GHANA FASHION WEEK 1817

Following on from Dianne's 'Shopping in the Sheets' post down the page, which highlighted her love of knee high boots, I learnt today in a lecture series called 'Transatlantic Enslavement' at City Hall, London (which by the way is a wicked, wicked course - and free!) that back in the days, the peoples of the Ashanti Empire (pre-colonial Ghana) used to buss the knee-highs too!

One European vistor to the region in the nineteenth century noted that the locals were rocking "immense boots of dull red leather, coming half way up the thigh". Pure style and fashion in the place.

LONDON: B.SUPREME FESTIVAL @ SOUTHBANK CENTRE

Check out B-Girl Rowdy of London-based crew Flowzaic gracing the promotional material for b.supreme, a festival 'dedicated to celebrating and empowering women in hip-hop'. The festival runs at London's Southbank Centre from Friday 2nd - Sunday 4th November.

b.supreme website

"THIS IS NOT HEAT"

I had to post this video.

You know the sneaker/street "culture" is done when you see ignorant fucks like this caring about nothing but the latest pair of SB's being dropped while the world is in crisis.

I had cover my mouth and prevent myself from vomiting all over my computer screen while I was watching the video. Strong stomach muscles highly recommended!



p.s. That Soulja Boy song is the worst song that's ever been recorded in music history. What the fuck were they thinking? If I ever see this Soulja Boy anywhere on the streets I'm gonna supersoak that ho! with a fire hose!



Almost vomitted again after I googled his album cover.

Video courtesy of Satchel Gravel.

STATE OF EMERGENCY!

For those of you who haven't heard the news around the globe, Southern California is now declared under STATE OF EMERGENCY.

I can list plenty of good shit about living in Southern California: year-round sunshine, warm weather = less clothes, no rain = convertable cars, beaches, no snow, no hurricane.
On the downside: earthquakes, smog, traffic, and worst of all at the moment is WILD FIRE!

In the summer it gets real dry out here because it doesn't rain in Cali, and then fall comes rollin' in, all the leaves starts falling and everything gets even drier. Around this time we start getting the "Santa Ana" wind that sweeps through the canyons. I'm not talking breezy wind but more like 60 MPH, car-swerving, tree-breaking wind. Then the dry ass trees and brushes starts moving with the wind causing more and more friction and then bam! FIRE! Fast-spreading fire assisted by the dry weather, lack of rain, and gusting wind.



On Sunday, couple of fires broke out and by Monday there was about 12 fires starting from Santa Barbara all the way down to the border of Mexico and part of Nevada. The fire burned at least 373,00 acres -- an area equal to the size of Hawaii island of Oahu. More than 350,000 homes were evacuated and people were forced to spend the night in shelters that are now mostly full. What's even more fucked up is that while these houses were burning down and their owners left to the evacuation center, some people managed to break into the houses and robbed them! I hope they burn in that fire or burn in hell. This is like a hot version of Katrina in New Orleans.















San Diego county was hit the hardest and over 500 homes were lost. Gone up into flames. If you don't know about San Diego or haven't been, it's a culture-rich city (also county) at the most southern part of California bordering Mexico. Home of the most beautiful beaches in Cali, the Gaslamp District and some familiar shops like 5&A DIME, Commissary, and Blends. My prayer goes out to all of our friends and family that have lost their home or have been evacuated into shelters-wondering whether or not they will have a place to come home to. Wondering if all their treasures are safe. I'm not talking about their Jordan collection but more like their childhood memories, pictures of their lost loved ones, most important of all... that sanctuary they call HOME that they've built with their own sweat and tears.

I woke up at 8am this morning breathing in smokey air and cars covered in ashes. Right now its about sunset and the sky is pretty much bloody red. What a sight. I just wanted to post this because I thought it was important for everyone to acknowledge disasters like this. It makes us look back at all the shit we complain about in our lives like "I HATE MY JOBBBBBB!" "GOD! MY BOSS IS SUCH A BITCH!" and then you realize that your life really isn't all that bad compare to others.







In addition:





To all my friends and family:

We have started a charity sale to help generate donations for those in need in our home town of San Diego.

If you are a friend/colleague please do us a huge and easy favor and repost this with a link to the website and to the San Diego Red Cross.

For every item sold online HM will donate $5 dollars to the victims of this fire.

Thanks in advance.

Heavy Manners Crew

San Diego Red Cross

Stay up California!
Dianne

Video courtesy of Youtube and The Hundreds.

HOLYSHHHHT

If you haven't seen this video watch it! I've always wanted to know how it would feel like to see a big giant walking towards me in the park. I wouldn't mind this one, really.



Although I do think that the way she was licking the ice cream in front of the little kids were a little bit too seductive. She did the whole eyes-rollin' into the back of her skull in slowmo' and everything.

CLAW MONEY VANDAL DROP

The Nola Darling ladies blogged these last month and finally they drop this Saturday 27th October. As they're tier zero they should be at Foot Patrol, London. The aqua blue ones are pretty sick in the flesh!

AWWW BLESS!

Look at this lovely picture that my cousin drew for me.

What's that? You want to know more about my cousin? Well, she's very sweet and she's er...seven, yeah, she's seven and um...her favourite game is 'knock down ginger'...no, it's erm, you know that game that seven year olds play...marbles. Yeah, marbles. And she's blonde. Kind of.

Okay, OKAY...you got me. I drew it. For myself. Happy now?

SHOCK HORROR DISASTER!

Where is WAH3 I hear you all cry!?!?!? Well, heres a little recap...it is completely finished and ready to go but I have moved offices meaning my printers/photocopiers etc which I previously abused are all foreign and confusing and unhooked up to me! I've also been seriously ill with flu for past week, am meant to be moving house on Saturday and am going to Germany Thursday! But sit tight girlies, it will come. 200 of ya have already mailed your addresses, but I got room for 100 more! so mail your address to info@wah-magazine.com. WAH3 is bigger/badder/better than ever!

HOLLERWEEN COSTUMES AT THE READY

London massive: I'm telling you about this now because I went into Angels fancy dress shop on Shaftesbury Avenue today and it was raaaaaam...so don't be waiting until the end of the week to get your ugly on.

I'm going as a skanky crackwhore. I won't need an outfit.

Gullyver Hollerween Special, Saturday 27 October @ Plastic People, London EC1
£5 before midnight, £7 after

MAYHEM MAKERS

For those in the U.K on Monday 22nd, make sure you watch the MAYHEM MAKERS debut on E4 at 11.30pm. If you don't have digital get a friend to record it because it's just too funny!

SCRATCH

I watched this film for the hundredth time last night. It's deep. The clip below starts with Grand Wizard Theodore explaining how he invented the scratch, but the majority of turntablists in the film have said that their biggest primary influence was watching Herbie Hancock perform 'Rockit' live, with Grand Mixer DXT playing those turntables like they were violins or some shit. A whole new instrument that people outside New York City had never seen before.

What's also interesting is how closely turntablists like Mix Master Mike and Qbert view their craft as a true form of communication with extra-terrestrial lifeforms. Really.

If you haven't seen the film (made in 2001) and you love the whole DJ element of hip-hop, then you have to check it out. Here's a clip.

ANGELA DAVIS IN LONDON - 10 NOVEMBER

Angela Davis, Wole Soyinka and Andrea Levy are among those participating in The Freedom and Culture International Creative Forum on Saturday 10 November. The event, at London's Southbank Centre, will feature artists, thinkers and cultural commentators who'll be discussing the bicentenary parliamentary abolition of the slave trade.

It's £60 - "Bloooooooooodclaaaart!" I hear you cry - but it runs over a full day and includes lunch and refreshments. If you're interested, visit the event information page.

STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW

I'm a big Amazon fan. There's nothing better than being at work and receiving a lovely brown package containing a beautiful new book or CD. It reminds me of when I was at primary school and we used to order stuff from a book club called 'Chip & Lucky'. When the goods arrived and I could see that box of delicious books and stickers and posters sitting behind the teacher's desk, I swear it was the happiest moment of my life. Sometimes I'd be so excited that I'd wet myself. Not really. Okay, really.

I should tell you that I am an absolute crackhead for books. I would show you a picture of my room, but it's embarrasing. You can't see the floor for books, spread all around like some new 3D carpet. Bookcases, you ask? Oh, I have them. But each shelf is already three books deep. Hence the piles on the floor.

Actually I have general storage issues in my room. I also have too many CDs lying about. Some of them are out of their cases, sliding about face up, getting all scratched and shit. I can't be bothered to pick them up, but when I try to play them and they start skipping, I'll act all shocked and angry, like some evil leprechaun came in the middle of the night and started destroying them out of spite. The bastard.

I also have way too many trainers lying about. I love buying new kicks, but I don't take care of them the way some people think you should. You know you go to some people's MySpaces and they have that classic picture of all their trainers lined up? Like this?

Well, I can't get with that shit. I like the lived in look. I don't want pussy trainers, I want trainers that can get knocked about a bit and come out the other end in one piece. Soldiers. I've paid a lot of money for them, those motherfuckers should be able to look after themselves.

And then there's the crates of 12" records. They take up 50% of my room on their own which means that I'm often to be heard screaming "Oh fuck! FUCK!!! FUUUUCKKK!!!" through the bedroom walls. Because I'm tripping over them, not cos I'm having wild earth-shaking sex.

ANYWAY I've totally digressed. Is anyone still reading? My original point was with regards to Amazon. I was saying that I love it. That, although I have a million books lying over my floor at home, I still have 7 pages in my Amazon wishlist that I fully intend on purchasing before the year is out.

But if you've checked the site recently, you'll noticed that they've, er..diversified somewhat. They sell fucking shoes! Like I'm gonna buy my shoes off Amazon for fuck's sake!

Sexy man: Hey, Josephine, where do you get your shoes from?
Josephine: Amazon.
Sexy man: Oh...okay. Bye then! Freak.

That's what'll happen.

Having said that though, when I was little, I did have a pair of trainers from Tesco. I thought they were the lick. Here's me and my sister rocking that shit like only we can.

PERMANENTLY

This Saturday October 20th Versus Gallery (www.versusstore.com) is holding their 2nd annual "Permanent" artshow featuring world famous and local tattoo artists. If you're around LA, OC, IE, or SD area definitely come check it out. The canvases that are being put up are pretty amazing. It identifies each artists' style so if you're looking for someone to get some work done then come through! Do your homework and your research right before you get inked!



The Gaslamp Killer (www.thegaslampkiller.com) will also be on the set performing live so don't sleep. Good vibes, good art, good music.

NO BLACKS, NO IRISH, NO DOGS

As a second generation West Indian (my mum came over from St. Lucia in the 1960s), I crave anything documenting that period when shiploads of Caribbean men and women were summoned over to the 'mother country' by the British government, only to be told once they arrived that, actually, they weren't really that welcome. Sorry.

Books like 'The Lonely Londoners', 'Windrush', 'The Final Passage' and more recently 'Small Island' all help to capture what it was like back then: the struggle for money, the overcrowded houses, the racism (the classic sign on a landlord's front door reading 'No blacks, no Irish, no dogs.'). But there were also good times: the blues dances, the style (boy, them cats looked shaaaarp - mad style and flavour!) and the general sense of community and knowing how to have a good time that no trip across the Atlantic could supress. Well no voluntary trip across the Atlantic anyways.

Reading fiction and non-fiction works like those mentioned above is one thing, but when you actually get to see pictures and film footage of the period it just brings that whole shit to life.

A couple of years back we interviewed my mum about her experience of travelling over for a project my niece was working on. We all sat around her on the floor mesmerised as she told us about the big ship she'd come on with her girlfriends. They were all so excited about going to England and would dress up for dinner and dances every night of the two-week journey just having bare fun. She wasn't quite sure what the ship was called but she thought it may have been something like The Askenia. I'd only really heard of The SS Empire Windrush ship but a couple of weeks later, I went to the V&A Museum for an exhibition on Black British Style and lo and behold, on the archive Pathe Newsreel being shown, there was a ship docking called The Askenia! I was so fucking happy and jumped about the exhibition like an Olympic pole vaulter on crack. I like to think that mum was the little dot coming down the stairs, cold, but waving happily at me from the past.

A new book called 'Black Britain: A Photographic History' has just been published containing some previously unseen still images from the time. It's written by Paul Gilroy, the bad boy sociologist, with an intro by Stuart Hall, the don dada of cultural studies (Sharmadean knows!!!). Check it out if you're on an old school flex like me.