Nikyatu Jusu
Stills from our promotional shoot for web-series Suicide By…
Stills from our promotional shoot for web-series Suicide By Sunlight: https://www.facebook.com/SuicideBySunlight?group_id=0
There is nothing romantic about the filmmaking process but Im constantly gratified and inspired by being on set. Amazing team of collaborators. Thank god for my NYC film family.
Nikyatu Jusu
afro-politaine:
dynamicafrica:
RIP to legendary Tanzanian…
RIP to legendary Tanzanian Taarab singer Fatma binti Baraka, popularly known as Bi Kidude, who passed away on April 17th, 2013, at her home on the island of Zanzibar. She is believed to have surpassed 100 years of age.
As a child, she was singled out for her fine voice and, in the 1920s, sang locally with popular cultural troupes, combining an understanding of music with an equally important initiation into traditional medicine.
At age 13, after a forced marriage she fled Zanzibar to mainland Tanzania. Bi Kidude toured mainland East Africa with a taarab ensemble, visiting the major coastal towns and inland as far west as Lake Victoria and Tanganyika.
She walked the length and the breadth of the country barefoot in the early 1930s fleeing another unhappy marriage. In the 1930s she ended up in Dar es Salaam where she sang with Egyptian Taarab group for many years. In the 1940s she returned to Zanzibar where she acquired a small mud hut to be her home.
She is known for her role in the Unyago movement which prepares young Swahili women for their transition through puberty. She is one of the experts of this ancient ritual, performed only to teenage girls, which uses traditional rhythms to teach women to pleasure their husbands, while lecturing against the dangers of sexual abuse and oppression.
(source)
Nikyatu Jusu
newmodelminority:
blackinasia:
“Einstein, when he arrived in…
“Einstein, when he arrived in America, was shocked at how Black Americans were treated. “There is separation of colored people from white people in the United States,” he said. “That separation is not a disease of colored people. It is a disease of white people. And, I do not intend to be quiet about it.” And, he wasn’t.
Although he had a fear of speaking in public, he made all the effort he could to spread the word of equality, denouncing racism and segregation and becoming a huge proponent of civil rights even before the term became fashionable. Einstein was a member of several civil rights groups (including the Princeton chapter of the NAACP).
Happy Birthday Albert Einstein!”
Source: Craig Lowery II for Last Words.
Einstein, like Camus, is my boo.
Nikyatu Jusu
deeplezstonerwitch:
dynamicafrica:
Select artworks from…
Select artworks from Nigerian artist Njideka Akunyili:
“Nigeria is almost a third character in my work,” she said. “A lot of my work is about investigating my love for Nigeria and my life in America.
“I met my husband at college and there was some anxiety that if I married outside my culture I would lose my identity, but there is a space in my work where these things come together.”
Akunyili is hoping to help change attitudes to art in Nigeria, where she said appreciation is growing slowly.
“If I hadn’t left Nigeria, I wouldn’t be an artist, I would be a doctor,” she said. “When I told my parents I wanted to be an artist, they couldn’t get their heads around why an educated person who went to college in America would want to be an artist.
“If people think of artists, it’s somebody by the side of the road painting signs.”
[…]
“When I was young, the less Nigerian you were the cooler you were, but now we have gone back to tradition,” said Akunyili. “There’s a nice energy about the country that’s finally coming into its own.”
so fucking beautiful
Nikyatu Jusu
naturalhairjunkies:
@tijahnnibobani very creative. #naturalista…
@tijahnnibobani very creative. #naturalista #naturalhairdaily #naturalhaircommunity #naturalhairdoescare #teamnatural
Nikyatu Jusu
Photo
Nikyatu Jusu
diliaoviedophotography:
Scarlet – Ossygeno Models Management…
Scarlet – Ossygeno Models Management & IMG Worldwide
Makeup – Eliotte Casimiro
By Dilia Oviedo
Nikyatu Jusu
"I’m sorry you were not truly loved and that it made you cruel."
“I’m sorry you were not truly loved and that it made you cruel.”
– Warsan Shire (via driesvannoyoudidnt)
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Nikyatu Jusu
yupyaki4life:
ethiopienne:
teyonah parris, danai gurira, and…
teyonah parris, danai gurira, and shanola hampton
I would like to thank Jesus and God
Nikyatu Jusu
stuntandstayglorious:
wow this is hot
wow this is hot
Nikyatu Jusu
joshuaowen:
“…cuz my skin ain’t light, and my…
“…cuz my skin ain’t light, and my body ain’t tight”
Nikyatu Jusu
Photo
Donald Conley • The Man Who Was Afraid of Falling
Read the post here.
Nikyatu Jusu
"You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody."
“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”
– Maya Angelou (via villa-rosie)
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Nikyatu Jusu
"I don’t know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer,…"
“I don’t know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs.”
– Does News Consumption Destroy Creativity? (via azspot)
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Nikyatu Jusu
My introduction to this song was a whitewashed rendition in…
My introduction to this song was a whitewashed rendition in Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar. I had no idea the original was sung by THE SHIRELLES until my friend opened my eyes. I fell in love both times.
Nikyatu Jusu
Photo
Nikyatu Jusu
"The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate…"
“The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you to stay where they are. Friends that don’t help you climb will want you to crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that don’t increase you will eventually decrease you.”
– Colin Powell (via awakeningapril)
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Nikyatu Jusu
manufactoriel:
Chez les Nègres Rouges
Chez les Nègres Rouges
Nikyatu Jusu
My short film SAY GRACE BEFORE DROWNING is finally home,…
My short film SAY GRACE BEFORE DROWNING is finally home, premiering in Freetown, Sierra Leone at the Sierra Leone International Film Festival! Wish I could be there!
Nikyatu Jusu
"New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings"
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings”
– Lao Tzu (via dopatonin)
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Nikyatu Jusu
Author Chimamanda Adichie: ‘black women’s hair is…
Nikyatu Jusu
"Comparison is an act of violence against the self."
“Comparison is an act of violence against the self.”
– Iyanla Vanzant (via thestufflifeismadeof)
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Nikyatu Jusu
blackhistoryalbum:
Name unknown. Hugh Mangum Photographs Rare…
Name unknown. Hugh Mangum Photographs Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University (circa 1900s)
Nikyatu Jusu
"Since they usually come from the same type of background as most white Americans, many white…"
“Since they usually come from the same type of background as most white Americans, many white therapists likely harbor negative and stereotypical views of African Americans, and thus of their African American patients. These negative stereotypes can affect the health care black Americans receive. In a survey of practicing psychiatrists, Doris Wilkinson found that “cultural conditioning to racial beliefs and attitudes . . . pervades therapeutic contexts in which minority women are clients.”
Racial stereotypes among medical practitioners often stem from hoary societal stereotypes and centuries-old myths, some of which may be linked to scientific racism and its notions of biological “races.” Physicians who accept any of these old stereotypes, even unconsciously, are likely to communicate some negative feelings in their verbal or nonverbal behavior, thereby causing many black patients to withhold the kind of self-disclosure that is necessary for effective psychotherapy. Doing so may cause them to be labeled as “noncompliant,” which is a further stigma provided by the mental health care profession.
Some researchers have found that, for African Americans, psychotherapy with a white caregiver often leads to “unhealthful consequences.” In addition, diagnostic tests themselves are sometimes racially biased and thereby elevate the observed rates of certain types of mental illness for black Americans.
<br
Indeed, most diagnostic measures for mental illness, which are routinely used to assess the mental health of African Americans, have been validated only for whites. A white standard of “normal” is usually taught to, and used by, therapists. Yet, the subcultural norms for what is “normal” and “abnormal” behavior are sometimes different for blacks and whites.”
–
Joe Feagin and Karyn D. McKinney, The Many Costs of Racism (via wretchedoftheearth) i refuse to get therapy with white people and it’s fucked because i need the help but the last white woman i saw didn’t even know the term angry black woman. how can you treat a group of people you don’t even know the common stereotypes and shit they face? and thing is, you know it, you old white bitch. you know that stereotype, you’ve treated plenty of black women like that in your past i’m sure. to her, it’s not that serious and i’m not really depressed and she basically dismissed me like make an appointment whenever. while i’m bawling. ugh. so true. (via strugglingtobeheard) check this, the youth in DSS/foster care/juvee pipeline, their therapists tend to be pink suburban people who have only seen black people in gangster movies on tv and believe the world is postracial, so all they do is fucking victimblame, gaslight and essentially re-traumatize the children and add more woes, …children who are mainly black, latino and native american. the school of psychology currently reinforces abuse culture, and colonialism. it does nothing to dismantle those cycles but rather ensures they continue. (via bad-dominicana)
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Nikyatu Jusu
You have to find the right way to approach the right subject…
You have to find the right way to approach the right subject for yourself. No one can do that for you. You may not be aware of your great potentiality. You do not need to make films that we think are proper, or feel compelled to make certain kinds of films because they have been praised or recognized. Never let yourself be tied up by these thoughts. Be creative and unpredictable for every film you make. That’s best.” — Hou Hsiao-hsien
Nikyatu Jusu
Photo
Nikyatu Jusu
deafmuslimpunx:
dynamicafrica:
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi…
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new book, is the story of Ifemelu, a young Nigerian who travels to America to study and stays there for 13 years before deciding to return to Lagos. The book is an atmospheric and vibrant love story – the love between Ifemelu and Obinze, the high-school sweetheart she leaves behind, the love between Ifemelu and her American boyfriend, the love she has for her young cousin Dike, whom she looks after in America, and the love of her homeland, Nigeria. It is also a novel about race and immigration and what it feels like to be black in America.
But the book’s biggest love affair seems to be Adichie’s enduring relationship with hair. Hairstyle is such a constant presence in the book that not a page goes past without a mention of it: straight weaves, box braids, cornrows, dreadlocks, afros, twists, raucous curls, kinky coils and TWAs (teeny weeny afros). Not to mention texturisers, relaxers, oils, pomades and hair butter. No character in her book gets away without having their hairstyle mentioned, and many are defined by it. And not just the girls. ‘The greying hair on the back of his head was swept forward, a comical arrangement to disguise his bald spot.’ ‘A dreadlocked white man sat next to her on the train, his hair like old twine ropes that ended in a blond fuzz.’
Chimamanda Adichie, 36, sits before me now in a hotel in London: contained, amused, sexy and intellectual. Her own hair is succinctly tethered, but it looks as if, were she to free it, it would be ready to spring into action at any time.
‘I am obsessed with hair!’ she exclaims, before settling happily into a long session on the subject. ‘As you can see I have natural, negro hair, free from relaxers and things. My hair story started when I was a baby. My mother had boys and she desperately wanted a girl, a girl with hair. I came out with a lot of hair and she was thrilled. As I was growing up she would do things to my hair but what I loved the most was when she stretched it with a hot comb. I was terrified too, because when the comb touched your ear it was so painful, but I loved the idea that my hair would then be straight. So when I was three years old I already had the idea that straight hair was beautiful and my hair was ugly.’
In secondary school her hair had to be natural or in braids. Even now, Adichie says, her two nieces who go to school near Lagos have to have their hair cut short, like boys. (‘They are continually texting me, to ask me to buy them a wig. I believe strongly that we should be proud of our hair, but if my 15-year-old nieces want a straight wig, I’ll buy them a straight wig! Life is short.’)
On the last day of secondary school Adichie ‘relaxed’ her hair. ‘It was this huge girl occasion for me and my friends,’ she says. ‘A relaxer alters the hair chemically and makes it permanently straight. But it also burns the scalp. And sometimes the hair just refuses to be totally straight, so they’ll use a tong and then it smells just like burning goat.’
She progressed through a series of hairstyles before she moved to America. ‘But here’s the thing – in America I suddenly found out I was black. I’m black! What does that mean? Suddenly I started thinking, why do I want my hair to look like white girls’ hair? This is absurd.’ In Americanah, after Ifemelu gets the relaxer treatment in the salon for the first time, the hairdresser says, ‘Wow, girl, you’ve got that white-girl swing!’Adichie writes. ‘She left the salon almost mournfully; while the hairdresser had flat-ironed the ends, the smell of burning, of something organic dying which should not have died, had made her feel a sense of loss.’
Adichie well remembers the day she cut off all her hair, and is now a keen exponent of the natural hair movement, though it is only popular in America; back in Nigeria hair is still straight. She has a friend who will not even answer the door without her wig, and ‘the salons there don’t know how to care for our hair any more. They only know about wigs and weaves and relaxed hair.’
Don’t get put off my the length, the entire article is well worth reading. I just wish Adichie would’ve addressed the real reason why Nigerians were upset about Thandie Newton being cast to play a Nigerian woman.
Amazing author!!! I am just about to read her 1st book right now :-3
Nikyatu Jusu
Suicide By Sunlight Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/SuicideBySunlight
Please check out the facebook page for my webseries SUICIDE BY SUNLIGHT and “LIKE” if you want to see black vampyres on the screen.
Nikyatu Jusu
"I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, ‘I love you.’ There is an African…"
“I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, ‘I love you.’ There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”
– Maya Angelou (via setbabiesonfire)
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Nikyatu Jusu
nobodycangiveyoufreedom:
Burkina Faso, siblings and albinos.
Burkina Faso, siblings and albinos.
Nikyatu Jusu
"I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work for or demand the ballot for the Negro…"
“I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work for or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.”
–
Susan B Anthony “A HIstory of US Feminisms” (via sourcedumal) But WE abandoned THEM! #Whitebitchtactics (via witchsistah)
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