Lately the social media community endorsed the #Melanin hash-tag contemporaneously with other trendy hash-tags to celebrate blackness. Imagine the lyric rapture that struck me after listening to Nia’s Melanin, an anomaly at the time, a rare gem loaded with black pride and self satisfaction in a country whose youths have been deranged by the notion: yellow-bone is the new beautiful. Once upon a girl child in Zimbabwe, skin lightening crèmes became the messianic bridge from being too dark to becoming “beautiful” or yellow-boned.
As an agent of Melanin pride, Nia says “you don’t have to change, hold your head up high. You’ll be glowing, oh please don’t hide.”
After listening to her song I bursted into somewhat a series of midnight soliloquies and the question that first approached my mind was: when was the first time you listened to a pithy, well crafted song with harmonious vocals and notes that are symphonically arranged and at the same time conveying such a salient message? My answer was Nina Simone. The last time I listened to such a song? My answer was Nia.
And the last time I heard someone being proud yet not so n Continue reading
flowers and poems 🌼 