50% of All Fela Apparel October 15-31

Over here at www.one3snapshot.com the FELABRATION is not over. For the rest of the month get 50% of All Fela Apparel. At these prices you gotta get them all!

Story, Story... Story!

A hole is to dig and summer is for so that you can have time to read. I was waiting until after I was done with my wedding to settle in and get it in. The way my life is these days, I probably may only be able to get One in, and it will for sure be this....

Time for me to purchase my copy of Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie. I love all her books so far, and I know I'm late, but I can't wait to read this one. I just... gosh. Sometimes I wish I was her, or had the gift of telling stories of the African/Nigerian experience like she does, but really I'm happy that I am not her because that means I just get to read them.

On another note, can not wait for the Half of a Yellow Sun movie to come out. Although I don't think I will be able to watch it... It just may be too much.


On another note, One3snapshot.com should be getting a bunch of new items in online and stores alike, so be on the lookout

Kehinde Wiley | The World Stage: Israel

It's crazy how time flies and I'll look back and I'll see that my last post was in March...and it's May now. Just like that. Crazy. Coordinating hundreds of people to get ready for San Francisco Carnaval Parade. Planning a wedding. Getting used to holding down a family/household. Chasing a speedily growing baby who at 9 months is giving me a run for my no-money. Trying to maintain some level of physical and mental health. and on and on...

Ya it's spring time and my life is just that. Still, I am going to trying to check this out before it ends on May 27, the bills at the BART station has been catching my eye for months. I was firstly intrigued by this bright image (of course), but mostly drawn by the Yoruba twin name Kehinde....but was like wtf does a Nigerian first name with a non Nigerian last name, got to do with Israel... I was hella confused.

But I did my research and found out. And I'm there. Someone who's all about putting images of black men into the "high" class of art and culture. So the shi shi pinky up side of me thinks I ought to dress cute and get out to see this, and nod my head solemnly and ask my hubby what room he thinks one of these may look good in.

Read about it

Check this article about him in GQ

Muse: Tossie & A.O

Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria

see more-

Chinua Achebe

Yesterday Mr Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People went to visit Chike and The River to explain How the Leopard Got his claws. As he was doing so, The Anthills of the Savannah started to bite him all over which made him No Longer at Ease. As he fought and fought, the situation only became worse and even put the boys and Girls at War. He thought he would still try to reason with them by playing The Flute, until he was struck by an Arrow of God. Achebe decided that he could not win this battle and realized this was the Trouble with Nigeria; it would always be filled with false Hopes and Impediment. He decided all he could do was walk away and watch all Things Fall Apart.

November 16, 1930 - March 22, 2013: Chinua Achebe RIP

An inspiration, motivation and a strong example that OUR stories should be told by US.

New Fela Kuti T-shirts & Hoodies Available Now

It took us long enough but they are here! Just in time for... whatever they're in time for. Get these now, because they are selling way too fast for us to keep up with! More stuff coming soon.

 

 Original Sufferhead Hoodie

 Unisex Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense Track Jacket

Romanticizing My Heritage: Igbo

Nairaland is the place to be to talk about all aspects of Nigerian culture. Sometimes I get too sucked in, it ends up being a time warp. A lovely one nonetheless. I've found myself here from random google searches, to my husband and I doing research for our Igba Nkwu wedding ceremony, and to creating atmosphere for my book (*cough*).  Was just looking at some really cool photos folks posted of Colonial Igboland. Make me both smile & tear up. (More about this in another post)

 Check out that hair!

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This Igbo Boy can Draw!

Why take digital photos when you could just spend 100hrs drawing realistic images?
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You know how we like to claim ours. Yeah! Gotta rep Igbo. Nigeria. *Shrug* Very cool especially from a culture that typically doesn't support art as a professional endeavor.

The Lijadu Sisters sing and tell

I'm hella late on this but...it's never too late for cool ish.
Now, I don't know which of my emotions to express. Or which of my opinions to blab on about.
fierce. inspiring. sexy. motivating. strong. creative. talented. superfreakingawesomecoolyeah!

Check out these women that make me proud to be associated with the word Nigerian (read the interview, watch the video). Cousins of Fela Kuti, and recording artists from the 70s who made a come-back via Knitting Factory Records.

The Afro-Urban Dance Experience: First Class Down: Nov 1: Track List & Video Post

 For folks who don't know. I started teaching a workshop for Adults & Teens in San Francisco. I will be documenting and writing about some aspects of it. Join the fun!

The Afro-Urban Dance Experience: First Class Down: Nov 1: Track List & Video Post: I had the best time of my life teaching and dancing at the first class of the Afro-Urban Street & Club Dance workshop . I couldn't have ask...

Gollywood Takeover?

I'm a big fan of Nollywood movies. I haven't watched them in a while because these days, I can't sit still to watch anything that lasts two hours or more. Before I got to my 2-hour breaking point, I slowly got tired of trying to sort through good Nollywood movies to watch. For every good one it seemed like there were six bad ones I had to weed through. I don't really mind production quality, it's the storyline that gets me going. Enter Gollywood (Ghanian Hollywood), specifically producer Shirley Frimpong-Manso whose work is putting majority of our movies to shame.

Exhibit A: Adam's Apple (Ghana)


Exhibit B: Blackberry Babes (Nigeria)


I think Emem Isong may be Nollywood's only hope, looking forward to watching her latest effort. I really do wish the good movies will be made more accessible. There is great PR for awesome Nollywood movies but they can only be watched in Silverbird Cinemas. haba!
Update: Just learned that a new movie, Damage, starring Uche Jombo is being screened in select U.K, U.S. and Canadian cities. I hope more will follow suit. Indian movies have been doing this for a long time.

Put this on your Tongue... Okay how about this?

It's summer time (okay the end of it) and my newest obsession is mixing some shites.

I always have one of these...phases. God help me. The problem with me is that I lack patience, dilligence and time to pursue it.

Well so yeah if I wasn't lacking those things I would be one of those people with a fancy blog and I would put up a recipe a day, take pictures of the products and write interesting narratives describing my process. But as I'm well-versed on the fact that I don't follow through, here's all you will get.

I'll just let you know, for this transient phase I'm into using my food processor to create homemade salad dressing using fresh herbs, oils and fresh produce, and using my measuring spoon to come up with seasonings from current spices on my rack and dried & fresh herbs from the garden out here.

I always have ideas and fixations going on in my head but also wary that I need to try to not do and be EVERYTHING!

Anyhoo, my friend Tossie was over the other day and requested (coerced me into making) some seasonings, so I was motivated and whipped her up some stuff.  The names and mixes are inspired by different types of 'sensibilities' and cultures of cooking food... from the Oregon coast hippies to Mama Iyabo on the streets of Lagos. I also listed what kinds of 'proteins' they will be good on. A lot of them are generally good for cooked vegetables & salad dressings as well.

We did some raw finger dip taste test and seems like it will be good. But I'll wait for more meals and experiments from her so we'll see. Here are a few of photos she took, after my custom seasoning mixing session for her (I took the one above)

*Pouts*

I feel so sad...the whole world is clearly and completely falling apart around us and we're just going on as if. Makes me want run around screaming at the top of my lungs: "Everybody shut the fk up, and stop anything you're doing, because nothing we are doing right now matters!!!" But then I decided I'd just update by Facebook instead before going shopping...

 

Rioting in London: Police vs. Black Man

 This is basically a bit of a stream of consciousness surrounding the recent London riot after police shot a Black man (London riot you say? What pray tell is it?) Colorlines has a "short and sweet" report about it.

Photo from Colorlines

I'm way past sick of this police vs. black man; colonist vs. black lands phenomenon. It makes me want to throw up and I feel I'm simply so over this human 'race'. And the news around the after-effects drives me crazy, aren't people tired of sick of just narrowing it down to something done by those savage-black-gang-involved-tennis-shoe-stealing youth? We're such a lazy group of people who never will actually fight for change because our lives are really just great, so we pass the blame. And so the media goes ahead and puts up their template news and we go deeper into our discrimination. But sometimes I wonder maybe that's just what we need, for everything to really go to complete shit, and for people to become REALLY uncomfortable so they can pay attention.

Here's one article that begins some exploration of the causes and effect of blaming the youth, it's not that deep (neither is this blog post) but a lot of this is very emotional for me, the comments to the article make me angry and illustrate what is messed up about our societies and how far we have to go in terms of regard for humanity.

This article is particularly interesting to me. I've been intrigued out how much the blackberry is a huge thing especially from the point of Nigerians in Nigeria and the Diaspora. If you know the half of it, you know that blackberries are now getting something akin to a human right.

Because these days twitter and facebook can get you in big shit, and BBMs are less traceable by the authorities (for now), Blackberry is saying that they would give information to the police about people's BBM messages to help aid the arrest of folks who are passing on info about the London riots. So these hackers threaten Blackberry... i.e.

"You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all,"

"If you make the wrong choice your database will be made public, save yourself the embarrassment and make the right choice. Don't be a puppet," 

(read the article for more)

Like I said most or all even of the people I know who have Blackberries are Nigerian/African/Caribbean. We support Blackberry, one (too many) of us gets killed, we up-rise, the company that we fish over our moola to fecks us in the ass.

dog eat dog sucka.

I Hella Heart Las Gidi (Video Post)

I always said that if I even move back to live in Nigeria, I CAN'T live in Lagos again. But this video & song "Ijo" by SIJI makes me want to move back with the caveat that I create a utopia where most days are like this.  I'm a proud Igbo but I rep Lag, and this video makes me lightweight wanna jock my inner Yoruba hard! Lol


SIJI - 'Ijo'(Official Video) from SIJI on Vimeo.


P.S. There are 12 dance signs in this vid...I can do 7 of them...I need to get to work on the 5 and a few that are a bit rusty. Until then...back to my summer romance...

novel.

and framing art work

and watching Instant Star on netflix

and drinking my 32oz

of water

and planning

world domination.

yes i'm all that awesome. multi-tasking queen

-n