My cousin and I trotted down to Stratford on a sunny Sunday to visit. I’ve been raving about the exhibition all week, so, it is safe to say I enjoyed it.

Thoughts

In a bid to right colonial wrongs, various disciplines have tried to ‘make the subaltern speak.’ When applied to History, the question that is asked is, how do we ‘make the subaltern speak’ in respective historical archives? Is there a distinction between History and Black History, or is there a need to make such a distinction?

The existence of The Music is Black: A British Story is not about proving the value of black people throughout History by focusing on exceptional people. It is about explaining the spaces they have been systematically erased from in the archive and public consciousness.

The depiction of racism in the Postwar years and the late 20th century

Britain has a race problem. The subsidiary of this race problem is the instinct to deny said problem. Britain, its media, its politicians and its laymen tend to view racism as only existing in the heydays of colonialism.

Apparently, the creation of the welfare state and the influx of Commonwealth migrants to support it reversed centuries of racism and its ideologies to usher in a utopian, multicultural Britain.

Thankfully, the exhibition did not subscribe to this narrative. It explained the Postwar years, with a focus on the lived experiences of black people at the hands of racist systems and individuals. It explicitly states that multiple genres that Britain has enjoyed for decades were reactions to racism.

The Music is Black: A British Story referenced the horrors and brutality that black people, such as Kelso Cochrane who was murdered in 1958 by a white racist gang, were subjected to in the Postwar years.¹ It was beautiful to see Claudia Jones and Rhaune Laslett credited for the formation of Notting Hill Carnival, using music as one of the many vehicles to fight against racism on an institutional and interpersonal level.

In the present, Notting Hill Carnival is uplifted as one the symbols of British multiculturalism. But, what is often overshadowed in the varied conversations about Carnival is the monumental history it created, it is a piece of Black British history

Notting Hill Carnival is a living reminder of the lives that were claimed by violent racism and the activism, including music, that emerged in response to this. This is what we should be celebrating.

It has always been bigger than music. Music is referential, always nodding to the context it is being made in. Nothing is created nor exists in a vacuum. The Music is Black: A British Story captures aptly. Each genre in the exhibition is set in its own world for us to understand how and why the music was created.

The curators can applaud themselves for refusing to ignore or underplay the heinous racism that framed the political landscape of these genres. Attempts to create a standard of right and wrong when mining through colonial history often garner accusations of race-baiting or being too woke, I am glad the curators and the V&A did not cower in the face of these threats.

A further exploration of U.K. Drill music?

I enjoyed the willingness of the curators to engage with the grittiness of the music genres; I would have liked to see this approach applied to a more extensive section on Drill.

I would like to call myself a U.K. Drill truther. My credentials are the endless hours I spent on YouTube watching Drill music videos and then downloading the audio on Tubidy as a teen. You can even ask my mum. At one point, she was so worried, she forced me to perform Think Again by 410 for her as a method for me to confront the vulgarity of the song, and by extension, the genre.

But seriously, as someone born in the early 2000s, I can testify that Drill music was one of the soundtracks for many young, black teenagers across the country in the 2010s. To this day, my agemates make Tik Toks reminiscing on our teenage years, in which we would listen to Drill music through poorly insulated Poundshop wired headphones on the way to secondary school.

Of course, the ethics of the genre can be debated. As someone who has never been anything more than a consumer, I cannot and will not attempt to speak over the experiences of people in the scene who have lived it or their loved ones who have experienced the consequences of the content they rap about.

Nevertheless, I think the impact of U.K. Drill music cannot be denied. It offered discussions or at least reflections, from the young people themselves, on pertinent issues such as child criminal exploitation, youth recidivism, misogyny and coping with grief at a young age.

As a teenager it was interesting, to say the least, to witness the constant discourse on Drill music and the rise in knife crime. News channels attributed the graphic nature of Drill music and the culture of ‘scoring points’ in songs as one of the leading reasons for the rise in knife crime. In 2018, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, laid the responsibility for the rise in murders in London that year Drill’s feet, arguing that it “glamourises violent crime” and is proliferated by social media.²

I think there are a few routes the curators could have taken to explore U.K. drill. One of them could have been the championing of the scene itself, shining a light on its pioneers, collectives, individual rappers and producers. Who would the curators crown as the Fathers of U.K. Drill, Section Boyz (now Smoke Boys) or 67?

Another topic I think the exhibition could have broached is the decline in collectives and the subsequent emergence of solo artists in the genre. Think of the solo careers of Loski, Blanco and MizOrMac from Harlem Spartans or Kwengface from Peckham’s Zone 2 or the splintering of North London’s Drill collective OFB. The decline and eventual separation of such groups was due to incarceration of the members themselves and the deaths of their peers.

This paired with the coordinated censorship of Drill music by the police and corporations meant the genre was being dismantled whilst it grew. In 2019, the West London Drill collective 1011 were banned from making music without police permission.³ The following year, AM and Skengdo, the Brixton Drill duo 410, were given a suspended sentence for breaching a gang injunction that prohibited them from mentioning other Drill rappers.⁴ Their performance of Attempted 1.0 was cited as evidence of them defying the injunction.⁵ More widely, the Metropolitan Police worked with YouTube to remove certain Drill songs from the platform, as a result, YouTube removed 50 to 60 Drill music videos between 2016 and 2018.⁶

In the wake of the 2010s moral panic surrounding U.K. Drill, it would have been interesting for the exhibition to examine how the genre was collapsed and to question its legacy. What remains of U.K. Drill in the present day, will it sire new genres? How have solo acts, such as Digga D, adapted to continue making music in the face of loss, incarceration and gang injunctions?

The exclusion of U.K. Drill from the archive of Black British music was intentional. But why? Was it was too contentious or just simply too new?

References:

1. https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/origins-notting-hill-carnival/

2. YouTube deletes more than half of violent music videos flagged by Met

3. New Research Confirms Banning UK Drill Does More Harm Than Good, Drill rap gang 1011 banned from making music with violent lyrics in landmark case

4. The Real Story Behind Skengdo & AM’s Public Controversies

5. Skengdo and AM: the drill rappers sentenced for playing their song

6. YouTube deletes 30 music videos after Met link with gang violence

ADÉLA has quickly become one of my pop favourites. The 22 year old, signed to Capitol Records, hails from Bratislava and garnered international attention on the survival series The Debut: Dream Academy as one of Hybe’s trainees competing for a place in their global girl group. She is now a solo artist and released Ain’t in LA last Thursday.

It’s 3 minutes and 3 seconds of complete storytelling. In typical Adrienne fashion, I kept the song on loop until I couldn’t get it out of my head and its prompted me to write about it.

Not everyone is a 20 something forging their celebrity in Los Angeles like ADÉLA. But, I have plenty of friends and family who have recounted their experiences of leaving behind everything they know, their community, the pillars of their childhood and their loved ones in the pursuit of a new life in the big city.

ADÉLA aptly spins a web in Ain’t in LA that connects these experience, passing the microphone to people who have left home for survival, people who have left home because they believe it is too small for them, people who are in the process of becoming and people who simply want to experience what it feels like to live in a metropolis.

ADÉLA is caught between rational thinking and her desires. She acknowledges that home is not the place for her. She echoes the practical advice she has grown up receiving, that “her dreams don’t live at home.” She refers to the walls in her childhood room being covered in posters of her musical inspirations, such as Madonna and Destiny’s Child. Stars in their own right who catapulted into stardom in the States.

I think this is something that resonates with people specifically from rural areas and small towns. Depending on where they are, it’s been a tale throughout history that rural working class areas often lack the infrastructure required to bring dreams of commercial success to fruition.

In Ain’t in LA, ADÉLA doesn’t express regret in her decision to migrate to the City of Dreams. But she still longs for home despite knowing migration was and remains the better option. She wishes to stay home for just a little longer, only for ‘tonight’ to savour all the things there that she has learnt to live without in Los Angeles.

ADÉLA’s perspective is even more unique. Despite being born and partially raised in Slovakia’s capital city of Bratislava, it’s still a post-Soviet country, with the state and its inhabitants in the process of carving out their national identity in the wake of “the end of history” and the emergence of postmodernism.

In the 21st century, where do countries like Slovakia fit on the global stage? Does it still matter if they are referred to as post-Soviet, or post-Communist, or a Central European or Eastern European nation? With such nuanced questions at hand, of course there is minimal investment in the grooming of young women into Western popstars. For ADÉLA, Slovakia is home and the birthplace of her dreams but giving it life required migration.

ADÉLA show us that dreams will always cost more than you imagined. It pours through in the refrain, “the baddest bitches in LA” It captures the removal of the rose-tinted glasses and finally seeing a true, unadulterated image of the big city. The sacrifice and the emptiness of trying to establish yourself in a metropolis where dreams either rise or die.

There’s a question of whether the dream is still worth it, does the whisper of a new life compensate for starting over again?

The “baddest bitches ain’t in LA” is a reminder that home is truly where the heart is. Yes, she is in Los Angeles fulfilling her purpose but it is still not enough. No amount of stardom or security can replace and replicate the feeling of home, of familiarity and the first place that knew you. And so it rings true, for ADÉLA, that the “baddest bitches ain’t in LA” they’re back home in Slovakia.

And so?

With the song trending on Tik Tok, people are inserting their hometown or city into the song. These are people from both cities as well as small towns, indicating a shared understanding of what it means to leave home for the big cities in which opportunities are concentrated in.

There are countless pieces of art which narrate stories of people who leave their small town to make it in the big city and the visage of that can be anywhere from London to Los Angeles to Tokyo.Think Jessie on Disney Channel or Demi Lovato in Sonny with a Chance or Will Smith in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air or Desmond Ambrose in Desmond’s.

The ‘immigrant experience’ occupies it owns sphere in the world of literature too. Ain’t in LA reminded me of Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi’s fictional character Ifemelu who migrates to America for her university degree, or Tayeb Salih’s enigmatic Mustafa Sa’eed who leaves his village in the Sudan for Cairo and then later London, or Antiguan migrant Barrington Walker in Bernadine Evaristo’s Mr Loverman who built a life in Dalston, Hackney with similar motivations as my parents in the early 2000s.

Each fictional character has a range of themes that create their story from discovering blackness as an identity to suppressed homosexuality; they are united in the feeling that they had to move. ADÉLA also builds herself into this community with her motivation of becoming a popstar urging her migration from Slovakia to London to Los Angeles.

Sometimes dreams and opportunities are so suffocating that they can only be brought to life by doing them justice, and in the case of people like ADÉLA, doing them justice means saying farewell to home, hedging their bets on the big city and hoping that it all falls into place.

It all clicked on my commute from work on the Windrush Line. Spring has ushered in some breath-taking sunsets, and whilst I was appreciating it, Touching God hummed in my ears. I have a tendency to daydream, especially on train journeys, but that line forced me back to the present. It felt like it just found me.

“I know You [God] made me but I hate myself.”

~Daniel Caesar, Touching God, Son of Spergy, (2025)

It found me because it captured carefully concealed feelings that I’ve had about my sexuality. I spent years believing my devotion to the same-sex was evidence that I was defective. God had got it wrong when it had come to me, I felt I wasn’t worth correcting. It hurt and this hurt morphed into an ugly anger. I hated the world around me, and on the most honest nights, I hated God too.

It was a difficult balancing act between that and pretension.

I convinced myself that I had somehow snuck onto God’s earth and ruined his wonderful creation, the population made in his image. I believed the fault lied with me. So I pushed it down. It was my fault, my sin to atone for. I don’t have a neat answer for myself, much less for you on how you respond to religious guilt in a healthy way. Even though I’ve been on this journey for 9 years, I still struggle sometimes. I have to actively remind myself that it is okay, that my relationship or just my belief in God is something that I decide. Sometimes, I am transported back to the place of unshed tears and endless mantras of self-loathing.

Being gay has been part of my identity, and dangerously close to a personality trait for a while. But there was a time where I spent years burying a significant part of me. One particular memory stands out from this time period. I laugh at it today, but, in the moment I was mortified.

In sixth form, I joined Jesus Club at lunchtime. The year 13 facilitating the session pointed me (the newcomer) out as an example and said “imagine Adrienne was GAY.” Blood flooded my cheeks and my stomach turned, in that moment I thanked every ancestor and dominant gene which gave me my dark skin. I was afraid that God or even the devil had made them aware of my shortcoming. It’s safe to say that was my last time at Jesus Club.

After 9 years, it becomes much easier to perform being blasé. To dismiss homophobic remarks as a sheen of a loved one’s ignorance, because they don’t know any better. To sneer flippantly at rhetoric which declares that it’s unnatural. Seeming unbothered makes things easier. For who, I’m still not sure.

It feels easier to blame it on the world, on right-wing grifters and bigoted politicians, because sometimes, those who do take you back to that place of fear and denial are the people you love. They’re the people who have whispered I love you since you can remember, who remind you that they used to bathe you as a naked baby, they press thoughtful kisses on your cheek at departures at the airport.

And maybe I should let them go. Because love isn’t conditional, and it shouldn’t be offered once you squeeze yourself into a box to become right for them. But I love them and with enough delusion, I pray that making myself digestible will be enough for them to see that I’m still me. To love me unconditionally too.

“Lately I’ve been thinking that perhaps I am a coward.”

Daniel Caesar, Who Knows, Son of Spergy (2025)

And I love music! Music is one of the greatest gifts that humanity has been given. When artists and rappers use their art to mull over life’s big questions, it helps me with my own personal experiences.

In a bid to empower and uplift ourselves, I fear we’ve retreated to attaching shame to certain emotions, consequently leaving them suppressed beneath the surface. I thank artists like Frank Ocean everyday for voicing thoughts that are typically thought of as shameful or cringe. The line, “I’ll sleep between yall it’s nothing.” in Self Control is something. To beg to become the third party in your ex-paramour’s new relationship just to be close to them is earnest, it feels true. But it would be met with tomatoes in the present day if he wasn’t Frank Ocean.

There is beauty in the earnest, I adore when artists show us this, symbolically by sharing their journeys with us but also literally by making these journeys sound good. They say what many of us are afraid to vocalise. We may say it to ourselves, or pen it in secret in our journals or type endlessly in our notes app. But they sit with these feelings from thought to publication and refine them and then share them with us.

I’ve picked four songs that feel raw, and as I explain their personal meaning to me, I hope you can feel it too.

Charli XCX: party 4 u

“And I’m waiting for you by the window”

“Leave a message tell me, you’re sorry”

The first time I heard party 4 u, I was moved beyond belief. It’s an unravelling, a trajectory of honesty, earnestness and finally, resignation.

In the song, Charli agonises over the effort she poured into someone who clearly doesn’t care. She pleads for them to come back so that they can retreat to the world they created together. She begs for them to acknowledge and apologise for the harm they’ve inflicted on her, with the promise that they can return to that world, as long as they care.

But she knows they don’t care; due to this, they’re unworthy of being a recipient of her dedication. She embraces both of these as facts and it produces the longing which is so palpable on the song. She walks us along the path of waiting for someone that will never come, or at least never appear in your life as they used to.

By the end of the song, her intuition is confirmed; she knows hope is a dangerous thing because it defies logic and empiricism. party 4 u is a cycle of knowing that it’s foolish to hope and doing it anyway, trying just in case this time is different to the last time even though you know deep down it won’t be. It’s pathetic, it’s frustrating, it’s embarrassing. You relinquish your power and dignity to the other person by giving them another chance to dig around in the emotional marks their disregard leaves.

Eventually you understand. It sets in that no party, regardless of it’s extravagance, or ‘final’ attempt at closure, or well thought out gesture will change what has already been wrecked. So you adapt, but that hope lays dormant beneath the surface with the threat of reigniting into something ugly once again with just the right amount of friction.

Lucki: My Way/Codeine Cowboy

“I could see how much I miss you through the styrofoam”

“Dreamer and a lover I play God when I get bored”

I became a real Lucki fan in 2024, after what can only be described as a series of unfortunate (albeit self-inflicted) events.

I think the first line is the catalyst of the two songs, both leading up to this declaration. Across both songs, Lucki raps about how he’s surrounded by women, money and fame - but as the line conveys, ultimately he’s drowning in his own agony. Despite self-medicating dangerously, he still cannot dull or forget the longing that he feels for his ex-lover - it continues to gnaw at him. The projection of him being a drug-abusing philanderer is merely that, it’s a façade to protect a fickle and sensitive heart that has been broken.

Out of fear, he destroys any semblance of a healthy relationship because he doesn’t want it to end like how it did last time. In this confession wrapped up in partying, drugs and women he lets us in to be vulnerable with him. We might not share in his indulgence for promethazine but we can share in the torturous feeling of unrequited yearning for someone. It accompanies him as this lingering ubiquitous shadow despite possessing everything he could possibly desire.

The battle with ego is a tireless refrain throughout Lucki’s music. He admits to his listeners, and more importantly himself, that the rockstar lifestyle that he regales us with in his music is an attempt to satisfy his ego and distract himself from the gaping hole of heartbreak.

SZA: Drew Barrymore

“Is it warm enough for ya inside me”

“Lonely enough to let me treat you like this”

The entirety of Drew Barrymore feels like a question posed to a lover. I imagine it as SZA physically and metaphorically auditioning in front of her lover. With each question, she contorts herself, folding her limbs awkwardly to try and live up to what she believes is the idealised version of her.

Much like Charli and Lucki, it’s pathetic and we can look at it with disdain. But if we’re honest with ourselves, I think we can find that we too have been guilty or victims of auditioning for another persons affection, studying ourselves to find the imperfection or the spot that we believe mars us and would justify being discarded or treated poorly.

It’s sad and it should be met with tenderness. Instead of hurling polemics at artists like SZA who wear their vulnerability bravely, we should be talking about why people feel the pressure to live up to an unattainable, idealised version of themselves and how we can support them in unburdening themselves from the punishment of perfectionism. Dismissing it as “low self-esteem music” is boring. I think it’s a way to avoid looking at what the mirror reflects to you. To evade feeling how scathing and disarming honesty can be.

Ceebo: the gospel (as according to tony blair)

“Dry your eyes it’ll be okay, money takes all that pain one day”

“Father can’t you see, I can hardly breathe”

Firstly, let’s give a round of applause for the choir at the beginning - superb.

Ceebo removes the rose-tinted glasses that we view the 2020s through. the gospel (as according to tony blair) serves as a poignant reminder that the struggles of blair babies, economically and interpersonally, aren’t always indicative of a personal failing. Rather, these belong to systems which are failing us and the generations on either side of us.

How do young adults, who were promised the world as children, cope and navigate a world that is caving in on itself?

Adulthood as a blair baby feels suffocating, the cry that he can hardly breathe is apt. Beneath the buzzballs, games nights, and nights lost to Hayatt or Pergola, there lies the deeper question every young adult must face - what am I actually doing with my life?

It’s quickly followed by the crushing realisation that only you have the answer for that, and the infrastructure that supported the generations before you is also crumbling which is just grand! For me, this realisation gets papered over by the promise that it’s all worth it in the end. Walking blindly in your career, blundering through relationships and feeling disconnected from your friends are superficially assuaged by the promise that the pursuit of money remedies all.

In this age of information, it feels criminal to not know something. But ChatGPT or Copilot cannot account for the human experience, it doesn’t itemise how to be a 20 something.

And that’s when I learnt about my cousin Rory.

Well, he was my mum’s first cousin, who died as a teenager because he drowned. Until I watched Hamnet (2025), I hadn’t thought of Rory beyond tales of our family genealogy. It can be hard to assign sons and daughters, second and third cousins to aunts and uncles that I can’t recall meeting. Nevertheless, when I watched Hamnet (with my mum), all I could think about was my cousin Rory.

On the surface, it makes sense, in Hamnet, the namesake isn’t supposed to die. It’s his sister Judith who was on her deathbed - who was expected to die young as she had been born with complications and subsequently struggled with sickness in her youth. Rory wasn’t supposed to die, at least not when he did. And in his earthly absence, nieces and nephews have abounded, cousins have birthed second (and hopefully third) cousins, our family matriarch and patriarch have also transitioned.

When I was younger and my mum used to tell me stories about Rory, the one thing that stuck was her narration of his funeral. I’ve only been to two funerals, and my mum’s advice rang throughout both. When my mum attended Rory’s funeral, as an adult, she recounts that she made the ‘mistake’ of looking into his open casket. It changed her view of Rory irrevocably, she always stresses that the body in the casket wasn’t Rory, it wasn’t her Rory, it wasn’t the way she wanted to remember him.

I was reminded of Rory in the latter half of Hamnet, when Agnes (his mum) and Judith surrounded Hamnet’s dead body it reminded me of my cousin Rory. Even referring to him with a personal article feels wrong because I never met him, I’ve never seen a picture of him, I only know of him through short recounts of his daring nature and his barrage of foil castles.

I was reminded of Rory in that scene because it took me back to my grandma’s funeral in Jamaica in 2022. It was hot, and one of the few times I had been in a church in my early adolescence. The way that everything looked ran contrary to my preconceived notions of funerals. We were all dressed in bright pastel colours, vibrancy and noise tumbled in the air, everywhere you turned you could hear snatches of conversations walking through memories of Miss Girly - longing for her many wonderful meals or memories of her fixing somebody’s business in that voice of hers that only garnered acquiescence.

In the midst of it all, my mum’s advice played like a refrain, “don’t look in the casket, walk right past it.” It remained at the forefront, beyond watery smiles, Scripture recitals and impromptu performances from the audience.

When the time came to walk past the open casket of my grandmother to exit the Church, every fibre in my being resisted what I had been taught and I risked a glance. It didn’t cause a caesura, nor did it stick out as a moment of rebellion. It was just another nauseating reminder that my grandmother was no longer here with us, and what we had been left with, in this instance her final form, was still not her.

When I watched the scene of Agnes and Judith around Hamnet on his deathbed, it was another moment for me to connect with the fictional characters. I felt connected to Agnes when she allowed Judith to see her brother one last time, instead of trying to shield her brutal truth of death and end. Hamnet’s mortal end runs parallel to the death of Agnes’ mother - who she lost when she was only a girl. Chloe Zhao, the director of Hamnet, makes the viewers relive the agonising memory of loss with Agnes as she is reminded of her mother whilst losing her son in front of her.

Agnes as a girl is dragged away kicking and screaming from her deceased mother, ostracised from the event death with the intention of protecting her. In the case of Hamnet, Agnes does not exact this same fate onto Judith, she digs around in her pain and grief to allow her daughter that agency. Agnes lets Judith choose to see Hamnet in a way that she never has, to potentially rupture her entire memory of her twin brother. She grants Judith the opportunity of closure, even if its scary.

At the end of last year, I began attending a grief workshop at work. It centres on spirituality, religion and culture as influences on grief. It’s been simultaneously incredible and intense, I somehow leave every session in tears.

It speaks to a part of me that I keep hidden on the daily. It’s fleshy and pink, almost red, raw from the friction of being contained. When it’s allowed to be free, to showcase itself in rare occasions of reminiscing or carefully cultivated spaces of vulnerability, this piece of flesh contracts and expands, trying to get accustomed to the freedom before its forcefully crammed into the purgatory of forgetting and suppressing.

One of the main takeaways that I’ve had is that grief doesn’t need to be pathologised. We don’t have to be qualified to speak, or more importantly, listen and support those in our community who are grieving. Admittedly, I’ve been guilty of shying away from conversations with my loved ones who have experienced immense loss because I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth or be unable to console them. And that’s okay.

But in crying my eyes out amongst strangers, and exchanging stories of grief and culture with said strangers I’ve learnt how to be quiet in such interactions. How to be still when someone narrates the evolving story of their grief, how they long for their person and how the loss continues to influence who they are today. I’ve learnt that there is no solution and sometimes people just want to talk and then hear you talk so you can both cry together and reflect wryly on a time when things were different.

I’m not saying this was the intention of Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell (the author of the novel Hamnet which was adapted into the film). But, I think they captured grief, more specifically, the ritual around it so beautifully that it feels open. You can be like me and substitute Hamnet for Rory or my grandmother, and then place yourself as the living who are eternally on the fringes of the dead, being Agnes and Judith just as my mum and I are to them.

FACT: My sister is 3 years older than me

FACT: My sister and I are very different

FACT: My sister is my best friend

My sister is only 3 years older than me. For most mums, this is the dream, two little girls to dress similarly as cute dolls. Unfortunately for all of us, my sister and I are markedly different with me falling more on the tomboy side and my sister being the antithesis of such. Aesthetics aside, we always had a strong bond growing up, but as she ventured into her teenage years and I was what felt like cryo-freezed as a preteen, distance naturally emerged. Both of us were urged to be more like the other, I was encouraged to be more social and verbose like her and she was encouraged to be more studious. Nevertheless, there were still pockets in that period that felt like she was the only person that I could seek refuge in.

My sister is my best friend. Everyone says that your siblings are built in best friends but this was a choice. We decided to be each others’ person. Every day, she wakes up and she chooses to love me.

As I’ve previously shared, I struggled to make friends when I was a child and even as a teenager. One thing I’ll always remember was my sister bringing home a WWF panda (a token you receive for sponsoring a panda in a foreign country). WWF had come to her school and informed her class of the program, with each student receiving a small toy panda. She was delighted, it was so cute. I had had a rough day at school, another day dedicated to pretending that loneliness was a choice. I confided in her and she gave me the panda, she said he was the symbol of our friendship and he marked us as best friends for life.

She was the first person that I ‘came out’ to. In primary school, we used to share a room and have separate beds. But, I was still scared of the dark and would crawl into her bed and squeeze in with her. She didn’t complain. She just waited for me to say whatever was on my mind and responded in that easy almost flippant nature, which reassured me that the noise that I felt trapped was simply just that, a concoction of noise that we would wade through together whenever I felt ready. I used to crawl into my sister’s bed and we would play a game of who we would kiss (in our respective year groups) in a game of kiss chase. My sister never poked fun at me or asked for a wider reason of why I got her to play these games with me. She just entertained me for however many moments it took, let night stretch into day and didn’t speak a word of it until I slinked back into her bed with a new subject of interest.

The love my sister holds for me is unconditional. Despite our differences, she has always tried earnestly to understand me. She’s sat with me in my melancholy, she’s rejoiced with me in my achievements, she’s often the balm to what feels like boundless, nausea-inducing anger. Every panic attack that I’ve had, she’s always been right there. Earlier this year, at work, I could feel one coming on and she was the first person I called. As the phone rang, I stared at the pristine, white walls and waited for her to answer. It wasn’t a question of if, I knew she would.

The words tumbled out and she sat patiently on the other side. Only after I had divulged the extent of my crisis, did she speak. My sister has never given me empty advice. I often joke that she taught me how to be a sentient human (its true), from elbowing me when I used to make tactless comments loudly in public, to walking through endless possibilities of a single scenario. She has always been able to talk me off the ledge - refusing to just tell me to get down, instead joining me in a seated position with our legs swinging and talking to me until I’ve felt confident enough to get up and retreat to safety.

The Adrienne of today is a kaleidoscope of memories and experiences and lessons from everyone that I’ve ever loved and who has ever loved me, but the person holding the camera is my big sister.

Nothing feels safe or real until I’ve told my sister. Every piece of good news becomes actualised through her, I can finally breathe and embrace it when I tell her. Similarly, any instance of misfortune takes life when I tell her, but it is quickly softened once she gets me to rationalise. She’s heard of every crush, worried about every test with me and celebrated each time a hairstyle comes out exactly as imagined. My degree is hers as much as it is mine, matter of fact, every win that I’ve acquired thus far is hers because she has held my hand and guided me through it all.

Despite the difference in ages and in personalities, she still feels like my twin because she has lived every moment of my life with me, as if she is on the other side of me. She’s like a cup of peppermint tea after a long day at work or finally returning to the book you spent all day dreaming about or the first glass of sorrel on Christmas Day. She is my world and I’m eternally grateful that I’ve been given the privilege to love her and be loved by her.

Hopefully this is enough of a poetic justification to my parents to explain why I got her name tattooed on me :)

Books have been at the centre of my universe since I was at least 6 years old. My parents had been teaching me to read, to echo the words my finger traced on the page and to trust the pronunciation I repeated to them.

To this day, my mum jokes that it was a difficult effort and that she worried about some developmental delay, until she caught me reading at the back of my grandma’s house in Jamaica. Her spirit lifted as we had struggled to get me past the first page, only an hour prior on the veranda. As she cainrowed the front of my hair, she instructed me to read one of the many children’s books aloud. On my end it was a stubborn effort. I’m not sure why I pretended that I couldn’t read; once I got caught, it was up from there.

My parents would wheel my sister and I to our local library during the half-terms, the secret was out but I would still pretend to loathe the task of selecting the books our parents insisted we needed for our holiday enrichment. Internally, I was excited. As a quiet and anxious child, books gave me a voice. I was able to immerse myself into multiple, colliding worlds and have a say, a stark contrast to the figure of the shy and quiet Adrienne.

As I grew older, fiction morphed into non-fiction as school became more rigorous, requiring more of me. The love for reading as a leisurely pastime waned as essay deadlines and internship pressures began to loom. And then I left university and life got brighter! Joking, but the love slowly returned. I found myself giving my mum book reviews again, urging my friends to read articles that made something stir within me and staying up past my mandated bedtime to race to the end of thrilling novels. The passion was back.

Around a month ago, I found this passion mirrored. I read an interview on the Culture Crypt, between India Chambers and Mapesho Kyakilika. India is incredible, as the founder of the Casual Readers Club and a Children’s Editor at Penguin, books are the foci of her interests. It was an interview well done, as well as introducing me to India, it left me so curious. Admiration swelled for a stranger, we were connected through books despite having never met each other. If you know anything about me, impulse is one of my greatest strengths (and weaknesses) so I resolved to satiate this curiosity by talking to India directly.

And it was so cool! It was a pleasure being granted the privilege to essentially walk around someone’s mind by investigating an interest that they hold dear. I hope you enjoy the interview!

The Interview:

What book made you fall in love with reading?

If this question taught me anything, its that I need to up my game. India had a range of answers and each answer belonged to a different genre. Initially, India’s answer was one of the Tracey Beaker books by the literary great Jacqueline Wilson, a collection of books which were “quite common” for people her age. We then veered into Gothic territory with the classic Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and then hurtled forwards into the post apocalyptic world of Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 On the Road. The latter holds a place of tenderness due to the labour it requires. India read On the Road in her final years of secondary school and had to annotate every page under the aegis of her strict English teacher. I think this highlights the beauty of reading, it gets you thinking, it forces you to think beyond the perimeters of your own world.

I think this question sent something spinning within India; each book was connected to a memory until it brought us to Brixton Rock by Alex Wheatle. Wilson, Shelley and McCarthy be damned, to her, this was “the book that really got me going.” India went on to explain how the book was mature for her being in year 7 at the time. It exposed her to themes that were new and bewildering at that age but it remains her “number one.”

The depth of these answers prompted the next question:

Why do you love reading?

“Reading is a communal practice”

Reading goes beyond the words printed on the page or glaring back on a device. The magnetic pull that books have for India is the desire to share their contents with people. At the heart of her affinity for books is connection. Connecting with her friends when she recounts what she’s read, connecting when she’s reminded of friends through carefully crafted sentences, connecting with her own experiences that are either reflected in stories or have been “completely shattered” by presenting perspectives and histories contrasting to her own.

This answer fit seamlessly as the other half to this question which was posed later on in our conversation

When you created the Casual Readers Club, what was one thing you wanted it to achieve or for readers to take away from it?

“Selfishly because I just wanted to talk about books with people”

This desire to share, discuss and dissect stemmed from her experiences at university. A Goldsmiths University alum, India found herself becoming more introverted when studying her undergraduate English course. This was a striking parallel to who she had been when studying during secondary school, where she was outspoken. At Goldsmiths, India found herself shrinking ever so slightly when it came to being vocal about analysing the material she was learning. On the eve of her Masters, in Black British literature, she wanted a change. She endeavoured to make a space where people could talk about books as freely as she did when she was younger.

India says the motivations for creating the Casual Readers Club were selfish but as we spoke more, it certainly has more altruistic, communal motivations than India gives it credit for. We start with India and her desire to lead the conversations around books that she’s read. This has grown in a desire to “disseminate the knowledge” she received in the classrooms she occupied at Goldsmiths and provide different frameworks for readers to use when analysing books in the space she’s cultivated. What shone through was India’s dedication to remaining teachable, recognising that the book club is a site for exchange for everyone to share their ideas. In a moment of modesty, India stated that she often finds her readers have “way more interesting ideas” than she does and they work together to create a “level playing field and easier access to discussions.”

How has establishing your own book club impacted your profession as an editor?

This became a two-part answer, reflecting the synergy between India’s two roles.

India started first with the influence of her profession as an editor on her role at the Casual Readers Book Club. Being an editor has given her a unique insight into how books are formed and provided her with opportunities to work with authors she’s “really interested in” by allowing her to meet and develop connections with them that she can transfer to the Casual Readers Book Club.

Publishing is “quite short-sighted”

Regarding the inverse, founding and managing her own book club has enabled India to see how the world of readers develops holistically. She’s able to see the similarities and divergence in what publishers and readers deem as important to a book. With her book club, India is able to see what “people in the ground are interested in” and meet her readers there.

What role does storytelling have in community?

“It’s integral, its expansive”

India was explicit in attributing the birth of the Casual Readers Book Club to community building and storytelling. She emphasised that its not imperative for people to read the books discussed at sessions, the intention of the sessions is to get people talking and relaying their own experiences. Everyone has lived a life and thus is able to find hooks in a story through discussion.

“Storytelling is integral to imagination…Thinking of utopias for black people is so important in community building and to push past our lived experiences and to push for better.”

We were talking about Earl Sweatshirt and his (difficult to locate) tweet about imagination. Imagination is the junction where storytelling and community meet. For communities of people who have historically been silenced, storytelling and imagination provides hope for your community. As India succinctly put it, they both create a “point of recognition between two people… a shared experience..”

If you could draw community, what would it look like?

My friend and I were talking about community and what it means as a concept. There’s a general consensus that despite being more connected and accessible than ever before, people feel increasingly lonely. Community is offered as a balm to this. Its referenced as a quick fix as opposed to the enduring, evolutionary entity that it is. When I was describing my thoughts to my friends, I said if I could draw community as a picture, it would look like people holding hands, interlinked in a horizontal line. As the conversation unfolded, I knew I had to ask India this same question, I was curious to see what her picture would look like.

India cast a completely different picture to mine. To her, community looked like a venn diagram, with one circle relating to the personal, the ‘Me’ and the other relating to another person/people, the ‘You.’ The centre circle is the point of convergence, titled ‘the ways in which two things crossover’, looking at the overlap between people and how they can become tethered to each other.

Why are books important to you?

“I just get so much joy from reading a line that perfectly encapsulates what I’m thinking about”

“I’m interested in people taking the time out to write a million and one words”

“There’s literally a book for anything you want to read”

India, her team and the readers at the Casual Readers Book Club continue to democratise literature, providing symbolic and physical spaces to hold court with the reader at the heart of books.

These are some of the nicknames that describe the highly-addictive concoction of prescription cough syrup and a fizzy drink like Sprite. The addictive element is found in the cough syrup which contains a mixture of codeine and promethazine.

In popular culture, specifically, Black hip-hop and rap circles, lean consumption is typically frowned upon. Those that do consume it are the first to tell you how bad it is for you and insist that you never pick up the cup. And for the onlookers, lean doesn’t attract the type of lighthearted dismissal that other ‘fun, party’ drugs do such as molly. People poke fun at the birth of the ‘lean gut’ and the gradual slurring of the words of rappers who indulge in sizzurp. Ergo, the general consensus is that lean isn’t cool.

But for women who have a wok addiction, the perception goes beyond it being ‘uncool’ and ‘unhealthy’. Women who drink lean are viewed as more masculine than women who do not. I argue this projection of masculinity is due to women subverting the gender norm by partaking in behaviour which is coded as ‘manly’.

This behaviour is labelled as such due to the existence of paradigms, such as the gendered virtue model, which constructs women as the gatekeepers of morality, as images of purity. As such, women are expected to guide men from corruption on the path to virtue. However, when women are seen as joining men in the path to destruction by exhibiting hedonistic behaviours, they are viewed as straying away from their assigned role. This deviation requires a response; this response is light-hearted ridicule which appears as a joke but provides an insight into how ingrained gendered expectations are in our daily lives.

I will use Frances Heidensohn’s Double Deviance theory as a framework to argue that the assignment of lean being a ‘boy drug’ and urges for women who do use it to ‘be a lady’ are an example of women being punished more harshly for conducting the same deviant acts as men. Of course, these instructions don’t fall into typical conventions of ‘punishment.’

Ultimately, these jokes are reminders to women that they are passing their place, a demarcation of what is socially acceptable, and what is taboo for their gender. Heidensohn’s theory can be used in tandem with the gendered virtue model to explain why women using lean are viewed as that much more deviant than men - even though they are both doing the same act.

I want to be clear! I’m not advocating for equal opportunities in lean consumption, I’m just curious about differences in verbiage used for men and women who are doing the same thing.

A running joke across social media platforms is that women who sip lean are doing ‘boy drugs’. This is shelved alongside women who partake in sports gambling, commit credit card fraud and pop percocets - all examples of women who fail to ‘act like a lady.’

Ostensibly, this association is because lean consumption is statistically higher amongst men than women. In a 2013 survey on the use of lean in a Southeastern American state, it found the proportion of males who used lean (9.3%) was higher than the proportion of females (3.9%).* More than 10 years on, this trend remained largely the same. A 2024 study which used the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in the US found the majority of its respondents (75%) were men, compared to women who comprised the minority (25%) when studying lean usage. *

The Root of all Evil (Gender Norms)

At the core of this blog post is the why. Why is lean more of a taboo for women than men?

I think it’s because lean is viewed as a specific strain of degeneracy. But what does this have to do with the gender dynamic?

“Morals are the work of women”

- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

de Tocqueville expressed the sentiments of the gendered virtue model. It posits morality as a female characteristic. Morality encompasses virtue, purity and innocence which have been deemed as feminine traits. Conversely men and their masculinity are characterised by intellect and force. The moral expectations of men are low, men are “more prone to exhibit certain vices and women, because of their gender, possess or are more prone to exhibit certain virtues.”*

It’s a matter of vices versus virtues, men versus women. Men are allowed and expected to become susceptible to temptation, women do not get this opportunity. According to this theory, it’s a woman’s duty to keep their male counterparts boundaried, to help them combat the temptation that men are inherently too weak to resist. Subsequently, women who engage in such corrupting, or immoral or degenerate behaviour are subverting their gendered expectation of being pure and virtuous. By doing so, they become masculine.

This draws a neat line to our modern day lean epidemic. Women who love wok are not only masculinised ideologically but also via language. This is performed under the guise of jokes and light-hearted fun, with comment for such women to ‘be a lady.’ The behaviour they exhibit through lean consumption is antithetical to what is expected and desired of them - it is masculine and impure in place of softness, femininity and virtue.

An age old conversation that we’ve had around gender norms for women is the Madonna/ Whore dichotomy. Women who fulfil the Madonna ideal are those who are nurturing, soft and moral; those who get shunted into to Whore category are those who fall short of such behaviours and tend to be more open and exploratory with their expressions of femininity and sexuality.

Our female sippers are momentarily stripped of their femininity when scolded for their extracurricular activities. They can be viewed as a secret third thing, between the Madonna/ Whore categories but ultimately still restricting their expressions of gender. In phrases such as ‘boy drugs’ and ‘be a lady’, such women are framed as floating in the ether - they’re not explicitly being called a man but they are categorically denied womanhood.

Why is that?

Heidensohn’s Double Deviance theory can help us to understand this. Heidensohn opines that women are treated more harshly than men for the same act of deviance because they are viewed as breaking the law, like men, but going an additional step by deviating from their gender norms.

As previously mentioned, lean isn’t regarded as the most glamorous of drugs and does incite criticism. However, when it comes to female consumers it attracts excessive criticism. We can use the double deviance theory to argue that this is because lean is not only bad for the consumer (and thus attracts critique across all genders) but, it is pernicious for women specifically as it is a corruption of the purity women are supposed to inherently possess and wield.

To be continued?

To me, this topic is a further example of ‘gendered behaviour’ being learnt. Boys don’t grow up with an innate knowledge of what bet to place on their acca or parlay or how to pour dirty sprite. It’s taught in environments which scold them for participating in such activity, however, people would much prefer for it to be boys/men who are perpetrators of such behaviour than girls/women.

I guess a question that I still have, despite this investigation, is why is lean specifically demoted as a ‘boy drug?’

If it’s a question of morality, shouldn’t women consuming any drugs be treated with the same disdain. But it’s not, Charli XCX essentially revived her career with ‘Brat’ last year. People across the world glowered and shared in her experiences of drug use, endeavouring to have a Brat summer. Conversely, it’s difficult to imagine a female rapper existing and thriving in the lean landscape of Lucki/Veeze/Future/Babyface Ray without being poked fun of and used as an example of the modern woman becoming increasingly hardened and masculine. I guess this takes me back to my own initial declaration of lean consumption being viewed as a ‘specific strain of degeneracy.’

*Purple drank prevalence and characteristics of misusers of codeine cough syrup mixtures (2013)

*Codeine and promethazine: Exploratory study on “lean” or “sizzurp” using national survey data and an online forum (2024)

*Kimberly Baldwin - Women as Moral Keepers: Perception vs. Reality

In an essay about gender in early modern Britain, my tutor implored me to go further than analysing patriarchy as a system that allows all men to dominate all women. He instructed me to explore the nuances of such an unstable and complex system. He proposed that I interrogate the multifaceted nature of patriarchy, to look into how it excludes boys and men, and how this can also be pernicious to them.

When I read Purple Hibiscus, I knew it would be laden with socio-political messaging and complex themes. The portrayals of manhood and patriarchy took me back to Year 12 Sociology and to early modern British gender dynamics. It reminded me that patriarchy is often, but not always, a clear picture. In the novel, Adichie shows the expected product of violence born from patriarchy, but she also forces the reader to reckon with our conceptions of what valiance and leadership look like in men.

The main character, Kambili, is used as a mouthpiece to dissect the world Adichie has built. Adichie masterfully does not label the violence that lives in Kambili’s home for the reader. She illustrates the potency of patriarchy when it combines with other structures to suppress those who do not belong to the patriarchal identity of being a wealthy man in Nigeria, and this oppression extends to the young men found in Obiora and Jaja.

“I felt so oppressed reading the book but then I realized that was her genius. She never said the word oppression. For the first two-thirds of the book, she never described pain, but all the details made me feel like something was terribly wrong not just at home but also in the country. The oppressive regime. The oppressive father. The oppressive religion. The oppressive heat.”
— Goodreads review on Purple Hibiscus

How Men Weaponise Patriarchy

Eugene

We start with Eugene, the father of Kambili and her older brother Jaja. He is a successful factory owner and the publisher of a beacon of journalistic integrity, The Standard. In our introduction to Eugene, he is depicted as a pious, if not overly zealous, Catholic. Eugene is the ultimate patriarch by all standards. He provides financially for his family and his wider community, at least for those who are proselytes of Catholicism.

As the patriarch, he sets the tone. The novel opens by painting the family dynamic. Eugene is allowed to be furious when his demands are not followed; this fury is directed at those closest to him, his wife and children. He is left incredulous when Jaja refuses to take Communion during Mass. Jaja’s refusal is not only a religious affront but a challenge to Eugene’s authority and autocratic rule at home, a crack that previously did not exist. As we go further into Purple Hibiscus, it becomes clear why this challenge was perceived as so abnormal.

“Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines on the etagere.”
— Kambili, pg 1

Eugene uses his status as patriarch to enact violence. The most obvious case of this is the domestic abuse he inflicts on his wife, Beatrice. We do not get direct blame placed on Eugene until the final section, and it doesn’t come from our narrator, Kambili. It appears in dialogue from Beatrice, who informs Ifeoma (Eugene’s sister) that he “broke it [the small table] on my belly,” resulting in her miscarriage.

Kambili’s misplaced adoration for her father means she cannot reconcile his actions with the image she has of his benevolence and piety. I was curious about how this could be; Kambili was not just a witness to such actions but a recipient. I concluded that it was due to the conflation of fatherhood and patriarchy. Kambili excuses such behaviour because Eugene still fulfils his patriarchal duties: he instructs his family in the way of the Lord, he provides for their home, and he pays for their expensive schooling. Because of this, he feels entitled to subject those reliant on him to abuse, and they accept it because there is no alternative. The financial stability and status that Beatrice gains through Eugene inhibit her from leaving; the alternative would be living like the hawkers on the streets of Nigeria.

Even the radical and outspoken Amaka (Kambili’s cousin) rarely criticises Eugene. Amaka is aware of his dangerous behaviour, but that is the beginning and end of it. The only times she mentions her abusive uncle are to express gratitude for him paying for the funeral costs of their grandfather, Papa Nnukwu. Amaka understands how patriarchy operates: men like Eugene evade the consequences of their actions because their money and religiosity act as a form of atonement, without them having to acknowledge that they’ve sinned in the first place.

This is why patriarchy is not as simple as “all men over all women.” It is a system that thrives because it exists within the fabric of many others; they have a symbiotic relationship. Adichie highlights how religion can leave violent patriarchy unchecked and, in doing so, become complicit, allowing it to masquerade as discipline and righteousness.

Patriarchy Tempered vs Victim of Patriarchy

Obiora

Adichie offers a breath of fresh air from Eugene’s iron fist in the form of Obiora. Obiora is Kambili’s younger cousin and Aunty Ifeoma’s eldest son. He is free from harmful patriarchal constraints; he has the space to learn, to challenge himself, and to question those around him. Although, Aunty Ifeoma’s house is not free from patriarchal influence, the division of labour in her household is gendered. Certain chores are left to Obiora and his younger brother, Chima, whilst Amaka assists Ifeoma with more domestic tasks such as preparing dinner or caring for Papa Nnukwu.

Obiora’s character exists as a parallel to Jaja - what Jaja could have been, who he might have become if he did not have a father like Eugene and instead had the freedom permitted under Ifeoma’s care.

Despite this, Obiora is not exempt from the ills of patriarchy. For both Jaja and Obiora, tragedy is the cleave which creates two different paths for patriarchy to guide them down. In the aftermath of Papa Nnukwu’s death, the adultification of Obiora looms large. He makes several attempts to ‘head’ the household, but all are rejected by Aunty Ifeoma, who fiercely tries to preserve his innocence and give him the opportunity to grieve his grandfather in a way that is natural to him.

Obiora remains determined to be the leader amid this grief because he knows it is expected of him. With a deceased father and a newly deceased grandfather, he becomes the “nwoke in the house,” the man Aunty Ifeoma has by her side. In this role, Obiora knows there is little room for him to express his emotions.

Obiora embodies patriarchy that is tempered. His mother keeps it in check, allowing patriarchal expectations to exist in a way that does not harm him or those around him namely herself, his sister Amaka and the youngest - Chima. Obiora is allowed to walk the streets to fetch bottles for fizzy drinks and to make do without a bedroom, sleeping in the living room because he is the eldest boy. But Aunty Ifeoma intervenes once these expectations threaten to force Obiora into the role of head of the family, a role for which he is not ready.

Jaja

Jaja represents what happens when patriarchy turns inward, toward the boys and men who are its supposed benefactors. Unlike Obiora, he cannot escape the curse of adultification.

He feels responsible for Beatrice and Kambili. He is Kambili’s older brother, but more importantly, the only son in Beatrice and Eugene’s union. This makes him the only viable challenger to Eugene’s authority. However, this does not make Jaja exempt from the violence Eugene inflicts on the family. Jaja may be a competitor by virtue of his gender, but he cannot meaningfully challenge his father or encourage him to change.

“Jaja closed his eyes for a while and then opened them. ‘We will take care of the baby; we will protect him.’”
— Kambili, pg 23

Kambili looks to Jaja as her protector. He helps her, alongside Beatrice, when she eats cereal before Mass a forbidden act according to Fuhrer Eugene. He is punished accordingly, alongside his mother and sister. Eugene’s belt “landed on Jaja first.” Jaja receives punishment first, without volunteering, because Eugene directs his violence at him as the assumed protector. Jaja is not just an older sibling, but the man expected to defend his mother and sister.

Adichie explores guilt as an anchor for Jaja. He was supposed to save his unborn sibling from the violence of his father, nor Kambili from Eugene pouring scalding hot water on her feet as punishment. Jaja expected these things of himself due to patriarchy, his father was evidently not safeguarding the women of the family; he believed this duty defaulted to him. It was unfair to him because Jaja was a victim like his mother and sister, he could nothing to protect himself much less them. Despite them both being victims of their fathers violence, he lives with a guilt that is rightfully absent in Kambili and this is due to patriarchy.

“I should have taken care of Mama. Look how Obiora balances Aunty Ifeoma’s family on his head, and I am older than he is. I should have taken care of Mama.”
— Jaja, pg 289

This guilt culminates in Jaja making a decision beyond his years, he confesses to the murder of his father to protect his mother. This was Jaja taking responsibility “on his head”, a burden he should never have had to bear. He was only a child, a victim alongside the women in his family. He does not allow himself to see that. Unlike Ifeoma, Beatrice was too late to intervene in the event of tragedy. Jaja confessed before she could Beatrice could admit her crime. Jaja emerges as a leader, but at the cost of his innocence and youth.

“His eyes are too full of guilt to really see me, to see his reflection in my eyes - the reflection of my hero, the brother who tried always to protect me the best he could. He will never think that he did enough, and he will never understand that I do not think he should have done more.”
— Kambili, p.305

Jaja becomes the “hero,” the version of manhood he envied in Obiora. But what good does this do for him or the women he strove to defend? The answer is none. All that patriarchy brings to Kambili, Beatrice, and Jaja is violence, agony, and loss. With Purple Hibiscus, Adichie allows us capture patriarchy in its entirety. Through the characters of Eugene, Obiora, and Jaja, we see the system for its ugliness - how it is violent toward those on the outside but also toward those within.

**With the rise of gendered violence against girls and women, it is imperative to note that patriarchy and misogyny (which stem from such systems) are dangers to girls and women. This post is not about adding another voice to the “gender war,” as a war implies fighting on both sides. What we are witnessing is a massacre of women and girls through patriarchal violence. This cannot be forgotten when we discuss the nuances of patriarchy; while it affects both genders, it remains especially detrimental to women.

This memory played on repeat whilst writing the amazing collaboration Black British culture is just chicken and chips and grime with Kiara. We were trying to work towards applying a framework to explain this memory with the big question being, how do we operationalise such a vast and complex identity?

The purpose of this post is to explore the construction and negotiation of the Black British identity through one of my favourite mediums - music. I will be using music created in the UK Underground scene to analyse how linguistics and memory have been used to contribute to the burgeoning Black-British identity.

The release of Jim Legxacy’s black british music (2025), Finessekid’s self-titled EP and the announcement of Ceebo’s upcoming album Blair Babies were the impetus for this post. I began thinking about how the underground scene is a treasure trove for identifying the nuances around being Black-British and what that experience is like for my generation.

This is why these releases are so exciting. Rappers are using their craft to problematise and interrogate the label of what being Black-British means to them beyond being raised by immigrant parents within British borders.

Finessekid

Finessekid’s Said She Warn and EP by extension is distinctly British, he flies the flag for South-West London numerous times, a nod to his Lambeth upbringing.

It's best to start with Said She Warn, the title was the one that struck me with inspiration for this post. What stood out first was the use of the ‘intrusive r’ in the title of this track. The intrusive has been explained by linguists and is an example of language change. An intrusive r inserts an ‘r’ sound into a word, despite it not being historically part of the word. For example, English speakers use an it when saying words such as ‘law’ or ‘saw’. With the intrusive r, these words are now pronounced ‘lore’ and ‘sore’. We see the use of the intrusive r with Said she Warn. In instance, the intrusive r is not added to the Standard English verb ‘want’, it is applied to the Patois translation of ‘want’ which is ‘waan’.

The English tongue does not operate in the same way as the Jamaican one; alterations are made by the English tongue to circumvent this, which is why we get Finessekid’s Said She Warn as opposed to Said She Wants (Standard English) or Say She Waan (Patois). Finessekid places the Black British English as a sort of Third Way between Standard English and Patois. The way I conceive it is as a creole within a creole, which is a cool cocoon when you think about it. Standard English at the base, but directed by Patois, and other creoles such as West-African Pidgin.

In Lil Terio, Finessekid demonstrates the influence of famed drill pioneer Loski. Hailing from Kennington, South-West London, Loski is one of the many faces of the 2010s UK Drill genre. Finessekid leans on Loski in Lil Terio, rapping “rude and dead how the f*** can I rate them”, repurposing Loski’s “rude and dead how the f*** can she breathe.” As both consumers and contributors, we are watching the emergence and development of musical traditions, especially from that side of the river.

Overall, Finessekid’s debut EP can be viewed as a linguistic and symbolic picture of the Black-British identity. Finessekid pays homage in his wordplay to those who came before him. This trickles down to the production on his EP. I shrieked when I heard the intro to Linked In because I just knew Carns Hill had produced it. I’ve been raving about Finessekid since the summer of last year, when I heard the snippet of 613 (NC Lounge). Linking up with one of my favourite producers and a UK great in his own right was feels like an embrace, a bridge between older Black-British musical traditions and the emerging ones.

Jim Legxacy

It was a no brainer to include Jim Legxacy in this post, his highly anticipated album black british music (2025) was released on the 18th of July and it delivered everything that it promised it would.

In black british music (2025) we see the Black-British identity through a collection of cultural moments (specifically music) webbed throughout the album. We are taken through a panoramic of Black British music across the course of the album. It provides legitimacy of the Black-British identity not through language, but by appealing to the memory of Black-British artists. Throughout black British music (2025), Jim Legxacy references and samples hits created by Black-British artists, forming a genealogy that can trace Vybz Kartel to himself.

A poignant example of this is Dave’s verse on 3x. Dave uses fellow South Londoner Sneakbo’s flow found on Touch Ah Button at the end of his verse. Of course, Sneakbo’s iteration of Touch Ah Button (2010), was inspired by Kartel’s original song Touch A Button (2010). Listening to 3x, felt like a time capsule from the 2010s. We are both firmly in 2025 but given vivid flashbacks of the UK music scene from 10 to 15 years ago, with Dave’s employment of Sneakbo’s flow, Dave referencing himself with lines from his 2019 song Streatham and Jim Legxacy going even further on the track by using the chorus of Dave’s breakout hit Wanna Know (2016).

Legxacy points to two heavyweights of Afroswing from the 2010s, J Hus and Kojo Funds, in his album. In Sun, featuring Fimiguerrero, he recycles the lyrics “did you see what I done came in a black Benz, left in a white one…” from J Hus’ iconic 2017 hit Did You See. In d.b.a.b., Jim Legxacy deploys the lyrics of Kojo Funds, taking the lines “informer you’re looking inna my eyes…” from Kojo Funds’ Warning released in 2018. His decision to include that line from Warning is another invocation of Patois in Black-British music. The use of the epithet ‘informer’ is commonly used in Patois to refer to telling on someone else. When I was younger, my mum used to joke and say she couldn’t tell anyone’s business around me because I was a “big informer.”

These cultural references to the Afroswing genre cannot be ignored. Afroswing is a pivotal building block for the Black-British identity, another Black genre that is a fusion of UK Rap and external influences. Jim Legxacy places another line in the genealogy of Black-British music, showing the progression and offshoots of music that influenced him as a youth and brought him to where he is now.

black british music (2025) is an amalgamation of crossovers and interplay, paralleled by breathing space. Jim Legxacy is unbound by labels and uses this to decide which moments from the archive of Black-British music that he reflects in his music. The album is symptomatic of the Black-British identity. It’s messy, it’s occasionally difficult to describe. Above all, it is yet to reach its full maturation - there is still so much more to look forward to and to experience.

Fimiguerrero

My best friend put me onto Fimi. We were on Facetime in my uni room; I told her I needed new music to listen to. We had already bonded countless times over our affinity for Len’s music. She told me if I like Len, then I need to listen to Fimi. She knows of my love for dancehall, especially Vybz Kartel, so she recommended that I listen to INNA by Fimiguerrero.

When I first heard INNA, all I could think was that it sounded so familiar; I couldn’t place why. I kept going over the flow and melody I until I was able to pin it to Kartel’s Mhm Mm (absolute banger btw). Fimi had taken a song that was Jamaican to its core and made it something new but still very familiar. This is something I appreciate from Jim Legxacy and Fimi. Like Jim Legxacy, Fimi draws a line to create a traceable skeleton for his music. His ability to blur the edges and borders of cultural identities becomes understandable when listening to him cite the variety of music genres he is interested in. In an interview with Wonderland Magazine, he relayed how he grew up with an interest in his mother’s Fuji music collection but still tuned in regularly to SBTV freestyles on YouTube.

Fimi is Nigerian-born and grew up across South and East London. Vybz Kartel is undoubtedly a superstar; it is not surprising that his music is influential. But, for Fimi to recreate a song of his that is not necessarily commercial is a testament to how the Black-British identity is negotiated. It requires a closeness and a connection to Jamaican dancehall culture to understand it, replicate it and modify it to suit his music style. Despite Fimi not being ethnically Jamaican, he was able to do so, and I attribute this to the experience of being Black-British. Living and growing up in areas with a high concentration of Afro-Caribbean groups enables different cultures to be transmitted between groups and the product of this is fusion - the ‘Third Way’ that I mentioned earlier.

Len

Len’s music creates bridges within the Afro-Caribbean culture itself. A paragon of this is the single see gbedu released earlier this summer. My knowledge of Pidgin is not as extensive as I wish it was, so admittedly, I did have to Google what gbedu meant. Even prior to googling, I guessed that it had a Nigerian, specifically Yoruba origin, due to the ‘gb’ spelling. My (brief) research corroborated my initial thoughts, gbedu can either refer to a big drum or to an enjoyable, vibrant atmosphere. Based on the context of the song, I assume it means the latter.

Nevertheless, see gbedu is a fascinating case for the Black-British identity. In his British accent, Len mixes Pidgin with dancehall references over a funky beat. “Tun up the f*** bae, tun up the volume” cites Vybz Kartel’s Tun Up the F***. Len selects Patois as his language of choice in this line, dropping the ‘r’ from ‘turn’ as Kartel did in the original song, yet Len maintains his British accent. In see gbedu alone, we get a peek into his influences - the languages and genres that hold a sway on his artistic decisions. see gbedu is a manifestation of the following declarations that Len has made publicly of incoporating alte, afrobeats and afroswing whilst remaining true to his South London roots which are his “home” and “heart”.

South London to the World?

Growing up primarily in East London/Essex, I see a lot of my culture represented around me when I was younger. I told one of my friends in primary school that I enjoyed eating curry goat for dinner and she looked at me in horror. In that area, Jamaican culture was a mystery beyond the phrase wah gwaan.

Conversely, South London felt like the promised land to a young Adrienne. It was the closest I could get to the island that my parents still dream of. Whenever I went to my aunts’ house, the streets were lined with shops that sold Caribbean food and snacks, even the ones that are hard to import to the UK, alongside authentic yard shops where the existence of a jerk pan indicates the food is going to be good and not flah flah. On each drive to visit my aunt, my dad would point at the sign that marked Kidbrooke Village and tell us stories about how it used to be when he first arrived in London with my uncle in the early 2000s. For years, South London – especially South East – has felt like the midpoint between my homeland and my home here in Britain.

It’s refreshing to see so many young Black-British South Londoners rep their borough and declare their hybrid identity in a country that has become increasingly hostile to people like us. Keep putting on for the city! It’s ironic really. The UK underground scene is sometimes posited as the antagonist of blackness - specifically Black-Britishness. With accusations that its proponents are trying to “cat the American/Playboi Carti ting.”

The scene does not shy away from illuminating the influences of their work, uniting cultures across the Black diaspora (particularly Caribbean and West African) with the visage and tongue of Black British English. They continue to wave the flag of Black-Britishness and introduce new connections between and within hybrid identities.

Miss Myrtle’s Garden and Miss Girly’s Kitchen

The garden is what grounds the play. Miss Myrtle’s garden is the site for the transfer of knowledge, between Myrtle and her husband Melrose, between Myrtle and her friendly Irish neighbour Eddie, from Eddie to Myrtle’s grandson Rudy who is the antithesis of a green thumb.

My grandmother’s ‘garden’ was her kitchen, the physical and symbolic space of her kitchen. The kitchen was the hub of all of our lives when my grandmother was alive. She was renowned for making plates upon plates of food, using it as a currency to extend her kindness to strangers and strengthen the existing relationships she had. She was the best cook I know. To this day, my mum and I laugh because there were certain cultural foods I downright refused to eat at home. But, I felt too awkward saying no to my grandmother and often found myself enjoying (scraping the plate) of meals that I would have rejected at home.

My grandmother was the first person to give me a whole fried fish as a child. Understandably, at home, my older sister and I had to pick between the fish head or the tail. I was excited when she pointed to the plate of fried fish and asked me which one I wanted. I was waiting for her to cut it in half, but she told me to wait outside whilst she prepared my plate. She trotted out on her veranda and placed the plate on my lap. The plate itself was bigger than my little thighs. The red ants and mosquitos were having a field day, nipping and biting all over my legs. But I didn’t care, I didn’t want to disappoint her and hear the infamous “yuh fraid of di food”. I made a start and before I knew it, there was only the vertebrae of the fish and the crumbs of the festival that accompanied it left on the plate.

Almost every story I have about my grandmother has a connection to food, it was beyond the plate. I will never get to interrogate my grandmother’s relationship with food, why cooking reigned supreme in her life. But I can talk at length about the impact that she had on me. She was such a great cook, and it was like looking at my grandmother when observing the way Miss Myrtle operated. Miss Myrtle refused to provide Jason (her grandson’s boyfriend) with a cookbook, a Western way of sharing recipes.

Similarly, my grandmother didn’t share. That much I know because my dad doesn’t share and he learnt everything he knew about food from her. When I asked my dad for his steak recipe, he WhatsApp called me straight away and began shooting off instructions, with little regard for measurements or order. Whenever I tell my dad I want to learn a new recipe, he insists I join him in the kitchen. Learning is observing. It’s a fun day, consisting of me standing in the corner observing and moving to pass him the ingredients he needs. It was how he learned from my grandmother; he never fails to mention her famous black cake every Christmas, noting how grandma would remind him each time that he watched her to soak the fruits in rum for the entire year (I can’t tell you the rest because dad and grandma will have some stern words with me). Or how he and his siblings could tell grandma was in a bad mood because she was talking to herself loudly in the kitchen. It was a sign they had to find something outside of the house to occupy themselves otherwise they would be roped into a full day of cooking alongside a dissatisfied Miss Girly.

The kitchen was my grandmother's version of Miss Myrtle’s garden. It was a space for storytelling, instructing and bonding. I was always shooed out of her kitchen, I guess I was throwing off her feng shui. But seriously, the square of her kitchen, like the circle of Miss Myrtle’s garden, was her space to command. I only saw the end product, delicious Jamaican food delivered on a decorated plate to me on the veranda. This was her way of showing her love, relieving me, my siblings and my cousins of any duties and allowing us to delight in her hard work.

Perhaps it's because I’m a British-Jamaican, but the idea of a family serving the guests at nine-nights and the funeral service of their loved one is not something I completely understand. At my grandma’s nine night, this disconnect reared its head; I was already in a weird headspace being in her house but her not being there. And whilst trying to confront that, guests were asking when the champagne was coming out or complaining that they were being served fish and bread as opposed to curry goat and rice. Admittedly, when people speak about me, patience is not one of the virtues that they refer to. But I found myself connecting, or at least trying to, with the people at the nine night because it's what my grandma would have wanted.

Her life was about loving others, about serving her community and making its members smile, making their lives lighter. All that she asked of her family who survived her, was for us to arrange a celebration of her life, with food overflowing. I’ve always appreciated the joy and the light that surrounds the transition of individuals in Jamaica because it emphasises finding jubilation in the mourning. For my grandma, her jubilation, was her community being taken care of by being fed when they assembled to remember and celebrate her.

A great question that Miss Myrtle’s Garden asked of me was what happens to an individual when most of their community is dead or dying. My grandmother survived some of her children and was a widow for more than a decade. For people my age, there’s a general consensus that the generations before us understood the weight of community and that they did it better than we do. I’m inclined to agree because my grandma is a paragon of this. Her community was not just limited to her family, the people in her immediate circle. Her community stretched far and wide. She was such a formidable pillar in not only her neighbourhood, but in the community that she created for herself. Nothing can replace or replicate the love you have for your children, or the romantic love you have for your life partner in your spouse. But I assume the bonds she forged beyond and the love she extended indiscriminately created groups that she could lean on, to ease the pain on the days that grief was too hard.

Knowing

A poignant theme threaded throughout Miss Myrtle’s Garden was the idea of knowing. Her grandson Rudy is constantly in the pursuit of knowledge; to find out more about his deceased father, to know more about his grandparents’ lives before they migrated to England, to learn how to garden to follow in his grandparents’ footsteps. I’ve felt a similar way. I often pester my mum, my aunts and my grandmother, inviting conversations about life before me over meals to learn more about them. To compare our lives, to recognise my fortune and join them in reckoning with their past. My mother and I are proud voyeurs of the past. We feed off revisiting it, picking it apart until we can feel the string of memories in our hands. My dad is different. And this play added to my cumulative understanding of his relationship with the past.

It can be so painful. When people who were such significant figures in your life cease to exist, it becomes something that can only be opened on the right occasions. When the string of a chord sounds just right, when the back garden is a picture of how things used to be, when a recipe tastes exactly how Miss Girly taught it. This is how my aunt and I bond over memories of my late grandmother. It’s too painful to talk about frequently, but some days, when her heart eases up just a little, and the longing is too much, she will fall into the most wonderful stories. I am introduced to examples of the enviable dedication and adoration my grandparents had to each other, to her early days in England and the sadness she felt being away from my grandparents and her daughter (my cousin). She’ll narrate how my grandma used to call her at a specific time everyday, and it never changed in all her years that she lived here; from Birmingham to all over South East London.

Children of immigrants, first generation to fourth generation are often harmlessly teased about not knowing where they come from. When I play Beres Hammond in the car, I garner calls of “weh yuh know bout dis” or when I make the fatal mistake of admitting that I cannot make a lot of traditional Jamaican dishes, I am encouraged to get more in touch with my roots. And I enjoy these reminders because I love my culture; there is so much more for me to discover. However, there are aspects of our parents’ past, of our beloved aunts and uncles’ past, of our homeland’s history that are sometimes uncomfortable to sit and dissect.

I think the play brought this out beautifully. It demonstrated that the pursuit of knowledge is a two way street, it has to be mutual between the parties that are imparting and receiving knowledge. Rudy has all these questions that intellect cannot answer, that he cannot solve with his lesson plans. The only person left to help him is his grandmother, Miss Myrtle, but she cannot. It's not that she refuses to, she truly cannot revisit her past. It is too painful. In those moments, where Miss Myrtle denied Rudy an entry into the past, I was reminded of my own family. Of how it's not a personal choice, but more of an instinct, a matter of protection. Going back into the a world, where things are different, and people who are no longer with us exist. It's a reminder of everything that you have ever lost, which is a substantial amount of emotional turmoil.

It's not a problem for there to be a solution. But it certainly begs the question, how do we remember and connect to our past when the only people who have the capacity to help us are burdened by that very past? How do we get to learn? Moreover, can we ever make the past digestible, to access a version that does not sting as much and remind us of what is no longer?

Grief

Grief is like love. Written about, agonised over and yet, I feel like words can never do it enough justice. There are not enough analogies to cover how expansive and painful grief truly is.

When my grandmother passed away, what stung me the most was the vacuum in the future, there were so many things that we would not get to do. I only saw my grandmother once as an adult, she never got to see my graduation picture go up on her beloved mantle which showcased all of her children and grandchildren, I never got to hear the stories of her youth and what Jamaica meant to her as a woman born in the colonial era. Watching Miss Myrtle’s Garden doesn’t erase that, it is a pain that is everlasting. But, it gave me the opportunity to reimagine my grandmother in her last days, to agonise with her over her decline, her loss and her grief. To capture my grandparents and the beauty of their love.

As I mentioned earlier, I was moved to tears by the play. There was a particular scene in the second act of the play that made it feel like I was watching my grandparents before me. It was beautifully haunting. I don’t remember my grandfather, I was really young when he passed away, and so all I have is the stories of the people who were privileged enough to know him intimately. He was a great man, and watching Miss Myrtle and her husband Melrose transformed my grandfather from being only a wonderful figment of my imagination to someone I could physically see. My heart felt like it was being closed in fists when I watched Miss Myrtle and Melrose share their last dance whilst she was in delirium.

Witnessing such a decisive, independent woman deteriorate across the duration of the play reminded me of my grandmother. Whilst she had her community and her children, her life partner was gone and had been gone for years. He was not there to hold her hand in her last days, and in the first few months of my grief, it made me inconsolable.

Melrose visiting Miss Myrtle as a vision, whether that was an emblem of her declining mental state or a nod to beliefs of African spirituality amongst black Jamaicans, provided me with a strange comfort. That perhaps my grandfather appeared to my grandma; that he stroked her face and held her hand as she lay in the hospital bed. One of the main things that bring me peace with my grandmother’s death is that she is at peace, she is reunited with my grandfather and her children - the pieces of her that she had to live without whilst she was with us as a mortal on Earth.

We were discussing our shared cultural isms when she asked for my thoughts on why Jamaica receives the most plaudits out of all the Caribbean countries. My initial thoughts were centred on national exceptionalism, with the famous Jamaican proverb “wii likkle but wii tallawah” ringing through my mind. Eventually, I answered that Jamaican culture is international. What I had specifically in mind was the image of the Rastafari.

This draws me to another memory. When I was in Marrakech, I was referred to as a ‘Rasta.’ I was frustrated by the ignorance because I didn’t even have locs, I had an intricate design of cainrows into plaits finished off by beads at the end. Nevertheless, the core of this memory is the epithet of ‘Rasta.’ These interactions demonstrated that the image of the Rastafari, specifically their physical presentation, has been entrenched as a perennial symbol of the black diaspora.

The subject of this post, Til Shiloh, was released in July 1995 by Jamaican artist, Buju Banton. The signature of the Rastafari is imprinted across the album. The title itself is a nod to Banton’s position as a Rastafari . ‘Shiloh’ refers to their belief in Messianism, that a saviour will deliver the Rastafari from their current affliction. Banton explained that Shiloh to him meant ‘forever’ or ‘until judgement’.

The process of writing is always an investigative feat, satisfying your intrigue to present a succinct piece which demonstrates your curiosity and a coherent argument. Writing this piece was especially difficult due to a lack of my own knowledge and not knowing where the credible sources of information lie. This dimension of the research process, continued to fuel my desire to discuss what we really owe to the Rastafari.

The Rastafari at First Glance

The genealogy of the Rastafari is fragmented. Their roots lie in an alleged speech from the famed Pan-Africanist, Marcus Garvey. In Garvey’s speech, he instructed listeners to “look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is at hand.”

This was interpreted as a prophecy that came to fruition when Ras Tafari Makonnen, was crowned as the Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930. Makonnen was crowned Haile Selassie I.

This belief appeared in printed works in that same decade, such as Leonard Howell’s The Promised Key (1935), a tract which declared that Haile Selassie was the Messiah. Lowell is often referred to as the ‘First Rasta’.

The Rastafari: A Belief System of the People

In A-Level Sociology, one of my exam papers was on beliefs. A key evaluation question was, does religion encourage or inhibit social change?

Maybe it was a product of the British education system or a lack of imagination, but the Rastafari and their very valid critiques of the material conditions and racial hierarchies of the world were completely neglected. Central to the theology is petitioning for the amelioration of material conditions. It does not shy away from inequalities, rather, it seeks to explain them. One of the most notable ways is through music.

Rastafari musicians are clear in their belief that Babylon is to blame for the dismal state of the world. Babylon is condemned with phrases such as ‘bun Babylon’. Corruption is perceived as the root of the ordinary man’s suffering. Babylon is everyone and no one, it could be an individual police officer charging exorbitant prices for a speeding ticket, it could be racists upholding white supremacy with physical violence, it could be government officials extracting taxes to finance their lavish home. Babylon is any person or any system which seeks to continue the oppression of the oppressed.

Buju Banton in Til Shiloh espoused the idea that his own government is an extension of Babylon. His countrymen, his skinfolk were corrupted by Babylon and this corruption engendered the impoverishment of the masses on his island. The Rastafari does not just lament on the condition of the world. Banton conveyed a sense of hope, and this is where the album’s Pan-African nature shines. In the track Til I’m Laid to Rest; he averred that better is yet to come, that “Ethiopia awaits all prince and princess.” The Rastafari yearns to return to Ethiopia, to their Zion, to escape the clutches of Babylon. It is why he sang “there’s no lie in the West. I know the East is the best, yes,” on the same track.

There were two other songs that struck me with their Rastafari messaging, Not an Easy Road and Untold Stories. On Untold Stories Banton recounted being impoverished, and accused those in power of being able to change these conditions but refusing to. At the time Til Shiloh was released, there was a striking lack of job opportunities and the economy was in the midst of being ravished.

One explanation for this can be the World Systems theory. Developed by Immanuel Wallerstein, one of the main arguments of the theory is that there is a division of labour across the world and a subsequent categorisation of states. Wallerstein argued core states dominate global trade and finance whilst periphery states are less developed with agricultural economies and lower income levels. Using this theory, Britain would be the core state and Jamaica would be the periphery state.

The implications of this exploitative system were highlighted in the 1990s on the island. From 1991 to 1995: inflation increased by 40% on average, whilst ‘job creation fizzled out.’ The Jamaican economy was in tatters, thus, it is understandable why economic hardship was such a prominent feature in Til Shiloh.

This is why the existence of the Rastafari is significant. The Jamaican population didn’t need to (and still don’t need to) read Wallerstein or other acclaimed theories on the Global North and Global South divide to understand the asymmetrical global order. They felt the divide everyday. They lived it everyday. In the 1990s, they experienced the implications of economic parasitism when they could see the lack of job opportunities, they could feel the prices rising whilst wages remain stagnant. And this is why the existence of the Rastafari is important, the theology gives a nod of acknowledgment to the ordinary man’s plight. It says “I hear you” in one breath, and provides comfort in the other with a promise of a better world.

From the shanty towns on the island in the early 20th century to the scarce few remaining today, people in Jamaica can see what is right in front of them. Baldwin said it best, “the ghetto people I am talking to, or about, are not at all stupid,” they understand the surplus of another comes at the expense of their deprivation.* Rastafari theology gives people the language to shape and express their discontent.

So, what do we owe the Rastafari?

We ought to treat it as a viable and legitimate theology. It is more than smoking marijuana, hair being styled in locs and the occasional ‘bun Babylon’. In doing so, it will also allow us to critique it. People continuing to view it through an ignorant, myopic lens means we circle around the same tired talking points when there are more important things to think about and discuss to advance Rastafarian theology and ideology.

For example, what logistics will be involved in the repatriation effort to ensure harmony between indigenous populations and settler populations? What rebuttal does the Rastafari have to the apparent fallibility of Haile Selassie I who was not only deposed but also died in the latter half of the 20th century? Why did Haile Selassie I live out his exile in England - one of the central hubs of Babylon - instead of seeking refuge amongst his black brothers and sisters?

It is being taken for granted that we are seeing burgeoning history in front of us today; Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned a decade before my grandmother was born and he died a few months after my father was born. This is history that is alive, that is being formed before our very eyes. It’s frustrating that there is a general refusal to engage with the Rastafari further than the aesthetics.

How many people of our generation, of our parents’ generation, of our grandparents’ generation can say that they were alive when a belief system was still nascent? The belief system hasn't even existed for a century, compared to others, it is still in infancy. Being able to witness the growth of a belief system, especially with the tools at our disposal such as the internet and recorded oral histories, is an incredible privilege that we should not waste. We should be using these to our advantage to interrogate the Rastafari, to stretch their theological and political truths, to challenge them, and to credit them where necessary.

*J. Baldwin, Dark Days (1980), pp. 15

Film, literature and television.

I’ve watched/read all three prior to releasing this post, but it was the release of the second season of Boarders that willed me to write again.

I watched Moonlight years after its release, I read ‘Real Life’ at the end of 2023 and I sat ecstatic in front of my projector to binge Boarders in its inaugural season at the beginning of last year. All this is to say that I have had ideas brewing about all three projects, and have shared them excitedly with friends over late night episodes, on Facetime as I turned the page to finish another chapter and alone as I watched Moonlight on my laptop.

Season 2 of Boarders was like an epiphany, I was struck with inspiration, ready to return from my (very brief) hiatus. Immediately, the first parallel that came to mind, was that each project gave significant representation to awkward, queer black boys - Chiron in Moonlight, Wallace in Real Life and Omar in Boarders. Watching Omar and the development of his character in Season 2 reminded me of Wallace and Wallace reminded me of Chiron; that’s how I ended up here.

I didn't want to write about queer characters just for the sake of it, I think it would be lazy to do a comparative analysis of three characters only based on that. There must be more and it forced me to interrogate what made me conjoin these characters; across all three mediums, between all three characters, the theme of innocence is resonant. The innocence of Chiron, Omar and Wallace appear in varying forms but it is there. The creators of the former two illustrate them as innocent in spite of their queerness. Alienation is the commonality between all three characters, their queerness creates a wall between them and the world around them, leaving them isolated even from the people who love and care for them the most.

The Characters and the Minds behind them

Moonlight (2016):
Moonlight is a coming of age film, centred around the character Chiron. It is told in three Acts, each Act reflects a pivotal stage in Chiron’s life. There is Act 1: ‘Little’, in which Chiron is a grade-schooler. Act 2: ‘Chiron’, where he is a teenager and Act 3: ‘Black’, where he is an adult. Barry Jenkins is the filmmaker and director of Moonlight, he brought to life Tarell Alvin McCraney’s never seen play, In Moonlight, Black Boys look Blue.

Real Life (2020):

In Real Life, we are plunged into the mind and daily life of Wallace - a black, gay, graduate student. Through Wallace, the reader is forced to not only reckon with but also accept the ugly parts of life, because that’s what ‘real life’ is.

Boarders (2024):

A British television series, Boarders is both a comedy and a drama. It follows 5 inner-city black teenagers who were granted scholarships to a private school in the ‘sticks’. The creator, Daniel Lawrence Taylor, stated that he gained inspiration for the series from an article about 5 young black boys from London who were given scholarships to a private school and their experiences of it. The article encouraged Lawrence Taylor to reflect on his time at an elite, predominantly white and middle-class university. And thus, the series was born. The character that captures our attention in this post is Omar. His innocence is found in his exploration with his romantic interest Dilton and his alienation is emphasised through the lens of this ‘relationship’. The questions and nerves he has in this queer dynamic are ones that cannot be answered or assuaged by those surrounding him.

What is innocence?

(1): freedom from guile or cunning : simplicity

(2) : lack of worldly experience or sophistication

Jenkins, Taylor and Lawrence Taylor toy with these different iterations of innocence in their respective works. Chiron possesses both forms of innocence, whilst Wallace embodies the first definition and Omar the second.

Portrayals of Innocence through Omar and Chiron:

Omar and Chiron, in his youth, find themselves sharing the latter definition. This innocence plants a smile on my face each time the characters come across my screen. Their innocence is interwoven with their burgeoning queerness. Their exploration of their sexualities are not hyper-sexual nor do they involve sexual exploitation from older men. Their explorations are presented as innocent; they are given the chance to be coy, to fumble in the dark and laugh at getting things wrong.

Lawrence Taylor and Jenkins succeed in endowing their characters with a youth and innocence that is typically withheld from young black boys concerning their sexuality. In both Omar and Chiron’s cases, there is this ‘lack of worldly experience or sophistication’ when it comes to their first sexual encounters with the same-sex. Omar gets blushy and nervous when it comes to thinking, much less discussing his any potential relations with Dilton. He gets the chance to be himself, even if it is awkward, short-lived and ill-fated. There are no malignant forces such as disapproving parents, or predatory older men lurking in the corner. Throughout his exploration he makes mistakes, he says the wrong things, he alludes to Dilton’s past experiences when he probably shouldn’t. It makes sense because this is a teenager with no past history regarding same-sex relationships and sex. He is bound to get it wrong at some point and this innocence is comforting.

Similarly, Chiron’s innocence, in terms of his sexuality, is guided by curiosity. As ‘Little’, he asks his mentor and the local drug dealer Juan, what is a ‘faggot’ and whether he is one. This trails into Act 2, where Chiron has his first sexual encounter with a fellow teenaged boy, Kevin. Kevin and Chiron’s interaction is innocent, it is marked by a lack of experience but also a curiosity. A desire for the two to connect intimately, building a space for themselves that is free from Chiron’s mother who is a drug-addict and the constant demand for Chiron to assert himself as a hyper-masculine man. In this Act, Chiron is allowed to just be around Kevin. It was refreshing to see a queer relationship be a source of comfort in a young, black teens’ life instead of a point of tension and frustration.

However, the caesura in the second Act, and the film by extension, is seen when Chiron loses his innocence. He is terrorised by hyper-masculinity, particularly the aggression attached to it. This terror is constant, characterised in human form by his bully Terrel. Viewers often place the loss of innocence at the point when Chiron lashes out at Terrel, repeatedly beating him with a chair at school. But I think it occurs just before that, when Kevin complies with Terrel’s instructions to beat up Chiron.

This scene opens the chasm between Kevin and Chiron. The latter’s innocence was highlighted in his interactions with Kevin, but the aggression and harm Kevin inflicts on Chiron rips the safety net that had blanketed the two. There is no more curiosity or shared whispers and giggles of nerves. They are now bonded by a traumatic experience that leaves them irrevocably changed. Their innocence has been lost and this is only furthered by Chiron's understandable outburst of violence, it represents his descent into the cruelty of the world around him, falling into what is expected of him.

Taylor’s portrayal of innocence through Wallace:

Taylor conveys innocence through Wallace in a different manner. Wallace’s innocence is not due to youthfulness or a lack of lived experiences. As a reader, I felt Wallace’s innocence was his form of protest. The protest was his ability to remain unchanged in the face of strife in all areas of his life, from sexual abuse in his early years to disappointments in friendships to a dismal romantic life. Wallace is positioned as the victim, and rightfully so. All the forces in his life culminate to debase him, to make him feel worthless. And as a reader, it left me overcome with pity. I had the urge to protect Wallace from the ugly that ‘real life’ had shown him, to whisk him away to a world where he is respected and cared for.

Wallace’s innocence is drawn from his lack of influence. He is a passenger in his own life, his affairs are not his to control or demand.

As members of the queer community, we have either witnessed firsthand or heard countless tales of children whose parents failed to protect them, whose unconditional love changed its definition once they were informed of their child’s sexuality. Taylor, Jenkins and Lawrence Taylor are effortless in evoking a similar sense of responsibility from me that I always feel for those children for their characters too. There is a feeling of duty to care for them because they are innocent and this should be preserved.

I have the most plaudits for Taylor, he was able to make me feel as if I had peeled back the layers on Wallace and had found the ‘real’ him, a shell of a boy trapped in the body of a grown graduate student. I found myself, when I first read it last year, scribbling annotations of advice and counsel for Wallace, even though he was canonically older than me.

Taylor and Jenkins share in their ability to not just tell their consumers that their characters are multifaceted, but to show us. Jenkins does so by taking us on a journey through Chiron’s development, so we feel like we actually grew up with him. Taylor differed in his approach, he allows us into Wallace’s mind, creating the perfect schism between reality and the imagined. By reading Real Life, the reader occupies a pedestal. Wallace is so guarded, there are all these thoughts bubbling inside the character that are cornered off from his ‘friends’, that only we gain privileged access to. Taylor’s words allow us to see who Wallace performs as and who he actually is.

Alienation as the source of unity

Lawrence Taylor and Jenkins use Omar and Chiron to convey the idea that for queer people, there is a section of your life, that will always be a world away from your heterosexual friends and family because things are just simply different. And until you explore and understand what works for you, it is a lot of blundering around.

In Moonlight, Chiron has no one to go to concerning his feelings for Kevin. His mentor, Juan, gives him pointed advice on masculinity and navigating life as a young black man but he draws a blank when it comes to sexuality. This is no indictment of him either, how can you impart knowledge on what you have no knowledge on? In a similar vein, Omar confides in his fellow scholarship peers when he experiences his first male St Gilbert’s crush. He searches for guidance from all of them, including the only female in their group Leah, about their opinions on sex and how he should approach it.

Both characters are an ode to queerness and alienation. Although Juan is o tries to be that compass for Chiron he still exists on a different plane to Chiron. Despite their shared blackness, there are areas of Chiron’s life that he cannot protect him from, namely the questions surrounding his sexuality and the ridicule that attracts. As Jenkins states, Moonlight is a “cinematic portrayal of the lonely path many black gay men have walked.”

Similarly, Omar has overlapping identities with his friends at St. Gilbert’s. They come from the same area, they are of a similar socio-economic status and they are all black. But he exists on a separate plane to them. His sexuality alienates him from the shared experiences of teenage love and romance. The way that Toby, Jaheim and even Leah are able to exchange stories and advice in relation to their romantic and sexual exploits, leaves Omar sidelined. Not intentionally of course. Omar is able to give advice because he lives in a heteronormative world. Romance and sexuality is structured is around a heterosexual code that is spread across discourses. As a queer person, you are able to regurgitate advice and the expectations of heterosexual relationships because that is what you are exposed to; it’s all you know.

I think the characters supporting Omar and Chiron are very transparent in their lack of knowledge. This extracts an innocence from them all, a sense of unity that they are all fumbling in the dark together to question how heteronormativity aligns with queerness, if at all.

Wallace exists in more of a vacuum than Omar and Chiron. Perhaps it’s because Taylor sought to replicate his own, personal experiences through the character of Wallace. There are no marches, no bursting courage in the face of homophobic vitriol, there is no great love story that somehow makes it all worth it. Wallace lives a dull life, matched by an equally dull love life that constantly leaves him yearning for more. Unlike Omar and Chiron, in his younger years, Wallace has no one to express this yearning to. He has become jaded by the perils and the bruises of ‘real life’ that he became stagnant in a life that is subpar.

At least in Moonlight, Chiron has the opportunity to reconnect with his teenaged sweetheart. Jenkins leaves it to the audience to conjure up the endless possibilities that could transpire for Chiron and Kevin. However, Taylor is clear in his message that there is no silver lining, no magical love in the storyline of his queer main character.

This plurality is refreshing. I think the use of different modes of storytelling and representation of queer characters, in this case queer black men, emphasises the demand I made in an earlier post for queer people to still be treated as people, as a group that is not monolithic. A group that will have a variety of shared experiences. This was a lot of words to simply say it was nice to to see young black boys and men with emotions. To see them humanised, filled with innocence and guided by fear. Give us more media and art that allows them to be human!

Helpful Resources:

• Brandon Taylor, Real Life (2020)

• Gaylene Gould, Rhapsody in Blue: Barry Jenkins on Moonlight

• Greg Sigur, Moonlight: Three Act Dramatic Structure

• Daniel Lawrence Taylor talks Tubi’s Boarders

Playing with my coat lasted for a couple of years until my classmates realised I was fast. Not to brag, but I was really fast. And if you know anything about British primary schools in the early 2000s, being the fastest girl in your year group creates a special type of social currency. I was no longer left to languish at break time and lunchtime, I was the first person captains wanted on their team for bulldog, and even during wet play, people still wanted to be around me so that we could discuss which teams we would be on for bulldog if the weather improved.

When I transitioned to secondary school, I had hoped everything would change. I played football and did athletics and was even head prefect; the loneliness persisted. I still felt ostracised. I never whispered about crushes on boys whilst sleeping over at my friend’s house. I never liked boys, I wasn’t allowed to have sleepovers and I didn’t have any friends that I was close enough with to even be in that situation.

It took getting to sixth form where I really began to crack the code to friendship. I met my best friend, while she waited outside of our head of year’s office. I was leaving the study centre and whilst walking with my other friend, who she knew, she asked for my name and what A-Levels I was doing. I was shocked. It’s not that people were particularly mean. But I tended to fade into obscurity when in big groups, so I was often the person that just lingered when my friends were talking to new people.

In smaller groups and 1-1 situations, I’m very talkative. So much so that my friends think I’m lying about being shy, because I just don’t stop talking. It was in these contexts that I found many of the friends that I still have today. Finding, forming and sustaining friendships became easier for me at this stage because I was learning more about myself. I had accepted that I was different in some ways; instead of using this difference as a way to continue in isolation, I sought out and clung to people who shared these differences or championed them.

University.

With the brief insight I have given into my social skills, I’m sure you can understand why I dreaded going to university. Of course, I was excited to learn, to take advantage of the opportunity to be surrounded by geniuses. But I was nervous. So nervous. I worried how I would fare not being in close proximity to my sister. Previously, I knew I had my sister to depend on. To come back to and feel love and connection and friendship. But with her gone, what would I do?

I found my answer soon enough. I attended summer school just before university and met my first male friend. We were doing icebreakers and informally formed an alliance, bonding over the fact that we are both Jamaican and from East London. He thought I didn’t like people because I wasn’t speaking much, I replied that I’m just shy. And we’ve been friends ever since, he endeavoured to look out for me and has become like a brother since then. We were joint at the hip, to the extent that in the first few weeks of term, when people would see one of us alone they would ask where the other was.

However, as much as I thought I was making progress, I still struggled to make friends at university. I came with some people from sixth form, and that created complacency. I did not make an effort to create new connections, I didn’t even do the things that I enjoyed, that had characterised teenaged Adrienne. I felt too shy to do anything, and it wasn’t the endearing kind of shy. It was debilitating, it left me paralysed, unable to do anything outside of what I was accustomed to. When I saw people that I knew making friends, I wondered how they did it. I questioned if there was a secret pamphlet that everyone had access to that I was omitted from.

And then, very quickly, life changed.

I became determined to make my university experience fulfilling, and in the simplest way, I just started doing stuff. When opportunities were offered to me, I said yes. When in anxiety-inducing, big social groups, I came prepared. I had a mental flashcard which I defaulted to when making conversation with new people, it included; my name, my degree, the college I attended and my thoughts on it and potential questions to ask - like any possible mutuals we share and their experience at university so far.

The significance that friendship held in my life ballooned. And this wasn’t just about the new additions. I realised what I had to do to maintain and strengthen the nascent friendships that had been formed just before I arrived at university. I didn’t have much relationship experience so I conceived friendship as akin to taking care of a plant. Food, sunlight and care. This translated to loving my friends in the way they know, spending lots of time with them and showing them I care. It was easy to do because I received it tenfold, it was a process of learning and applying.

In a year which has been challenging, love has been my biggest reprieve. Love from my family and my friends has made dim days end with a smile and good days feel endless.

Friendship was my friend giving me shots of white rum, rubbing my back and wiping my tears when my first relationship broke down. It was also my friend coming to celebrate me finishing my exams, with a big group of people despite her social anxiety. Friendship was my friend being the first person to ever read my Substack posts and providing detailed feedback after each read. Friendship was my friend withholding judgement and opening me up to the idea of Bible Study and reconnecting with God. Friendship was me and my friend exchanging pickup lines with each other because we were bored out of our minds and did not have anyone else to practice them on. It was my friend cooking meals that reminded me of home and sharing her favourite tv series with me when I felt overwhelmed. Friendship was my friend allowing me and my cousin to get ready with her while preparing for the summer garden party. It was my friend easing my worries about an upcoming graduate job interview by listening to my incoherent, anxious rambles.

Friendship is love. It has saved my life and rebuilt my sanity on more occasions than I can count.

These are my friends and I love them. I hope this love lasts forever.

I think that my friendship with Adrienne has fundamentally been consolidated through podcast-length voice notes—or what some would simply call endless yapping. Her passion for history and her ability to explore and develop sophisticated arguments in such a measured way is truly remarkable. When our conversations reach a natural end, we somehow always end up discussing the granular aspects of everyday mundanities in philosophical ways. She has deepened my introspection, particularly regarding life’s deepest intimacies and the things that make me who I am. I hope our passion and commitment to the cause shines through in this piece. It is always a pleasure. Now, to the nitty-gritty.

I think when the images migrated to our screens from our favourite social media platforms, our immediate responses were not inherently critical. I speak for myself when I say I-D magazine's 'Great Britons’ piece has lingered in my mind and in my mouth, for longer than it took for me to read the article itself. The piece presents photography by Hattie Collins of Clint, Gabriel Moses and Slawn in front of the Great British flag. Thematically, the article claims to be an examination of community through the eyes of well-known black creators in the UK, further detailed through qualitative data included in the article. The project raised questions that extend beyond the concept of community, focusing specifically on the political implications of popular black creators standing before the British flag. This, in turn, sparked a broader debate on the construction and perception of the Black-British identity. Hopefully, those who insist that art holds no political significance are beginning to reconsider their perspectives.

Before we get into any analysis, I think we must acknowledge that there are multiple Black-British identities. This includes, but is not limited to, black people who are of an ethnic heritage but were born and have lived their whole lives in Britain (such as Kiara and I), black people who were born elsewhere but migrated to Britain during their childhood years and black people who were born and raised elsewhere but now currently live in Britain. Under this definition, we are all technically ‘Black-British’, but it would be a fallacy to assume that we all have the same shared experiences. We do not because there is a diversity in backgrounds which inform lived experiences.

Subsequently, Kiara and I have decided to focus on the Black-British identity that we possess. That is, the Black-British identity that is formed by the British colonial experience. We believe that ‘Black-British’ is a hybrid identity, and the ‘Black’ refers to your homeland. It is a stand in for your heritage. For us, that is Jamaica. So, our argument will be centred around the existence of the Black-British identity for black people who were born and raised here with parents from the ‘British’ Caribbean. 

The Denial of a ‘Black-British’ Identity

The rejection of Britishness is not a disposition that is incomprehensible. In fact, for many who carry the weight of colonial violence and subsequent epigenetic trauma, British citizenship stands as a marker of shame. The colonial response to the 1856 Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica is a pertinent example of colonial violence and the subsequent trauma. What started as an insurrection on a plantation in Morant Bay escalated and was violently quelled with 469 Jamaicans murdered and the aggressive destruction of St Thomas parish. Understandably, British rule could only empower rage and disdain. These tragedies are not just our own. The Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya is underpinned by the experience of torture. Black Kenyans who served in the British Army returned to Kenya in 1954, inspired by the Indian nationalist movement. Motivated by this experience, they began to demand independence and liberty in their homeland. An attempt to form an intertribal government and revolt against British Rule, resulted in the significant bloodshed of innocent civilians. To know your history, is to feel your history and in this case Britain will forever rest in this imagery and sentiment of revulsion. 

In the specific context of Rastafarianism, anti colonial and Pan-African principles remain integral to theological legitimacy. Within this religious demographic, to be righteous and enlightened is to be conscious of the history of Babylon, fundamentally rejecting the project of colonialism. To many Jamaicans this political disposition will not be unfamiliar. Particularly for me, my first generation British-born Jamaican father made it his duty to remind me that I am not from here. That I was a Black Jamaican and that my ancestors were from Africa. My ancenstry.com results did not undermine his stance. Moreover, his lived experience and the experience of crude racism in the 60’s and 70’s faced by my grandparents and great grandparents, further contextualised Britishness as something they could never be. British culture was foreign and difficult to navigate. It forced sociological assimilation that birthed a new set of values and approaches to living in this country as a Black Jamaican. I think my family always intended to go back to Jamaica, and most of them have returned. They are probably sitting blissfully on their verandas as we speak. As soon as my grandad returned home, he vowed to never come back to the UK. He hasn't set foot on British soil since.

The complexity of Black-British identity and the subsequent discourse has transmitted my grandfather's generation and beyond, reaching our main social media corners, Tik Tok and Twitter. An argument that gained popularity on both platforms was that there is not a Black-British identity because the demographic does not have the typical markers of a shared culture. Proponents of this view went on to provide examples of the features that the Black-British culture is supposedly missing, such as a shared cuisine and a shared language.

Firstly, I don’t think there is a lack of a shared language. The Black-British identity in question is communicated through English, that is the shared language. The question is not whether that is the sole or primary language. Of course, many Black Britons speak English and the language of their homeland. But to argue that there is no ‘shared language’, seems strange when we interact with each other in English. Yes, it is the language of the coloniser, but for many Anglophone Black Brits, that is the official language spoken ‘back home’ too. To act as if English is this foreign, non-existent language seems unfair when it is the language that has bound Britain and its Empire as well as forming bonds amongst countries within the Commonwealth. Furthermore, the existence of Multicultural London English (MLE) represents the influence of black and other ethnic identities on the English language itself.

Furthermore, I think hinging the dismissal of an ever evolving identity and culture on a lack of a shared dish is rather flimsy. To understand culture, is to understand that there are multiple interpretations and definitions of it. The best way I can explain this is by likening it to Nationalism. When I studied Nationalism in A-Level Politics, the first thing that I was taught was that there are different definitions of Nationalism - different ways in which citizens in a nation are united to engage in a shared identity. I think that this rule should be applied to how we view culture. Culture is not just archaic paintings and centuries old papers of literature bound together. The meanings of culture have evolved as time has gone on.

Even still, if we were to adhere to the ‘traditional’ markers of a culture, surely the Black-British identity fulfils some of these prerequisites. We have already established the existence of a shared language. Personally, I don’t think a singular, shared cuisine is all that important. But, the point could be made that there is a burgeoning, shared cuisine amongst Black Britons. Annually, on Christmas Day, jokes are made about the fusion of cuisines on the festive plate of Black Brits. Kwollem’s Grandma’s Kitchen featuring AJ Tracey feels like the soundtrack to my Christmas dinners, with the presence of staple Jamaican foods in a British home, being cooked by my father who was taught by my grandmother. Two individuals who grew up on an island thousands of miles away. My Christmas dinner plate typically looks like rice and peas, mac and cheese, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, roast chicken and curry goat or oxtail depending on what version of red meat my dad is currently obsessed with. On the side, is either roasted vegetables or a healthy serving of coleslaw. The foods that I just listed are staples in both ‘British’ and ‘Black’ Caribbean cuisines. Despite only spending one Christmas in Jamaica with my grandma that I can remember, every year Christmas dinner feels like it’s being hosted in ‘Grandma’s Kitchen’. A site where there is a coexistence of British and Jamaican culture.

The example of food represents the dual character in the Black-British identity. It is not about being one or the other, it is about being both and both having an influence on you. As Kiara outlined, feeling like the British side of your identity is suitable for you as a black person is something that is difficult; I think it will always carry the anchor of colonial trauma. But, black people in Britain have been able to carve out an identity for themselves in the country they were born and raised in. This has been done whilst maintaining a connection and engagement with their homeland, the country their parents or their grandparents or great grandparents were born and raised in. I think to deny that, is to submit when racists and those ignorant to the complexities of British colonial history state that black people cannot be British. To do that, is to deny the intertwined nature of Britain and its colonies that have followed into the present day. To deny the influence that Anglophone, predominantly black colonies, had in the making of modern Britain - an island that is also our own too.

In defence of a ‘Black-British’ Identity

The Black-British identity is often mistaken to be a reductionist, monolithic construct. Whilst debating critically on its legitimacy and existence, we overlook the reality that multiple Black-British identities can exist at one time. I argue that this is driven by an egoistic pursuit to assert a universal truth. But ultimately what Black-Britishness means to me does not have to align with what it means to you. It would be more productive to agree that we cannot build an absolute consensus on this concept and that it is inherently subjective. Rather perhaps we can agree on an ideology of culture and how it informs our identities individually.

Stuart Hall’s writings provide critical contributions to this idea of cultural identity. He argues that cultural identity is constructed by two pillars. The first pillar positions cultural identity as a shared oneness, reflective of a common historical context. This is the true essence of the Blackness that unites the diaspora and anchors identity across dimensions. The second position emerges to present this principle of difference and fluidity. Here we are arguing that the critical and political nature of cultural identity is characterised by this experience of becoming and being. Hall describes this as acknowledging how identity is not eternally fixed but is in constant transformation and production. This involves our identities being informed by not just our ‘histories’ but the present and the future, representing a constant negotiation of power, context and culture.

Although the unanimous experience of Blackness unites us, the ruptures in our histories do not produce deterministic constructs of identity. The ways in which Black people were positioned particularly within the colonial regime, means that the past will continue to narrate to us and contribute to material contexts, but who we identify to be will exist beyond this historical framing. The continuity of cultural production means we may never completely agree on what it means to be Black-British, but I think it's imperative we agree that the culture in itself exists. Anthropologically speaking, culture exists as a complex framework of diverse experiences, customs, values, beliefs and morals that underpin our existence. So to be able to collectively attest to perhaps not being allowed to watch Harry potter in primary school or £1 chicken and chips after school, I think can affirm the existence of a Black-British culture and subsequently a cultural identity. With this concept being in constant transformation, we will never agree on what specifically compounds one's cultural identity but this captures the essence of fluidity Hall calls for in his work.

In summation, a Black-British culture and identity ought to be characterised by the transient hybridity both of Blackness and belonging to the diaspora but also this sense of Britishness- an experience of being and becoming.  In The Wretched of the Earth (1963), Fanon urges us to confront colonial history while striving to cultivate a "new man," one shaped by our position within the diaspora and by the evolution of culture. This "new man" emerges through the development of a national consciousness—a true "coming-into-being" of one’s identity beyond colonial frameworks. For Black people in Britain, it is crucial to remain aware of our history within this nation, while also envisioning the future of our identity and culture. As Fanon states, the "absence of culture is the height of barbarism," underscoring the importance of critically examining our cultural identity but also the impact of neglecting culture. In doing so, we affirm the unique existence of Black-British culture, rooted in both historical awareness and forward-looking resilience. 

Colonial dynamics are often, and rightfully, described as iterations of exploitation. But an adjective that is often forgotten is symbiotic. Great Britain as we know it today would not exist without its former colonies. And its former colonies would not exist as we know it today without Great Britain. I am a historian by trade. And it was inculcated into me by my university tutors to never base an argument on what-if. In this instance, what if Britain didn’t colonise the world or what if countries like Jamaica were never subjected to colonialism. Thus, I think it is appropriate to make the statement I made above. People can speculate about Britain reaching its supposed ‘greatness’ regardless of its colonial ‘prowess’ or the greatness colonies would have been able to achieve if they were not subjected to colonial overlordship and exploitation. But, the reality is, that colonialism did happen. The story of colonialism is often told as this straightforward, top down power dynamic in which the metropole simply directed and ruled over the periphery. This is largely true, but it neglects the complexity of the experience. In which instances where colonies were able to exert influence over British culture, creating a subsequent (albeit imbalanced) exchange of culture between the metropole and the periphery. This is where culture comes in. 

British culture and the cultures of our homelands have many points of intersection. For many former colonies, the way they continue to operate is a legacy of British colonialism, as they were made in the image of the metropole. Subsequently, culture and politics continue to be guided by British influence. This is because across its Empire, the British colonial machine sought to bring ‘civilisation’ to its colonised populations and agreed the way to do so was to create the foundations of a modern state in these colonies that mirrored the British state. Two interesting examples of this are India and Jamaica. In both cases, insurrections against British rule were cited as evidence that the native populations were not ‘civilised’ and needed British paternalism to direct them to that point. The 1857 Indian Mutiny was followed by the introduction of the 1858 Government of India Act which transferred control and ownership of the country from company rule to the British state. Similarly, the control and ownership of Jamaica was transferred from the white plantocracy to the British state by the 1866 Jamaica Act after the Morant Bay Rebellion. 

For the ‘British’ Caribbean, cultural identity is rooted in Britishness. This is not to say that it will always be, but Britishness is a cornerstone of Caribbean cultural identities and thus it is part of the story. We have to look no further than moral codes in Jamaica to illustrate this. Brian More and Michele Johnson explored this in Neither Led Nor Driven. They explained how the Jamaican social elite and British imperialists attempted to introduce a “new sociocultural religious and moral order, based on British imperial ideologies and middle-class Victorian ideas, ideals, values and precepts” to the Jamaican people. In late 19th and early 20th century Jamaica, black and coloured Jamaicans who desired full citizenship sought to emulate key features of British culture to prove they were deserving of it. The pursuit of respectability politics has been a base for mainstream Jamaican culture and it continues to this day. I spoke of this in a previous post, in which I detailed how many Jamaicans remain socially conservative due to British colonialism. British and Jamaican social and moral codes have many overlaps and this has shaped Jamaican culture. 

And what about the other side? The answer is not as straightforward as understanding how Britain exerted cultural influence onto its Caribbean colonies, but Catherine Hall provides a great starting point for exploring the inverse. In 2021, Hall delivered a talk entitled, ‘Entangled histories: Britain and Jamaica in slavery and beyond’. Hall captured the essence of what we have been saying in terms of colonies influencing British culture, stating that colonies were vital for the development of modern Britain’s politics, commerce, and culture. 

I used a database established by UCL to interrogate Hall’s argument. It showed an abundance of cultural sites and affiliations in Britain which were were financed with the compensation the British government gave to slave owners who had stakes throughout the Caribbean. A perfect example of this is the Bromley House Library. Located in Nottingham, one of its main founders - Reverend Robert White Almond - was able to contribute to its establishment in 1820 because he inherited money from the compensation of enslaved people in Jamaica. Almond was the recipient of the Hanbury Estate in Manchester, Jamaica in his brother-in-law’s will. He was thus entitled to the compensation the British government extended to slave owners in exchange for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in the first decade of the 19th century.*

We can see the prints of connection between Caribbean culture and British culture, both informing each other. Colonialism and the imbalanced relationship between Britain and its Caribbean colonies means that culture was influenced on both sides but in different ways. For the Caribbean cultures, their cultures were governed by Britain; the colonial power had the authority to do so in the asymmetrical relationship. The influence of Caribbean colonies on British culture is not direct in that way, but can still be found when we trace the financial history of important pieces of British culture. The reason for their existence was due to British slave owners being compensated and then investing that money into the development of British culture.

Even if we fast forward to the 20th century, we can again see the direct impact  populations have had in the construction of present day Britain. For example, the National Health Service required the labour and the enthusiasm of black populations in the Commonwealth to make Clement Attlee’s vision of a welfare state a tangible reality. However, the narrative often forgets the significance of these countries in the Commonwealth in this construction.

Hall’s conception of the dynamic between Jamaica and Britain as a ‘Long History’ illustrates how their histories are intertwined.  If we were to say we were just Jamaican, even then, we would still be linked to Britishness and vice versa. Traces of the other will always be found in either one of them.

Echoing the sentiment expressed by Adrienne above, Britain would not be what it is today without Jamaica and Jamaica would not be what it is today without Britain. This relationship produces real and material implications on our experience as Black people living in Britain. Thus to proclaim that Britain has zero influence on your identity is quite fallacious. There are diverse and varied experiences that can attest to the experience of Britishness, unique to Black Brits: 

• Watching Blue Peter, 4 O'Clock Club and recognising black faces in children's media (acknowledging the significance of representation) 

• Socialisation into British values and behaviour e.g. engaging in surface level small talk, minimal eye contact (recognising how this contradicts with ethnic values related to expressive engagement and dialogue)

• The experience of covert racism and having to be abundantly aware of your race (for many back home in Africa or the Caribbean, racism as a dominant structure does not significantly characterise society because the population is predominantly black) 

The experience of being Black-British, also as already asserted by Tik Tok, does and can capture the development of grime and jungle and more lighthearted things such as eating Morley’s on the street with your friends. Ironically, this recognises that culture is expansive and is legitimated by shared experience. To be British is not just fish and chips and to be Jamaican is not just jerk chicken, but it is perhaps how you experience these things and how the underpinning culture informs who you are and what you are becoming. I think it is difficult conceptually for humans to grasp this concept of hybridity because it asserts an obligation to be comfortable with identity not being fixed. Upon accepting this, I think the debate becomes immediately less egotistical and convoluted. You can know a lot about your heritage, and feel deeply connected but still not be able to directly relate to those that live there, in the same way that they will not be able to directly relate to us. The shared racial oneness across the diaspora can still unite us whilst we acknowledge this difference. And maybe cultural identification can be operationalised through the intensity of proximity you feel to the culture, which naturally will vary at times. Ultimately, we don't create culture on our own and we ought to accept that its fluidity will inform our own cultural identities as Black Brits.

Conclusion?

I came to Kiara with an idea of writing about culture but not a set plan. All I knew was that I wanted to discuss legitimacy and feeling, to talk about our experiences as being British-Jamaicans. It has unravelled into a conversation about the existence of A Black-British identity. Our key argument is that culture is fluid. We do not form cultures on our own, and we ought to accept that this nature of culture informs our identity as Black Britons. Moreover, whilst the culture is still evolving, it does not mean that the Black-British culture is not legitimate within its own right. It does exist, and has for a while, but what we must remember is that what it meant to be Black-British 20 years ago is not what it means today.

Ultimately, our message is an invitation to reflect on and interrogate your Black-British identity. What shapes your experience as a Black person living in Britain? The aim of our article is to expand the discussion around culture and identity, recognising that our perspective is just one among many. We understand that our views will continue to evolve alongside the broader discourse.

It’s okay not to have all the answers or to struggle with articulating your feelings about identity. The Black-British identity is complex and diverse, and our sense of belonging will always be personal and political. 

*Slavery was not abolished in Jamaica until 1833. The transatlantic slave trade was abolished in 1807.

Resource Pack:

• Stuart Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspora (1990)

• Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963)

• Brian More and Michele Johnson, Neither Led Nor Driven: Contesting British Cultural Imperialism in Jamaica, 1865 - 1920 ()

• Catherine Hall, ‘Entangled Histories: Britain and Jamaica in slavery days and beyond’

• UCL Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery

Even typing those sentences feels ridiculous but, on multiple occasions, I have been mistaken as being a boy, so I think the disclaimer is needed.

These are some of my favourite experiences:

One of the first times I can recall this happening to me was in primary school. I had cainrows in my hair and was on my way to the bathroom during P.E. A teacher remarked that I was going the wrong way and the boys’ toilets were in another direction.

While entering the club at university, the male security guard attempted to search me. I was slightly tipsy so I didn’t register what was transpiring until my friend pulled me away and into the company of the female security guard which made me shout quite unceremoniously “I AM A GIRL.”

I went to Marrakech for my 21^st birthday, and whilst in the club (again) I was in the women’s toilets. I kept receiving weird looks from one of the women in there. She didn’t speak English, but the cleaner caught on to her suspicion and eased it by gesturing to her own physique as her way of saying that I was a woman, not a man sneaking into the women’s toilets.

I was walking into the women’s changing room at the gym and caught an older woman staring at me intensely. I looked behind me, even though I knew no one was there, to confirm that she wasn’t staring past me. As I walked by her, she stopped me saying, “I was just checking, I thought you were a boy.”

My responses to these varied. Until the last occasion, I had always conjured some sort of flippant, smart response in my head. But they never translated vocally. Mainly because I hate attention, and any reaction outside of smiling awkwardly and murmuring would make the interaction protracted and keep the attention on me. The only evidence of any enmity on my part was the invisible blush painted across my cheeks and the sheepish demeanour I took on. But, internally, I used to be furious. I was irritated that my femininity was called into question and that is was done so embarrassingly, in public for others to poke and inspect it. An invitation for more people to place my identity under a sterile, bright white light and determine if I was feminine enough to fit into their definition of what a girl is when I was obviously a girl.

Hegemonic Femininity as a Performance

The last experience prompted me to consider the following questions. How can you distinguish between a man and a woman when you first look at them? What are the indicators of femininity?

I took this question to a small sample size (literally 4 people). I used Patricia Hill Collins’ framework of hegemonic femininity in Black Sexual Politics which defined it as having 3 main components: feminine appearance, feminine traits or demeanour and traditional gender role ideology. The question I asked “how can you tell an individual is a woman just by looking at them?”, elicited answers which fell into the first two categories – feminine appearance and feminine traits or demeanour.

I split feminine appearance into 2 sub-categories ‘natural’ and ‘cosmetic’. ‘Natural’ features included breasts and, interestingly, the absence of ‘masculine’ facial features such as no square jawline or facial hair. This was interesting to me because when discussing the otherness of women in The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir argued that men identify themselves as men by the fact that they are not the ‘other’, who are women. However, in this instance, it seemed like the dynamic was being subverted, with feminine appearance being defined by the absence of a masculine appearance. Furthermore, what struck me was the attempt to present these identifiers as universal, that all women could be identified as feminine by lacking these ‘masculine’ features. When this was discussed further, the respondents acknowledged this, accepting that some women are born with what they deemed as ‘masculine’ features, such as women with PCOS or people that are born intersex.

The majority of the answers concerning feminine appearance fell into the ‘cosmetic’ category. Attributes such as manicured eyebrows and nails, eyelash extensions or long, flowing hair are examples of this. Another recurring answer was clothing, a specific emphasis was placed on there being clear differences between men and women’s clothing, even articles which appear unisex, ostensibly have subtle distinctions. For example, shorts, women’s shorts were defined as being shorter and tighter whilst men’s were longer and looser. But what was my intention behind this micro study? For me, I hold the belief that clothing is not, or rather, should not be gendered. Doing this research revealed some of my naivety. It showed me that as much as I wish it was not the case, aesthetics – especially clothing – is gendered. When I say gendered, I refer to it being both categorised as only appropriate for a man or woman as well as this categorisation being policed and staunchly upheld by others.

The philosopher Sandra Bartky succinctly described femininity as ‘an artifice, an achievement’. I agree, I think that hegemonic femininity, that is the idea that femininity is somehow universal and can only be expressed in a particular way, is constructed. It is not a natural phenomenon, it is something that we have created. And, like most concepts, it has an exclusive nature. The argument that femininity and by extension, gender, is created and performed is not a new argument on the sociological scene. de Beauvoir helped to set this as the general consensus in The Second Sex. She asserted that womanhood and femininity are social constructions; they look different across different time periods, regions and historical contexts – it is not a universal experience.

I share this sentiment, but I do not wish to recount the entirety of The Second Sex. What I want to focus on is the implication of hegemonic femininity being a performance. It is a concept that young girls are taught to aspire to, whilst simultaneously being lauded as something that comes naturally, a trait that one simply has to unlock. I believe it is far more complex than this. Femininity is artificial, it is constructed which requires those who engage in it to behave and present themselves in a specific manner. A young girl is not automatically able to harness and showcase her femininity. What femininity is and what it requires is something that is taught, transmitted via multiple discourses such as culture and religion. de Beauvoir speaks on this in The Second Sex with the ‘Myth of the Eternal Feminine’ in which she rejects the notion that there is a specific type of femininity that is an unchanging quality, present in all women.

This is why I find it ironic when proponents of hegemonic femininity complain that those who do not subscribe to the aesthetic demands of it are behaving in an ‘unnatural’ and ‘performative’ manner. Both groups conduct a performance, curating and wearing an identity that they deem as suitable for them. However, only the latter (those who do not conform to hegemonic femininity) are scrutinised for being ‘unnatural’ or ‘performative’. I suggest it’s because the latter are not legitimised, not in the way the former are. Supporters of hegemonic femininity are backed by cultural and religious discourses as well as historical context. Which leads many of them to reject the notion hegemonic femininity as an identity is just as constructed and performed as those who do not conform to such an identity. Choosing to step outside of that is not just simply a choice as I thought. It is viewed as a rebellion, an unfounded unnatural performance. 

Ultimately, hegemonic femininity is predicated on ideas, there is not a concrete, intangible factor it stems from. We have accepted the differentiation between sex and gender. There is no choice but to, there are too many ‘what ifs’ and ‘buts’ to continue conflating biology and gender. Furthermore, the lines around gender, especially femininity, are so arbitrary. Where and how do we place people who fall in between? Who unintentionally and intentionally defy biological rules such as intersex people, transgender people and non-binary people. This leads me to my next point, exploring one of the lines surrounding femininity, which is race.

Femininity and Race: The Influence of Race on the Construction of Hegemonic Femininity

I play football, and have been competitively since at least Year 5. One time, whilst training with my local football team, we were playing a practice match with the boys team. We couldn’t have been more than 16. We were preparing for an offensive corner, one of the boys pointed at me and exclaimed “mark Juan Cuadrado”. In hindsight, it is quite funny for an abundance of reasons, the main one being, that besides being black and styling natural hair, Cuadrado and I had no striking resemblances. In the moment though, I felt a twitch of pain and vulnerability. It felt and sounded like ridicule. But, I rationalised it by saying things such as, “well we do have the same hairstyle”, “its only training anyway, when I’m dressed up I obviously don’t look like a boy”, and a slightly facetious, “Cuadrado has an afro, I have twists.”

It was early morning football training. I can safely say I, nor none of my teammates, looked like Princess Peach. Yet, I was the only one subjected to that line of ridicule, it is clear why. Me and my other teammate were the only black players and I was the only one that had my natural hair styled at the time. My natural features were conflated and judged as masculine.

Kathy Deliovsky raised an interesting point regarding race and hegemonic femininity. She stated that ‘white femininity is positioned as normative because it is not seen as white per se but rather as just femininity.’ What she explained is a reality for non-white woman in the West, that culture has placed white femininity as hegemonic femininity, the only permissible form of it. She declared there is a ‘hierarchy of racially coded degrees of femininity and beauty that culminate in normative definitions of white femininity’. But what does this mean?

Essentially, the conception of femininity, at least in the modern era has been sculpted around white women. The standards and demands placed on all women were created with only white women in mind. Try to recall narrations of femininity, particularly those with a strong coming of age theme for young women, in popular culture. The majority of the images centre on a white woman as the lead actress or protagonist. Deliovsky referred to this, she detailed an encounter with her 9 year old mixed race daughter who declared she wanted her hair to be “blonde and normal like the girls on TV”. Representations of femininity in popular culture and mainstream culture place white women as the apogee of femininity. The codes and rules we are instructed to adhere to were made with only a particular race of women in consideration. Elizabeth Cole and Alyssa Zucker remarked that the ‘concept of femininity has long been fraught for Black American women in particular because they have historically been treated as though they exist outside of its boundaries.’

I would go further than Cole and Zucker, to argue that this certainly applies to all black women in the Western world. From birth, black women exist on the fringes of hegemonic femininity, their race denies them direct access. To be able to engage with it, black women must operate within the stringent confines of hegemonic femininity which are inherently set against them anyway.

“Normal Girl, oh, oh, oh, oh. I wish I was a normal girl. I’ll never be, no, never be…”

SZA’s ‘Normal Girl’ featured on her 2017 album Ctrl illustrates the point I am making. When it gained traction on Tik Tok many non-white young women made posts about how the song had a special meaning to them because they grew up knowing that their race meant they did not fit into the mould of the ‘Normal Girl’. Whilst SZA languishes over not being a ‘Normal Girl’ because of her unhealthy behaviours with the subject of her romantic affections, many young non-white women interpreted it via a racial lens. They acknowledged they were not what society envisioned when conversations about girlhood, womanhood and femininity circulated. That it took developing their own personal relationship with and understanding of femininity to feel like they finally belonged underneath such a title.

This interpretation immortalises and codifies the interaction Deliovsky described with her young mixed race daughter. Even from the tender age of 9, her daughter recognised that the conceptions of a ‘normal girl’, and of femininity were not figures that looked like her. They were not standards that she could naturally reach, and she expressed her longing to be different to what she was born with, to be white with blonde hair because to her that was the only way you can be a ‘normal’, ‘natural’ girl.

The tensions between race and hegemonic femininity are why I was so disappointed by the outrage directed at the Algerian professional boxer, Imane Khelif, during the 2024 Summer Olympics. Especially when vitriol was hurled at her by non-white women. It was like having a front row seat to seeing cognitive dissonance unfold. The same physical features that were used to paint Khelif as some type of menacing imposter, endangering vulnerable white women have long been used against non-white women to suggest that they are innately more masculine than their white counterparts. As natural outsiders to hegemonic femininity, I thought that non-white women would understand that femininity does not have just one face and that it can appear in a variety of forms. But, unfortunately, this lesson was lost on many.

Where does this leave us?

This is not to say that white women are not restricted by hegemonic femininity either. I imagine it as a gilded cage, whilst being paraded as the arbiters of femininity they are also subjected to the demands of it, their race does not make them completely exempt.

Questioning hegemonic femininity and reinventing it for yourself is not a mere symptom of wokeness. To me, it is in all women’s interest, it’s a need for all women, particularly non-white women. Every time you call yourself ‘beautiful’ and ‘feminine’ as a non-white woman, you are pushing the boundaries and reshaping the borders of hegemonic femininity. Creating a vision of femininity for yourself which exists outside of white skin, shining blonde hair, saccharine blue eyes and a slim physique is an attack on hegemonic femininity. It places you in a sort of alliance with queer women. Women who are also knocking at the door, questioning the concept of what it means to be a woman, what it looks like and what femininity means to them.

Analysing and deconstructing the world around us requires us to reevaluate concepts that are treated as fixed such as femininity. This is why I think the presentation of femininity should continue to be more personal, determined by the individual. Both, masculinity and femininity are regarded in absolutes; I think that is something we should definitely change. I hope this post has demonstrated that femininity, specifically in terms of appearance, is not universal and other factors such as race mean that it will never be. Even biology means that we do not have a universal sense of femininity. I think the energy we devote to being arbiters of gender expression and presentation can be redirected to something far more useful such as evaluating and reforming our definitions of these concepts.

Helpful Readings:

• Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)

• Elizabeth R. Cole and Alyssa N. Zucker, ‘Black and White Women’s Perspectives on Femininity’ (2007)

• Kathy Deliovsky, ‘Normative White Femininity: Race, Gender and the Politics of Beauty’ (2008)

The concept of ‘Black Excellence’ dates back to the Civil Rights era in the U.S, created to applaud and empower black people who triumphed in the face of adversity and racial disparities. In recent years, the term has come under fire, with people directing valid critiques at it. Whilst I understand and agree with the critiques, I don’t think the concept should be condemned and discarded completely, it is still meaningful to me. In this post, I speak about Black Excellence very specifically, that is, in terms of high performing young black students doing well academically. I’ve conceptualised Black Excellence as having a dual character, on one side, the label is used to compliment and congratulate such young black people. But the darker side, which often attracts critique, is the pressure element. The side in which young black people feel obliged to be flawless, to always excel.

I always send my drafts to my friend Holly and they incite great conversation between us. In this particular instance, we found ourselves on opposing sides. She argued that Black Excellence as an idea should be discarded but it is so woven into the black community that it feels impossible. I agree with the latter half of the statement. I think the expectation and the constant reminder to be successful, for young black kids, is often another product of being a child with parents who migrated to the U.K. Whether it is intentional or not, most of us who grew up with working-class black migrant parents, can attest to the expectation of needing to do better than them. To repay them for the sacrifices and investments they made for our sake. For me, it rang throughout my childhood like a refrain. I regard myself as very fortunate because I have very patient and understanding parents. Nevertheless, my parents still inculcated the lesson of surpassing where they started, taking advantage of the resources and opportunities I have at my disposal that they did not. Subsequently, I think whilst Black Excellence is culpable in the pressure placed on young black kids, it is not at the root nor is it one of the most significant factors in creating that feeling. This forms part of my defence, that pressure, particularly expectations about academic attainment, comes from wider phenomena. The first one I want to discuss, which I have partially touched on, is material conditions.

Our parents did not conjure these expectations from thin air. I think it is a rational response, despite how it feels. Growing up, I saw my parents always working hard, but, it did not always pay off. It was like they were running full speed constantly, but until recently, they could not catch up no matter how fast they ran. Witnessing how they did not get a ‘fair start’, pushed me to strive to fulfil the expectations placed on me. At certain points, there were times when we did not have things that I wanted and it pushed me to do more academically. Firstly, so that I could get them for myself when I was of age. I was told the way to be successful was to do well in school to get a good job, I internalised this. Furthermore, seeing how much they sacrificed drove me to force life to be fair to them. To show that their investments had made dividends and to endeavour to reward them in a way that had evaded them during my childhood.

Even if the concept of Black Excellence is disbanded, the ideology that underpins it will survive as long as the status quo persists. As long as black people remain as a marginalised group, the pressure for young black kids to do better and to be better will continue. The instruction to work twice as hard comes from a lesson learned that black people have to do an extra bit more to be given the same recognition as their white counterparts. This feeds into the expectation and the demand to be virtually flawless. Racists are already looking for any excuse to justify their bigotry, according to this logic, being exceptional means that you become faultless.

Black Excellence conceptually has developed. It has grown to expand and include multiple definitions. It is no longer just about traditional definitions of success. To me, this development is also indicative of the generational divide between migrant parents and their children. I understand it using American psychologist, Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. With this theory, Maslow argued lower-level needs must be fulfilled before higher needs are met. When applying this to myself, I see how my parents in their younger years had to fight to fulfil their lower-level needs, but me being born here and in a different generation placed me in a position where such needs were not contested and I could cast my eye further up the pyramid.

My parents migrated from Jamaica in the early 2000s. For some young 20 somethings, in a new country with a baby to take care of, there was no time, nor space to crumble or complain about pressure. They had to fulfil their lower-level needs, that is, the physiological needs and providing safety and security. But as their child, born in this new world of hope, I was given the opportunity to look past this. With the bottom needs being fulfilled by our parents we begin to long for more. To become hungry for higher-level needs, for love and belonging, for self-esteem and eventually we get to self-actualization. I think the generational gap represents the shift from the pursuit of survival to satisfaction for working-class black migrant families. Even me writing this post is an example of the privilege that I have. I can sit here to discuss and critique a concept which my parents did not. They had no choice but to accept this mantle because it was a matter of survival. They had to be successful, they had to become great in order to set the sturdy bedrock that they envisioned for my older sister and I.

The pressure and the expectations associated with Black Excellence are symptomatic as opposed to the root of the issue. We have explored one of the roots being material conditions coming from a working-class, black family. But one of the other roots are much wider. It is a societal point. As a society, we have exalted delayed gratification, praising and encouraging unhealthy working styles which produce suffering all in the name of receiving impressive monetary gains or accolades later on in life.

We joke about ‘LinkedIn Warriors’, that is people who are very active on the app, always posting about their achievements. But there is more to the joke. The existence of LinkedIn is evidence of my point that an individual’s identity and value is inextricably linked to their achievements. Typically, those who have an impressive resume of accolades receive the most connections and followers. The prominence of LinkedIn underlines the creation of identities, which we only engage with to recount stories of success.

We love an underdog story. I imagine success as a desktop. The idea of Black Excellence will never die, even though the name may. It is a crucial file in the digital folder of success. A tale of ‘Black Excellence’, of a black individual tasting success will always be a hit because blackness makes one a perpetual underdog. To still experience success despite this ever-lasting, intangible feature which can often be a point of contention (at the hands of racists) will always garner that extra bit of applause, jubilation and admiration.

Black Excellence has developed, just as our perspectives on success and our needs have. Conversations surrounding academic achievements and career trajectories have become more transparent, encouraging and diverse. It has become transparent in the sense that people are opening up about setbacks and failures they experienced on their respective journeys. These discussions have become more encouraging and diverse as people attempt to separate value from achievement, reminding you not to beat yourself up in the face of adversity. And recognising not everyone wants to be an investment banker or a lawyer or an engineer a doctor. There has been a push to encourage people to explore more career paths and to try multiple things across their career trajectory. I have not only seen it with my own eyes, but have also been party to it. My friend Olamide established a non-profit organisation, Opportunity Hub, which seeks to bring more opportunities outside of traditional careers to young people in London and to organise uplifting events for them. It urges its audience to unlock more of their creative side and to show them that the creative industry is also a source for viable careers.

The accusation that the concept of ‘Black Excellence’ places pressure on young black individuals is undeniable, I myself have been victim to it. However, as I continued to progress on my academic journey, I became quick to detach my value from ‘Excellence’ and achievement because it was just too much. Black Excellence still held a semblance of importance because it was a reminder of where I had come from, what I was able to achieve and what I had gained on such a tumultuous journey. To this day, I still find some joy and comfort in the concept, wearing it as a badge of pride. To people younger than me, I see it as a reminder that even though you are black and in spaces where the majority of people do not look like you, you have created something incredible in the face of unfavourable odds. And to people older than me, I see it as a type of homage, a thank you for paving the way and being a positive example in which I could see and try to emulate. To me, that is all ‘Black Excellence’ should be, a congratulation to black people who do exceptionally well and an acknowledgement of what it took to get there and where we are coming from. I can never divorce myself from the concept because of everything that it means to me. Yes, the pressure was, and sometimes continues, to feel suffocating. But to me, it’s more than just pressure and expectations. It’s a nod to being able to live a life that takes advantage of possibilities that are not typically associated with people that look like me and were certainly held back from people that looked like me only a few generations ago.

Articles which explore critiques of ‘Black Excellence’:

https://girlsunited.essence.com/fedback/news/black-excellence-encouraging/        

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a39570002/black-excellence/

• I read something really interesting on here by Loz called Inside the Immigrant’s Head: Reflecting on western-wombed children. It discussed the idea of generational gaps in even more depth.

This may sound like a classic case of gender dysphoria. I did not have an understanding of gender but what I did know was that I was a girl and what was expected of me with that label made me feel very limited. It was secondary school where I realised that my lack of male crushes across my lifetime was not a case of me being coy or incredibly focused on school, I was gay. But, at 7, all I knew was that I wanted to be able to behave the way that boys were allowed, no, encouraged to behave. Specifically: being able to chase girls in kiss chase, wear shorts and t-shirts at family BBQs as opposed to cute dresses or skirts, and to run up and down with my male cousins without any comments about me being ‘unladylike.’ In my 7 year old mind, presentation and attraction was fixed in a way that I did not align with and I felt I had to be something else, to be someone else in order to conform to the binary.

I was listening to a podcast featuring the artist Kehlani and she mentioned how she makes an effort to represent and uplift her fellow black and brown queer women in the industry. This got me thinking back to the core memory I just shared and what representation actually means, specifically queer representation.

From all sides of the political spectrum, there are whispers (and if you are unlucky enough, sometimes shouts) of a ‘gay agenda’. From Nipsey Hussle to the Republicans in the U.S to the Conservative Party in Britain, different iterations of this ‘gay agenda’ has been proliferated. It presents the notion that queerness is malignant, and efforts to incorporate it into mainstream society are simply just attempts to undermine normalcy and brainwash our unsuspecting and vulnerable children. The ‘gay agenda’ in question usually takes the form of representing queerness; this can mean many things. It includes showing and including queer characters in media, to placing queer relationships on an equal footing to heterosexual relationships. Essentially, it is the idea that such people and relationships do exist and should be extended the same respect as their heterosexual counterpart. To me, this does not sound like an agenda or anything too radical (I might be biased though).

But seriously, I think there needs to be an open conversation about what queer representation is and why it is important. At the beginning of the year, I wrote a blog post entitled ‘What is left to be said about Intersectionality in 2024?’. For me, I have always understood the need for queer representation in conjunction with the need for empowering, black representation. These are both features in my identity and often times when I have conversations surrounding the former it easier to understand when comparing it to race as both are marginalised groups. To be clear race is not identical to sexuality, however, being black and being queer share a similarity in being oppressed identities; the question of representation is pressing to both, and, we can use one to understand the other.

Now, let me take you back to 2018. This was the year the Black Panther movie was released worldwide by Marvel. If you ask the majority of black people, they will agree that this was a culturally significant movement for the black diaspora. It was a predominantly black cast, based on a mythical country that had a predominantly black population and was directed by a black director. It was refreshing to see this after a habit of being supporting characters in the media and portrayed in a limiting, stereotypical manner. We finally had a black on-screen superhero, that was the main character. King T’Challa was and continues to be a figure that young black children look up to and want to be like for Halloween or dress up days at school or even simply on the playground when imitating imaginary characters during playtime.

I was born in the early 2000s; growing up I did see black people in media, but they were never really the main characters unless you watched specifically ‘black’ movies such as Love & Basketball, Are We There Yet, or Juice just to name a few. The movies mentioned spanned across 3 genres but they were catered to black people. However, Black Panther was created and marketed to a worldwide audience, defying racial borders. As previously mentioned, black people recognised and continue to discuss the importance of the black representation in the movie.

We can recognise, or at least make the argument, as to why the representation of certain races is important, necessary and urgent. But when the topic of sexuality emerges, it suddenly becomes a different story. I believe they are not so different. In the same way that as a young black girl, I struggled to see representations of people that looked like me have leading roles in media, as a queer person I also struggled to find people that belonged to such a community with such a presence. My earliest memory of a queer character in media was Damian in Mean Girls. For ages there have been ‘token’ queer characters, storylines written in to fill the quota and ensure that we have marked another tick along the diversity list.

I understand tokenism as a starting point, but it is time to go further and to understand why this must go further. That is not to disregard the advancements made in queer representation in media since the early 2000s. One of my favourite television series I’ve watched this year, Everything Now, had a mixed race queer young lady as the lead. What I loved about it was that this feature of her identity was not the only point of her identity, it was treated with significance and explored and her character was given a level of complexity and development that is typically reserved for heterosexual characters.

I resonated with Everything Now because it presented an alternative storyline for queer characters. They are typically centred around ‘coming out’ and battling the emotions in anticipation of that. I still believe that is a very important story to continue telling for such characters, but as Everything Now demonstrates, multiple storylines and characters arcs can exist for queer characters, they do not have to start with and only be confined to ‘coming out’.

Regardless of your views on queerness, queer people do exist. Arguing that they should not have any representation in the media will not erase the real life fact that queer people, once again, exist and live lives. These lives, like any other lives, are deserving of being heard and represented. Back to 2010/2011 Adrienne, my desire of wanting to ‘be a boy’ was driven by a desire to engage in behaviours that I thought were reserved for boys. At 7, I did not know that girls could be together or that they did not have to dress a certain way; this was indicative of ignorance. Being gay was not a thing in my household, it was not condemned or praised it was just not spoken about and I did not see any representation of it in the media I consumed, which was mainly Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

There is no ‘gay agenda’. What is happening and what people fear is queer people trying to carve a space for themselves in a heteronormative world. They want to see themselves, diverse portrayals of themselves in movies, in television series, in music videos etc. It’s not an irrational or radical demand. I think it’s very human, it’s affirming. In a similar way to seeing my first black superhero, or my first black female lead in a teen drama it’s an acknowledgement of your existence, that you deserve to exist and to have books and movies and television scripts written about you. That your life means something and is worth telling a story about and representing to the masses.

1.     I told my Jamaican mother I’m planning to get locs by the end of the year. She said she would cut them off in my sleep. (All in jest don’t worry)

2.     When discussing my dissertation, focused on Jamaica, with one of my university tutors she asked how much power Rastafarians had in Jamaican government… in the mid 19th century, bear in mind the Rastafarian movement emerged in the early 20th century.

These two moments prompt a discussion of just how liberal Jamaican social attitudes are; the masses tend to believe all Jamaicans possess radical and unconventional social beliefs.

Before broaching my views on the topic, there are a few caveats that need to be made. Firstly, I am a second generation British-Jamaican, I’ve lived in England my whole life, my parents were the ones who were born and grew up in Jamaica. So, my answer to this question is based primarily on my own experiences and literature I have engaged in regarding Jamaica.

In my opinion, the answer is that Jamaicans are more conservative as opposed to liberal. Growing up, I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness via my mum’s efforts. My dad shared her desire to shelter us from inappropriate and ‘worldly’ things. Consequently, Vybz Kartel and other dancehall artists who indulged in vibrant lyrics similar to his were banned in the house. When I was younger I found it annoying, it meant I was never up to speed with the newest songs and couldn’t pull the wool over my parents’ eyes as they understood the content more than me. To me, this was the norm and I thought everyone with Jamaican parents grew up like this. As I grew older, I realised this was not the case and there was a whole other side of the culture that I had not been exposed to but was perceived as the face of Jamaica globally.

Back to my earlier two points. My mum’s distaste for locs is not rare amongst Jamaicans. When I was telling her my plans for this post, she even mentioned how a student in Jamaica had been expelled from their school for refusing to cut off their locs. People are often shocked when I tell them this, because the popular perception of Jamaicans tends to be that we are all Rastafarian Vybz Kartel lovers who smoke weed incessantly. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with these features, it’s simply not true and is also a gross generalisation. Relying on tropes from singular parts of the culture produces incorrect assumptions such as my tutors’ belief that Rastafarians have been a central, powerful actor in Jamaican society.

In the eyes of conservative Jamaicans, Rastafarianism, vulgar dancehall and marijuana consumption fall under the umbrella of what I like to call unconventional. They are viewed as subversions of the norm, and what is acceptable. I myself have been guilty of trying to separate myself from that umbrella, emphasising that I am not one of those Jamaicans and leaning on my socially conservative upbringing. However, the lesson for myself has been to not view Jamaican culture as a monolith. Whilst generally, Jamaicans are socially conservative, there are multiple other facets of the culture that rival such a perspective. The issue lies in the belief that  these rival features, such as Rastafarianism, are the only features of the culture, when in reality some of them are actually marginalised back in Jamaica.

It must be acknowledged that the conservative social beliefs held by Jamaicans in the present day are a legacy of British colonialism. I was able to explore this dynamic in my dissertation and concluded that in the transition from slavery to emancipation, different agents of the British Empire - from missionaries to governors - endeavoured to make black and coloured Jamaicans more ‘respectable’ on the route to civilisation. This involved enforcing Victorian Christian ideas on morality and respectability. I think the ire directed toward Rastafarianism as an ideology and a lifestyle stems from this, it challenges antiquated Victorian notions of respectability, and by extension civilisation. The persecution of Rastafarians by Jamaican institutions in response is reminiscent of the conservative social attitudes held by British colonial authorities in Jamaica.