Back in these freelance streets!
Media Round-Up:
NOPE [2022] - Love to see a kinda spooky movie made for niggas to have fun with
Beyonce - Renaissance [2022] - Do I have more to say than had already been said? The bops are bopping! The album really feels like A Work in a way that I appreciate. Also once again I have complicated thoughts on the cultural tourism she engages in.
A Little Devil in America - Hanif Abdurraqib [2021] - Fucking incredible! I really wanna write something like this at some point. This is quote specifically HITS:
"If I am going to be afraid, I might as well do it honest. Arm in arm with everyone u love, adorned in blood and bruises, singing jokes on our way to a grave"
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Dear Readers
As I delete the ‘Work’ purple oblong from my calendar for this and all future times I wonder what it would be like to be unbound.
I’ve been reading Akwaeke Emezi’s Dear Senthruan: A Black Spirit Memoir and it’s one I’ll be going back to a lot. I think I connected most to “Deathspace” and “Holy” but that’s not really what this is about. One of the ongoing threads in the book (and a lot of Emezi’s work) is struggle of embodiment (esp as a nonhuman/deity) and deciding to believe in your power and make it manifest. While I don’t necessarily see godhood in myself, I do see power.
I don’t want to imply that Emezi is treating godhood as a metaphor (at least not in the traditional sense). They fundamentally believe in their own position as a god. This isn't a self-help book selling the idea of tapping into your inner god and listening to some abstracted ancestors which can only be communed with if you buy the second book in the series. Emezi brazenly refuses to shrink down into humanity or small godhood, they proudly declare themselves to be an ogbanje and divine.
Emezi has a willingness to be brazen that I envy. And that is clearly not a type of freedom which comes easy. It is one that is fought for through work and ritual and blood. Throughout the memoir one of the central principles is that there is always a cost. Whether it's energy, relationships, money or security - there is no getting it without sacrifice and without a fight. I will simply have to overcome the weariness that sits in my bones because freedom is worth having.
What does it feel like to tout your success without the defusing self-deprecating joke?
What does it mean to be unafraid of being 'too much’?
What does it feel like to feast without shame?
What does it feel like to burn with desire and express that without feeling like the wanting makes you monstrous?
What does it feel like to wait for applause?
"This world is not particularly gentle with those whose volume defied decibels, but consider this. What if I faced it like a good waiting for a a brawl on a bar table, like embodiment never weakened me? What could I accomplish?"
I have never really been a person who could see a future. The vision boards of big houses and 2.5 kids never even sunk in enough for me to create a future in opposition to that. I have been far more focused on surviving in this specific moment and making it tolerable for myself and the people around me. Most things I have achieved have been through a mix of talent, hard work, dumb luck and privileges as opposed to any persistent determined goal-setting. But maybe that should change.
In the memoir, Emezi talks about how they have an outfit picked out for the of premiere of the TV adaptation of Freshwater that they're still writing the scripts for. And maybe there's something in that. Maybe I should plan the glam outfits for the opening night of the Bush Theatre run of my sophomore play that I haven’t finished writing yet. Maybe I should prepare my speech for the book tour when I write the tome that helps construct a language to build a new world. I don’t think my future holds quaint shit and I don’t even know if it holds trophies or accolades but I know it holds something and when I figure that out I am going to keep pushing until I get there.
But to get there requires me to be a person who exists in the world, it requires being visible.
I have long been skeptical of the value of visibility and its utility. For a person like me, it has always been associated with additional violence. If this was a different piece I’d give you sob stories but honestly I am so used to zoning the stares out that I only ever notice when I’m bored or hanging out with a friend who points it out. Being constantly observed has defined the way I move for so long and there was a value in having an income not tied to visibility, where I can just be the person behind the scenes moving things around and making changes here and there. However, there is only so far that can go, and I just don’t think I have a light that can be hidden for long.
“I am ablaze and so is my world, so is my godhouse, so is my work. So is my heart,so are my hands when they touch the supplicant’s skin. I burn so well that I don’t burn at all”
I don't know if the fire in my belly is divinity or not and quite frankly that isn’t what matters right now. It's there. And at this point I don't think I could put it out even if I wanted to.
I’m here now, you man ain't seen nothing yet - and I’m glad you’re along for the ride.
As always you can hit me up @naijaprince21 on Twitter if you have any thoughts and feelings about this! Always appreciate your support whether that’s verbal, financial (ko-fi.com/tayowrites) or whatever else.