Book Review: 'Americanah' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is my first ever review on this site, so please don't shoot me. Plus, it's my personal opinion.

We are initially introduced to Ifemelu whilst she's at an African hair salon. She has just decided to return to Nigeria and leave her prospering race blog and African American boyfriend behind. The story of how she got to America is told through a series of flashbacks interwoven into the main story and eventually reaching the present. If you're not too careful, you might get confused but Adichie's writing is fluid enough for the reader to easily follow.

She speaks of traditional African conventions that many Africans can relate to. The love story between main characters Ifemelu and Obinze is both heartwarming and heart wrenching. We get the whole story of how the new guy is supposedly supposed to date her mixed-race best friend but instead has his eye on Ifemelu. So begins their blossoming romance which spans from childhood to early adulthood. 

Obinze idealises America and aspires to study there and live there with Ifemelu. Unfortunately, post-9/11 America refuses to grant him entrance so he sets his eyes on Britain. After struggling to make ends meat and living on an expired visa, Obinze attempts a 'sham-marriage', a common way for immigrants to gain citizenship. He is later deported: shamed.

Ifemelu, on the other hand, seems to fair slightly better in the USA. However, she too finds life abroad difficult. She battles depression that ultimately leads to her losing contact with Obinze and the awful thing is that this all would've been avoided. Anyway, she meets a white guy and they have this lavish lifestyle but she doesn't tell her parents about him, for reasons not elaborated deeply on. She speaks regularly on the racism faced by Black Americans and how she never felt that she was Black until she moved to the USA. 

Without giving much away, this book is absolutely fantastic! I've read very few books that have given me this light feeling. This is mainly because the ending satisfied me, unlike the ending of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. -_-

Review: Wrecking Ball - Miley Cyris (music video)

by Mzwandile Poncana

Recently I saw a quote on Twitter.com which said this - 'Favorite American Pass-time: Mocking young female celebrities.'

I didn't really need a lot of thinking to work out who exactly they were referring to. It was generalized of course - over the years different female celebrities have had their share of cruel mockery - by in this specific time, after the world infamous VMA performance, it was obvious that the quote was a clear reference to the extravagant Miley Cyrus. Her VMA performance - consisting of the summer hit single 'We Can't Stop' and a duet of 'Blurred Lines' with Robin Thicke - made everyone freeze their interests of any other trend on Twitter, and dedicate an amount of energy to report how 'tragic' the performance was. The specific VMA show ultimately became one of the most tweeted events in 2012, simply due to Ms. Cyrus' 'tragic' performance. The world was ablaze with different methods of down casting every inch of the poor 20-year-old, fires of journalists clanked at their computers, swarms of reporters posted pictures upon pictures. On Facebook, memes were created and posted with every passing millisecond. On Twitter, every minute a total if 150 tweeters digitally roared of how shameful she and her fame was. Everywhere one turned, three words all associated together came out despicably: 'Miley Cyrus', 'Inappropriate' and 'twerking'. One could not run from the hatred expressed by almost everyone with Internet access, it was exhausting.

Whether I agree or not with this amazing outbreak of prejudice from society- which I do not-is based on Miley's intention in her performance. When planning, every artist aspires to create a product which either : reflects a strong meaning for a generalized audience -or- reflects themselves and their own personalized personality. Miley obviously had a professional idea on how she wished to express how exhausted she was with the person she had previously been. In this case, the previous 'innocent' 'lady-like' Miley Cyrus was what Miley must of thought was 'crafted by her managers'. She was living behind the façade of how people wanted her to behave. How people expected a girl of her age was to behave. And anything else that was not associated with teenage Disney innocence is way too much of a disastrous taboo. However, judging by this sudden change in Music,Style and Performance, we can see how uncomfortable Miley was, living behind the façade of an innocent Past-Disney actress who had to behave like one. And I say, for the sake of it, she had every fucking right to change. She felt since she had built herself a platform in the industry of general fame, she could use tactics that relate to what teenagers find 'modern' as a shining weapon to only reach a higher level of respect from them. And that's what she wished to create, and nobody should judge her on reacting appropriately in a professional sense to Society's recent interests. She saw what the world found entertaining and realized, it was everything she wished to be. Not hiding behind the overpowering little shadow of her Past-Disney Princess lie.

That being said, I move onto my impression of the 'Wrecking Ball' music video. When I finished watching it, I knew straight away how malicious the comments towards it were obviously going to be; rude expressions of rude misinterpretations. 'Nudity is inappropriate  'What has gone wrong with her' 'blah blah blah blah I'm better than this bitch because sitting behind a computer and being fabulously hilarious for subjective appreciation from objective people i don't know is way better than her working her ass off to get billions upon fucking billions'. It's all the same attention-seeking story every social network you go to. The offense people feel is written on every single Twitter timeline, Facebook timeline and Journalism tabloid. Of course, this offense and rage from her past performance would blind them into automatically viewing the video with a negative approach, subconsciously already telling themselves that it's going to be terrible. (Last performance was awful, this must be awful as well tehehe good evening folks welcome aboard the society train of logic that will take you as far as we decide you to go toot toot all aboard) and with all due respect (and by that I mean no respect at all), you people are burying yourselves in your own trash. Society has always done it and will continue on doing it. Missing yourselves out on some real good music simply because of ONE distasteful performance. And you will continue to nit-pick every fucking thing that you see, hear or feel is wrong. Every small little thing. In this music video, Miley is clearly expressing the product of her plans towards changing her future into something she is comfortable existing in, changing the way she expresses herself towards the world into a way that will be comfortable for her to express. And as for these small nitpicks such as nudity, I would absolutely love to see  how many tweets per minute Rihanna got about her 'Stay' video... Or how many ANY OTHER artist who has been nude in a video got. Nudity in music videos displayed anywhere in public by any other artist have never been a real dilemma or drastic situation. I know this, Miley knows this. But the sad thing is, society knows it as well. The same vital society that insist its completely inappropriate to be naked on TV. I say, it is an invisible subjective rule for General society to have at least one shamed-down celebrity to mock at in boring situations. The Internet may be the future, but a society that uses it for the purposes of positivity it was initially created for, is not. Miley is doing the right thing by existing in the life she chooses to exist in. I found the song absolutely breath taking and the way she interpreted the audio into video was even the more brilliant. She used colorful cinematography and pop culture arts and craft to bring the song to life. I personally am not a fan of pop usually, but this (with 'Applause' by Lady Gaga) has to be the exception. There was nothing wrong with Cyrus's video and my one wish is for everybody to leave her the fuck alone.

RAP : DOOMED FOREVER?

Well it looks like I'm back bitches...and I ain't happy. >:(

Do you KNOW how terrible rap/hip hop music has gotten this past year?! With releases such as 'Bandz A Make Her Dance', 'Birthday Song' and 'Beez In The Trap' (notice how ALL of them contain 2 Chainz! Coincidence  I think not!!), the future is looking pretty bleak for rap music. And that is why I am here...to rectify...and rant...

Well let us start this list with my personal favorite, Lil' Wayne.

Okay Weezy, we know that you have achieved great success with your string of 'Tha Carter' albums which many consider as the height of your career. However, ever since Drake rolled around with his Canadian accent and his smooth 'Drag me into your bedroom sweetie and Screw me now' voice you seem to have plummeted in album sales and fallen out of favor with critics. Let us also not forget your other associate  Nicki Minaj, who has seemed to have sunk her Barbie pink fingernails into your brain and 'seduced' you with her multiple personalities; all of this while receiving a lap dance from her and watching her wigs fall off. -_-

But I digress.

The thing is, you seem to to assume that the children of today fancy you. You ASSUME that they want to hear you screech into the microphone in that gravelly voice of yours; sounding like an auto tuned grizzly bear during mating season! You ASSUME that we all want to hear about how you are CONSTANTLY 'getting money bitch!' Seriously dude? I doubt that any of us relate to that smooth $27 mil you're sitting on (as of late 2012), and we can't relate to the amount of bitches you be gettin', or as you so 'poetically' put it; the amount of p**** you receive from these thousands of loose hoes that hang out backstage at your shows. (hey that rhymed :)) You can't just ASSUME that everybody wants to hear about how you 'devour a female's nether-regions' every night of your life under the full moon. Really Weezy? ASSUME makes an ass out of you and me!

What annoys me most about you is the fact that you think that EVERY. DAMN. WORD. UNDER. THE. BLUE. MOON. RHYMES. WITH....NIGGA!!!

I mean really, it's just preposterous! And pretentious! The fact that you think that everyone looks up to a guy who only gets a few lines of witty wordplay in an otherwise crappy song. You walk around thinking that you have all this 'swag' but in reality your swag is like Botswana rain. Sometimes you're soaked in it but other times it goes on a week-long dry spell. Don't believe me? Well...








I had that same facial expression too when I saw those boots -_-

Weezy, honestly there's not much I can say other than that I hope that your future forays do not recede into the distance like your hairline. I also pray that the weed doesn't kill you and that that jail incident has REALLY changed you, for the better. I hope you don't blow your money on hoes and crappy collaborations with artists such as 2 Chainz, Juicy J and French Montana. And please don't get anymore meaningless tattoos! Seriously, the word 'BAKED' tattooed on your forehead...DOES. NOT. MAKE. YOU. GANGSTA!!!

more rap rants to come...stay tuned. :)