Andre 3000, Dev Hynes, Johnny Depp… there’s so many.

Although my ex-girlfriend told me her gran would wear it too!”

Styling KK OBI. Hair ISAAC POLEON. Casting CHLOE ROSOLEK. Models MOPESOLA and ROHAN at NII AGENCY and DECIO.

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Words RUDO IBORI Photography MISHAEL PHILLIP

NATAAL

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SHE becomes we on the latest album from Kenya’s boss lady

Muthoni Drummer Queen Muthoni Drummer Queen has always embodied many personas — singer, rapper, dancer, promoter, CEO and #hairgoals goddess.

But with her latest album SHE, the musician embraces many more. The project imagines 12 strong women, each with her own outlook on life, womanhood and contemporary Kenya. Recorded in the Swiss Alps with production duo GR! & Hook and Santo, the tracks took shape organically, and with a focus afforded by being away from home. “When we started to write, we knew we wanted it to represent Kenya, but what is Kenya?” Muthoni recalls. “By the fifth or sixth song, it felt like each one was about a different woman. I want audiences who listen to SHE to know that there is a lot of compassion for their experiences. Choose you. Be the person you want to be.”

Opening track ‘Million Voice’ channels a Kenyan Somali woman who suffers prejudice as a refugee, while ‘Kenyan Message’ praises a female protestor reminiscent of environmentalist Wangari Maathai. “Politics is very patriarchal here but when it hits the fan, it’s the women who come through and force reform,” says MDQ. On ‘Lover’, we meet a transgender woman having the best sex of her life. Meanwhile ‘Suzie Noma’ encourages female entrepreneurship. “It’s about women working together," she says. "This generation has access to more things than ever before, so if you can invest in your dreams with your girlfriends, do it.”

SHE also displays almost as many musical flavours as women characters, with dancehall, hip hop, rock and electro all flowing into this powerful long player. It’s a big sound and testament to

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MDQ’s own growth. Born Muthoni Ndonga, she started drumming and singing at school and dropped out of economics at university to pursue her real passion, releasing her first EP in 2008. She now hosts the Blankets & Wine and African Nouveau festivals across East Africa, and has become the unofficial first lady of Kenya’s alternative new music wave.

But she’s not satisfied yet. For her, the local music scene has far to go. “There’s been a renaissance in interest from Kenyans in their own music, and the young ones are on the way to mainstreaming their sounds,” she says. “But Kenya is fractious and the socioeconomic divide is real. Artists like myself are seen as bougie kids making music for white people, and that’s not true. I was born in the ghetto and then my family moved to a rural suburb. But I also grew up loving Lauryn Hill and knowing that women rappers can be banging, meaningful and dope.”

MDQ therefore wants to use her own strength and influence to effect change. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how to create opportunities for crews from each side of the tracks to develop a deeper compassion for each other’s perspectives by making music together,” she says. “I don’t care if it’s acoustic or rap or wavy as long as it’s sustainable. I want to contribute to the bridge for this next generation. If only a few of us achieve some measure of success that isn’t available to everyone else, it’s a vanity. I want the idea of Kenyan music to be in a global space.”

With thanks to the BRITISH COUNCIL’S EAST AFRICA ARTS PROGRAMME.

Words HELEN JENNINGS Photography MAGANGA MWAGOGO

NATAAL

The sound and fashion artist breaking boundaries in Accra

Steloo Steloo (aka Evans Mireku Kissi) is one of a kind. The sound and fashion artist spearheads Accra’s experimental scene with his improvised sets fusing electronic beats with traditional instruments, found sounds and the rattle and roll of everyday objects. His inimitable talents have taken him to Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire and Germany to perform, but Nataal encountered him last at Design Indaba 2018 in Cape Town — where his show revolved around samples of birds tweeting and airplanes soaring, interspersed with cymbal crashes and the rustle of wrapping paper. “I like to challenge my creative process by layering and exploring soundscapes that build up into a party,” he says. Equally uncompromising is Steloo’s dress sense, which lies somewhere between swimmer, cowboy and flâneur. He pairs his signature wax-print trapper caps and sunglasses with short shorts, vintage blazers, armbands and pulled-up socks. “My fashion is like my music, I make it up and it’s everything that I love.”

Forming a loose collective with fellow Ghanaian mavericks including stylist Daniel M Quist, photographer Francis Kokoroko and fine artist Nana Anoff, Steloo and friends host their own multidisciplinary events around their city. “The shows we’d want to be at don’t exist, so we create them. It’s up to us to embrace new energies and spaces. With varying ideas but a united front, we seem to be unconsciously pushing the boundaries in a strong way,” he adds. “Right now my ideas are bigger than myself. I wait for my craft to surprise me; I don’t know where it’s going to take me tomorrow.”

With thanks to DESIGN INDABA.

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Words HELEN JENNINGS Photography RUDI GEYSER

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The young bard of London

Caleb Femi “Poetry sets out to take a snapshot of a particular human experience in its rawest form and captures the essence of that experience,” says Caleb Femi, London’s most recent Young People’s Laureate.

The writer, teacher and filmmaker has made it his mission to raise the visibility of poetry in the UK capital, while inspiring and nurturing talent. Not a problem for someone who steadfastly believes in the power of poetry to express and navigate one’s life.

Femi was born in Jos, Nigeria, and moved with his family to North Peckham Estate in south London, aged seven.

“Through the eyes of a child the estate seemed very pleasant,” he recalls. “The curtains were pulled from my eyes when a little boy who I used to play with died.

Then I was more aware of the reality of crime that infested that place.” The boy was Nigerian ten-year-old Damilola Taylor, who was stabbed on his way home from school and bled to death in 2000. The case became one of the most written about of its kind in British history.

When Femi was 17, he too was stabbed, and shortly after that he was shot. Around the same time, he started to discover poetry, using music as a gateway. “I loved reading lyrics — Frank Ocean, Bon Iver, The Streets. I’d just play songs over and over again to hear all the words,” he says.

“I started writing poetry as a way of making sense of my experiences, not really understanding that it was a therapeutic thing.

I was writing about myself and my place in the world, the future, Peckham.”

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In those early days he was hesitant to call himself a poet. “I didn’t understand the institution of poetry. I didn’t identify with the poets I appreciated, like TS Eliot.

I didn’t see myself in him. Then I realised a poet is someone who calls themselves a poet. That’s all.”

Femi’s work has remained autobiographical ever since: distillations from his childhood, being an immigrant, his first experiences of girls and love, and the violence he encountered on the estate. “Being an artist has made me comfortable talking about my past; it has helped me process it and move on.” He’s reluctant however to represent a certain demographic, or take on a reductive label. “I’m a Nigerian, I am black, I am also British. I’m talking about all of that simultaneously.”

Words are not Femi’s only outlet. He also has a keen interest in photography and film, and his poems are often paired with visual narratives. Most of his work online is in video format — short films that feature him performing his work. “It takes a lot longer to get published and have your work in written text than it does to film something and put it online,” he says. “But I still can’t dictate how people will interpret it.

Those words were mine when I wrote them, but once they reach your eyes or ears it’s up to you how you want to receive them.”

It’s a generational thing, too, he explains. This is poetry for a modern world where people don’t always have the time to read. “It’s sad, but it is true. The experience of reading poetry has been fucked up. Some schools don’t nurture a love of

reading. A lot of passion and creativity is taken out of poetry in exchange for more rigid analysis. Poetry is supposed to be about wonder, creativity, not ‘water means sadness, winter means death’”. Femi speaks from experience — having studied literature at university, he became an English Literature teacher himself for two years.

Femi’s accolades include commissions from Tate Modern and the Royal Society for Literature, and he has performed everywhere from the Royal Festival Hall to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He’s won the Roundhouse Poetry Slam and Genesis Poetry Slam, and has released two documentaries, What Did Love Taste Like in the 70s? and Heartbreak & Grime.

He is currently working on his first printed collection, which will take the form of a book filled with photography, poetry and essays. He has also just toured South Africa, Nigeria and Singapore, and appears in a video piece about London playing on screens at Heathrow airport. Having debuted his autobiographical play Goldfish Bowl at the Roundhouse, it is reprised at Battersea Arts Centre this June.

He summarises his life, and the play, as such: ‘Born in Nigeria. Climb a mango tree.

Get hit by a Peugeot 405. Move to the North Peckham Estate. Fall in love with Khami.

Have a fight by the PE gym. Start writing Grime lyrics. Begin selling drugs. Get my heart broken by Abigail. Get stabbed.

Get shot. Move to Marylebone. Become an English teacher. Become a poet. Make a play.’

Words KATIE DE KLEE Photography JOLADE OLUSANYA

NATAAL

PUT THEM IN THE ROOM OF SPIRIT AND TIME Boys who know roadside sun

and know where to find fruiting lamp posts.

Boys who were raised on the empty shell of a fridge

sit with rocks in their stomachs and laugh.

Boys who feel like Halloween costumes

who wear winter coats in summer heat.

Boys who do road, actually do road

ten toes on a opp block road.

Boys who don’t go to the corner shop on their ones

because of boydem or boys like them.

Boys who felt grief and its economies of scale

in the budget of burial.

Boys who look to polar bears for lessons

on how to grow white fur on black skin.

Boys who always swear they’re five minutes away

who know that time is a promise of smoke.

Boys who know that a wheel-up bar in a Grime rave

is a loop of better days that may not come.

Boys whose names sound like the rip of duck tape

or the boom of a 12th bell.

Boys who sleep in cupboards

and in back seats of burning cars.

Boys who can’t explain why they flinch

at the knock of a door.

Boys who live by the code

and stay sealed by the liquid of wax.

Boys who stopped waiting for a spirit in a holy place

and stopped breaking for the morning.

Boys in search of a hyperbolic time chamber

whose days are tumbling sand in an hour glass.

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The cultural centre connecting people and driving change in rural Senegal

Thread Over the last three years the remote artist residency and cultural centre Thread has become a valuable addition to Sinthian, a village in southeastern Senegal. A project of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and championed by respected community leader Dr Magueye Ba, Thread aims to mix art with everyday life by hosting two to four artists from around the world at any given time, and by launching several initiatives in agriculture, learning and sustainable development. From music to farming, Thread enables change at the grassroots level. The local inhabitants also use the centre every day as a space to meet and socialise, charge their phones, study with solar light in the evenings (there is no electricity in the village), and host cultural gatherings.

“Sinthian is the geographic centre of communities on the river space that can be configured to accommodate audiences of up and it can be economically tough there, but Dr Ba has pioneered to 300 people, as well as small intimate gatherings. “The village a lot of different projects,” says Nick Murphy, director of Thread. kids play hide-and-seek in and around the walls,” says Murphy, Having studied medicine in Dakar, Dr Ba has chosen to live in emphasising the flexibility and informality of the space, and the Sinthian for nearly two decades, during which time he has worked degree to which it has become familiar to the local population. with US non-profit American Friends of Le Korsa (AFLK), runSenegalese environmental sustainability expert Moussa ning the local medical centre, building Sinthian’s first preschool Sene acts as Thread’s general manager, and champions the cenand funding its teachers. “Over the years Dr Ba has acted as an tre’s agricultural projects. Under his watch, beekeepers in the incredible entrepreneur, doctor and active fundraiser, so that his area have changed over from using traditional harmful burning community can benefit,” Murphy adds. techniques to reach the honey, to methods that preserve the bees Designed pro bono by the award-winning New York-based and the environment. Sene has also implemented the making of architect Toshiko Mori, Thread’s building is a spectacular combi- biocomposts and biopesticides among local farmers, minimising nation of vernacular techniques and contemporary geometry, built costs as well as nurturing the land. He also helps artists devise entirely by local labourers and craftspeople. The simple white their plans when they arrive for the residency programme, allowing walls are made from compressed earth bricks, while the sweep- them to engage with the community in meaningful ways. “People ing roof is a grass thatch. Bamboo collects and stores rainwater, come from far away to work with the locals, both learning from, used for agricultural projects during the eight-month dry season. and teaching them,” he says. “Mostly the artists adapt their proAnd at the centre of the building is a large, open-air performance jects after a few days of observation, making them more relevant.”

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Words KATIE DE KLEE

NATAAL

Thread was opened in 2015 with a concert by the Tambacounda- discussing development with the population to effect change.” based rapper Neggadou, who became the centre’s first resident. Dakar-based weaver Johanna Bramble came to Thread in February Since then over 40 artists have passed through it doors from 2017. She discovered that three older Sinthian women knew how across Africa, Europe and the US. “During my residency, I wrote to hand-spin cotton, making a highly sought after material that many songs for my album and I composed a special song that I Bramble had only ever been able to source outside of Senegal. sang in Pulaar — the local dialect — to pay homage to Thread and These women had no idea how valuable their skills were, and the village of Sinthian,” says Neggadou. “Now it has become a the younger local women had written the practice off as an outhymn to Sinthian and every time you cross the village, you hear it dated craft. Bramble worked with both generations of women to on the radios or being sung.” relaunch spinning in Sinthian, so that the skill would not be lost After his time at Thread, Neggadou formed the arts collective and they all had a source of income.

Dugu Tigui Arts in Tambacounda. Its first task was to organise Another resident was Yelimane Fall, a Senegalese artist based Tambacounda's Festival de l'Union, celebrating the diverse cultural in Pikine. Well into his 70s, Fall has long used Islamic calligraphy practices in Tamba with Senegalese hip hop concerts. In part- and education to reach disadvantaged young people in the Dakar nership with the Tambacounda Cultural Center and Thread, the area. At Thread, he drew on the spiritual aspects of his work to inaugural 2015 festival was attended by thousands of people and connect with Sinthian’s religious community. Most significantly, was a huge success. he spearheaded a cultural initiative in five nearby schools where At the same time that Neggadou was at Thread, Sister Rose the curriculum is taught in French, although many of the children Berthe Coly, a local nun, came for a residency. She taught a large do not speak this language at home. Fall encouraged the schools group of women how to make soap and they invested the profits to make time every week for celebrating local, ethnic traditions earned from selling it into an area of land they now use to grow with dance and theatre, giving them a place in contemporary life. peanuts. These women formed the Sinthian Women’s Association, “When selecting artists, we’re always sensitive to the commuand have taught two nearby villages the craft as well. “The real nity,” says Murphy. “At first it was invitation only, then we did a innovation at Thread is in linking art to agriculture, health and call-out. But the programme is quite self-selecting. Only certain education,” says Sene. “I believe in the bottom-up approach and types of people are drawn to this kind of experience.”

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Get to know the heartbreaking songs and smooth moves of S4U

Something for You Rosita Bonita and Prinz George head up the London-based collective Something For You (S4U). Upon meeting the duo, their playful demeanours are evident in their tongue-in-cheek responses to interview questions: Where do you come from?

Rosita: “Mars”. Prinz George admits he’s originally from Nottingham, but says that he and his partner in crime met halfway between the planet and his hometown, and bonded over a dinner of partridges.

Yet beyond the jokes and cloak of otherworldliness, these are two individuals who are serious about their deep connection to music, both in terms of production and performance.

Everything begins with their love of 90s R&B. Think Aaliyah via Janet Jackson and Eternal. Think sassy dance moves and silky vocals. “The lyricism and use of gospel layering and harmonies — and the

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love stories! There was just so much mean- watch. They’ve also nailed a recent Boiler ing behind a lot of the music back then,” Room set and signed to Lily Allen and Theo muses Rosita. “It just affected you more Motive’s Bank Holiday Records. than music does now,” Prinz adds.

Now on their to-do list is completing This core inspiration extends to the the soon-to-be-released mixtape Heart 2 duo’s fashion sense, too. Though they Say. They’re also planning collaborations claim Chewbacca and Super Mario are with choreographers Diana Vizcaya and their style icons, it’s really more about Kwame Asafo-Adjei for music videos and statement sportswear and Rosita’s sky- stage performances. Rosita, who when high PVC platforms, which even Lady Miss off-duty can often be found at the London Kier would be jealous of.

School of Samba, leads a cast of dancers S4U’s Brazil EP came out in late 2016, for each show. So, who would be her dream after having had the material locked in live line-up? Rosita says: “Amel Larrieux a “song safe” for close to four years. “We or Amy Winehouse”, to which Prinz adds: had a session and just didn’t touch it; we “All Saints would be sick, or B*Witched”. were doing other things. Then we decided to make other tracks around it,” Prinz explains of how their debut record came Zoe wears QASIMI jacket, WEEKDAY top, artist’s own skirt into existence. They followed this with and boots. Lawrence wears TOURNE DE TRANSMISSION DR. MARTENS shoes, artist’s won T-shirt and jeans singles including ‘Isle of Dogs’ and ‘Friends’, hoodie, Styling NATHAN HENRY. Hair ERIK PASCARELLI. which have positioned S4U as ones to Make-up JENNY GREEN.

Words HALIMA DIKKO Photography VIC LENTAIGNE

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Africa’s magical ocean waves inspire this new surf brand

Mami Wata

In many African cultures Mami Wata is a water goddess, often imagined as a mermaid-like figure, and it is said that those whom she takes as lovers return to everyday life more powerful, knowing and beautiful. She therefore makes a very apt and alluring namesake for one of Africa’s first surf brands. Established in Cape Town in 2016, Mami Wata offers premium boards, clothing and accessories — all ethically manufactured on the continent. More than making stylish surf gear, though, the people behind the brand hope to stay true to the spiritual influence of Mami Wata, by telling visual stories that celebrate African surf and sea culture — mythical and real.

“Africa has some of the world’s best surfing to explore and discover,” says Peet Pienaar, Mami Wata’s creative director, alluding to the fact that so much of Africa’s surf spots are under the radar, as are the surfers themselves. “The image of surfing has always been based around white guys with long blond hair, even though historically speaking, surfing has its roots in diverse places around the globe — including Africa — and originated in Hawaii. We want to help make surf an inclusive activity that anyone can feel part of.”

In Mami Wata’s debut, award-winning short film, Woza (meaning “come” in Zulu), we meet young South African pro surfer Avuyile Ndamase, who is captivated by the power of the sea. “On a wave your mind travels, and then in between waves, the ocean enlightens you,” he narrates as the film travels from busy city streets to the peace found on the waters of Durban, South Africa and Ponto Do Ouro, Mozambique. His personal life story is far from dreamy, though. He grew up in Port St Johns, Transkei and started surfing with his brother as a little boy, and one day they were together when his brother was killed by a shark.

Nonetheless Ndamase couldn’t resist surfing, and sought help from a healer to find the courage to go on. He is now Mami Wata’s brand ambassador. “Having spent time with Ndamase, we realised that surfing for him is a calling more than just a decision,” Pienaar says. “The African experience is very holistic, which is exactly where we want to be as a surf brand, too.”

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Words MATILDA ALEHKE Photography ROSS HILLIER

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The singer’s new solo material summons up Ancient Futures

Shingai Shoniwa

“My usual is unusual,” Shingai Shoniwa says. It’s a small sentence, but explains a lot. As the British-Zimbabwean lead singer and bass player for Noisettes — a band that tested boundaries musically and aesthetically — she has never followed the pack. Born to be bold (her name means “to be courageous” in the Shona language), her debut solo EP Ancient Futures, dropping in June, sees Shoniwa take an even more individual path. She doesn’t accept the title of ‘solo artist’ however: “I’m not sure it applies to me so much. Being from a big family, I feel like a lot of my learning has been about collaboration — everyone was always showing each other their new invention, new tune, new 16 bars.”

Having worked alongside artists such as Baloji (on his latest think about where a lot of our inspiration in terms of guitar players album 137 Avenue Kaniama, and spoof TV episode The Kaniama come from. You’re going to hit the blues at some point, and then Show), Spoek Mathambo, Thandiswa Mazwai, RZA, Giorgio you’re going to hit gospel, and then you’re going to hit Africa — and Moroder and Mick Jones, and with three successful Noisettes there’s no avoiding it.” albums with guitarist Dan Smith on her CV, collaboration remains The continent resonates through the EP’s sonic intent, from the soul of the new record. Guest songwriters include Dave Okumu the squelchy club track ‘Zimtron’, to the spacy ode to sound system (The Invisibles) and Jean Baptiste. So how do these names relate? culture ‘Champion Styles’. Drawing as much on the Zimbabwean “The thing that unites us is a common essence behind a lot of the mbira as drum machines, the sound travels far and wide, with a music we love — hip hop, rap, grime, reggae, dub poetry, punk — little help from Gabriel Makamanzi and Zivai Guveya from the core you can trace a lot of the rhythms and syncopations back to Africa.” band led by legendary musician Thomas Mapfumo. “It’s called It’s a history lesson she’s used to giving. When Noisettes first Ancient Futures because a lot of incredible ideas concerning art, started out, journalists would label them indie rock and tell her science, philosophy and the stars can be traced way beyond the she was “playing white bloke’s music”, to which she’d retort: “Just Greeks and back to Abyssinia,” she says. “People listen to this

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Words EMMA GILHOOLY Photography THE MASONS

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music and say there’s a ‘homegrown’ feel, but my idea of homegrown is being able to grow yourself wherever you are. I grew up around council estates in south London, and we spent summers in the dondo (bush) and time in Malawi; so for me home has become wherever I am. I keep adding to it.”

The EP grew out of the previous EP Tropical Metropolis, which teased a couple of years ago but didn’t come out. “It represented this flower that managed to make it through the roughest, most synthesised, man-made piece of concrete. I felt like that organic matter trying to push through a set of choices,” she explains. “Being told, on the verge of getting signed, ‘You could be the British version of this’, I was like, why would I want to copy what anyone else has done?” But that’s not to say she doesn’t have heroes. “Look at Nina Simone, she went from being the blues-jazz ‘what’s-expected-of-you’ darling to reaching inside to an unsafe place to express something which ultimately brought people together. Ancient Futures is taking the past, good and bad, into the future. It’s a chance to raise our vibrations and not repeat mistakes.”

UPFRONT

Shoniwa has also been busy building an acting career. She will star alongside Terry Pheto in upcoming feature film Faces, by BritishNigerian filmmaker Joseph A Adesunloye, and will play the ancient female pharaoh Hatshepsut in the forthcoming Hollywood movie Protector of the Gods. Shoniwa’s fashion sense and performative sensibilities landed her the part after director Kameko Tarnez witnessed one of her gigs in London. Hatshepsut is often depicted as having adopted male attributes to assert herself as a leader, but Shoniwa is having none of that. “We can’t compromise what’s on the outside,” she says. “Many women have been heralded in history for what they wore rather than what they actually did. But it’s not a bad thing if it makes you dig deeper, because to have both inner and outer strength is incredible. I often think that if you have a great heart, a great mind, a great soul — you’re going to shine anyway.”

(Left) SHINGAI wears STYLE MAFIA shirt. (Right) SHINGAI wears RELLIK vintage top AMECHI skirt, stylist’s own bangles. Styling TALULAH MASON. Hair MAGALIE KATENDE and BIANCA SIMONE SCOTT. Make-up NANCE KATENDE. Styling assistance IONA DUTTON. Photography assistance LAURYN MCKINSON and OLLIE DICKENS. Creative production LOIS BROWNE.

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SUPER YAYA

Rym Beydoun’s interplanetary fashion takes off from Abidjan and lands in Beirut Words HELEN JENNINGS Photography JOYCE SZE NG

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Rym Beydoun does not mince her words — or intentions — with Super YAYA. As her brand’s definitive slogan T-shirts scream, it’s all about being unashamedly “100% Afrocosmic”

“I come from a city where everything is exaggerated — extra, super, 100 per cent — that is a constant,” explains the Abidjanborn designer. “Côte d’Ivoire comes with a lot of baggage and is rarely represented in the way I saw it growing up. Spending every weekend on a beach that feels infinite. Being in a place where we had this sense of togetherness, where I was surrounded not just by people but by nature as well. The country was living its first independent years and I saw in it my past, my present, my future. I felt blessed to be born and raised there. Super YAYA is my way to show that.”

Beydoun’s family hail from Lebanon but have spent four generations in West Africa. Having settled in Abidjan, they were forced to leave during the first political coup in 1999, so she devoted her teenage years in Beirut to dreaming of home. She studied fashion at London’s Central Saint Martins and returned to Abidjan for her placement year, where she interned for Laurence Chauvin-Buthaud’s menswear brand, Laurenceairline, as well as for a tailor called Miguel. “He was super slick — his shop was on the street and looked really rough but very chic, and he made suits for ministers and big shots.”

She also worked at the Uniwax factory to learn the art of wax print — a fabric ubiquitous to the city’s “in your face street style”, she says. “Prints are communicators and each one means something. There are ones for you to wear when your husband cheats, when you’re wealthy, when you want to thank Jesus,” she adds. “So with Super YAYA, if I feel like saying something, I write it on a T-shirt. That’s it.”

After graduating in 2013, Beydoun took time to travel around West Africa with her camera, while forming the ideas behind the brand. At first, it was an ecommerce take on the local fashion system — having your choice of style made from fabrics bought in the market — but has since evolved into full collections currently stocked in Tokyo, Berlin, Los Angeles and New York. She works alongside consultant Makram Bitar and photographer Joyce Sze NG to constantly evolve Super YAYA, both from her base in Beirut and on trips to Abidjan to source materials and shoot visuals.

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SS18, entitled Reconciliation, is deeply personal. “I had a few tough months with things in general and the universe.

My AW17 production caught fire, so I lost everything, and some of my relationships were strained. When I was working on this season it was important to make peace.

I had learnt a lesson and wanted to teach a lesson.” Also drawing on happy memories of motor crossing on sand dunes listening to Alpha Blondy’s woozy reggae track ‘Super Power’, and inspired by Côte d’Ivoire’s modernist architecture, the fresh collection of baggy satin suits, ra-ra skirts and smocked leggings gives off a brazen air. These are surreal clothes to wear for cartwheeling into a mystical tomorrow.

Beydoun has also indulged her love of burning rubber with a Pirelli-style 2018 calendar, and is working on a book and film. Meanwhile AW18 fully embraces her 1990s #nostalgique — it’s what a nineyear-old would wear to go ice skating in a very hot country. “To me fashion is essential, it is a flow of waves reinventing dress codes and aesthetics that can be practically adapted or adopted by society at various times for different reasons,” she muses. “I make sure my work exists in ways that help to transform or transit.

We spend our lives looking for meanings, so making meaningless things can’t be very satisfying, not for me at least.”

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Styling MAKRAM BITAR. Models RYM BEYDOUN, PAULE MAGNINÉ. All clothing SUPER YAYA.

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SERPENTWITHFEET

The confessions of a choirboy turned macabre and tender soon-to-be star Words ROB MARRIOTT Photography TYLER MITCHELL

(Above) Artist’s own cap, stylist’s own jacket, OXFORD LADS shirt, BERNHARD WILLHELM trousers, LARUICCI ring.

(Opposite) Artist’s own cap, DRIFTERS LDN shirt, SHOPLIFTER vest, BERNHARD WILLHELM trousers, YAZBUKEY fire necklace, CHRIS HABANA crystal necklace, LARUICCI rings.

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He is a man, reserved at first, despite the tattoos and the piercings and the futuristic style. As you speak to him, you remember his look from his performance at Afropunk Brooklyn. He was once goth-ish — bald with stark eyeliner and septum ring — but now, as a bright, chilly sunlight slow-sweeps across the cosy photography studio in downtown Manhattan, he is much less so. The tats are half-concealed by growing hair and an unruly beard. His face is softer, although the garb he tries on for today’s Nataal shoot is still from the outer reaches of forward. Despite the angry face ink and overly dramatic ensembles, serpentwithfeet has the eyes and demeanour of a choirboy, and you can sense he is familiar with that longing-for-Jesus, that speaking-in-tongues, that sweaty eye-rolling and frantic praise dancing that happens on Sunday mornings in places named Little Mount Zion or New Shiloh or Calvary Baptist.

The shell is not the man, the skin is not the serpent. Josiah Wise is — beneath the layers of crafty subterfuge — a thoughtful, intellectual choirboy, whose music sits somewhere between the post-post-soul deconstructions of Frank Ocean and the introspection of Sampha. Less lush, more industrial. But the sensitive fire revealed on his 2016 blisters EP and on the new debut album soil is evident in the man.

“I wanted this album to feel as close to the ground as possible,” he says, explaining lines like, ‘I love you from under my feet’. Yes, there is a grounding that goes on when it is played. A kind of mount and submission. His sound is secular gospel, a substantive departure from the church music he grew up on, but still drenched in the organ rhythms and religiosity of prayer and devotional and testimony. A potent admixture, evocative enough to draw Björk and her producers to work with him on her track ‘Blissing Me’.

You prompt him to recall his upbringing. It was a household that took their church-going very seriously and held their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the highest regard. Baltimore was his Bethlehem. “I grew up in a row house.

It wasn’t like The Wire, but I think every

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(Opposite) THEOPHILIO jacket, BOO PALA top, BERNHARD WILLHELM shorts (worn as skirt), LARUICCI jewellery.

SERPENTWITHFEET

city has their Wire area,” he says. “I just remember being very active in the choir.

My mother said I was born in church.”

Life was a tight orbit around the church and its rituals: choir practice, church trips, time in his father’s Christian bookstore.

“I loved singing. I grew up on singers like Kirk Franklin and Richard Smalls.”

As he got older, he started to realise he was not going to have the life prescribed by the church. “I remember being in high school thinking about the day I would have a wife or girlfriend, but I didn’t know how.” No, in the end, he was a boy attracted to boys and no, he was no longer interested in spending his Sundays in church. Once he started attending University of the Arts in Philadelphia, he broke the news to his mother that no, he was not searching for a “home-church” in Philly. For a year and some more she insisted but eventually accepted his life choices.

He studied classical music and opera and tried, with his mother’s encouragement, to further his education in Paris. He moved there but was turned down by all the music schools he applied to, and so decided he had to do his own thing. He moved to New York, surfed couches in Brooklyn and Queens, and began recording.

In the all-white of the studio, you watch as he tries on his second outfit.

He is clutching one of the many dolls he brought with him now, singing along to a song by Nigerian songstress Tiwa Savage. He confesses to you a deep love for Nigerian sound, so-called afrobeat.

“I would love to go to Nigeria,” he says, the flashbulbs flashing.

He left the church, you conclude, but church didn’t leave him. At least musically. Soil dances in the twilight between Saturday night and Sunday morning. His lyricism is in the tradition of a long line of our greatest soul singers — taking the pomp and exaltation of gospel to secular, that is to say sexual, levels.

But serpentwithfeet swings less Aretha Franklin/James Brown with their forthright ecstatic cries, and more Terence Trent D’Arby or Prince and the ambiguity of songs like ‘I Would Die 4 U’ — minus the pop structures. The Jesus you might project into his music is less a sacrificed God on the cross and more an aloof boyfriend not comprehending his worshipper’s love. “My songs are me trying to figure out my dating life,” he explains matter-of-factly.

He recalls how so many of the songs he sang in choir were already rooted in man-love. “It must be interesting for straight men because in church you are always talking about Him and you wanting Him to be inside you,” he says. “It’s kinda weird for a straight man to sing, ‘I want Him to fill me up’. Even though we know we are talking about a higher power, intellectually, it still must be kinda weird.”

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“A lot of my music is over the top as a joke, like no one could be that heartsick or upset or sad”

(Opposite) THEOPHILIO jacket, BOO PALA top, BERNHARD WILLHELM shorts (worn as skirt), artist’s own trousers, LARUICCI jewellery, VERSACE slides. (Above) EDWARD CRUTCHLEY shirt, VELVET hoodie, AFTUR vest, BETHANY WILLIAMS shorts, OXFORD LADS trousers.

Styling EDDA GUDMUNDSDOTTIR. Styling assistance MARTIN TORDBY.

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Even his moniker evokes the Book of Genesis and the time before the Fall of Adam and Eve. The serpent did not crawl on his belly at first, but could walk on legs and persuaded Eve that a little knowledge was a good thing. This leads you to believe serpentwithfeet is a Biblical reference. “I don’t know any scripture,” he corrects you. “I learned all my Bible from the songs.” No, he shakes his head.

The inspiration for the name was not the Good Book but the devil’s playground — social media.

“The name is about movement,” he says, miming the supine back and forth of a snake. “At the time, I was really active on Twitter. I was thinking about what it means to be serpentine. To be balanced.” Twitter, he explains, opened up new worlds for him. “Social media was something very different for me.

It became very poetic. I wasn’t having a certain kind of conversation with black men I knew. I kinda haloed black women and I thought, “Black men ain’t shit.”

“And then I discovered all these black men on Twitter who were so open and talking about their feelings,” he continues.

“It kinda blew my mind. So I began to log the tweets that I was moved by and I was thinking about how I wanted to move in the world as a balanced person.

And it allowed me to love myself.”

There is a buzz now. After some lean years of struggle, he feels he can play.

Achieving that balance between past and future, sacred and profane, top and bottom, comes from his moodboard and his playfulness. He makes melodramatic choices, consciously crafting lyrics that are too much. “A lot of my music is over the top as a joke — no one could be that heartsick or upset or sad,” he explains.

“Like, the thing I love about Janet Jackson is that she always seems to be laughing inside. Missy was like that too. I want people to say I made kinetic and playful music. I want to make a pageant of my pain!”

He is back in front of the camera now. Playing, he calls it. “You know who really inspires me? Scott Joplin.”

The serpentwithfeet tries on more skins: now its reconstructed shirts and found-object jewellery, wild sandals and an adventurous jacket. “He wrote Treemonisha,” he says, clutching a doll. Treemonisha, he points out, was an opera about a black woman written in 1911, a time when a black musician audacious enough to write an opera “faced all kinds of resistance that today’s musician cannot imagine”. What tickles serpentwithfeet most about Joplin’s creation? “Even with all of its ambition and sophistication, Joplin still made an opera about an Isha. I mean that is just so… perfect.” oil is out in June on S Secretly Canadian / Tri Angle

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Words KERRI VON GEUSAU Photography IWAN BAAN

ZEITZ MOCAA

Africa’s first major museum of contemporary African art FEATURE

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The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) recently opened its doors at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront.

This is the world’s largest not-for-profit museum of contemporary African art and the first of its kind to be established on the continent. Celebrated designer Thomas Heatherwick has overseen an extraordinary restoration of what once was a derelict grain silo, alongside Mark Coetzee, chief curator and executive director, David Green, CEO of the V&A Waterfront, and Jochen Zeitz, owner and donor of the Zeitz Collection, which forms the foundation of the museum’s collection.

Being the first of its kind, the museum’s intention is to host and serve its community, and with this in mind, the important issue of access has been raised by some observers, who question why it isn’t more centrally positioned within the continent — rather than at its most southerly tip.

The reason for this is more fortune than intent. The museum came about partly because of the availability of a historical building that needed a meaningful use, and partly because Zeitz’s collection was hunting for a worthy home. “What do you do with a giant building made up from over 100 vertical tubes? We spent a year examining all possibilities with the V&A Waterfront,” Heatherwick explains. “And then Mark and Jochen came along looking to establish a public institution and there was synergy.

“Our brief became about building a museum for a whole continent that is bigger than Europe and the US combined,” he continues. “Whereas in the West there are cities falling over themselves to build museums, here there were phenomenal artists who didn’t have a major institution

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(Clockwise from above) Isaac Julien, TEN THOUSAND WAVES Mary Sibande, IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS, THERE IS OPPORTUNITY Cyrus Kabiru, C-STUNNERS Athi-Patra Ruga, PROPOSED MODEL FOR TSEKO SIMON NKOLI.

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to show their work.

That became very motivating.”

Rather than fighting what Heatherwick calls the structure’s “concrete tube-iness”, they decided to embrace it.

“We wanted to retain as much of the original building as possible,” he continues.

“It had character and soulfulness. We also didn’t want the threshold to be daunting to people who aren’t used to visiting museums.”

They achieved both of these goals by digitally scanning a single grain of corn, like the kind once stored in the silo, and using its irregular dimensions to carve out a beautifully alluring, 27-metre-high central atrium that both reveals the building’s cellular structure and acts like the museum’s welcoming heart. Once inside, this sight lures visitors through 80 galleries intuitively organised like a necklace around nine floors, finally delivering them to the stunning rooftop sculpture garden.

Travelling through the space, visitors are invited to explore numerous exhibitions focused on cutting-edge work from Africa and the diaspora, created in the twenty-first century. The permanent collection includes important works that intend to guide growing and dominant discourses, particularly around identity, colonialism, and gender and politics, and will continuously grow and evolve as part of a grand archive. The museum also hosts temporary exhibitions on specific artists and themes, as well as independent centres dedicated to photography, performative practice, moving image, education, costume and curatorial practice — all overseen by a large team of in-house and at-large curators.

On show first are artists including Zimbabwe’s Kudzanai Chiurai, Angola’s Edson Chagas, Nigeria’s Yinka Shonibare MBE, Kenya’s Wangechi Mutu and Cyrus Kabiru, Tunisia’s Mouna Karray and Penny Siopis, UK's Isaac Julien, and Nicholas Hlobo and Athi-Patra Ruga from South Africa, to name but a few.

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“With the opening exhibitions, we just wanted to reflect on the question many artists and audiences asked us: ‘Will I be represented in the museum? Will my body occupy this space?’” says Coetzee. “This echoes the conversations happening in the work itself, so there is a lot of self-portraiture and use of dioramas, for example

by Hasan and Husain Essop and Mary Sibande.

“Another theme was the participation of women in the museum and the question of why women have been excluded from the narratives of art history,” he continues.

“We saw some of the strongest activist work coming out of female artists’ studios, such as Zanele Muholi, who is dealing with subject matter including the corrective rape of lesbians in townships. I hope all of these different voices give a good overall picture of what’s happening on the continent, and because we’re focusing on the twenty-first century, we have the freedom to present contradictory and dissenting voices.

We’ve built the honey pot but it’s the artists who are setting the agenda.”

Some have noted that the inequality around urban planning issues that Cape Town faces makes getting to the tourist and commerce-driven area of town where the museum is located a concern. It is both a matter of perception and practicality that troubles many South Africans, who remain subject to implicit and explicit levels of inequality and exclusion. Speaking in support of intellectual inclusivity, South African artist Thania Petersen says: “Access can only be changed by actually changing it.

And we’re changing it by being here.”

The V&A Waterfront has promised that public transport to the museum will be improved for the general public, and the museum is developing a full schools programme in 2018.

With a vision of the museum’s future and its crucial role in the creation of dialogue around African art, its curation and its education, great hope underlies the debates flowing through the museum in such a way that it makes an impact far beyond its doors. RoseLee Goldberg, the museum’s curator at large of performative practice says: “We’re witnessing an extraordinary revolution today. The art world is an extremely permissible place and artists are supposed to be difficult.

Art is to be unruly and accelerate politics.”

Given these big expectations, the museum has become a potent agent for the cultural and critical appreciation of art by Africans. As artist Athi PatraRuga says, this kind of museum serves to create a “vernacular that doesn’t need external validation”, and it is with this sentiment that the history of African art will reflect on and create itself.

Part of the museum’s vision that has already been realised is to bring African art back to African soil. For too long it’s been bought by museums and collectors elsewhere, and with a growing interest in contemporary art from the continent, this is the case even more so. But with Zeitz MOCAA, as well as initiatives such as the art fairs 1-54 Marrakech and Art X Lagos, Africa is taking ownership of its own spoils.

“We’re saying, let’s keep some seminal works in Africa so that Africans can have access to their own cultural heritage,” Coetzee explains.

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eitz Museum of Contemporary Art Z Africa, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa

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Rolling deep with South Africa’s creative collectives Words ALIX-ROSE COWIE Photography KENT ANDREASEN

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In the age of the personal brand, amid the hustle to be the best and have the most, the concept that there may actually be enough room for everyone is a revelation. Creative collectives in South Africa are making a case for this outlook. Their reasons for choosing to work together may be different — the pooling of resources where they’re hard to come by, mutual admiration, or the power of numbers — but they each stand as an example of the rewards of collaboration. They’re working across genres, and another commonality is the clear intentions with which they work, a byproduct of having to define and communicate their visions to one another to reach common goals.

These are the South African collectives leading the way in fashion, art and music: I n Their Blood DEAR RIBANE Working with family is notoriously difficult but Dear Ribane proves otherwise. The trio includes sisters Manthe and Tebogo Ribane and their brother Kokona, who also goes by Kay Kay. Polymaths all three, the siblings are a collective involved in a wide variety of creative pursuits in fashion, art and music. They are probably best known for their boundary-pushing aesthetic, conveyed through the costumes they create for their art and dance performances and photoshoots. Costume is paramount, and even when they’re not on stage or in front of the camera, they can be found in matching, colourcoordinated outfits; visual clues of the bond between them. The siblings speak of their connection as something that exists beyond the DNA they share; something which is always evolving, and which develops most profoundly when they’re in the midst of executing new work together.

Manthe says they have mastered the art of silent communication; knowing what the next is thinking. She describes the feeling when they perform together as “an unfolding; a strong mind-wave experience”.

Drawing strength from each other, the siblings see their collaboration as a process that helps them stay openminded and respect the discipline of learning from each other. While Manthe is well known as a dancer and musician, for her, the team always comes first. When she was approached to star in a Harley Weir video series for i-D magazine and Chanel, she insisted her siblings be part of the campaign too. Now Dear Ribane is becoming known for its various commercial collaborations, bringing a creative jolt to campaigns for brands including Nike. Before embarking on a journey with a new brand, they always look for the intention behind the proposed execution, and with each creative output, they hope to communicate a new world of possibilities.

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(Previous page) THE BROTHER MOVES ON. (Below) DEAR RIBANE. (Opposite top) DEAR RIBANE. (Opposite bottom) CORNER STORE.

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United Front A IQHIYA iQhiya is an isiXhosa word for a head wrap worn by women, and represents for this collective a safe space to share ideas across a network of young, black, female artists. Fine art photographer Thandiwe Msebenzi says: “iQhiya came from a place of observation where, as women, we noticed a general trend towards limited or lack of access to opportunities and visibility in our respective careers as artists.” The women who form iQhiya alongside Msebenzi are Asemahle Ntlonti, Bronwyn Katz, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Bonolo Kavula, Charity Matlhogonolo Kelapile, Lungiswa Gqunta, the late Pinky Mayeng, Sethembile Msezane, Sisipho Ngodwana and Thuli Gamedze.

Feeling their individual voices marginalised in a male-dominated art world, united they became a powerful presence and found their voices magnified. For their performance piece Portrait, the women stood barefoot for hours on glass Coca-Cola bottles in crates; the pain they endured was a meditation on womanhood and strength.

In a symbol of resistance and protest, they hold fabric head wraps in the necks of glass bottles, representative of Molotov

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the three brands pool their resources, knowledge and networks, and the building also acts as the main manufacturing hub for all three brands.

Shared values form the bedrock of corner store, the first being an authentic approach to streetwear.

According to marketing manager and designer Luke Doman, another is an agreement that “in a place like South Africa, there needs to be some sort of movement towards helping young brown people, especially those with a keen interest in the industry we're involved in.” Doman continues: “Being 14, 15, 16 can be boring as hell,” so he encourages youngsters to stop by, hang out or help out, and learn something valuable in the process.

In this way corner store has come to mean more than just a partnership between these three young men. A loose collective has formed in and around the space, which acts as a physical and cultural meeting ground.

Upstairs from the store, working alongside the brand’s designers and interns, is design agency Chocolate Sauce, and there’s a standing invitation for friends to drop in. The result is that there’s always somebody around to run a new idea by. This also means that when fashion weeks roll around, or lookbooks need to be shot, there’s a host of talent on hand who make up the greater corner store family.

cocktails. For their performance Commute Part II (2016), they staged a party in and around a minibus taxi outside the South African National Gallery while wearing their underwear, swimming costumes or miniskirts — a protest against those who would condone violence against women on public transport because of their so-called provocative clothing.

While iQhiya performs and exhibits together, their group also acts as a support system for each other’s individual careers. Msebenzi says: “The nature of iQhiya is designed to make each artist visible. Having a community such as iQhiya has been important as we continue to support each other on our individual journeys.” Since their formation, some of the artists have exhibited internationally, taken part in residencies or seen their work displayed in museums such as Fondation Louis Vuitton and Zeitz MOCAA. Joining Forces CORNER STORE Corner store is the unassuming flagship store for three local streetwear brands, and the beating heart of Cape Town’s streetwear scene. Resources are slim in the South African fashion industry, and while this kind of environment pits independent labels against each other, Anthony Smith (2BOP), Anees Petersen (Young and Lazy) and Mathew Kieser (Sol-Sol Menswear) chose collaboration over competition to build something that’s rock solid. Through corner store,

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(On spread) CORNER STORE.

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(On spread) THE BROTHER MOVES ON.

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Evolution and Revolution THE BROTHER MOVES ON The Brother Moves On (TBMO) is an ever-changing group of artists who exist as a performance-art ensemble and who play music together as a band making self-described electronique maskandi, ninja gospel and African voodoo pop.

Although to define TBMO is to come up short. The group’s fluid movement between music and art is mirrored in their open-door policy: members of the group (performers, writers, artists, musicians and activists) come and go, adding their unique contribution before moving on to pursue personal projects or other creative endeavours. The energy of the group doesn’t rely on any single person, but is evolving and alive. Co-founder Siyabonga Mthembu explains: “New members bring a refreshing take, having watched and admired past members and through this, old members’ perspectives are challenged.”

The current everyday members of TBMO are Ayanda Zalekile, Siyabonga Mthembu, Zelizwe Mthembu and Siphiwe Tshabalala.

Friends who pop in are Bokani Dyer, Thandi Ntuli, Nolan Dennis, Mbali Mthethwa, Nisa Galeta, Itani Thalefi and Stuart Cairns.

“Without collaboration,” Mthembu says, “we are just a band”.

Chronologically, the music came before their participation in gallery shows, but from the beginning, art, performance, costume and storytelling were always central to the experiences they were creating. TBMO’s first solo show was held at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg in 2016. Titled Hlabelela: It’s A New Mourning Nkush, the show celebrated the collaborative spirit of TBMO’s founder, and Mthembu’s brother, the late Nkululelo (Nkush). The show asked how grief and death fit in the arts, and whether there can be space for black traditions and experiences in the white art world as it is currently constructed.

Whether their ideas are expressed within the walls of an art gallery or on stage, Mthembu says there is a message that runs through all of their activity — of black pride, positive energy and the knowledge of selfdetermination.

(On spread) THE SARTISTS.

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It wasn’t long before Lephoto connected with art director Xzavier Zulu (Ricky Kunene) via DM. “We’d all known each other and followed each other’s work,” Kunene says, “We had a shared respect for each other’s voices, and social media platforms such as Tumblr and Instagram played a role in really bringing us together.” In 2014, the duo became a multidisciplinary collective of four including Kunene and photographer and early collaborator Andile Buka. With this expansion of skill sets, the group moved from creating work for their own blog to working on campaigns and collaborative product ranges with brands such as Levi’s, Adidas and Converse.

The Sartists also continue to work on personal projects that have travelled to countries they’ve yet to visit themselves. In 2017 their work was featured in MoMA’s Is Fashion Modern?, and the travelling exhibition Fashion Cities Africa at Brighton Museum and Tropenmuseum.

Their aim, The Sartists say, is “to tell stories that are going to speak of our people, our struggles of past and present, in our voice”.

Collaboration is what has made it possible. As Kunene says: “We believe that the way to create the future is to reflect on our shared history and do it together.”

“We had a shared respect for each other’s voices, and social media platforms played a role in really bringing us together”

K indred Spirits THE SARTISTS Kabelo Kungwane and Wanda Lephoto met in high school and connected over a shared vision to document their lives, through style, in post-Apartheid South Africa. Telling stories — often inspired by untold South African histories — through the clothing they thrifted and assembled, was the art form most accessible to the two at the time. Local photographers lined up to snap them, and in this way their vision was shared across blogs and social media platforms. The Sartists were founded with the aim of creating an archive of their take on national style that could be used as a cultural reference in the future.

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MAKI OH Oh, once upon a time in Lagos…

Photography MICAIAH CARTER Styling IAN MCRAE FEATURE

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(Previous Left) Raschelle wears MAKI OH jumpsuit, CASTLECLIFF NYC earrings, Adot wears MAKI OH dress, ONE STORY earrings. (Previous Right) Raschelle wears MAKI OH blazer and dress, MARC JACOBS turban, OFF-WHITE shoes, THE SHINY SQUIRREL earrings. (Above) Raschelle wears MAKI OH jumpsuit, CASTLECLIFF earrings. (Opposite) Raschelle wears as before, Adot wears MAKI OH shirt and trousers, HELMUT LANG tank, TOPSHOP shoes, HAARSTICK earrings.

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If Maki Oh was a book it would contain many whimsical and intelligent chapters.

And each chapter would tell its own story about an alluring, independent young woman on an amazing adventure.

And each of these strong characters would wear wondrous clothing imbued with hidden messages and stealthy sex appeal. And so it is with every one of designer Amaka Osakwe’s magical Maki Oh collections.

For AW17 Osakwe’s heroine was a seamstress, who treks across Lagos on a logo and graffiti-covered danfo bus to see her lover. She wears traffic-stopping PVC trousers and slogan T-shirts with racy cut-outs, louche velvet blazers with “Oh” embroideries, jeans that dip suggestively at the navel and dressing-gown coats that hint at the postcoital.

For SS18 we meet a schoolgirl in mid-90s Nigeria who plays suwe (a kind of hopscotch game) at lunchtime, and then goes home to watch fables on the TV show Tales By Moonlight.

She dons oversized jackets seemingly stolen from her father’s wardrobe, frothy tulle party frocks, better called “auntie-give-me-cake” dresses

by Osakwe, loose rompers and asymmetric separates covered in stars and moons.

For AW18, the narrative begins with Alakoba, which is Yoruba for “an individual who gets others in trouble”.

This saucy minx saunters back from work “on a clear-skied Thursday evening, slips into comfortable garb and unveils her lazy sensuality”, Osakwe says. Her weapons of seduction include lingerie-influenced lace slips, ripple-hemmed short skirts, rouched wrappers and checked blazers thrown over metallic negligees. The mood is ‘Look but don’t touch’.

The designer’s reallife trajectory has been something of a fairytale in itself. Having grown up in Lagos and studied fashion in the UK, Osakwe returned home to launch her label for AW10, and instantly garnered attention for her reinvention of adire, a traditional Nigerian indigo resist-dyed fabric, into a luxurious material. Like the original, which employs hundreds of meaningful symbols, her silky, inky take on adire creates its own artful and ever-growing language, and has become her signature.

Osakwe was shortlisted for the LVMH Prize 2014, and is now a hot ticket at New York Fashion Week. She’s also

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“A lot of what I’ve done has been a first for any Africabased designer, so it feels great to be paving a new trail”

stocked on Moda Operandi and Farfetch, had pieces acquired by museums including FIT and Vitra, and been worn by an impressive line of famous femmes —hello Michelle Obama, Lupita Nyong’o, Lady Gaga, Amandla Stenberg and Solange.

“A lot of what I’ve done has been a first for any Africa-based designer, so it feels great to be paving a new trail,” she says.

“It’s daunting, too, because I don’t have a blueprint to follow. It’s important not to get overwhelmed or complacent; to keep pushing the brand forward.” And then she woke up, it was not all a dream…

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(Opposite) Raschelle wears MAKI OH dress, TOPSHOP shoes, HAARSTICK earrings, THE SHINY SQUIRREL bangles. (Above) Adot wears as before.

Creative direction INYEGUMENA NOSEGBE. Set design SINJUN STROM. Hair NIGELLA MILLER. Make-up RAISA FLOWERS. Models ADOT GAK and RASCHELLE OSBOURNE at D1.

Photography assistance RAHIM FORTUNE. Styling assistance EMMANUEL UDEME. Set design assistance ASÉ FISHER. Words HELEN JENNINGS.

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Three’s company for this one-of-a-kind, close-knit group

Words HELEN JENNINGS Photography ADAMA JALLOH

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“‘Dunne do nothing fancy’. That’s the mantra growing up in Scotland,” says Alloysious Massaquoi as he tucks into a sizable plate of fish and chips. “You’re told: ‘You’re not special. Dunne be different. Just line up with everyone else.’” He and his fellow frontmen, Kayus Bankole and Graham Hastings, have resoundingly ignored this advice ever since they first met on a sweaty Edinburgh dancefloor 16 years ago. A Mercury Prize and three critically acclaimed albums later, Young Fathers certainly have a touch of the fancy about them now.

Photography assistance LOU JASMINE.

We’re in a London pub and the group are refuelling after a morning of radio interviews. The comfortable, goodnatured banter between them is infectious as they grapple with stubborn ketchup bottles and finish each other’s sentences.

Hastings is calm and considered, Massaquoi is direct and assured, and Bankole, as he puts it himself, “shoots from the lips”. This close-knit spirit is what makes their music tick, even though sonically, it’s rarely an easygoing listen.

Far from it. This is music that broods,

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soars and spikes, at one moment lifting you up to the skies, the next dropping you down into a dark malaise. I won’t attempt to describe the sound in terms of recognisable genres as this is folly.

Blurring musical boundaries beyond recognition, it’s like everything and nothing that’s been before, all at once.

It’s sweet and it’s bitter. It’s pleasurable and painful. It’s damning and redeeming.

It’s polemical and loving. Or, to use Hastings’s definition, it’s “good”.

“We’re three very different individuals working together, and we fight and squabble, but the one thing we agree on is that we want the music to be the best it can be,” he says. “We all have our own competencies, which gives us freedoms, and in the studio we support each other to push things forward. It’s the place where everything comes alive and anything goes. Our sensibilities are so similar that a lot can go unsaid. We go in and whatever that thing is, that mash up of our lives, just happens. That’s why no other group will sound like us. You can’t make that up.”

It’s true that the Young Fathers line-up isn’t run of the mill. Massaquoi was born in Monrovia but left, aged four, with his mother and sister, to escape Liberia’s first civil war. They later joined his father in Scotland. Bankole was born in Edinburgh to Nigerian parents and spent time in Nigeria and the US before returning to Edinburgh, where he met Massaquoi at school. They came across born-and-bred Scot Hastings at an underage hip hop night and bonded instantly. “We’d grown up listening to soul and funk music because all of our parents liked it, and we had the same mainstream pop and hip hop references, but none of us were loyal to one scene. That’s become normal for us, which is why we don’t fit in anywhere,” says Hastings.

So into the bedroom studio they went, to start cooking up their own sound.

“We just liked writing songs. Since the age of 14 we were having hits in our heads; the hits came when we were walking to the bus stop. We’d record a song onto tape, listen back and imagine the video,” recalls Massaquoi. They started performing by the age of 16 and stepped out as Young Fathers (so called because each of them is named after their fathers) in 2008. With Hastings co-producing alongside Tim Brinkhurst, and all three on writing and vocals, they released the mixtapes Tape One and Tape Two before signing to Big Dada for their debut, award-winning album Dead in 2014. This was quickly followed by the provocatively titled White Men Are Black Men Too long player a year later. And the first place they toured with it was South Africa. As a biracial, multicultural group making musical statements about identity, there perhaps was no better place to bless their sophomore record.

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are until we saw it in the flesh. So that gives us hope.”

All this rings increasingly true for Young Fathers, too, who have taken another leap forward with their latest album, Cocoa Sugar. They recorded over 40 songs and then distilled it down to 12 lean cuts that see the group grapple ever more strongly with themselves and the world. While the lyrics remain stubbornly abstract, the feisty spirit of each track still somehow threatens to incite a revolution.

From the eerie ‘Fee Fi’ to the heartening ‘Lord’ to the twitchy ‘Toy’ to what Massaquoi calls the “instant gratification” of ‘Wire’, each one is powered by their woven voices — by turns irascible, tremulous, guttural, velvety, and spoken in tongues — over primal, insistent drums.

There’s no point trying to work out what any of it means because for them, and the listener, all that matters is the emotions.

“The whole record is us getting to the essence of the music, getting to the essence of Young Fathers, and stripping away everything else to find the source — that melody, that directness. For each song it was about deciding in that moment what to keep and what to dismiss,” says Massaquoi, to which Hastings chimes: “You have to feel something in the music or else it’s pointless. Each of us has our own interpretation of what that feeling is, but we agree on when it feels good.”

Fast forward two weeks and Young Fathers are back in London for a show at Camden’s Roundhouse. True to form, they arrive on stage without fanfare and wearing all black — Massaquoi with a flurry of gold studs on his jacket, Bankole looking irresistible in a lace shirt (which he later whips off), and Hastings keeping it simple in a bank clerk-style shirt and trousers. Their performance is intensely to the point — no chitchat, no complicated light show, no encore.

Bankole puts in the most dance miles, cavorting around the stage with a boundless, slinky energy, yet all three command attention in their own way, the new tracks going down as well with the audience as their old ones.

Young Fathers might not think they fit in anywhere, but they certainly fit in nicely here.

Cocoa Sugar is out now on Ninja Tune

“We’d never been to Africa as a group before, and it was amazing to see how interested South African people were in what we were offering,” says Hastings.

“Aside from shows, we also held meetings with small groups of people to discuss the album title and what it meant to them and got all sorts of honest feedback. Plus, the whole music, film and art scene is so far ahead of anything else in the world, it was great to take something there and be appreciated.”

Bankole agrees. “The atmosphere was so encouraging. Here when we started out, we’d go on stage and the audiences would be like ‘Fucking prove yourself’. But over there, it’s like, ‘Fucking go for it, we’re here to support you.’” So, next stop Nigeria? “I was there a couple of years ago and met so many artists and photographers becoming masters in an emerging scene. There was a great energy.”

Young Fathers followed White Men Are Black Men Too by contributing tracks to the T2: Trainspotting soundtrack, including the lead song, ‘Only God Knows’ — featuring Leith Congregational Choir — which director Danny Boyle called “the heartbeat of the film”. They were also approached

by Massive Attack to collaborate on the Bristol band’s Ritual Spirit EP. They’ve since toured together and have a joint show at the Eden Project this June. Unsurprisingly, the two groups are a match made in melancholic heaven. “When we first met there was a common understanding and humour about all the bullshit you have to go through to get your music heard,” says Hastings.

“They’ve managed to straddle this weird and rare line of creating original music, having their own ideas and executing them well while achieving huge success. We underestimated how big they are and how loved they

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Nataal’s art and fashion odyssey through Morocco’s ochre city

NEW MARRAKECH ENCOUNTERS Words HELEN JENNINGS Photography ELINA SIMONEN FEATURE

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“It’s addictive. The atmosphere, the light, the culture — I feel very at home here,” says young Belgian designer Laurence Leenaert of her motivations for forsaking Ghent for Marrakech. “The people are open and take the time to know you.

And you wake up each morning to see the palm trees and the colours of the walls.

Everything fits together in my world here.”

She is one of the latest in an incalculably long line of artists who have found their way to this ancient city, and sitting in her big, airy studio as bright, late afternoon sun slices across the floor, it’s easy to see why.

Since relocating here in 2015, Leenaert has collaborated with artisans throughout Marrakech to develop her brand LRNCE, which now includes hand-painted ceramics, leather sandals, canvas bags and woven rugs, often covered in abstract faces. “If you know one good artisan they introduce you to

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the next. I show them ideas and they are happy to give me knowledge. It’s about mutual respect,” she says of her go-slow production process. “I like to be in the moment, find new materials and be free to create things. Let’s see what life brings.”

As the geographical and spiritual crossroads between Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and the Magreb, Morocco’s fourth-largest city has an irresistible allure. Nomads from every corner of the world have succumbed to its spell since Berber royalty established it in the eleventh century. Marrakech is where the Orient meets the Occident. It’s where the old medina — with its labyrinthine souks, many mosques and imposing Jemaa el-Fnaa Square alive with snake charmers, henna girls and overwhelmed tourists — gives way to the modern cityscape cascading out all around it.

And it’s where now, more than ever, creative minds, spaces and initiatives are shaping a new cultural life.

Marrakech’s most famous adopted son was Yves Saint Laurent. The Algerian-born French designer first visited in 1966 with his partner Pierre Bergé — and was instantly enamoured.

They bought a home here and proceeded to visit twice a year so that Saint Laurent could design his couture collections.

In 1983 the designer famously said: “In Morocco, I realised that the range of colours I use was that of the zelliges, zouacs, djellabas and caftans.

The boldness seen since then in my work, I owe to this country, to its forceful harmonies, to its audacious combinations, to the fervour of its creativity.”

His legacy here was honoured by the opening of Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech (mYSLm) in October last year. Found on Rue Yves Saint Laurent, the building was designed by architects Studio KO (which has offices in Marrakech, Paris and London), using local materials. Its curving, lace-like exterior brickwork takes inspiration from the delicate lines of Saint Laurent’s designs, and the weft and warp of fine fabrics.

Meanwhile the interior exudes an intimate, warm mystery in keeping with his relationship to the city.

It’s impressive but not imposing, its human scale sympathetic to its surroundings. mYSLm is the sister to the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, and the two share the vast archive

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“We want to drown visitors in a poetic and abstract atmosphere that gives back to the spirit of Yves Saint Laurent”

(Clockwise from left) Laurence Leenaert, Björn Dahlström, Amine Bendriouich.

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of Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent, which conserves and exhibits the brand’s heritage.

On my arrival I’m greeted by museum director Björn Dahlström, who leads me into the main exhibition hall. It’s an all-black space filled with 50 iconic looks — the Mondrian dress (1965), le smoking tuxedo (1966), the safari jacket (1967) — among an immersive installation incorporating photography, illustrations, music and film, and themed around Saint Laurent’s creative process and main obsessions: masculine-feminine, Africa, art, imaginary voyages and gardens.

“Here we propose not a retrospective but more of a sensorial anthology, we want to drown visitors in a poetic and abstract atmosphere that gives back to the spirit of Yves Saint Laurent,” Dahlström says. “Discovering Morocco was an epiphany for Yves, and it changed his production forever. Marrakech became his inspiration and Paris was his creation,” he adds, pointing out the 1989 Bougainvillea cape with its embroideries directly referencing the exotic blooms of the famous Le Jardin Majorelle (acquired

by Saint Laurent and Bergé in 1980).

“Marrakech combines so many cultures that participate to make it very rich in terms of influences, plus you are close to the desert and the mountains. The costumes, the art — Yves absorbed it all.”

Dahlström hails from Casablanca, studied at École du Louvre and worked at Musée d’art moderne du Luxembourg before being seduced back to Morocco

by Bergé to oversee the opening of the Berber Museum in the grounds of Le Jardin Majorelle, and since 2015 he’s been dedicated to shaping this new space. “There is a moment happening here now with our museum, the first major fashion museum in Africa, and other dedicated cultural spaces opening up. This past year the city has never welcomed so many visitors. It’s going to be interesting to see how it evolves.

I hope mYSLm becomes a cultural centre rooted in Morocco that develops a local audience as well as an international one.”

To that end, mYSLm also houses an auditorium, photography gallery and temporary exhibition space programmed with Moroccan culture in mind, and it recently invited one of the city’s most acclaimed fashion designers, Noureddine Amir, to reprise his 2016 Paris exhibition at Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent, The Sculptural Dresses of Noureddine Amir. The exquisite display explores his creation process, which begins with natural materials such as wool, raffia, canvas and silk, which he then manipulates to form new textures, or dyes with henna, indigo or pomegranate peel, and then moulds into one-of-a-kind pieces reminiscent of Amazigh architecture.

Born in Rabat, Amir started his career in the late 1990s as a costumier for films,

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most notably working with Iranian director Shirin Neshat. After a stint in New York, he moved to Marrakech in 2001 where he was arguably the first designer to shape his own contemporary take on Moroccan fashion — and has found international acclaim by doing so. In 2018 he’s been invited to participate in Haute Couture Fashion Week in Paris.

Amir’s studio is a short ride from mYSLm — an inviting villa surrounded by orange trees. Dark grey walls provide the backdrop to an impressive art collection, and his own wooden sculptures nestle among many plants. As we talk, Amir and his friend, the actor, director and lecturer Hamid Fardjad, share red wine and cigarettes while a black cat slinks around our feet. It’s a languid, unhurried atmosphere befitting someone who clearly takes time over his work. Eventually a delicious lunch of tagine is served. “I am very attached to the south of Morocco, and this city has a lot of opportunities,” Amir says, putting out one cigarette and lighting another. “The international crowd has been coming through Marrakech since Yves Saint Laurent put it on the map, and these days, one way or another, they end up in this house. One morning the doorbell rang and Paul Smith was there, asking, ‘Can I come in?’”

Lunch over, Amir takes me through to see some of his pieces being made.

“I was never interested in trends. My work is not attached to the notion of seasons.

When I first met Pierre, he said ‘I can tell you do not look at fashion magazines; you do not imitate anybody’. For me the fabric dictates what I do with it, and then the form follows. I also listen to a lot of world music while I work. Often it’s the same song over and over again for hours.

It’s almost like a trance.”

Fardjad pays short shrift to those who have criticised Amir over the years for not embracing more recognisable Moroccan styles. “People say, if it’s not folkloric, it’s not Moroccan. But Noureddine’s work is 100 per cent Moroccan. It is made in Morocco, by Moroccans, using local fabric. Why should we be closed to one style of dress?” he asks. “Traditional caftans, like those made by Tamy Tazi, are beautiful just as they are and they should be respected for their voluptuous cut and handcraftsmanship. So when designers try to modernise them it just doesn’t work. My advice to young designers is to leave them alone.”

The current crop of forward-thinking designers certainly seems to agree.

Artsi Ifrach also makes unique garments inspired by the city’s handcrafts, but that is where the comparison ends. His approach is to seek out vintage pieces, take them apart and transform them into brave and theatrical garments. The results might be a jumpsuit festooned with embroidered hearts, an exaggerated tulle ball gown or a coat made from

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Moroccan summer blankets. Finding them hanging like museum pieces in his tucked away store is a magpie’s delight, and I’m overwhelmed by the urge to try on a pink working man’s jacket covered in neon eyes. Ifrach joins in, choosing a white lace dress seemingly at odds with his lithe, tattoo-covered frame, and an impromptu fashion shoot ensues.

“There are two levels when it comes to design in Morocco. There is the cultural level of the caftan and the babouche.

And then there is the next level that turns artisanal skills into something you can

(Clockwise from above) Artsi Ifrach, Hassan Hajjaj.

call fashion,” he says, now wearing a military blazer. “I work with women in the medina to bring something from the past into the present, and then hopefully it will survive into the future. I want to preserve those skills by taking the feeling of Morocco out into the world.

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“I’m taking the caravane of Morocco to the world” It’s emotional work and I’m very sensitive to it. It’s about creating memories.”

Ifrach was born in Israel and was a ballet dancer for 20 years before establishing himself in fashion in Amsterdam and Paris. He returned to his parents’ birthplace of Marrakech eight years ago where his brand, Maison ARTC, truly clicked. He’s since stocked at Dover Street Market in Tokyo (“Rei Kawakubo said my work reminded her of the beginning of Comme des Garçons,” he says), and has had John Galliano pop into his store. He also collaborates with Moroccan photographers, including Laila Hida and Mous Lamrabat, to document his fantastical creations, recently publishing the photobook, Piece of Mind

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(Idea Books). “This country has given me so much that I am happy to give something back,” he says. “There are amazing artists here and a great energy, but the simplicity of life in Morocco still keeps you grounded. That’s its magic.”

Another equally revolutionary designer is Amine Bendriouich. Dashing through the streets with him, there is no one he does not know, so central is he to the city’s creative scene. Originally raised in Marrakech, he studied at ESMOD Tunis and began his career in Casablanca in 2007 as part of a collective selling T-shirts. His first catwalk show at the now-defunct FestiMode Casablanca Fashion Week caused a stir. “Instead of models, I cast punks and rappers — anyone alien or marginal — and made an anti-trends statement with a collection created in the city’s slums,” Amine recalls, with a twiddle of his Salvador Daliesque moustache. He launched Amine Bendriouich Couture & Bullshit (AB–CB) in 2008, and a year later won the GoetheInstitut CreateEurope award to work and live in Berlin. Since then he’s shown internationally, most recently at Fashion Forward Dubai, and has collaborated with artists including Kehinde Wiley, Keziah Jones, Skrillex and Massive Attack.

“AB–CB is an attitude in fabrics and comes from the stimulus I see on the streets. A uniform for non-conformists,” Bendriouich explains. “AB–CB believes in rock & roll — the music, courage and urban heroes. Bob, Jim, Janis, James and Michael.” The unisex aesthetic might mix sarouels and djellabas with wax-print blazers and baseball caps. “My work questions identity. I’m African, Arab, Berber, Tuareg and Moroccan. I belong to people around the world and them to me.

I address historical and contemporary Moroccan society, but also relate on a universal level.”

The designer’s latest move is a more formal return to Marrakech where he’s opening a concept store in the medina, and establishing his atelier in a kasbah in his grandmother’s village just outside of the city. He hopes to eventually develop it into an artists’ residency and art school for rural people. “It’s about teaching young people the different possibilities that exist and that art can make money. Once you open the door and show them what’s behind it, you don’t need to ask them to walk through,” he says. “Now everyone is realising that Marrakech is a global city. That’s why the galleries and museums are coming and that’s

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“People say if it's not folkoric, it's not Moroccan.

But Noureddine's work is 100 per cent Moroccan. Why should we be closed to one style of dress?”

(Clockwise from below) Noureddine Amir, Shirin Neshat, Yassine Balbzioui, Imane Barakat.

why so many artists are moving here.

But there’s still a lack of collective vision.

Everyone’s aim is the same so we need to go together. You are stronger the more people you belong to.”

His mentor and close collaborator Hassan Hajjaj personifies both this united spirit and the new Morocco narrative, which is forging the future without rejecting the past. He is one of the country’s most recognised artists, and his name comes up in my conversations with his contemporaries repeatedly as one of the most liked and admired talents in the city. “Hassan Hajjaj is a pioneer. He’s international but keeps

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his Moroccan identity by using kitsch popular culture references in his work.

That’s why it was important for him to be here,” says Imane Barakat, head of Comptoir des Mines Galerie. Established

by Casablanca-based auction house Art Holding Morocco in late 2016, this contemporary art gallery has transformed the once-abandoned office of a mining explosives company into a hybrid creation space. The original charm of this art deco building in the Guéliz district is being retained, and as we explore its many nooks and crannies, construction crews are still hard at work.

“Our aim is to be a mine for artistic expression. We offer Moroccan artists apartments and work with them closely to develop projects and interactions in them — whether that’s workshops, residencies, showcases or exhibitions,” says Barakat, who cut her teeth at Rabat National Museum of Contemporary Art and the Marrakech Biennale before taking the reins here. Their roster so far includes Mustafa Akram, Abdelaziz Zerrou and Khalil Nemmaoui. “In Morocco the cultural scene is growing fast because of artistic initiatives and collectors. Artists can start here and be known outside through art fairs, galleries and festivals.

There are no borders now.”

Our last stop in the building is Hajjaj’s space, which he has transformed into the homely installation Mi Casa Su Casa. His own unmistakable works surround his curation of images by local photographers including Nour Eddine Tilsaghani, Yoriyas Yassine Alaoui, Meriem Houguig Yin, Rachid Ouettassi and Lamia Naji. The man himself

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welcomes us in and pours some mint tea.

“Commercial galleries can be quite cold, but this goes against the grain by creating a beautiful environment where anyone is welcome and where I can introduce them to the work,” he says.

Hajjaj uses the language of fashion photography, African studio photography and pop art to challenge the West’s stereotypes about North African Arabic society, and to champion his own crosscultural experiences. Born in Larache, his family moved to London in the 1970s where he became a self-taught photographer. He now divides his time between his east London studio and Riad Yima, his gallery in Marrakech’s medina.

In addition to photography, his practice includes textiles, furniture, graphic design, performance, sculpture, film and installation, which all revolves around colourful portraits of his friends. From movie stars to Gnawa musicians and veiled biker girls, his subjects appear confident while brightly dressed against bold backdrops.

In the past year alone, Hajjaj has had a solo show at London’s Somerset House, shot a cover for New York Magazine and presented his most recent body of work, My Maroc Stars, at Casablanca’s L’Atelier 2. “I’ve been shooting for 20 years and amassed over 200 images of Moroccan artists, many of whom have become important figures,” he says.

“It just happened naturally and now is a good moment to present their strength and variety of looks that express an unexpected side of Morocco. They’re all proudly Moroccan and each has their own journey. I’m taking the caravane of Morocco to the world.”

Joining Comptoir des Mines Galerie and mYSLm in this new cultural landscape is Musée d’Art Contemporain Africain Al Maaden (MACAAL) in Sidi Youssef Ben Ali, which officially opened in February.

The independent, not-for-profit museum is the brainchild of Alami Lazraq and Othman Lazraq, and their charitable association Fondation Alliances (funded by the family’s real estate venture Alliances Group). The father and son duo have an extensive collection of modern and contemporary African art that they now present at MACAAL. It joins their other artistic initiatives including the Parc de Sculptures Al Maaden and biannual photography award La Chambre Claire.

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Once past MACAAL’s sandstone façade and mighty glass doors, two floors of well-paced galleries feature works that are an impressive mix of mediums and artists. Moroccan masters such as Hassan El Glaoui and Chaïbia Talal share the limelight with a video by Algeria’s Zoulikha Bouabdellah and the figurative sculptures of Tanzania’s George Lilanga.

The current photography exhibition, Africa Is No Island, features Ivorian Joana Choumali, Swiss-Guinean Namsa Leuba and Malian Fatoumata Diabaté, among others. “It was a natural move to open the museum. Loving art means sharing the passion in Morocco, where there are very few public museums,” says MACAAL’s project manager, Zayneb Kadiri. We’re sipping espressos in the building’s idyllic gardens. This is somewhere you could while away many hours. “We are opening the window on the African continent with a playful approach to curation, and have a strong educational aspect, too.”

Also among the permanent collection is mischievous Moroccan artist Yassine Balbzioui, who I meet in a roadside café for yet more coffee. He’s friendly, energetic and talks a mile a minute,

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(Above) Zayneb Kadiri, Sara Lagnaoui and Ghalia Chraibi at Macaal.

“We are opening the window on the African continent with a playful approach to curation”

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swapping topics with every breath, from his street canvas at Dak’Art (Twin Freaks, 2012) to his 2016 solo show, Porcellanographie: Future Traces, at Iwalewahaus in Germany. This exuberant recounting of some recent projects is as dizzying as his practice itself.

Encompassing oil painting, photography, music, sculpture, film and interventionist performances, it all comes together through his consistent use of masks in myriad forms to create different characters and creatures.

This affords him chameleon-like and disconcerting powers to parody, question and confront sociopolitical norms.

In Grosse Tête (2014), for example, he smothers his head in paint, feathers, cardboard boxes and other debris to reach the brink of suffocation, thereby causing distress in onlookers. “I like to destroy the line between the art and the city, like a movie that exists.

I like to put myself in dangerous places,” Balbzioui tells me.

“I like to provoke situations, take photos of them, and then make paintings.

I like the game of art, of playing with what you show.”

Balbzioui trained at Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Casablanca, Art College of Bordeaux and at the University of Berkeley, and now divides his time between France, Germany and Morocco.

On this visit to Marrakech, he’s here to create a new body of work about the circus. Although he and many of the friends in his artwork have found acclaim, he bemoans the onslaught of change here. “Morocco has become like a

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madhouse in the past five years. It seems that modernity came very fast and people weren’t ready to take it all in. As an artist, I can see it. When I’m in a taxi I speak to the drivers, they are the sponges of society. I take note of their stories. With this I smell that society has become lost. This makes it a ripe place to do art because there are so many contradictions.”

MACAAL, mYSLm, Riad Yima and Comptoir des Mines Galerie all partnered with the inaugural edition of 1–54 Contemporary African Art Fair Marrakech this February. Founded by Touria El Glaoui (daughter of Hassan El Glaoui) in London in 2013, and having since expanded to New York, this homecoming was the first on African soil. Presenting 17 galleries, including Marrakech’s Voice Gallery, at La Mamounia hotel, plus special projects around the city with the recently opened Art Space Montresso* and cultural riad Le 18, 1–54 attracted over 4,000 local and international visitors.

If the success of the first annual outing is anything to go by, 1–54 and its sphere of people and places are well on the way to cementing the city’s resurgent position at the heart of North Africa’s creative pulse.

(Clockwise from left) RIAD KBOUR & CHOU, RIAD 72, RIAD JAANEMAN.

STAY HERE RIAD KBOUR & CHOU 13 Derb Enajem Zaouia El Abassia riadkbourchou.com RIAD JAANEMAN 12 Derb Sraghna Dar El Bacha riadjaaneman.com RIAD 72 72 Arset Awzel Dar el Bacha riad72.com FEATURE

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PETITE NOIR Noirwave gets all grown up

thanks to Yannick Ilunga’s new music

Words ALIX-ROSE COWIE Photography KYLE WEEKS 84

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“We know what we want now, we’re not just shooting in the air, shooting randomly.” South Africa-based singersongwriter and producer Yannick Ilunga is talking about the maturation of Noirwave, the movement he pioneered through his adventures as Petite Noir, together with his wife, creative director Rharha Nembhard. Noirwave is a way of using music and visuals to communicate messages of empowerment, and to invent new African narratives.

Since the release of his devastatingly good debut album, La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful, Ilunga has moved from his early to his late twenties, and the Petite Noir sound has progressed naturally to reflect his personal growth. True to the Noirwave ethos, fans can still expect a combination of musical influences from across time and geography, brought to life with his deep, melancholic voice, but, on the cusp of releasing his new EP this year, he is promising an evolution.

“My music is all about pushing boundaries,” he says. “With this record we’re taking everything to a higher level. It’s explosive.”

I’m meeting with Ilunga in Cape Town a few days before he travels to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to shoot with photographer Kyle Weeks and Nembhard for the EP. “There’s a certain filter there that you can’t get anywhere else,” he says of his father’s homeland.

“It’s tropical and green and lush.” This will not be the first time he’s worked in DRC, as the 2015 video for ‘Down’ was also shot there. For that outing director Max Mogale followed Ilunga and Nembhard as they made their way through Lubumbashi, capturing moving portraits of locals that offer glimpses of public life on the streets of the city.

One of six siblings, Ilunga was born in Brussels and grew up in Cape Town, but he makes a more-or-less annual trip to DRC, and the time he spends there is an exploration of his identity and heritage.

“Congo is a big influence on the new music. It’s where I’m from. It’s part of me,” he says. For the upcoming trip, the small team plan to shoot visuals inspired by royalty. “Kings still exist in modern-day Congo and other parts of Africa, so we’re going deeper into that world. We’re going to visit a few villages and try to get a real sense of that culture.” At his concert at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden back in Cape Town a week later, he performs wearing a crown, and a very regal, high-necked green velvet top by South African designer Rich Mnisi.

It’s hard for Ilinga to say how long the new EP has been in the making.

He tells me that the process has been an organic one: he’d work on it and then let it go, then pick up again where he left off, sending tracks to various producers and collaborators along the way. US rappers Saul Williams and Danny Brown, and South African singer Elo will feature,

“With this record we’re taking everything to a higher level.

It’s explosive”

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(Opposite) RICH MNISI suit. (Above) THEBE MAGUGU hat and jacket, ADIDAS tracksuit.

Creative Direction RHARHA NEMBHARD. Styling GABRIELLE KANNEMEYER.

as will Nembhard, who makes her singing debut.

A constant in Iliga’s life is travel, and this record is a product of his movements across the globe.

Some songs were recorded in Cape Town, others in Vietnam, and all the vocals were laid down in Vienna. A degree of the production took place in Bangkok. I ask whether there’s one place he considers home. “Not yet,” he says. “I’m still young, I am wherever I am.”

When Ilunga’s working on a new song, the music comes first, and the lyrics begin as a free flow in the recording booth. Whatever he’s been thinking about or experiencing makes its way out from his subconscious. “I’m a Virgo — the virgin — so it’s like everything comes from the base level of me. I’m able to bring it out in a pure way.” If he likes what he hears then he’ll begin to arrange it more formally.

Although his songwriting is intuitive, it isn’t lacking in intent.

Ilunga uses music to tackle the issues of his generation. “You have to in this day and age, otherwise what are you doing?” he says.

But he’s careful not to deliver messages in a way that is preachy or obvious. What he wants to communicate overall is a sense of liberation.

“I want people to walk away from it with positive energy. To think: I can do this, I can actually make a difference in my life and the lives of others.”

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MONEY MUST BE MADE Photography LORENZO VITTURI

Lorenzo Vitturi’s latest photobook dissects the many layers of commerce and chaos that make up Balogun market in Lagos, and the reverse-gentrification effect it has had on the Financial Trust House highrise. This multistorey building once housed corporate firms, but now stands empty due to the overwhelming mass of local businesses and street vendors that surround it. London-based Vitturi uses photography, ephemeral sculptures, painted textiles and collage to create compositions that express the complex interplay of globalisation, urbanisation, capitalism and human endeavour that come together in this singular place.

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LORENZO VITTURI, from the series MONEY MUST BE MADE, 2017.

MONEY MUST BE MADE is published by SPBH EDITIONS with texts by EMMANUEL IDUMA.

THE WAY OF MEAT A short story by NANA EKUA BREW-HAMMOND

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We knew what they wanted by their accents. If we heard Mexico or Guatemala in their English, they wanted the babies. If we heard India or Pakistan, they were there for the one-year-olds. Jamaica: the bucks would jerk, dragging their feet to the end. Ghana, Nigeria, or Senegal — same as the Americans: the cries would rise from every corner of every pen.

Most of us were born and bred in South Jersey, but we couldn’t help but pick up a little culture on the farms. There isn’t a goat in the tri-state doesn’t know the Tasmiya or Shahda, or what “what agwan” means; not a nanny or a billy whose ear isn’t attuned to the difference between the tentative Ghanaian cadence, the direct Nigerian brogue and the seductive Senegalese drawl.

We knew the relevant national independence days, culture-specific celebrations, annual food festivals and the religious holidays too. Eid-al-Fitr. Eid-al-Adha. Easter.

Christmas. Pentecost Sunday. The Annunciation.

Among the regulars, we watched out for big life changes. If we saw an engagement ring, the behs would abound — traditional weddings, and increasingly, hipster nuptials called for a goat. When pregnant buyers would come, we would groan — an outdooring or naming celebration was imminent, complete with a roasted kid.

If an adolescent Ghanaian girl trooped in with her parents, it was 50/50 she would pick one of us out for her dipo puberty ceremony. Gray hair too was a death knell.

Every day — any day — any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be. The accents would come, standing just outside the pen, pointing; then the farmhand would come in. We’d part like hair, pushing into the walls of our containment area, then alternately cry, call, or sigh when he wrestled his pick off the floor.

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“Not him!” a mother would sob, almost halfheartedly, for her wethered boy, the real wailing having happened when the wethering had been done in the first place. Every goat knows a castrated male is condemned to go the way of meat.

“Not me!” the eunuch would beg.

Relieved we’d been passed over, the rest of us would coo, “It’ll be alright”, even as we all heard the prayers, watched the blood spurt and dribble, smelled the burning hair, and listened to the mechanised spray of water that preceded the hacking.

For the most part, I was content with my lot in life. I had had the fortune of living all my years on the farm I’d been born on, and by the same providence, I was designated a breeder.

A breeder is the safest position a male can occupy on a farm. Bucks are considered hard to control, even when they can’t smell a doe in heat; but breeders are responsible for siring half the herd — an integral part of the farm’s economy.

To prevent the deformities associated with incest, there can only be one or two male breeders on an average-sized farm; whoever that is, is the alpha of the herd.

On the totem of status, the breeder falls just under the angora goats, which get fed and brushed all day, and just above the dairies. (A dairy would dispute this fact, I’m sure, but you tell me if you would rather mate or have your udder squeezed raw twice a day, every day.)

Even on my high perch, I remained aware that one day, perhaps when I was nine or ten, I would start to age out of breeding. My kids would begin dying early or start exhibiting abnormalities: distorted faces with one eye, or three horns, no nose; six legs. Thereafter, a younger buck would be brought in from another farm, and that would be the meat of me.

I hoped, when that happened, a discerning accent would bypass the tender kids for the well-earned flavour of my long and aged loin. When my time came, I intended to go without the requisite theatrics. I would stand still and stoic under the executioner’s knife, content to let the hysterical dirge of the nannies and kids usher me into the afterlife.

But this was not the way it was to be for me.

The season preceding my last one on the farm, I was at the height of my powers.

I was six years old, carrying the grain-fed weight of 225 muscular pounds, and my does had produced 50 kids without blemish.

There were more than enough bucklings to sell for meat, with some left to chemically castrate for teasing, and there was a preponderance of girls that would be bred when they came of age the following year.

But the season passed with less traffic.

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The accents came, but not in their numbers. This was initially good news to us. Less traffic in the pen meant life for us.

What we didn’t realise at the time, though, was that life meant death for us.

A different farm would have been able to weather a slight dip in business, but the unexpected loss came at a time when finances were stretched thin. After 42 years in operation, management had made the reasonable decision to replace the fencing and buy some ultrasound machines. They were slowly downsizing the dairy business to focus on the less labour-intensive meat breeding. They invested in tightening the property’s security after a few bucks had vanished, and used the new ultrasound machines to take better care of the pregnant does and build budgets against the number of kids the does would have per season.

These were intelligent measures, but, as anyone on a farm knows, everything is subject to providence.

To cover the shortfall, management started selling some of the babies.

Usually, about six weeks after the kids are born, they are separated from their mothers into neighboring pens to be weaned; the cries are almost louder than when the farmhand comes in for a kill.

But that spring, instead of moving the kids next door, the hands packed them onto trucks, never to be seen again.

My nannies lowed with bitterness into the night for weeks, and they didn’t forget.

When the next mating season came, the does had seemingly conspired not to reproduce. I tucked my nose in each nanny’s undercarriage, as usual, but they gave me no heat. They were cold as winter.

All of them. Under the circumstances, my own interest was minimal.

In seasons past, my owners had had to force me to eat when it was time to mate, but now I had to be goaded into performing. “You’re not so different from me, are you?” the sterile teaser buck they brought into my pen taunted.

I did what I could, but breeding is a business of passions; when it isn’t there, it isn’t there, and so there were less kids.

The season passed, the trucks came again, and, this time, the hand’s lasso became my noose. I used the size I had put on that year grazing instead of grunting after does to protest. I dragged my hooves and bucked at the farmhand.

I could hear encouragement from the pen and it girded my resolve as I squalled louder and louder.

I felt the rope loosening, and then, suddenly, I was free. I was outside my pen, not to eat or mate, and for the moment I was not under the clear control of any hand but my own. I knew I would be caught, but I didn’t want to be sold

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to an unknown fate, and I didn’t feel I I could see the judgment in their narrowed deserved to be. After all my seasons of gazes. Goats resist. That is our supposed reliable service, all the bucks and does nature. But what could I be, but me?

I had produced, management owed me The hand was grabbing hold a better send-off than this. So I ran. of my rope as I watched a woman I was not a young buck anymore, shout, “Eighty-three?” The driver of the and, again, I had put on weight, but I was passenger van across the street was moving fast. As I gained a solid distance, nodding confirmation and starting his I looked back and saw the hands standing, engine when the ancient doe that had arms akimbo. They were letting me go. slept the whole ride leapt to life.

I began to panic. I had lived my Fast as any horse, she galloped into whole life on this farm and didn’t know the incoming traffic. The van shrieked anywhere or anything else. Where would to a stop as she disappeared into the I flee? How would I eat? Who would I be if black void of a pedestrian tunnel. I heard I wasn’t a breeder?

Jamaica, Trinidad, Haiti and America in I started to turn around, to surrender the expletives that flew. “Rattid!” “Mudda!” myself to the fate of having someone else “Koulangyet!” “Fuck outta here — you saw answer these existential questions. I was that goat!” not my own. I was chattel. Property. I had As the hand scrambled after her, the always known my place, and that had other goats seized their chance. The truck been my peace of mind. driver alighted, trying to help wrangle the Before I could stop myself, just give escapees. He caught one, but the angora up and give in, the fence stopped me. didn’t make it across the street. I had to My snout slipped through the links as look away from the blood curdling his curls. if it had been measured for it. Instantly The intersection was utter chaos. my jaw went slack, and I panicked as a Cars were honking. People were cursing. shaking numbness raced from my head to Sirens were deafening. The driver now my hooves. Profoundly dazed, I buckled stood guard over me zealously, loosely to the ground, all 240 pounds of me handling the other one. At two to five heaped on my side and trembling. dollars a pound, I would fetch a nice price.

The farmhands approached me with I took pride in that. slow but purposeful strides, commending Finally the farmhand emerged from the effectiveness of the new fencing. In the tunnel, angrily dragging the fugitive my electric stupor, I watched myself get goat across the road. We were marched tagged, lifted and carried between them into a grim warehouse. Chickens onto the back of the truck of no return. squawked bitterness and gossip from the There were three other goats in the tightly packed wire cages that covered truck: a nearly expired nanny expanding the walls, and cows, sheep and goats and contracting with sleep, a threebleated greetings, obscenities and legged buckling leaning against the misery at us from their pens. I nearly wall of the truck to peer out the window, slipped on the blood, but I maintained my and an angora that was foaming at composure as we passed buckets full of the mouth. I didn’t ask them where we dripping heads. Just as I ate, I told myself, might be going, and they didn’t volunteer I would be eaten. This is life. any guesses. Respectively making peace Once again, the hand used unneceswith our impending doom, we ignored sary force to push me into the pen I would each other. share with a phalanx of wethered bucks.

For more than an hour we rode.

I had put up no resistance, but as a buck Stopping, Starting. More animals coming that had once been the alpha on the on. Some animals being taken off. And farm, I understood his need to assert his then it was my turn. power — given that he had lost the nanny The door opened. A cacophony of and angora. noises assaulted my ears. Wheezing As he entered the pen, the goats parted buses. Squeaking sneakers. Human in panic. When he left, I took my spot in laughter. Raised voices. And an accent a corner. I could smell the musk of another I recognized: buck in my new resting place, but I was the “Eighty-tree! Eighty-tree! biggest of the lot and no goat would dare Eighty-tree! Q4!” tell me to move. His place was now mine.

Jamaica.

I closed my eyes, as concurrent A hand, disembodied by the sunlight, recitations of the Tasmiya and Shahda reached into the truck, looped a rope rose in the distance. Bangladesh was in around my neck and yanked me down. the house, as was Trinidad, Ecuador Because I didn’t resist as he expected, we and Brooklyn. This is where the accents both tumbled to the ground from the force. had been last season and this one; and I averted my eyes from my fellow where the accents went, I now knew, captives, as I waited for the hand to we had no choice but to follow. This is regain his footing and take me away. the way of meat.

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90’s BABY KICKBACK

Nigeria’s SoundCloud generation is taking over, ready or not Words HAUWA R. MUKAN Photography KADARA ENYEASI

(Opposite) WAVY THE CREATOR.

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Another hot, humid night out on Victoria Island, Lagos, and I’ve just walked into the spacious backyard of the African Artists’ Foundation. It’s a typically serene gallery space on any normal day, but tonight the place is packed, and lit as fuck.

To my left, a group of sweaty young guys make their way through the crowd with their shirts off.

To my right, so many IJGBs (I just got backs) in tank tops and jeans. And all around are androgynous girls and guys with ironic hairstyles, tattoo sleeves and piercings glistening from eyebrows, septums and ears.

Everyone is here for the 90’s Baby Kickback, which was started as a small open-mic night called The Sound Off in February 2017 by Idris King, and has grown into a curated lifestyle experience.

The brand is supported by a young, niche fanbase who come together religiously to celebrate their local music champions.

Tonight, King, with the help of his co-hosts Zay and DJ Bai, is ushering out a flow of up-and-coming acts who this community has coined the SoundCloud generation.

Among them are Odunsi (The Engine), Wavy the Creator, Santi, Joules Da Kid, Aye, Lady Donli, Nonso Amadi, Prettyboy D-O, BrisB, GMK, Sheva, Oma Mahmud, Omagz, Aylø, Higo, Esojay Luciano, Mich Straaw, M.A.K, Genio Bambino, DAP The Contract, Barelyanyhook and their slightly better known counterparts BOJ and Fresh L of DRB-LasGidi, Tomi Thomas and Zamir of the LOS Boys. These names join an even larger group of producers, video directors, photographers, DJs and designers, currently championing this alternative wave of music.

The sound deviates, refreshingly, from the mainstream, afropop radio formula we’ve all become familiar with in Lagos. I’m talking afrobeats, kukere, pon pon music — the type of jams you dance shaku shaku, galala and shoki to. The new generation fuse a much larger array of musical genres including trap, grime, EDM, neo-soul, jazz and dancehall, and give them a distinctly African twist.

In just a few months, the platform has caught the attention of many early adopters in the music industry. These acts are headlining their own shows and a few have supported bigger names such as Mr Eazi and Maleek Berry.

Many also appear on M.I’s new album, Rendezvous. The strength of this fastamassing subculture is their willingness to collaborate. They work together on everything from music, photography and styling, through to branding and videos.

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“We understood from the beginning that for the music to fly, the lifestyle had to too, where everyone is down with the same kind of music, the same kind of style, they come to meet and vibe” Odunsi (The Engine)

In this way, they are vertically integrating all their different talents and crafting an organically grown launch pad for themselves. In a city that does not nourish or encourage that which is seen or perceived as ‘different’ or ‘other’, they have maintained their place, stuck their feet into the ground and something is taking root.

“We understood from the beginning that for the music to fly, the lifestyle had to too, where everyone is down with the same kind of music, the same kind of style, they come to meet and vibe,” says original protagonist Odunsi (The Engine). “90’s Baby Kickback is a foundation where people can link up and grow the audience larger. We want to infect everyone!”

These guys and gals are coming into their own at a time when not only does the world have its ears cocked in Africa’s direction, they are also manned with the tools and confidence to be heard. Theirs is a subtle, unintentional brand of healthy disrespect that comes from a non-adherence to courting the hierarchies built by Nigeria’s music establishment. They experiment freely with their sounds, their looks, their cultures and their experiences, creating a fresh musical tapestry. Now springing into a system that has created some of the best musicians Nigeria can boast of (while also clogging up the airwaves with large amounts of mediocrity), the SoundCloud generation is here to stay.

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HERE ARE THE SOME OF KEY PLAYERS YOU NEED TO GET HIP TO. WAVY THE CREATOR Sexy Wizkid doppelganger Wavy the Creator — recording artist, filmmaker, photographer and fashion designer — was raised in Missouri and is doing her thing in Lagos. She popped into our collective consciousness in June 2017 with her muse-worthy, gender-fluid style, blonde eyebrows and haunting vocal delivery. Wavy’s cool, calm and collected vibes have sparked the interest of many, including Omagz, with whom she collaborated on the track ‘What You Like’ (the pair promise a five-track EP soon). Check out her first single ‘H.I.G.H’ (Her In Greater Heights), and latest song, ‘Interlude II (In n Out)’, too. “Lagos is slowly but surely embracing new sounds, which is giving freshman artists like myself opportunities to flourish,” she says.

OMAGZ Omagz describes his sound as “a combination of influences, old yet current,” and released his debut album, Young Magazine, in 2016. “I love where the 90’s Baby Kickback brand is going,” says the singer-songwriter-engineer.

“It’s brilliant — they have no prior experience with these things and they’re doing it right. I feel it’s what the culture needed and exactly at the time we needed it.” His hits include ‘What You Like’ featuring Wavy the Creator, ‘Óshó Free’ featuring Genio Bambino, and ‘Motives’ featuring Zamir. Omagz is currently in the lab cooking up a project with Duggi, and delivers new music to his SoundCloud every other Friday.

(Opposite top left to bottom right) ODUNSI (THE ENGINE), PRETTYBOY D-O, OMAGZ. (Above) LADY DONLI. (Below) SANTI, IDRIS KING. Grooming PRINCESS AYOOLA.

LADY DONLI Lady Donli is the alternative jazz, neo-soul contender of the group. Her music explores issues around love and toxic relationships, and she came into her own with 2016’s Wallflower EP. She’s followed up with the 2017 single ‘Ice Cream’ featuring Tomi Thomas, which received international buzz when Complex magazine included it in its Bout to Blow playlist alongside Wizkid and Katy Perry. Also, don’t miss her song ‘Kashe Ni’ and EP Letters To Her. PRETTYBOY D-O Prettyboy D-O is the suave one with the devilish good looks. The rapper-singer has been chasing his dreams since school and spent some years polishing up his flow to create an Afro-dancehall sound that always goes down well live.

His essential songs include ‘Footwork’, ‘Peter Piper’, ‘Tinko Ko’ and ‘Bance’ featuring DJ Olu. His latest Everything Pretty EP is on current rotation.

IDRIS KING Last but not least is Idris King, co-founder of the 90’s Baby Kickback phenomenon.

His vision is to create a platform for creative self-expression among and for his peers. “The brand is now evolving into more than a music show and becoming an allencompassing experience,” he says. As a performer, if his bilingual flows and sung hooks don’t get you, it’ll probably be his wide smile and all the inclusive energy he uses to usher acts onto the 90’s Baby Kickback stage. He credits Frank Sinatra, James Brown and Fela Kuti as his major influences, and his Bankyondbeatz produced single ‘Squad’ has become the scene’s anthem.

ODUNSI (THE ENGINE) As one of the more recognisable faces and sounds on the scene, Odunsi’s most recent charttopping single ‘In the Morning’ has been getting heavy radio play since last year, and features on his debut EP Time of Our Lives. His earlier release, 2016’s Situationship, featuring AYLØ, went stratospheric on SoundCloud and made its way onto the Billboard US charts via Spotify’s Viral 50 playlist. He’s been leading the 90’s Baby Kickback charge ever since.

SANTI Santi (formerly known as Ozzy B) has a chilled out, Afro-rude boy sound.

The rapper and singer grew up inspired by his father’s vast music collection — ranging from Rakim to Fela Kuti, Billy Ocean to Kool & The Gang — and he

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describes his approach to music as “a huge pot seasoned with different sounds from time to time”.

His gentle mix of indie-folktrip hop is also influenced by Santigold, who he describes as his idol (hence his stage name). Santi directs all his own videos and made waves with his critically acclaimed EP Suzie’s Funeral in 2016. Stand-out tracks include ‘Gangsta Fear’ featuring Odunsi (The Engine), and ‘Jungle Fever’.

any thanks to M the African Artists’ Foundation, Lagos

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2MANYSIBLINGS MEET PETER KARIUKI Photography MAGANGA MWAGOGO

Oliver Asike and Velma Rossa hail the unsung talents of one of Nairobi’s original street photographers 106

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2MANYSIBLINGS MEET PETER KARIUKI

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Oliver Asike and Velma Rossa are in a quiet Nairobi café, veraciously looking through some of Peter Kariuki’s vast image archive. Overflowing from several well-worn envelopes that he has taken out of his camera bag, the quietly legendary photographer is happily revealing some of the analogue gems he’s taken of the city since the 1970s, much to their delight. The brother and sister duo have become poster people for ‘New Nairobi’ through their curatorial platform 2manysiblings, which they started as a personal style blog in 2013, and has since propelled them around the world — thanks to their eye for shaping what they call “transitional contemporary African narratives”. They’ve worked with the Ethical Fashion Initiative, taken part in the travelling Fashion Cities Africa exhibition, collaborated with ASOS, been profiled

by US Vogue, and established the Thrift Social vintage market. Yet it’s to Kariuki’s images of old Nairobi that these digital influencers turn. Whether of bygone landmarks such as the spaceship-shaped Florida nightclub, or of famous musicians including Franco Luambo, Kariuki’s faded, hazy shots are a priceless record of a city and scene now much changed.

PETER KARIUKI SAYS: “It was during one school holiday that somebody showed me a camera.

You looked in the top to see the images.

I liked the idea of taking pictures and so when I completed my studies in 1970, I got a little Zuki camera and started working at a friend’s studio.

“Soon enough I went out on my own and bought more cameras — a Yashica and a Sony. At first I’d shoot weddings, but as my career grew I got interested in music and worked with many artists from around Africa. I grew my hair long, I dj’ed and rode a motorcycle. Those were exciting times. Now the job is tough.

Everyone has a camera and a lot of the old studios have closed. But you can’t avoid technology so I shoot digital these days, too. You have to compete or you won’t eat.

“Thankfully I’m still busy and often have two or three jobs a day. Photography is enjoyable and challenging. I like to experiment by taking photos of people on the street. I’m always moving around with my camera, so if I see something interesting, I capture it.”

2MANYSIBLINGS SAY: “We first met Peter at the Shades of Benga exhibition at the Alliance Française de Nairobi last year, where he was showing some of his candid imagery of rumba musicians. We were initially drawn to him for his personal style — this old guy with a floral shirt and brightly printed Converse shoes. But his photography also caught our attention because of its non-staged honesty, which showed the personality and character of his flamboyant subjects.

“Peter’s love for shooting beautiful things — plus his eye for the details that go unnoticed on the streets — is intoxicating.

His work has great cultural significance, and we believe it’s important to recognise his contribution to the chronological history of photography in Nairobi. In his photos you can see the social differences of that time and now, which for us has been an inspirational reference.

“Old Nairobi had an appreciation for, and romanticism about the visual arts.

The architecture was also beautiful and characterful, all of which is expressed in his work.” ith thanks to British Council’s W East Africa Arts programme

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2MANYSIBLINGS MEET PETER KARIUKI

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Take a personal trip to 137 Avenue Kaniama with the Belgian-Congolese artist

Words WILL LARNACH-JONES Photography KRISTIN-LEE MOOLMAN

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FEATURE Baloji wears CAFÉ COSTUME suit, BRANDON WEN feather shoulder piece, DAMSELFRAU mask, CATPC artists vegetal headpiece.

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Baloji’s schedule is currently so busy that the only time we find to connect on the phone is when he and his band are sitting in the departure lounge, mere minutes from boarding their flight from Paris to Tokyo for their first-ever Japan shows. After a couple of weeks of rehearsals (“We could always be a bit more rehearsed,” he half-jokes), the Baloji Express is well and truly on the road for the year ahead, a freight train loaded with a new album, the energy jolt that is 137 Avenue Kaniama, plus two film projects and a third in the pipeline. Busy, indeed.

For more than a decade Baloji has straddled the musical traditions of Africa, such as soukous, rumba and mutuashi, Afro-American influences from rap to soul to funk to jazz, and European sounds including techno and four-to-the-floor dance. His music is a rolling stone that has gathered many textures along the way. Born in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, he was sent to live in Liège, Belgium, aged three.

points to a journey to reconnect with his mother after 25 years, heading towards an address that doesn’t physically exist. “It’s a metaphor,” Baloji explains.

“Searching for my mom’s house, I couldn’t find her street number. The street reached a point where you couldn’t go further. Sometimes what is visible isn’t always visible.”

Baloji’s relationship with his family back in Lubumbashi has informed much of his work, as has his relationship with DRC, with many perceptions and meanings creatively explored.

“I love playing with double entendres,” he exclaims. “I love to have fun with the music, but to bring more. For the best songs there’s a saying: ‘You enter for the beat and then you stay in for the lyrics.’”

Beneath the good vibes of ‘L’Hiver Indien’ for example, the song explores the disconnect between migrant communities and wider society. And in the context of the bikoutsi-infused afro-trap track ‘Ensemble’, he says, “Ensemble means ‘we are together’, or, ‘your issues are mine.’”

Equally, you can see this intellectual game play out in Baloji’s two ambitious and diverse short film projects that support and add broader dialogue to the album, Kaniama Show and Peau de Chagrin/Bleu de Nuit, both seeped in cultural and artistic chiaroscuro. Written and directed by Baloji, Kaniama Show is presented as a TV variety show from an African country with no name and seemingly set circa the 1980s. Imagine an episode of Soul Train filmed in the midst of a televised military coup. “We don’t say what country it is. It’s a satire movie about propaganda and the influence of soft power through television. Although everyone is talking about the impact of the internet, I think everything we see in TV format we still think of as real.

His adolescence was difficult but he was embraced by the hip hop community and joined the Starflam Crew in the late 1990s, with whom he released three successful albums. His debut solo album, 2008’s Hotel Impala, was followed by 2011’s Kinshasa Succursale.

Baloji has been honing his live shows much of the time ever since, and kept us keen with the EP 64 Bits & Malachite. Now 137 Avenue Kaniama brings together these multiple narratives, combining African rhythms, not only Congolese but also Nigerian, Zimbabwean and Ghanaian, with 808 afrobeat production and funk-flecked synths. Moving from bossa novas to dopamine beats, and spanning singing, rapping and sometimes somewhere in-between, at the centre of this accomplished work it’s the presence of Baloji himself that guides everything in a single, compelling direction.

So where is 137 Avenue Kaniama? The spare, half-spoken, half-rapped ‘La Dernière Pluie — Inconnu à Cette Adresse’

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“For the best songs there’s a saying: ‘You enter for the beat and then you stay in for the lyrics’”

If they play it on the news then there’s no way we’re going to contest it.”

Starring Eriq Ebouaney and with afro-funk dance choreographed by Serge Aimé Coulibaly, the film features a dizzying array of sartorial influences, from zoot suits paired with geles to extravagant floral looks and Lurex and sequins galore. While intentionally kitsch, it still reflects Baloji’s long-held love of style and the attention to sartorial detail he puts into all of his projects.

Collaborators have included Café Costume, Dries Van Noten, A.F. Vandevorst, Simone Rocha, Raf Simons, Grace Wales Bonner, Komono and Jan-Jan van Essche.

Peau de Chagrin/Bleu de Nuit is very different, a heady brew of colour, atmosphere and influences shot in and around Lusanga International Research Centre for Art and Economic Inequality, and in collaboration with its artists. Like an extension of 137 Avenue Kaniama’s cover (he worked with regular Nataal contributor Kristin-Lee Moolman on both the album and film), the short

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(Opposite) Papa Olele Mulela wears own shirt and trousers, tailor-made shoulder piece, BRANDON WEN belt, Belly wears ELKE HOSTE dress, DAMSELFRAU mask, Baloji wears CAFÉ COSTUME suit, BRANDON WEN feather shoulder piece, DAMSELFRAU mask, CEDRICK TAMASALA (CATPC) flower headpiece, stylist’s own rain boots.

(Above) Woman wears upside down goggles by CARSTEN HÖLLER (White Cube collection).

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film offers an array of moving portraits.

It interplays scenes of a couple (their presence felt both on-screen and at times, conspicuous by their absence), surrounded by traditional Congolese pygmy wedding tropes — a wedding station of vegetation, goats as gifts — set alongside kung-fu gangs, sensual bike rides and a born-again baptism (of sorts) by water. Along the way Baloji’s rhymes propel the visuals forward, music and image dancing in some entranced, mystic conversation.

“The idea was to have a living tableau,” he explains. “I’m quite proud of this one.

It’s one of my favourite pieces because it was something I could control from A–Z.” It’s impressive to learn that this work was filmed in only four days and in a remote location 650km southeast of Kinshasa.

“All my projects are very low budget,” Baloji laughs. “I’ve become used to being extremely prepared in advance, and doing everything very fast.”

A full-feature film, already scripted

by Baloji, looms in the wings for next year.

But for now, his Tokyo-bound flight is boarding. “I like this approach to work,” he says before signing off. “I like having a lot of difficulties. It’s the story of my life — be prepared!’”

1 37 Avenue Kaniama is out now on Bella Union

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(Below) Mbuku Kimpala wears A.F. VANDEVORST body and leggings, model’s own headscarf. (Opposite) Cedrick Tamasala wears BRANDON WEN ensemble.

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(Opposite) Belly wears DRIES VAN NOTEN negligée Irene wears A.F. VANDEVORST dress. (Below) Belly wears ELKE HOSTE dress, DAMSELFRAU mask, Baloji wears CAFÉ COSTUME suit, BRANDON WEN feather shoulder piece, DAMSELFRAU mask, CEDRICK TAMASALA (CATPC) flower headpiece.

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(Opposite) Belly wears A.F. VANDEVORST dress, Mbuku Kimpala wears her own clothes and upside down goggles by CARSTEN HÖLLER (White Cube collection).

(Below) PAPA OLELE MULELA wears BRANDON WEN creation. Art direction BALOJI and CATPC artists. Set design EVE MARTIN. Styling VIRGINIE DURING. Models BELLY, CEDRICK TAMASALA, IRENE, MBUKU KIMPALA, PAPA OLELE MULELEA.

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Following knock-off fashion’s flow from Lagos to Guangzhou (and back again) Words ALLYN GAESTEL Photography BÉNÉDICTE KURZEN / NOOR

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of freedom both within and beyond this criteria, and cosmopolitan Lagosians are unrelentingly expressive and well-dressed.

The sweatshirt in the photograph is of a style worn mostly by the young, fly dreamers of Lagos’ lower social strata — street hawkers, bus conductors, entrepreneurs with many hyphens: real estate agent-used car salesman-blogger of a fictional Yoruba playboy in Dubai.

I came to call this style, and the concepts it encompasses, “Versage”.

Versage is like Versace, but it is not Versace. It is knock-off Versace. But when I say, “This is knock-off Versace,” I can never end the sentence there.

I have to add, “This is knock-off Versace, but totally Nigerian.” It is distinct from the knock-off Versace that I have seen anywhere else in the world. It does not look like the knock-off Versace in Casablanca. It does not look like the knock-off Versace in Harlem. It does not look like the knock-off Versace in Paris.

And it doesn’t even look like the knockoff Versace in Dakar. Some Nigerians call it “Versasse”, with a hissed “s”, or “Vers-ah-CH”, but I settled on “Versage” because it is sometimes written that way on shirts and caps and sweats. But it’s not always written that way, and in fact it’s not always written. Often it’s a playful reconfiguration of the Versace Medusa, the brand’s logo that is itself an appropriation of Greek mythology: the head of Medusa, the beautiful, raped 1. LAGOS Photographs flatten reality. They squash monster-woman, whose gaze turns men I took a photograph on election three dimensions into two, and turn to stone. The filigree that surrounds the day in 2015. It was golden hour. I was bodies and buildings into patterns and Medusa in the logo is reconfigured on new in town. Though I had a writing shapes. They still the world; they solidify Versage clothing, often expanded, turned fellowship that had nothing to do with a moment. You can breathe with a into a whole pattern that covers the shirt, electoral politics, I was a recovering photograph, though the instant captured like the teenager’s sweatshirt, which has news journalist. So I registered with the was briefer than your exhale. I was driving neither the Medusa nor the name, but electoral commission and got my press when I shot this, and my subject was whose pattern is decidedly Versage. pass and badge and drove around the walking; its stillness is stolen. And yet this Lagos is like nowhere else in the ghostly streets of Lagos with some local split second is layered with everything world, like everywhere in the world is reporters. It was largely an exercise inside the photograph and also everything like nowhere else in the world. But to say in futility. I felt adrift. I wasn’t sure what ephemeral emanating from the image: that this looks Lagosian to me, this looks I was looking for. The story I wrote emotion, history, foreshadowing. The Nigerian to me, what am I saying? How do rambles about the stories people tell. photograph illustrates an obsession I had you deconstruct and explain an aesthetic?

My fellowship editor thought it was useless. not yet noted; a string to a web I had yet I wanted to articulate the specificity of But, driving home, I shot this to pull and untangle. taste in a meaningful way. So I pulled photograph. In it, a teenager is crossing I liked it when I shot it. I thought: many threads. I spun through the evolution the road. We are in the neighbourhood of this looks like Lagos. (And I find Lagos of taste, the factors that are at play, the Ebute Metta, and he is wearing the most beautiful.) ideas and values and desires that are beautiful hoodie, covered in a twirling, I later became transfixed by both expressed through the aesthetic, through swirling motif. He stares at me through this swirling pattern and by the thought, what the clothes refer to, what the clothes glinting shades. Between the patterned “This looks like Lagos.” aspire to, what the fashion says. I followed sweatshirt and his shorts — also printed I saw the pattern everywhere. I took the supply chain, the pathways the clothes black and white but in a different design — buses around town, little orbs bouncing and the ideas for the designs travel; he has layered a striped shirt. He stands through the city filled with uncountable how the clothes come to be. I listened to in front of the Wasimi Community Mosque, lives, personalities, roles, all squished hip the stories of the people who wear them a burnt-red building in the 1970s tropical to hip on wooden benches. The clothes and make them and procure them and modernist concrete that blankets much of people wear express just a fragment of transport them to hear how they see and mainland Lagos. Round concrete circles their personas. Sometimes it’s obligatory — interact with the world. It is the weaving of are embedded like a screen for privacy white garments for Aladura churchgoers, history, values, ideas and identities that and ventilation at the top corner of the pleated burgundy skirts for school — and makes something simultaneously foreign building. The pattern looks classically sometimes it’s more loosely prescribed: and Nigerian so compelling.

Lagosian now, but an architect once told suits and heels for office workers, Versage is more than a style, it is a me those cutout blocks were imported individual designs in matching aso-ebi for concept, a node at the center of a million from Israel. weddings. But there is also a wide range questions, a lens through which to look

If you look closely you’ll notice That the pattern on this soft broadcloth shirt Is made of working man’s blood And praying folks’ tears.

If you look closer you’ll notice That this pattern resembles Tenement row houses, project high rises, Cell block tiers, Discontinued stretches of elevated train tracks, Slave ship gullies, acres of tombstones.

If you look closer, you’ll notice

That this fabric has been carefully blended

With an advanced new age polymer

To make the fabric lightweight

Weatherproof, and durable.

All this to give some sort of posture and dignity To a broken body that is a host for scars.

From ‘Soldier’s Dream’

by YASIIN BEY

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at social realities in a city with which I was falling in love. There is an aspiration common in the Lagos hustle that is embroidered into the fabrics. Versage declares simultaneously what the wearer wishes to be, and what the wearer actually is. The aesthetic is glamorous and loud, it screams of money, for money, in the glitzy taste of the nouveau riche.

But it is also cheap.

Mimicry is a stilted covetousness.

I wanted to untangle what exactly Versage is mimicking, its specific creolisation of taste. The copy has flown far from the original, so while Versage started as an imitation of Italian designer wear, it is now evolving in a completely different context. Versage breeds Versage now.

Mimesis becomes an infinity loop. This conversation is happening throughout the fashion world. Singer M.I.A. designed a line for Versace that “bootlegs the bootleg”. Dapper Dan, a designer in Harlem, reconfigured designer prints into new shapes and designs. Fendi sued him and shut him down in the 1990s. Twentyfive years later Gucci appropriated his style, taking it from the runway to the streets and back to the runway; then they hired him. The endless spinning out of mimesis points to this ongoing conversation — how designer wear only carries the clout that it does because everyone copies it and aspires to it, making it accessible and cool when the original is out of reach.

Lagos is a land of extremes; it is not outside of our global realities, but rather is a space where the inequality that defines our current economic system is glaringly visible. Capitalism is barbaric, but it is reality, and money is not just money: it is safety, it is access, it is survival. This is true everywhere, but for many Lagosians this deadly dance is a quotidian anxiety. You cannot blame the nouveau riche for their ostentatious celebrations of survival. Or the poor for posturing wealth when wealth means life.

Is this a story about fashion? Sort of. It’s also a kaleidoscopic exploration of urbanity, of a city stacked with universes, and all the places that exist in one. It is about the worlds we construct from our respective vantage points and everywhere layered into everywhere, as twisting and sprawling as Versage prints.

2. SAN FRANCISCO I met Vivian Chenxue Lu for coffee in one of the many loft-ceilinged, openplan roasting cafés that dot the Mission District. Vivian was working on her PhD at Stanford. An anthropologist, she researched travelling Igbo traders from Lagos to Istanbul, Dubai and Guangzhou.

Her work ethic was methodical and her queries fascinated me: on masculinities and ethnicities and diasporas and markets. When we both lived in Lagos she would pick me up in her two-door

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stick-shift Honda Concerto and we largest producer. And Guangzhou is the would drive to buy Chinese vegetables textile hub of the Pearl River Delta. The in Lekki Market, or bad coffee at Federal region in Southern China has had annual Palace hotel, or wander the bright red, growth rates over 13 per cent since 1979. oddly vacant Chinatown in Ojota. There It is the fastest growing region in the we bought herbs for my sprained ankle fastest growing economy in the world. from a chain-smoking traditional doctor, I wandered the Nigerian pathways and were invited to lunch by a bustling of the city with the designers and Chinese businesswoman who seemed curators of Versage. They were friends, to be illegally exporting lumber, and who and friends of friends of traders I knew chatted blithely about dwindling forests. in Balogun Market in Lagos. I asked In San Francisco, Vivian and I Onyinye — a stylish Chinese entrepreneur bemoaned the slow pace of writing, and I married to a Nigerian who splits her time asked her about my new work on Versage. between Guangzhou and Abuja — for I maundered on about my curiosity for the a hotel recommendation. She directed aesthetic, and wondered where it came me to the Lai Si Dun (Nice Town Hotel) from. I knew vaguely that the imports in the San Yuan Li neighborhood. It was mostly came from China, but I didn´t down the street from the Tong Tong understand how Made-In-China Versage Hotel, a plaza that had been central to was so Nigerian. the African immigrant community. Tong I asked her to tell me about Guangzhou. Tong is home to an Ethiopian Airlines She had spent months there with Nigerian office, independent shipping companies, traders of all stripes. They procured and boutiques with Versage dresses pulled imported televisions and cell phones, tight over mannequins, and a giant sign home goods and clothes. Flippantly, she that advertises “A Taste of Africa” at the mentioned that one of her contacts there “African Pot Kitchen”, blinking a neon was a designer. image of iridescent steam. I had read What? I said. My eyes lit at the poetry about this plaza before I came, so when of knock-off-designer designers. one of the traders mentioned it I said, My earlier questions about how “Oh yes that place is famous, right?”

Versage looks nothing like any other fake “It’s not famous,” he said.

Versace, and how it looks so Nigerian, I remembered how niche my suddenly made perfect sense. It looks obsession was.

Nigerian because it is Nigerian. It is But if famous is the wrong word, designed by Nigerians for Nigerians. the place was known enough as a centre They just happen to be in Guangzhou. of the African community that police I wanted to meet these Versage set up checkpoints outside. The locus designers. I decided to go. was becoming too visible, and the state was cracking down on immigrants.

3. GUANGZHOU The government’s gaze was scattering Guangzhou is a humid hub of Africans with expired visas, and consumption. People are making, and rendering the community more diffuse. stocking, and selling; wholesale and Tong Tong was still visibly African, but retail and everything in between. There only those with their paperwork in order are glittery, air conditioned shopping dared to pass. malls and wholesale plazas with names My hotel was a 15-minute walk down that reflect their scope: “THE UNIVERSE a busy thoroughfare beneath a concrete COMPREHENSIVE BUILDING SHOES overhang dripping with lush tropical vines.

CITY” and “GUANGDA CHILDREN’S The base I made in the city, my center of CLOTHING WORLD”. It is a factory city, reference, the space I returned to each and (like everywhere?) a crossroads. day, was in the midst of the transient I had a laughing conversation with my African traders — short-term visitors who vivacious, far-wandering translator about come for a week or two to gather stock. how he doesn’t buy souvenirs when he The hallways and elevators were littered travels, because everything is made right with sacks, and the industrial scale in the here. It’s true. The factories are stacked lobby was the site of much hand wringing one on top of the other, each floor open over cargo weight. plan with sewing machines in rows. They Pasted above the phone in my room are tucked down alleyways in garages, was a yellow card advertising Coco food or loom over side streets. Forklifts drive delivery. When I couldn’t sleep I ordered through manufacturing neighbourhoods plantain and jollof rice, and stared like it is all one giant warehouse. There out my small window at the mahjong is stuff everywhere. Vendors push carts house across the alley. I was not the with bags and bales and boxes down only one up all hours, looking out at this the sidewalk, a spare pair of jeans layered neighbourhood, this layered dangling out. Mint green satchels are world. Uzoma became one of my closest stuffed for shipping, they litter streets friends in the city. The first day we met and shops, half open, or tied tight. China I asked to meet him in the morning, but is the world’s largest garment exporter, he pushed our meeting to noon. “I hate shipping off three times as many shirts to miss my appointments,” he said, and and skirts and pants as India, the second after seven years living in China, he still

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keeps Nigerian time. His phone, like mine, buzzed throughout the night. His clients follow market hours in Lagos and Aba. The Nigerian traders I met knew each other by a range of names. Emmy’s shop overflowed with Versage shirts. He played with the printed polyester as he explained, “If I want to make my own design I may remove all this wire, and put only head, and this is my own idea.” He said. “And I put on the Versach because people need Versach.” He spoke in low tones as we ate suan cai yu, the spicy fish soup all the traders offered me. “Have you eaten?” they would ask, then call delivery and within minutes a man carrying plastic soup bowls and styrofoam containers of rice would bustle down the crowded hallways of the plazas, past tiny shops packed with samples of wholesale knock-off designs. Emmy spoke so low it was like a conspiracy. He mumbled and glanced around. I tilted my ear close to him as he muttered, “Before I show somebody my design I must sell more quantity because they might copy it.”

Stanley was slightly less suspicious, he took me with him to the fabric market, an open-air structure with rows and rows of simple shops packed to the ceiling with rolls of textiles. New bales come in every day, raw material for every kind of fashion in the world: the base for saris and salwar kameezs, glittery gowns and suit pants.

Stanley comes most mornings, weaving in and out of the aisles. We played our fingers in the various qualities and prints.

The aesthetic he seeks is loud and bold; the texture is thin. He finds the cheapest fabrics and negotiates hard. He doesn’t even bother with the luxurious, thick cotton rolls — those are for the American market. For the Nigerian market, traders start with the cheapest materials.

I discussed this with Uzoma, who designs shoes and manages logistics and had endless patience for explaining systems to me. “In China you can be stingy,” he said, “but you will be punished for it”. The traders know the quality they are buying. Here in the place where all of the things of the world are made, they know they are buying the very bottom for their customers, and they know enough to buy higher quality for themselves. Uzoma exports cheap shoes, but he buys Zara on sale for himself. When I met him he was planning his return to Nigeria after five years in China. He had shipped ahead most of his things, and one Sunday needed to buy church shoes, so he stopped and bought some from a Chinese wholesaler. They broke six hours later.

Livid, he brought them back to the vendor.

“What do you expect?” the vendor asked.

“You bought cheap shoes.”

From the fabric market, Stanley let me follow him to the factories. We passed through a parking lot leading to identical stairwells between identical buildings.

Upstairs, piles of T-shirts nearly obscured

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an altar in the foyer. Alex, one of the not Versace, but it is as close as keke and owners of the small family business, okada drivers can get. welcomed us into a cluttered office and “If you make quality things and send poured tea, then led us into the back to Africa not everybody will buy, but if where piles of knock-off T-shirts littered you have cheap items, people will rush to the ground and rows of sewing machines buy it,” explained Douglas, another trader stretched across the open room. who had built a career in China over 15 Stanley’s design process is collaborative years. He designs shirts that he prints and ad hoc, he scrolled through images with his name, “Douglas King Lenin”, on his phone, googled or sent from his then sticks on a “Made in Italy” label. contacts in Lagos. Alex offered his own Africa, he said, needs “substandard”. suggestions, showing new designs he made for other clients, bedecked 4. KADUNA with symbols made here, referring to If Nigerians were running factories in elsewhere, destined for somewhere else.

China, I wondered, what about Nigerian When they negotiated the order, Stanley industries back home? Nigerian textile gestured to his own shirt, demonstrating production launched in Kaduna in how he wanted to adjust it: adding a 1956, with the founding of the city’s first cuff link and changing the neckline. He textile mill, and the industry at its peak speaks a few words of Chinese, but the employed hundreds of thousands. Nigeria men also spoke through a translation app, was the second largest textile producer in sentence by sentence.

Africa behind Egypt.

“Nigerians in their own way like to When I arrived in Kaduna I visited emulate you know? We like to learn. the Ministry of Information, which was Everywhere we are we just look at what in the midst of a remodel. The archives entices our eyes and kind of put it on to were boxes strewn across the floor try it, then we keep wearing it and we’ll of a back room: pages and pages of think, if we can change it this way it can contact sheets, photo proofs that show be also nice,” Uzoma mused. “We are regal Northern leaders bringing foreign inquisitive when it comes to fashion, investors to tour bustling factories. In the curious. And we are also creative. We moments pictured, new looms and gins steal, we change, and add things to it.” and spinning machines gleam. At the top Through Uzoma I met Rich, and of the sheets labels placed the images in through Rich I met Felix. Industrious time: Kaduna, 1959; Kano, 1966. and obsessive, Felix designs in flashes Now Kaduna is a ghost town. in the middle of the night. He said he I wandered through the campus for takes inspiration from Nollywood and Kaduna Textile Limited. Mint green everything he encounters. After seven walls opened into vacant rooms with the years in China, he has worked his way windows blown. Antique machines were up to owning a factory. He has a Chinese strewn diagonally across the floor like business partner for all the paperwork, sculptures amidst the wreckage. States of but the business is his. The building was abandonment look interrupted. There is a under renovation when I visited, there visual poetry in neglect: dropped beams were holes in the ceiling, but the walls and cracked windows. It makes beautiful had paintings of idyllic nature scenes pictures with the lines and the shadows and tigers, and the production room was and the layers of atrophying treasures, buried in Felix’s latest creation: a sparkle- remnants from another era. studded T-shirt he promised would flood A mix of structural adjustment the streets of Onitsha in a couple of policies, neoliberalism, corruption, lack months when they arrived at port. His of maintenance and poor management staff were all Chinese. Chinese hands deteriorated the industry. When cheap sewed Nigerian designs for Nigeria, Chinese imports flooded the market in the paid by their Nigerian boss.

1990s and early 2000s, Nigerian producers In Nigeria people sometimes couldn’t compete. Spaces that have held say ‘chinko’ to describe things made something and have since gone silent are in China. I discussed the term with a more haunting when you know the contrast. group of Nigerian artists; we were all Down the road from Kaduna Textile Limited commissioned to produce work for is United Nigerian Textile (UNTL), a ChinAfrika exhibition in Germany. which is still hanging on by a thread, The artists bounced around ideas for running at 20-per-cent capacity. I found a installations exploring toxicity and few workers in a quiet office building. disintegration; they felt cheated, and A secretary recounted the history of the disgusted. But the truth is complex. company and the city’s slow downfall.

Chinese imports are often ordered, “Look out the window,” she said. “All these designed and imported by Nigerians. buildings you see here, as far as the eye And while they are often cheap to the reaches, are the finishing department, point of danger, they also allow Nigerians which has been idle since 2007. There’s to access things — or at least the nothing there, there’s nothing left.” And so imitation of things — that they could never she took me on a tour of nothing, of empty otherwise afford. Is a ‘chinko’ phone structures, of stillness, a tour of remnants. better than no phone at all? Versage is We were looking at bones.

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I wandered down unlit streets after dark to meet Musa Bala, a blind patriarch who had worked decades in the sector.

I slowed the cadence of my voice to mirror his. “We are the ones who started doing wax print, throughout the whole of West Africa,” he told me proudly. I enjoyed his nostalgia, the depth of his knowledge.

“The textile industry here in Kaduna is almost dead but the branches of UNTL are still giving some service.” I had seen the machines that still function at the end of my ghost tour. Just a few lines of them, whirring and humming, vibrating productivity.

Gimba Ndandok is also retired, after a career as a professor of textile manufacturing at Kaduna Polytechnic.

A Jehovah’s Witness, his gate is peppered with stickers. A placard overhead reads: “Forgive that you may be forgiven.” Loquacious and cheerful, he has a slightly more cynical view of the history. The textile industry in Nigeria “was never fully indigenous,” he told me.

At its peak, the machines producing the fabrics were always imported.

If they broke down, spare parts had to be special ordered from abroad. So while in integrated industries, like in China, the machines producing fabrics were constantly evolving, getting swifter and leaner, in Nigeria the machines were running into the ground. “I normally call them Lord Lugard equipment, who was the administrator during the colonial days,” Ndandok said, laughing. “The equipment is very old.”

Even more jarring was when he told me that in its glory days, the factories in Kaduna were almost all owned by foreigners: British, Japanese, Pakistani.

UNTL was started by Mr Cha Chi Ming from Hong Kong, and still today is 99 per cent Chinese owned. Any kind of nostalgia for Nigeria’s industrial past has to recall that it was already global.

5. LAGOS This story starts and ends in Lagos.

But here, too, we cannot sit still.

I spent countless sweaty afternoons in Balogun Market, a crammed commercial centre that branches off of Lagos’ central mosque and snakes along alleyways. The market is organised thematically: there is a section for frames, for books, for Christmas decorations, and, of course, for Versage. The Versage section is called Mandilas. There are plazas here, like in China, but the structures are older and more worn. Shiny Medusas are splashed across T-shirts and slippers, stacked on plywood beams and suspended from metal grilling. There are shops down endless corridors, tucked into underground thoroughfares and up rickety staircases. To draw customers to hidden stores, hawkers and apprentices stand in the central medians between the endless river of pedestrians, buses and

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motorbikes churning through the space.

They are dressed in the freshest fashion, walking advertisements for the styles they sell, and some stand over piles of T-shirts under the hot sun. I made friends with KC, one of the T-shirt vendors, and would stop by and chat with him and other market workers. One day I met Emmanuel, a robust middle-aged man, sweating at the junction. He told me that he was just visiting, his business was in Gambia where he sells “African jewellery”, mostly to tourists. “You know, that black stuff, wood,” he said. But the piece that glittered from his neck was Versage.

Tiny Medusa heads pressed into the links of a chain that suspended a giant rhinestone.

One Saturday afternoon I went to Fabric & Dyes, an exhibition at Studio of Modé, a private gallery space in Ikoyi.

The immersive installation explored Nigerian fabrics from silks and cottons to dyes and processing techniques. Studio founder Modé Aderinokun’s well-thought and meticulously documented point was that Nigeria has a grand, important history with textile. In the gift shop she sold a few contemporary, socially conscious brands, and a collection of traditional fabrics from different parts of the country.

On one wall she posted “Is Ankara African?” A brief text outlined the history of wax print. It was manufactured by the Dutch for the Indonesian market, then found its way to Africa where it became so wildly popular that it evolved into the widespread cliché of the African fashion aesthetic. Young intellectuals like to smirk and say, “wax print is not African”. The argument that wax print is not African contrasts it with historical textiles designed and produced in Nigeria like adire and aso-oke. After spending enough time in elite, erudite fashion scenes, I almost intellectualised myself out of any awareness of wax print; I started to find the reference gauche. Yet when I left the islands where this crowd gathers, and rolled through mainland Lagos again, I saw mamas in their wrappers and young women in their perfectly tailored up-down combinations.

The literary scene is awash in wax print cut into pencil skirts and blazers. Are these people not African? Are their fashion choices not African?

“Tracing indigeneity in a historical way is endless,” Abosede George, professor of African history at Barnard College told me. We were talking about the question of belonging in the city, but the concept is the same. “I end a lot of interviews with the question, ‘Who is a Lagosian?’ Not to find the answer but to understand how they situate that,” she said. “Everyone situates themselves at the centre.”

In 2018 how do we talk about indigeneity? Is Versage African?

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The urban world is a stacking of millions of distinct universes, millions of distinct worldviews all in one place. What do you want to go back to? This everywhere, this nowhere, this fusion is itself distinctly Lagosian. What makes it unique is the direction that people are looking, the position they are looking from, how they organise the world from their own centre.

What they aspire to, what they combine, how they express themselves, their own definitions of beauty and success.

This cosmopolitan kaleidoscope becomes its own flavour, its own taste, its own meaning — as complex, as layered, as tangled as the city itself.

I went clubbing in Victoria Island one night. Blue lights danced over ice buckets filled with champagne bottles.

I had already been staring at Versage for months. I had bought my first piece, a hoodie with diamonds in neon yellow, green and white bowing across the midsection and on the side the Medusa stencilled in white, surrounded by twists of pink and blue. Suddenly, between the pounding beats a man strolled across the floor. He dripped wealth, from his smugness to his shirt: soft silk that seemed to float around him. I stared.

This was not Versage. This was Versace.

Suddenly all the swirling threads braided into a perfect tapestry. Versage is Lagosian because Versace is. Versage comes from the luxury that slips past parking attendants on the way to the club, rude and self-important: ‘Do you know who I am?’

It also comes from between those parking attendants. It comes from Balogun where the hawkers bought their shirts for their own Saturday night, mingling in the crowded market with distributors who come to buy stock, each themselves a fashionista, curating their own wares to take along spidery pathways to hip, androgynous Fulani teenagers and plump, trendy students in Benue. In Balogun the importers are watching how they curate and what they buy, and then calling their brothers in China to tell them the latest hot idea: geometric patterned squares on hoodies for rainy season, or the latest version of the printed chain. And the brothers in China are rifling through warehouses to buy fabrics and taking them to loft factory buildings to describe their new vision to their Chinese counterparts, riffing creativity, until Chinese hands are sewing Nigerian designs and shipping them across the world, back to the parking attendants outside this club, and the oga sliding past in the new season’s Versace, ripped from the street to the runway and back. I stared, dizzy, smiled, then went back to dancing.

EINRICH BÖLL STIFTUNG H NIGERIA contributed financial support to this research

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Words DEON MAAS Photography ANTONIA STEYN

The afropunk revolution will be televised, so you better look good

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Shoot production CLAIRE FULTON.

South Africa in the 1980s was a time when television was in its infancy (only allowed in 1976 and state controlled), photographs of Nelson Mandela were banned, and the newspapers were enforced by draconian legislation that heavily censored the media. Under Apartheid, black people lived in black neighbourhoods and white people lived in white neighbourhoods, and never the twain met. South Africa was still very much kept out Africa, as if we were part of Europe.

Punk emerged amid this oppressive environment in 1976, the same year as the youth revolt in Soweto, giving it a twohanded punch that was fuelled both by socio-political and pop culture concerns, making it a movement that turned more towards Soviet Eastern Europe in spirit than it did to London or New York. But not in look. Punk was the first genre of music, after jazz, that brought various races

It’s early 1980s Johannesburg and I’m on my way to see the band National Wake.

My grey and blue-flecked box-cut zoot suit with its pleated baggy pants may have been a slight overdress — the kind of thing not totally fitted to a punk gig in Rockey Street Square (outside what would a decade later become Rockefellas).

But hey, I was young and the suit cost me most of my grocery money for the month, so it’s not like it was going to stay at home. I’m also wearing black brothel creepers with 5cm soles. They are customised with silver spikes by local design duo Mike and Quiet Leather, and look more lethal than they actually are, but the message is still clear: I don’t want to be in your world.

The policeman rolling the teargas into the audience really didn’t care much that I didn’t want to be part of his world.

He wanted to make sure that I wasn’t, but not in any way that would empower me. This action of teargassing punk, reggae or new wave gigs was a fledgling sport. The much more established sport of teargasing mass black protests in the townships was what the police did during the week; this was their weekend fun.

Scaring the shit out of audiences from a mix of races, a lot of them white suburban kids who only saw township protests on television, was an added bonus and equalled overtime pay.

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together. Up to then, everybody stuck strictly to their side of the fence. Black radio for black people, pop radio for white people. The authorities even managed to ban The Osmonds’ ‘Crazy Horses’ from airing because they thought it was about heroin. Punk was the unexpected kick in the ass that the youth needed to mobilise themselves, make their voices heard and get to meet the people on the other side of the fence.

National Wake, with their two white members and two black members, was a leader here, touring shebeens and independent homelands, punk clubs and after-hours cinemas, to take the message to a larger, racially mixed audience.

In the beginning it was all good and well because they played to the kind of marginalised people that no-one cared about. Yet slowly but surely the message started spreading.

Upping the game was a variety of clubs and festivals that were tapping into the scene. Rhythm Against Detention, Wits Free People’s Concert, Smugglers’ Inn, Scratch, 1886, Chelsea Hotel, Le Club, Subway, Rumours, and The Doors all played a role in spreading the message.

The audience may have been drunk on their beer of choice — Black Label — but their sentiments remained political.

To be a teenager in South Africa at this time was terrible. No alcohol was for sale on Sundays, even in public places, unless you had a meal. Strict border control meant that the only drugs available were Mandrax (a sedative) and Obex (a diet-pill amphetamine), neither of which were conducive to a relaxed social atmosphere. And man, the fashion sucked. Especially men’s fashion. But punk helped to change that. The first pictures of punks that appeared in the press meant that the Indian tailor down by the railway station was suddenly catering to a new clientele of 18-year-old boys turning straight-cut Lees and Wranglers into stovepipes. Levi’s were still unheard

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(On spread) Archive images of Mike and Quiet in Joburg.

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of and only made their appearance in the mid-1980s, mainly in the form of grey imports or Indian knockoffs sold at outrageous prices, putting a pair well beyond the means of the ordinary person.

A shop called Moollahs was the place to get yours. From the initial punk uniform of stovepipes and T-shirts followed a demand for something more elevated.

Anyone travelling to London received requests for tartan bondage pants, flea market items that would be customised back home and, of course, Doc Martens.

The afropunk look and sound was initially heavily influenced by London, and the first South African punk bands were mere imitators.

This soon changed when multicultural influences started infiltrating punk.

Using ska elements that were converted into a more African brass sound and beats that relied on traditional drumming, South African punk soon took on its own home-rooted identity.

My zoot suit looked like the new wave fashion we saw in the pages of The Face, Blitz, i-D and the NME, which arrived in South Africa 12 weeks after their UK publication.

However, the suit’s African print lining — I always folded back the sleeves so you could see it — gave it a distinct flavour that you wouldn’t have found elsewhere.

The brothel creepers’ silver spikes had been used in traditional Zulu leatherwear since the 1950s. This was a new wave African style — and it was dangerous.

Anything different was frowned upon by the authorities and made you a target.

There is this classic South African punk legend about a band called Toxic Sox walking in downtown Johannesburg and getting beaten up by a car full of guys that just didn’t like the way they looked.

The band were outraged and walked to the nearest police station to report this crime, only to discover that the people they wanted to report the crime to were the same people that had beat them up.

The policemen armed with teargas were a sign that the government had started seeing this underground movement as a threat to the status quo.

The unofficial South African Police hit squad, the CCB, moved into the scene.

Gerrit Nicholas Erasmus, Petrous Lodewikus du Toit, Charles Alfred Zeelie

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and Andries Johannes van Heerden bombed the Why Not Club in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, on 22 September 1988.

The manager of The Summit Club, Lourens Swanepoel, was murdered and so was the only eyewitness to the murder, thrown from the balcony of his flat in Hillbrow. Gary Beuthin and the so-called Bouncer Gang shot and beat people up without any recourse from the legal system. It was a dangerous time to be different. But all this did was encourage the music and fashion scene to stand up.

Rockey Street in Yeoville was the birthplace of South African street fashion, and became a grey area where both white and black lived and mixed. At the store African Magic, you could buy Ethiopian copper beads, Ndebele leatherwork and African print materials while listening to a soundtrack of Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens. At Reminiscence you could buy vintage wear. At Lolly and Dimitri’s So Modern you could pick up zoot suits, and Aldo Kleyn’s Leather Rose was great for finding leather trousers. I faintly remember a nappa leather Batman suit but won’t swear to it as it may have been a figment of my LSD-addled brain (acid was the only other drug freely available).

At Bizarre Centre, the ever-changing shops supplied limited-run T-shirts, off-the-wall clothing and jewellery that even the people from the neighbourhood weren’t always that keen on.

Elsewhere in South Africa, Glynis Horning moved street fashion to the catwalk with the Durban Designer Collection in the mid-1980s. Cheryl Arthur’s label Hip Hop Clothing moved it into shopping centres and Preston van Wyk, aka Rip Torn, moved from street fashion to more mainstream style aimed at biking with the very appropriately named, X-Kulcha.

Bands like No Friends of Harry, Ella Mental, éVoid, The Genuines and Via Afrika made South African fashion brands like these as important as their music.

Like many other designers from this era, Mike and Quiet Leather were integral to the fashion revolution in South Africa. The brothers originally hailed

“Punk was the first genre of music, after jazz, that brought various races together”

(Above) NATIONAL WAKE. (Below) THE GENUINES.

from the Eastern Cape, but grew up in Johannesburg’s central business district in the 1970s and 1980s. They were sitting around a fire one night when they hit on the idea to start making winkle pickers.

“We needed an income to survive,” says Quiet. “We never even suspected that this would elevate us to the next level over the decades to come.” They started trading at the now-legendary Bree Street flea market across the road from the famous Market Theatre, a place where all the anti-government protest theatre was happening at the time. On their first day, they sold all their stock and, realising that they were on to a good thing, started making more. “We had to sell two pairs per week to survive and we more than did.”

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“We needed an income to survive. We never even suspected that this would elevate us to the next level over the decades to come” FEATURE

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Mike and Quiet were received with open arms by the community, and were introduced to easier ways to make their shoes and other apparel. Then came a chance meeting with the members of the goth group No Friends of Harry. “People like Aldo Kleyn, Rip Torn and a lot of other people in the scene helped us along, but it was No Friends of Harry that served as an advertisement for our stuff and made it take off,” says Quiet.

Of course they also faced police harassment, not only because of their lifestyle but also because of their colour.

“The police would just walk into our flat and harass us, accusing us of being Illuminati and moffies. They didn’t like the fact that black men were hanging out with white girls.” The harassment also came from people within their community who couldn’t understand why young black men would want to listen to white music, wear leather clothing and ride motorcycles.

“Punk suited us,” is the only way they can explain these beginnings today. The brothers moved with the scene, and determining what they should wear next has been their thing for almost 30 years. Moving from the market to Kingdom Leather in Hillbrow, they set up as Add-Vintage in Rosebank in 2009 and recently rebranded as Second Attitude in Parkhurst.

Having gone from being branded drug addicts and satanists to getting heralded as leading lights of alternative fashion, their custom and curated designs have along the way inspired goths, metal heads, punks, new wavers and more lately, bikers too.

Today afropunk has become as much a lifestyle as a frame of mind, not to mention a mainstream commodity, but Mike and Quiet’s legacy lives on in contemporary bands such as TCIYF, Brainwreck and Death at the Party.

They are respected elders in a community in which they remain very much involved — and they’ve always managed to stay ahead of the curve. Second Attitude may have both the past, present and future stocked inside, but the one thing that ties it all together is the reassuringly countercultural smell of leather. It’s a place where fashion can make it easier (and safer) to be different in South Africa today.

DEON MAAS is co-writer and co-director of the documentary film Punk In Africa (2012).

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BLINKY BILL Keeping it chilled with the positive Pied Piper of Nairobi’s alternative music scene Words HELEN JENNINGS Photography MAGANGA MWAGOGO

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In Nairobi all roads lead to Alchemist. I’ve been in the Kenyan capital six days and on three of those, I’ve been invited to this laid back, outdoor bar. On this occasion I’m here to meet “Blinky” Bill Sellanga, about whom much the same could be said when it comes to Nairobi’s alternative music scene, with many paths starting or ending up at his happy-go-lucky door.

“I’m a big brother type,” the musician muses of his centrifugal role here.

“In terms of experimenting with sounds, I’m one of the oldest, which is fab.

Muthoni Drummer Queen and I used to be on the same label when we started out nine years ago. We’ve developed and grown in our own directions since then without having anyone ahead of us; there were no flag bearers making these kinds of moves.

“Now for the younger artists such as EA Wave and Camp Mulla,” he continues, “we’re kind of a reference point in terms of the spirit of what they’re trying to do.

Even if they surpass me, if I continue doing what I’m doing, I’m an anchor.”

All the aforementioned artists are also at Alchemist today, at Sellanga’s kind request, chilling out and taking turns to be shot by the Nataal photographer.

That fact that each of them have their own distinct sound is as much testament to the energy of the city’s nascent creative scene as it is to Kenya’s somewhat blighted musical history. While many other African nations have retained a strong, linear heritage that new artists draw upon and remix — think naija pop in Nigeria or kwaito in South Africa — it’s a different story here.

“The artists I admire that are super old school, like Slim Ali and The Mighty Cavaliers, don’t make music anymore and you can’t reach them,” says Sellanga.

“In the 70s being an artist was difficult, most of them quit or died, and in the 80s the powers-that-be quashed artistry, so a lot of music is either religious or sycophantically praises the president.

Now we’re maturing, and sonically it’s becoming clear.”

Sellanga grew up listening widely, which fed his natural lust for odd flavours.

“My dad used to play a lot of Congolese music — Franco Luambo, Bozi Boziana and Diblo Dibala. He also used to play the radio so I got to jam to pop music from South Africa like Chicco, and American music as well — Michael Jackson, Prince, Kool & the Gang, Whitney.”

While at university he formed Just A Band with Dan Muli and Mbithi Masya, and the trio made a splash with their first cut ‘Iwinyo Piny’ in 2008. Their fusion of soulful funk, disco and electro saw them

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Blinky Bill wears KIKO ROMEO jumpsuit.

perform worldwide and release three well-received albums. The group also made Kenya’s first viral video, for the song ‘Ha-He’, a Blaxploitation-spoofing tale of kidnap, fistfights and unrequited love.

“Just A Band is such a trip, there’s been so many highlights along the way,” Sellanga says. “One of them was playing in Central Park alongside Amadou & Mariam and Theophilus London. Another was contributing to the Fela Kuti Red Hot and Riot tribute album on songs with Chance the Rapper and Childish Gambino.”

Just A Band announced a hiatus in 2016, and Sellanga, who is also an alumnus of The Red Bull Music Academy and OneBeat Music, as well as TEDx and Design Indaba, went solo with the 2017 EP We Cut Keys While You Wait. In the past few months he has shared a stage with Diplo in Nairobi, toured Europe with Iyeoka, remixed a record for Goldlink, and headed back into the studio to finish up the album Everyone’s Just Winging It And Other Fly Tales. “It’s so eclectic — either people will be like, ‘This guy is crazy’, or if they get it, they’ll enjoy it. How I listen to music, how I work with sound, is with a broad brush,” he says. “I have some jazzinfluenced tracks and some heavy African guitar-laced tracks. Hip hop is always going to be a part of my work. The beats are big and it has a nice bounce.”

Expect collaborations with Petite Noir, Sampa the Great and Somi on the album as well as the already released ‘No Touch Am’, with Nneka, which comes with a suitably afrofuturist video by Osborne Macharia and Andrew Mageto, starring three dapper dudes taming the wild beasts of Northern Nigeria.

“The song is coming from such an interesting place and it’s very minimal — just 808 drums, a local tribal chant, me and Nneka,” Sellanga says. “In terms of production it’s not lush but it just works. Nneka didn’t write down a verse, she just riffed on the mic.

The lyrics are saying that as Africans, we’re doing our thing and we’re proud.

This statement sets the tone nicely for the rest of the album project.”

“Nairobi is very vibrant now and I have high hopes for the future,” he continues. “The brave souls are the artists doing things for themselves and putting their ideas out…

We’re the next frontier without a doubt. It’s only a matter of time.”

W ith thanks to British Council’s East Africa Arts programme

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On a recent trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo with boutique coffee project Kivu, photographer Viviane Sassen spent time exploring the areas around Lake Kivu to capture her impressions of the environment and its people. The first in an ongoing series of artist commissions by Kivu inspired by the product's country of origin, Sassen’s extensive series includes these images, which focus on sartorial statements in the city of Bukavu. Here, life on the street is always about being dressed to impress.

Photography VIVIANE SASSEN

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GOING OUT Photography KYLE WEEKS Styling KUSI KUBI

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(Left to Right) Luke wears LYLE AND SCOTT jacket, OZWALD BOATENG shirt, E.TAUTZ trousers, vintage shoes.

Trey wears LYLE AND SCOTT suit, OZWALD BOATENG shirt, vintage tie and shoes.

(Above) Luke wears E.TAUTZ jacket, KATIE EARY shirt, vintage trousers and shoes.

(Opposite) Trey wears MARCELO BURLON hat, CASTOR POLLUX shirt, FAITH CONNEXION trousers, WOOYOUNGMI shoes.

Trey wears MARCELO BURLON hat, FAITH CONNEXION jumper, KENZO trousers, vintage shoes.

(Left to Right) Trey wears BODYBOUND jacket and trousers.

Luke wears BODYBOUND jacket, FAITH CONNEXION trousers, vintage shoes.

Trey wears CASTOR POLLUX shirt.

(Adove) Trey wears as before. (Opposite) Luke wears as before.

Models LUKE and TREY at NII AGENCY. Assistance ANIA EGEN.

EDUN Photography & Styling NICO KRIJNO

South African artist Nico Krijno shoots EDUN’s Spring and Resort 2018 collections exclusively for Nataal. The New York-based label partners with manufacturers, artisans, and community-based initiatives across Africa to sustainably create its ready to wear. This season’s sporty yet feminine pieces take inspiration from the colours and coastal landscapes of Ghana. A batik organza was developed with Mariama Fashion in Côte d’Ivoire, custom textiles came from Weavers Worth Enterprise in Kenya, knitwear was produced in Madagascar, and a silk batik is the handiwork of Studio One Eighty Nine in Ghana. The results have inspired Krijno to conjure up this gloriously abstract mash-up of textures, prints and limbs.

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Models MIGNONNE and CAROLINE. Assistance EVI LUNA.

SWEET & TENDER REBELS PORTRAITS OF A GROUP OF YOUNG FEMALES IN LONDON WHO PUSH PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL AGENDAS Photography LIZ JOHNSON ARTUR Styling CYNTHIA LAWRENCE-JOHN

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WINONA O’DELL, student and model.

MARTINE ROSE hoodie, CHLOÉ trousers, RED WING shoes.

WINONA O’DELL, student and model.

FENG CHEN WANG coat, MARTINE ROSE hoodie.

SHAE STULTZ, student and model.

CASELY-HAYFORD suit, MARTINA SPETLOVA bustier, JOHN SMEDLEY polo neck, DIOR HOMME jeans, DR. MARTENS shoes.

OLIVIA JACKSON, Born N Bread collective, creative.

MINT VINTAGE glasses, JOHN SMEDLEY polo neck, ROBERTA EINER jacket, BETHANY WILLIAMS coat, BRIXTON MARKET earrings.

ABIGAIL JACKSON, Born N Bread collective, multimedia.

ASTRID ANDERSEN top, MONKI earrings.

RABZ, dj and filmmaker.

Model’s own hat, RICK OWENS top, HELMUT LANG top, CHRISTOPHER KANE trousers, DR. MARTENS shoes.

REMI, writer.

PEBBLE LONDON headpiece, CASELY-HAYFORD jackets, model’s own top, jeans and belt.

STEPHANIE SESAY, Born N Bread collective, multimedia and Stephseeks Studio, creative director.

ASTRID ANDERSEN top.

ADELAIDE LAWSON, Born N Bread collective and educational arts programmer.

ROBERTA EINER jacket, HANRO top, model’s own accessories.

DERICA SHIELDS, writer.

MARTINA SPETLOVA top, CASELY-HAYFORD skirt, WERKHAUS MARGATE boots.

IMANI ROBINSON, writer, curator and Sorryyoufeeluncomfortable collective.

CALVIN KLEIN vest, CHIN MENSWEAR INTL. trousers.

CHIKA WILSON, Born N Bread collective and account executive.

WOLFORD dress, BETHANY WILLIAMS jacket, model’s own earrings.

SHAE STULTZ, student and model.

BURBERRY coat, CARVEN jacket, top, trousers and shoes as before.

Hair REGINA MEESSEN using KERACARE NATURAL TEXTURES and L’ORÉAL TECNI.ART FORWARD. Make-up DORITA NISSEN using SHISEIDO SS18. Styling assistance LAURA SULLY, CLAIRE ZAQUINE. Models SHAE STULTZ at FIRST MODELS, WINONA O’DELL at FIRST MODELS.

DAYDREAMING Photography LAKIN OGUNBANWO Styling HELEN JENNINGS

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Gabriel wears KELECHI ODU jacket, BLOKE top.

Wale wears POC shirt. Gabriel wears ORANGE CULTURE jumpsuit. Nelson wears BLOKE vest, ORANGE CULTURE necklace, HOUSE OF FUNK trousers.

Nelson wears OLUBIYI THOMAS jacket and top. Gabriel wears KELECHI ODU top, OLUBIYI THOMAS trousers.

Gabriel wears BLOKE top, PEIR WU shorts.

Models GABRIEL EJONI and WALE BELLO at BETH MODEL AFRICA, NELSON OGHENEKEWE. Photography assistance KACHIE. E. Styling assistance ESEOSA OSAYANDE.

COLOUR PLAY BE BOLD IN LOOKS BY BROOKLYN-BASED DESIGNER RECHO OMONDI Photography & Styling ARIELLE BOBB-WILLIS

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Model DALE RATCLIFF.

A STUDY IN DEVOTION Photography ADAMA JALLOH Curation & Costume SABRINA HENRY

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Rhythm in light Rhythm in color Rhythm in movement Rhythm in the bloody cracks of bare feet Rhythm on torn nails Yet rhythm Rhythm From ‘Fire and Rhythm’

by Agostinho Neto

(Clockwise from bottom left) Ffion wears DOMINIQUE WHITE headpiece and SABRINA HENRY cape. Helen wears OMER ASIM tunic. Rudzani wears SABRINA HENRY headdress, ASHISH coat. Stephanie wears LISOU blouse. Ama wears SABRINA HENRY circle dress. (Opposite) Helen wears DOMINIQUE WHITE headdress.

Ann-Marie wears DOMINIQUE WHITE headdress, vintage dress. Ama wears SABRINA HENRY cape, DOMINIQUE WHITE headpiece and shawl. June wears PALMER HARDING tunic, DOMINIQUE WHITE kaolin dipped dried leaves. Rudzani wears SABRINA HENRY headdress. Ama wears DOMINIQUE WHITE headpiece, SABRINA HENRY circle dress. Helen wears OMER ASIM tunic. Ffion wears DOMINIQUE WHITE headpiece, SABRINA HENRY cape. Stephanie wears LISOU blouse and skirt, Helen wears OMER ASIM dress. Rudzani wears DOMINIQUE WHITE headpiece and fan, SABRINA HENRY headwrap, ASHISH coat, UNIQLO jogging bottoms, NANUSHKA satin slippers.

(Opposite) Stephanie wears LISOU shirt, DOMINIQUE WHITE raffia bib. (Above) Ffion wears DOMINIQUE WHITE headpiece, SABRINA HENRY cape, BASERANGE dungarees, model’s own trainers. Rudzani wears BIANCA SAUNDERS jumper, vintage lace dress. Joyce wears DOMINIQUE WHITE mask and bib, vintage dress.

Ann-Marie wears DOMINIQUE WHITE dried palm headdress, MARCH11 dress. Ama wears OMER ASIM trousers, SABRINA HENRY circle cape.

Rudzani wears SABRINA HENRY headwrap, DOMINIQUE WHITE headpiece and fan, ASHISH coat, UNIQLO jogging bottoms, NANUSHKA slippers.

Ama wears OMER ASIM trousers, SABRINA HENRY circle cape, model’s own trainers. June wears BIANCA SAUNDERS T-shirt, UNIQLO jogging bottoms, model’s own trainers. Ann-Marie wears DOMINIQUE WHITE headdress, MARCH11 dress, model’s own trainers.

Sculpture, props and costume collaboration DOMINIQUE WHITE. Choreography FFION CAMPBELL DAVIES and ANN MARIE CAMPBELL. Dancers JOYCE SOUZA, RUDZANI MOLEYA, JUNE CAMPBELL and AMA ROUGE. Models HELEN HAILE and STEPHANIE TIWO. Model casting TYTIAH BLAKE. Special thanks MAC DENDE, LEILA BEESLEY, ZAKIA SEWELL and everyone at MARKET PECKHAM.

PERFECT IMPERFECT Photography JERMAINE FRANCIS Make-up AMMY DRAMMEH using MAC

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ANNIE COSTELLO BROWN earrings, SLIM BARRETT necklace, ARIES dress, BLITZ VINTAGE shirt, CENCI VINTAGE jacket.

(Opposite) Earrings and necklace as before, FLEET ILYA bra. (Above) Earrings as before, BURBERRY coat.

Earrings as before, BLITZ VINTAGE beret, ROKSANDA jacket, JACQUEMUS dress.

(Below) Earrings and necklace as before, STELLA MCCARTNEY dress, ROUGE MARGAUX shirt, NEITH NYER faux snakeskin coat.

(Opposite) Earrings, necklace, dress and shirt as before, JITROIS jacket.

Styling SARANNE WOODCROFT. Make-up AMMY DRAMMEH at BRYANT ARTISTS using MAC COSMETICS. Hair ROXANE ATTARD using SEBASTIAN. Nails ROBBIE TOMKINS at PREMIER using OPI NAILS. Styling assistance SASKIA HOFMANN. Photographic assistance MAGDALENA SIWICKA. Digital operation MATT WASH. Studio 69 DROPS STUDIO. Lighting PROLIGHTING.

WEST COAST Photography RUDI GEYSER Styling GAVIN MIKEY COLLINS

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NAO SERATI jacket and trousers, W35T mesh top, model’s own shoes, stylist’s own fabric worn as scarf and belt.

(Above) CRYSTAL BIRCH hats, RICH MNISI tunic, NICHOLAS COUTTS shirt and trousers, W35T jacket, model’s own shoes.

(Opposite) UNKNOWN UNION basotho blanket top, NAO SERATI coat, NICHOLAS COUTTS belts.

NAO SERATI jumpsuit, MISSIBABA belt.

(Opposite) RICH MNISI tunic, NICHOLAS COUTTS shirt and trousers, W35T jacket, model’s own shoes.

(Below) I&I tunic, MISSIBABA necklace.

I&I tunic, W35T crop top and headpiece, model’s own shoes.

THEBE MAGUGU jumpsuit, MISSIBABA belt, KIRSTEN GOSS necklace, stylist’s own mask.

(Opposite) I&I tunic, MISSIBABA necklace. (Above) NAO SERATI jumpsuit, MISSIBABA belt, stylist’s own fabric worn as jumpsuit, model’s own shoes.

Model KABELO KHANYE. Special thanks to THE FASHION AGENT, MERCHANTS ON LONG, CRYSTAL BIRCH, MISSIBABA and KIRSTEN GOSS.

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Photography RONAN MCKENZIE Styling JONATHAN JOHNSON

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(Opposite) Josie wears JORDAN DALAH jacket, SLIM BARRETT earrings.

(Above) Eastwood wears JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN jacket, YVES SAINT LAURENT vintage shirt, stylist’s own sunglasses.

(Right) Chizoba wears MATT DYER shirt, XANDER ZHOU trousers, GINA shoes.

(Opposite) Dariana wears vintage corset, DEANNA FANNING dress, UK TIGHTS tights, GINA shoes.

Eastwood wears JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN suit, YVES SAINT LAURENT vintage shirt, THE GREAT FROG LONDON ring.

Josie wears JEAN-PAUL GAULTIER vintage corset from FOUND AND VISION, earrings SLIM BARRETT.

Mya wears RELLIK vintage top, SLIM BARRETT necklace and earrings.

(Above) Isaiah wears SUPER YAYA jacket.

(Opposite) Mya wears stylist’s own shirt, MUGLER vintage blazer and VERSACE vintage broach from RELLIK, JORDAN DALAH top.

(Opposite) Josie wears JEAN-PAUL GAULTIER archive corset from FOUND AND VISION, HARRY EVANS skirt, PAMELA MANN tights. (Above) Isaiah wears SUPER YAYA suit, stylist’s own shirt, SLIM BARRETT earrings (worn on collar).

Chizoba wears shirt as before, SLIM BARRETT glasses, GILLIAN HORSHUP earrings.

Hair styling VIRGINIE MOREIRA. Make-up AMMY DRAMMEH. Styling assistance NELIMA ODHIAMBO. Hair assistance JOY MATASHI. Casting RHEA DILLON. Models CHIZOBA at MILK, DARIANA RUIZ at ELITE, EASTWOOD, ISAIAH, JOSIE, MYA.

MAME

SENEGALESE MODEL MAME THIANE CAMARA AT HOME IN DAKAR Photography JULIA NONI Styling NAOMI MILLER

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(Previous, left to right) Two male models wear locally sourced swimming shorts. Mame wears COURR�GES bra top, ACNE pants, MARY KATRANTZOU shoes. Male model wears LOEWE jacket, ACNE trousers. Male model wears PRINGLE OF SCOTLAND trousers. Male model wears ALEXANDER MCQUEEN vest and trousers. (Above) Mame wears VERONIQUE LEROY vest, MAGDA BUTRYM tights, MARY KATRANTZOU shoes. (Opposite) Mame wears SAINT LAURENT playsuit, MARY KATRANTZOU shoes.

Male model wears DSQUARED2 vest.

Mame wears BLESS bikini top.

(Above) Mame wears locally sourced top, MARQUES’ ALMEIDA trousers, MARY KATRANTZOU shoes.

(Opposite) Mame wears HELMUT LANG dress, MARY KATRANTZOU shoes. Male model wears KENZO trousers.

Mame wears JACQUEMUS earrings.

(Opposite) Male model wears HELEN LAWRENCE trousers. Male model wears KENZO trousers. Mame wears CHRISTOPHER KANE dress. Male model wears BLESS shorts. (Above) Mame wears locally sourced top, HUNZA G bikini brief.

Mame wears HELMUT LANG bra and trousers.

Male model wears LANVIN trousers.

Mame wears MISSONI shorts.

(Opposite) Male model wears BLESS shorts. Mame wears locally sourced bra top and brief, MARY KATRANTZOU shoes.

Male model wears locally sourced swim shorts. (Above) Mame wears HOUSE OF HOLLAND dress, locally sourced earring.

Model MAME THIANE CAMARA at PREMIER MODEL MANAGEMENT. Production ARNAULT KONONOW at MINI TITLE, ALASSANE SY and BAILA SY at PROXSY PROD. Photography assistance AURELE FERRERO, MASSECK DIAGNE. Fashion assistance HANNAH RYAN, MAX SAWARD.

ONLY ANARCHISTS ARE PRETTY Photography KRISTIN-LEE MOOLMAN Hair CYNDIA HARVEY Fashion NELL KALONJI

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La Timpa wears LEWIS LEATHERS ARCHIVE vest, VAQUERA corset, GIVENCHY hoop earring with cross, model’s own hoop earring, MOWALOLA ring necklace, CONTEMORARY WARDROBE padlock necklace.

Klein wears SLIM BARRETT necklace (worn from nose to ear), GIVENCHY hoop earring with cross, stylist’s own choker.

Emmanuel wears LEWIS LEATHERS ARCHIVE vest, RELLIK vintage briefs and belt, EDUN leggings, GIVENCHY hoop earring with cross, MOWALOLA chain earring, stylist’s own choker, SLIM BARRETT chain necklace (with added safety pins), CONTEMPORARY WARDROBE padlock necklace, UNDERGROUND cuffs, NORTHSKULL ring, CHARLES JEFFREY LOVERBOY boots.

Emmanuel wears vest and jewellery as before.

Olabisi wears LEWIS LEATHERS ARCHIVE jacket, DEBORAH MARQUIT bra, GIVENCHY earring (with added safety pin), SLIM BARRETT necklace (with added safety pins).

Klein wears VAQUERA shirt, FLEET ILYA harness, necklace, earring and choker as before.

Jay Jay wears LEWIS LEATHERS ARCHIVE jacket, CONTEMPORARY WARDROBE vintage shirt, JUSTINE CLENQUE earring (with added safety pins).

Emmanuel wears as before. La Timba wears vest, corset, earrings and necklaces as before, VAQUERA jeans, UNDERGROUND belt (top), ROKIT belt (bottom).

Jay Jay wears jacket, shirt and earring as before, CONTEMPORARY WARDROBE jumper, SLIM BARRETT necklaces.

Olabisi wears safety pin as earring.

La Timpa wears vest as before.

Make-up ATHENA PAGINTON at BRYANT. Manicure YASMINE ELWAKIL. Models EMMANUEL ADJAYE at AMCK, KLEIN, JAY JAY, LA TIMPA at LORDE, OLABISI at SELECT. Executive production CAT CRAWFORD. Production JONATHON NIXON. Casting TROY FEARN at TROY CASTING. Photography assistance DAN ROSS. Hair assistance KIRSTEN ENGELL HOLM, LIAM RUSSELL, MIKE O’GORMON, HANNAH GODLEY. Make-up assistance REBECCA DAVENPORT. Styling assistance REBECCA PERLMUTAR, CAMILA PAIVA, BESS CHAN.

Red Hook Labs 133-135 Imlay Street Brooklyn, New York 11231

redhooklabs.com

GALLERY FATOUMATA DIABATÉ p. 292 RUTH OSSAI p. 300 ALICE MANN p. 308 KEYEZUA p. 316 RAHIMA GAMBO p. 322 RONAN MCKENZIE p. 330

Nataal is proud to partner with Red Hook Labs, Brooklyn, for the co-curated annual exhibition New African Photography. First launched in 2016 and now in its third year, the show features artists whose practice engages meaningfully with present-day Africa.

Previous exhibiting artists include Owise Abuzaid, Atong Atem, Girma Berta, Mimi Cherono Ng’ok, Delphine Diaw Diallo, Cyndia Harvey, Nadine Ijewere, Kadara Enyeasi, Namsa Leuba, Nobukho Nqaba, Lakin Ogunbanwo, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Kristin-Lee Moolman, William Ukoh and Kyle Weeks.

The 2018 edition, New African Photography III, features an all-woman lineup whose work is a glorious expression of the female gaze. From a range of fresh perspectives come contemporary works that seek to communicate new narratives relating to representation, gender, society and identity. Our artists include Fatoumata Diabaté, Rahima Gambo, Keyezua, Alice Mann, Ronan McKenzie and Ruth Ossai. On show at Labs in May, the exhibition is also a special project of the 1–54 Contemporary African Art Fair New York.

Labs is a public-benefit corporation founded by Jimmy Moffat, with locations in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and Downtown Los Angeles, dedicated to establishing creative communities and self-sustaining businesses in developing areas. Through its unique relationship with creative industries and commitment to education, events and programming, it connects continuing skills training to mentorship, internships and job placement. Labs is comprised of four individual labs: studio, production, gallery and school. These combine to make for a truly diverse and dynamic space, where the most talented emerging artists, alongside the most acclaimed, go to work, create, exhibit, teach, mentor, learn and collaborate.

All works exhibited at New African Photography I–III are for sale via Red Hook Labs and Artsy. Visit redhooklabs.com or artsy.net for further information.

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Malian artist Fatoumata Diabaté follows in the footsteps of her country’s revered canon of twentieth-century photographers, with her black-and-white portraiture and itinerant studio project, Studio Photo de al Rue. Born in Bamako, Diabaté trained at Centre de Formation Audiovisuel Promo-Femmes, and her work was first recognised at Rencontres de Bamako 2005, where she won the Afrique en Créations prize. Since then her clients have included Rolex, Oxfam and World Press Photo, and she has exhibited at Addis Photo Fest, Biennale Internationale de l’Art Contemporain de Casablanca, and Les Rencontres d’Arles. At Labs, Diabaté presents two projects, L’homme en Animal and L’homme en Objet.

FATOUMATA DIABATÉ

VALERIA COSTA-KOSTRITSKY

How did you become interested in photography?

FATOUMATA DIABATÉ

Photography came into my life when I decided to end my high-school studies in 2001 because of daily strikes, which weren’t helping me move forward. I had another ambition, namely to become self sufficient so that I could support my mother. I told everyone I met I needed a job. They asked me what kind of job I needed and I would say it didn’t matter because, as the Malian saying goes, “Bara lan golo tee maa lan golo de be” (“There’s no stupid job for me but there are stupid people”).

Then I heard of a school educating women in photography, which at that time was a man’s vocation, so I enrolled. I found my voice as a photographer quite easily as I was very determined and passionate from the beginning.

VCK What is the concept behind Studio Photo de al Rue? FD My parents were both immortalised in a portrait by

Seydou Keïta, who was our neighbour when I was growing up. So I created this travelling street installation to pay tribute to the great masters of African studio photography (Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, Samuel Fosso, Oumar Ly), whose work I have always admired, and to keep this tradition alive.

It’s also about reviving the technique to give different audiences the opportunity to have the shoot experience and the joy of being left with a beautiful memory for life. That is why I take Studio Photo de al Rue to different events around the world.

VCK What inspired L’homme en Animal and L’homme en Objet?

FD These works relate to Mali’s oral culture, which it has

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had since ancient times. Telling tales is part of our tradition.

When I was growing up, each evening we would meet around a wood fire and its flames were so poetic — thanks to the moral lessons we learned at the end of each tale. These stories have followed me throughout my life. The use of handmade mask objects and costumes in my work relates to the sacred dimensions of African masks and how, in most of these tales, humans, animals and objects are interconnected and possess invisible powers.

VCK What are you working on next?

FD My latest project is looking at black women who use skin

lightening products, and I’m also developing a third part to the L’homme en Animal and L’homme en Objet series.

1 S issako, 2011, L’homme en Animal, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 2 of 5 + 2AP, $1,150.

2 S issako, 2011, L’homme en Animal, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 1 of 5 + 2AP, $1,150.

3 M asque Matinal, Bamako, 2013, L’homme en Objet, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 1 of 5 + 2AP, $1,150.

4 Flen kôrô, Bamako, 2013, L’homme en Animal, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 1 of 10 + 2AP, $1,150.

5 K ara et ses oreilles, Bamako 2012, L’homme en Animal, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 2 of 10 + 2AP, $1,150.

6 Wara, Sikasso, 2011, L’homme en Animal, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 2 of 5 + 2AP, $1,150.

7 H yenne, Bamako, 2012, L’homme en Animal, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 1 of 5 + 2AP, $1,150.

8 T èmè, Bamako, 2014, L’homme en Objet, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 3 of 10 + 2AP, $1,150.

9 S anu den ke le kun sikigi den ke le, Bamako 2013, L’homme en Objet, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 1 of 5 + 2AP, $1,150.

10 V ieux Sâge, Bamako, 2012, L’homme en Animal, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 1 of 10 + 2AP, $1,150.

11 P etit Vaux, Bamako, 2014, L’homme en Objet, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 1 of 10 +2AP, $1,150 12 S inge Sage, Sikasso, 2011, L’homme en Objet, 16 x 20in, Inkjet on Canson Baryta, 2 of 5 + 2AP, $1,150.

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Ruth Ossai grew up in Southeastern Nigeria and is now based in West Yorkshire, UK. She is known for her portrait and studio photography that empowers Nigerian communities, by creating narratives with her subjects that celebrate their personal identities. Ossai, who also works in youth development in the UK and across Africa, recently collaborated with filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr on a special project for Kenzo, and has also shown at LagosPhoto. She now previews her latest series, a multimedia concept with fashion designer and recent Central Saint Martins’ graduate Mowalola Ogunlesi, at Labs.

RUTH OSSAI

HELEN JENNINGS What was your route into photography?

RUTH OSSAI I started snapping on my father’s BlackBerry, then on my own phone, and as a teenager my mother gave me a shoot-andgo camera. I wanted to photograph my life in Nigeria to show my other family in Yorkshire, and so would make lots of photo albums. The images were low quality but I still love this archive.

Ever since then, I’ve been documenting life in Nigeria and Igbo identity. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve shared these images with a larger audience.

HJ How do you approach your practice today?

RO I think about collaborations and commissions in depth.

Is it supportive of my culture and not just for profit?

How is it building the communities I am part of? For my personal work I don’t have to compromise my art, values or myself, and over time I’ve been able to invest in a fully holistic approach.

It’s important to be diligent in order to ensure you don’t lose your power, agency or autonomy.

HJ How do you like to work with your subjects?

RO I shoot my family and community members a lot. I want to show Nigerians as they are — how naturally beautiful they are with their own dynamism, style and sense of humour.

They assert what they want to wear and how they want to pose, so there is no pressure and they can be true to themselves. In this way, their unapologetic sense of pride and confidence comes through in my photographs. It’s not only my self-expression but an expression of my subjects, too.

HJ Where do you find inspiration?

RO I always look at Nigeria — and West Africa in general —

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through an artistic prism. I’m inspired by everyday life,Igbo music videos and homemade DVDs of special occasions. My use of backdrops is a reminder of the amazing special effects and scenes you see in Nollywood films. I also love setting up a studio in someone’s compound — we eat ebà and soup, listen to music and have fun. I like to get to know people first and then snap later, in that way I can include personal touches like props.

HJ Describe your new project with Mowalola Ogunlesi.

RO We wanted to shoot a highlife video in my community in Nsukka. We collaborated with the local band World Apostolate of Fatima, as well as Uncle Uche, who filmed it, and a group of youth dancers. The video and photo series it titled Nkata Anyi Abughi Otu (Our Discussion is Not the Same), which is a song about loyalty and intentions. We are making the photos into a book and we hope to show the whole project in London and Nigeria. The beauty of photography is that it starts a dialogue about who we are, where we come from and where we are going.

1 O lasunkanmi Abayomi for ‘Nkata anyi abughi otu’ X Mowalola, Lagos, Nigeria, 2018, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

2 World Apostolate of Fatima for ‘Nkata anyi abughi otu’ X Mowalola, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria, 2018, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

3 O meje Chibuike and Onah Sopulu for ‘Nkata anyi abughi otu’ X Mowalola, Nsukka, Enugu state, Nigeria, 2018, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

4 O lasunkanmi Abayomi for ‘Nkata anyi abughi otu’ X Mowalola, Lagos, Nigeria, 2018, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

5 E ze Marls Dubai and Ekwueme Christian for ‘Nkata anyi abughi otu’ X Mowalola, Nsukka, Enugu state, Nigeria, 2018, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

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6 S amuel Ugwuanyi for ‘Nkata anyi abughi otu’ X Mowalola, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria, 2018, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

7 E zeJoy, Kenzo ‘GIDI GIDI BU . UGWU EZE’ (Unity is strength), Summer 2017 campaign, Nsukka, Enugu state, Nigeria, 2017, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

8 N yaueth, London, UK, 2018, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

9 Eberechukwu Ngozi. Nsukka, Enugu state, Nigeria, 2017, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

10 U ncle Emeka, Orba, Enugu state, Nigeria, 2009, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

11 Uche and ChiChi Okolo, Lagos, Nigeria, 2012, 16.5 x 23.4in, 1 of 11, $800.

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Much of Keyezua’s work focuses on representations of cultural identity, combined with issues of gender and shared personal experiences. The Luanda-based visual artist was born in Angola and raised in the Netherlands, where she studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague. Her latest project, Fortia (2017), featuring figures in blood-red ballgowns wearing full-face masks posed against craggy desert rocks, incorporates photography, text and audio, and explores her emotions about the death of her father.

Here she speaks on women’s voices and the celebration of life through loss.

KEYEZUA

NOSMOT GBADAMOSI

You produced Fortia as a homage to your father’s

disability, can we discuss this?

KEYEZUA

“Fortia” is a Latin word for strength. My father had both of his legs amputated in the last years of his life because of a sickness. I lost my father very young, and by talking about this I wanted to interact with other people that were going through the same type of experiences. I also wanted to explore disability in a very different way, because the images that I’d been looking for online, just to understand what my father was going through, existed as an NGO image or an image of pity or sadness. In the last days of my father’s life I could see that there was something more meaningful, more beautiful than that.

NG What do the masks symbolise in the images?

K Traditionally African masks were made for rituals and

have specific uses. For this project, each mask was handmade especially by a group of disabled male artists, and each one relates to certain points in my life when I had the most difficulty growing up. You have one mask that says, ‘This is not a funeral, this is life,’ which is about the moment I understood that when someone dies, there is still a lot of their life left on this earth. The emotions that stay, the happiness that stays; the things that you learned with the person. I went through this process of thinking that if this mask should exist, it should have meaning and be part of a new ritual.

NG You’ve talked before about “breaking the prejudice against Africa through the media”. What is the role of photography in this?

K As a photographer I try to be very careful about the images that I create because I don’t want to contribute to the negative images of Africa. When a work is exhibited, you are

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starting a conversation and confronting visitors with the things you want to talk about. There is no such thing as ‘African photography’ — my images come from my perspective as an Angolan, Dutch, female artist telling stories that need to be put out there. We don’t need the recognition of CNN or a politician to be seen and heard.

NG The #metoo campaign is starting to filter through Africa, what do you think about this?

K It’s difficult to talk about these issues in Angola because

the campaign is much more active in countries that speak English. But as a Portuguese-speaking country, we are also making noises about the rights of women at the moment and women feel more able to protest. Now that it is easier to visit Angola because of visa requirement changes, I believe this also permits us to continue to develop what we understand as a #metoo campaign.

NG So what’s next?

K Now that Black Panther is out, people are a lot more

curious about Africa and asking, ‘What is this Wakanda about?’ I want to continue to be a contributor of positive images from my part of the continent, and to hopefully continue to have conversations outside of my comfort zone in the countries where it is needed the most.

1 Afroeucentric Face On, 2016, 23.4 x 16.5in, Digital C Print, 1 of 5 + AP, $2,800.

2 Afroeucentric Face On, 2016, 23.4 x 16.5in, Digital C Print, 1 of 5 + AP, $2,800.

3 S ailing Back to Africa as a Dutch Woman, 2017, Fortia, 33.3 x 46.8in, Digital C Print, 1 of 3 + AP, $4,000.

4 N othing, 2017, 16.5 x 11.7in, Digital C Print, 1 of 5 + AP, $2,000.

5 R oyal Generation, 2016, 33.3 x 46.8in, Digital C Print, 2 of 5 +AP, $5,000.

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I Am Not a Demon Who am I?, 2016, 23.4 x 16.5in, Digital C Print, 1 of 5 + AP, $1,500.

7 W hen Abortion Was Illegal!, 2015, 16.5 x 11.7in, Digital C Print, 1 of 5 + AP, $1,500.

8 S tone Orgasms, 2016, 23.4 x 16.5in, Digital C Print, 1 of 3 + AP, $3,500.

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Schooled in England, Nigerian photographer Rahima Gambo sees her country through two sets of eyes. The eyes of a child born in Lagos and with a home in Abuja, and the eyes of a British school and university student with a journalism masters from Columbia University. Gambo’s exploration of photography and video began during her time in New York, and continued to develop when she returned to Abuja, aged 21. Her previous series, Exiled from Home, focuses on the growing number of gay Nigerian men who have fled to the United States seeking asylum and a more liberal society. Her current multimedia project, Education is Forbidden, shares the experiences of students in schools and universities in northeast Nigeria after the Boko Haram insurgency, and offers an intimate glimpse into the young people’s interior worlds.

RAHIMA GAMBO

KATIE DE KLEE Do you believe documentary photography should always be truthful and objective?

RAHIMA GAMBO

Truth is subjective. I always approach a story with the intent to tell my version of the truth. My worldview and biases determine the kind of images I create. So a certain intervention on myself has to take place before I start making images.

I always question my assumptions and stay open to looking at them with a certain critical awareness.

KDK Tell us about the inspiration for Education is Forbidden.

RG The idea for the project was sparked after the Chibok girls were abducted from their secondary school and attacks on schools and students were occurring on a regular basis. I wanted to find out how students were experiencing this. My hometown is in northeastern Nigeria, so I was naturally drawn to the issue.

KDK How do you want people to respond to your work?

RG My intention is to present an alternative to what anyone

may expect from a certain story. So at the very least, they might find the images refreshing. I make a point of staying away from visual clichés.

KDK What is your creative process?

RG I always begin with an inquiry, a question that takes me

into a sort of reporting and research phase where I do a lot of audio interviews with my subjects. It is from these conversations that I find visual cues and directions. Making images is usually the last step in a long process.

KDK RG

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Did you spend a lot of time with the students in the images?

I interviewed many students. They all had a range

of experiences, but what drew them together was a sense of vulnerability, a sense that they were going through this event that could determine the trajectory of their lives. I wrote about their experiences on the Education is Forbidden website.

KDK What kind of impression did they leave on you?

RG Their memories became my memories. They were

very much independent thinkers; each student I met had their own analysis of their situation and relationship to the Nigerian government.

KDK How does Education is Forbidden compare with the rest of your work?

RG Education is Forbidden was my first attempt to find

my voice as a storyteller and an artist, rather than as a photojournalist telling a certain story for news publishers.

R AHIMA GAMBO is currently working on the Education is Forbidden photobook, which will be published by Fourthwall Books in Cape Town 1 A mina and Zainab playing a clapping game, 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800.

2 R uth, Amina and the three Aisha’s play ‘In and Out’, 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $1,000 3 H adiza and Ruth play ‘In and Out’, 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800.

4 Amina playing ‘In and Out’, 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800.

5 R uth playing ‘In and Out’, 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800.

6 S chool girls with candles (1), 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800.

7 S chool girls with candles (2), 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800.

8 S chool girls with candles (3), 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800.

9 R ukkaya and Hadiza, 2016, Education is Forbidden, 16x20in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $500.

10 S chool girls crossing river (1), 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800 11 S chool girls crossing river (2), 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800 12 School girls crossing river (3), 2017, Tatsuniya, 27x40in, Digital print on archival paper, 1 of 7, $800.

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Born in east London, Ronan Mckenzie, 23, became a photographer after dropping out of a BA in fashion communication at Central Saint Martins in 2014. In just four years, she’s put on a solo show, created her own publication and shot for i-D, Wonderland and Vogue Paris. She also counts Nike, Stella McCartney and Adidas among her clients. Her work offers a frank and intimate celebration of the female body and soul.

RONAN MCKENZIE

MARIE-LOUISE VON HASELBERG You started out as a stylist. How did you make the move to photography?

RONAN MCKENZIE I met the photographer Piczo at a party and agreed to style a test shoot for him. On the day, I brought my camera and started taking my own pictures. He was so generous, he gave me the space to experiment. That was my lucky break.

MLVH How did you begin working in film?

RM My boyfriend had an old film camera so I borrowed it and started shooting on the auto setting — I wasn’t technical at all. I taught myself by watching photography lessons on YouTube. I was working part-time and living at home, so I was free to learn with no pressure.

MLVH Tell us about your ongoing project, Girls.

RM I went to an all-girls school so I’ve always been really connected to other females. In addition to all the model tests I’ve done, I’ve also shot portraits of my friends and my mother. I want to celebrate all women.

MLVH Your aesthetic is minimal and exudes a distinct confidence.

RM There’s honesty in simplicity. I don’t like to explain my process too much, but I want to create an arena where every woman can exist and be beautiful. I’m incorporating more older women in my work at the moment. I recently completed a Kodak Woman campaign piece entitled Creativity Doesn’t Discriminate, for which I shot a 55-year-old woman. I don’t think that as you get older you become less beautiful.

MLVH Can you tell me about your first exhibition, A Black Body, in 2015?

RM It was at Dalston’s Doomed Gallery and was originally

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meant to be a group show about the lack of portrayal of black people. It was instigated by my friend Rachel, who was one of the only black people on her MA at the Royal College of Art, and we both needed to explore this absence of visibility. She had to pull out, so it became a solo show and it snowballed from there. i-D reviewed the show and then other publications followed.

MLVH Were there any stand-out moments?

RM One 14-year-old girl messaged me after the show saying it had made her feel more confident, and that it was okay to only showcase black people in her creative work, if that’s what she wanted to do.

MLVH You created your own magazine, Hard Ears. What was the motivation for this?

RM I wanted to create something non-elitist that related to me and my friends. I wanted something beautiful and full of incredible content by talented people — regardless of how famous they were.

MLVH Why did you call it Hard Ears?

RM My mother used to say to me, “‘Hard ears won’t hear, own way will feel”. To me it means, if you don’t listen you have to learn your own way. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

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arieyat X Baserange, 2016, 23.4 x 33.1in, M Digital C style print on Fujifilm DP2 matt, 1 of 5, $950.

2 J oviale, Marieyat X Baserange, 2016, 23.4 x 33.1in, Digital C style print on Fujifilm DP2 matt, 1 of 5, $950.

3 A shanti, 2018, Girls, 23.4 x 33.1in, Digital C style print on Fujifilm DP2 matt, 1 of 5, $950.

4 Zen, 2017, Girls, 23.4 x 33.1in, Digital C style print on Fujifilm DP2 matt,

1 of 5, $950.

5 M arieyat X Baserange, 2016, 23.4 x 33.1in, Digital C style print on Fujifilm DP2 matt, 1 of 5, $950.

6 Elizabeth, 2017, Girls, 23.4 x 33.1in, Digital C style print on Fujifilm DP2 matt, 1 of 5, $950.

7 M amu wearing Marietat, 2017, 23.4 x 33.1in, Digital C style print on Fujifilm DP2 matt, 1 of 5, $950.

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