soulfulmaniac

[soulfulmaniac]

Phat and Phabulous

During my time in Primary school and High school, I spent the majority of my time being referred to as “Fats” because of my physical appearance. I had no problem with being called “Fat” but the issue here was that fat people were secluded and ridiculed by the dumb constraints of society. This was from the major chain stores who would deliberately have smaller size because society associates being “skinny” or “lean” with being beautiful and ultimately being easily accepted by society to big companies and corporations that won’t hire on those grounds. This phenomenon along with the fact that “fat” and “big” is associated with being unhealthy and ugly is one of the many reasons why I don’t conform to the norms of society.

I then stumbled upon a page on the social networks that was truly a movement that advocates for our Plus Sized Sisters. Women who have a beam of self-confidence and truly believe in their efforts to build confidence and self-esteem in other women and girls who are often mistreated and bullied because of their bodies. “Sdudla”, “Boomba”, “Code-14” are just a few of the many labels put on them. While words might hurt more actions, a voluptuous lady decided to use these words to good use and form a non-apologetic movement to help plus size women not only feel good about themselves but also stand out from the rest and become the super-sheroes for the lil girls who are bullied about their size.

Its a form of discrimination to isolate people from each other on the basis of body shape and has to be eliminated at all costs in order to move forward. Thank you to the women who are out there pushing movements and helping more and more women feel better about themselves and teaching them to embrace their bodies more. “Fat” and “Sdudla” has and never will mean ugly, just like “skinny” doesn’t mean beautiful.

Thank you Sdudla Chronicles for restoring confidence and happiness to all big and thick women everywhere who were once afraid of showing off their stuff and playing to the fiddle of society. Thank you for the the positivity. Thank you for being phat and phabulous.

[soulfulmaniac]

Letter to Fidel, from Fidel

Commandate Fidel, I live off the work and commitment that you have for your people and the people of Africa. I was named after you, not knowing that you were such a fearless and powerful fighter. You ran a party in the West that the Captialist pigs could not stand and were afraid of your utterances of the work of Marx, Engels and Lenin. You were the embodiment of Communism and your contempt for the bourgeois was even recognized by the continent they continue to call "dark". The West feared you and the truth you spoke about them, so they write these articles about how you bullied your people and forcing Communism down their throats. They do not want to acknowledge that you and Ernesto fought against the ill-gotten ways of Batista and liberated his people from the ways of liberalism and captialism. The West are angered by a system that represents the people and not profit, a system that has unshackled the chains of advancing medicine and education for financial gain. Your Cuba gives the world doctors, while the West continues to poison our world with soliders and pollution. Your ideas and your lionheart guided the minds of the Black men and women who helped liberate our continent from the claws of the Western liberal scum. You touched the hearts and minds of Cabral, Davis, Sankara and Mandela. You managed to survive the attempts of eliminating you from the West and was taken by the will of God. Comrade Castro, Rest In Power. Tell Che we miss him, Tell Lumamba that we love him, Tell Cabral and Sankara that they were right. Your Friend Fidel.

[soulfulmaniac]

Is it?

Its okay to be sad, fam Its okay to cry, mate Its okay to be mad, bruv It isn't okay to not talk about it It isn't okay to make fun of your own mental instabilities and label it an idiosyncracy It isn't okay to be stuck on your own mental ticking time bomb It isn't cool to be stressed. Your heart says "take drugs, it will be all cool", while your mind says, "you'll be a fool" Its okay to be sad, fam Its okay to cry, mate Its okay to be mad, bruv Its not okay to think of the thousand ways to end your own life Its not okay to be silent, while your thoughts be violent Its not okay to cry alone, while your mind is a storm Losing your mind is not a curse. Its a cause of action Its not okay to be isolated, your abnormal mind does not deserve any external factions Its has never been cool to be alone, to bemoan Mind blown by the realities of the world, it is truly cold Its okay to be sad, fam Its okay to cry, mate Its okay to be mad, burv Its hurts to be depressed. With my mind never at rest, my internal healing is the only test.

[soulfulmaniac]

black n proud: a memoir

“So whenever that house Negro identified himself, he always identified himself in the same sense that his master identified himself. When his master said, "We have good food,” the house Negro would say, “Yes, we have plenty of good food.” “We” have plenty of good food. When the master said that “we have a fine home here,” the house Negro said, “Yes, we have a fine home here.” When the master would be sick, the house Negro identified himself so much with his master he’d say, “What’s the matter boss, we sick?” His master’s pain was his pain. And it hurt him more for his master to be sick than for him to be sick himself. When the house started burning down, that type of Negro would fight harder to put the master’s house out than the master himself would. But then you had another Negro out in the field. The house Negro was in the minority. The masses–the field Negroes were the masses. They were in the majority. When the master got sick, they prayed that he’d die. [Laughter] If his house caught on fire, they’d pray for a wind to come along and fan the breeze.“

Racism is a cold reality that always seems to make its way into our so-called cured hearts. A rot that was thought to be removed with words such as "reconciliation”, “democracy” and “liberation”. We have lied to each other as the years go by on about how we really forgive each other and how we will walk together in the sunset. The truth is…we aren’t exactly equal, 20 years later and you still have a poverty gap wider than the gates of Hell, the poor are getting poorer while the rich become richer and every single day is a reminder of your blackness. A blackness that prohibits your growth and development,   a blackness that is always referred to as “violent” and “reverse racist”, a blackness that has underlined issues of accepting homosexuality and an equal society.

My mind fathoms the idea of fair Marxist-Leninist system in areas of economics, health and social development but world outside my deluded mind is run by the capitalist!  The one who has had the advantage for more than 300 years, the one who says that you aren’t allowed to lay a complaint because it seems like you have it all…People seem to turn their backs on individuals when they assume a stance of privilege, seemingly suffering from amnesia, forgetting the Struggle of the Black Child. You suddenly speak their language fluently and drink from their grail and suddenly you think you are one of them! It is exactly like the way a house negro operates.

Everyday, the system remainds of you how your skin colour will ultimately get you locked up in prison or how you will only live on a certain amount of money; undermining your ability and only see you as nothing more but a cotton picking monkey. It is NOT the responsibility of a black person to get rid of “Racism” but it is our responsibility is to learn to grow and better ourselves. They have had 300 years of dominance, the next 300 years must be made OURS! We must find ourselves again!

[soulfulmaniac]

012.

[soulfulmaniac]

Name: Siyabonga Nhleko Hustle: Neo-Afro Street Fashion Brand: Xperimental swenk Young hustler who hails from the city of Nelspruit in Mpumalanga wiggling his way into the dynamic pool of fashion with a different story to tell and uncovering the true essence of African street culture in the brand’s movement. Communicating to a growing market of different, abstract, flexible and the new “uncool”. Watch out for the young nigga on the come up! Twitter Handle : @Jr_Ecko

[soulfulmaniac]

THIS.IS.BRILLIANT

What “Ghetto” Names Really Mean

“Tinashe” -  Means “God is with us” in Shona ( An African language spoken by nearly 80 percent of people in Zimbabwe.)

“Lakeisha” - A Swahili name meaning “favorite one.”

“Ashanti” -  Name of a powerful African empire in West Africa.

“Tanisha” - Hausa of West Africa name meaning “born on Monday.”

“Zola” - Means “quiet, tranquil” in Zulu.    

“Amandla” -  Zulu and Xhosa word meaning “power”. The word was a popular rallying cry in the days of resistance against Apartheid.

“Zendaya” - Means “ To Give Thanks” in Shona

“Latonia” -  A Latin name. Latonia was the mother of Diana in Roman mythology.

“Lulu” - Swahili and Muslim name meaning “pearl” or “precious.”

“Ciara” -  Means “dark-haired” in Irish Gaelic

“Lateefah” - A North African name meaning “gentle and pleasant.”

“Mercedes” - Means “Gracious gifts/Benefits) in Spanish

“Kaya” - Ghanaian language (Ga) phrase that means “don’t go or stay.”  

“Amara” -  The Swahili word amara, meaning “urgent business.” Also the Hindu name meaning “immortal.”

“Shanika” - African Bantu name, meaning “young one from the wilderness.

“Zuri” - Means “beautiful” in Swahili.

“Onika” - Word of African origin meaning “warrior.”

JUST BECAUSE A NAME SOUNDS DIFFERENT DOES NOT MEAN IT’S “RATCHET” OR “GHETTO” THEY HAVE BEAUTIFUL MEANINGS.

EVERY NAME DESERVE RESPECT, NOT TRADITIONAL “WESTERN” NAMES.

DON’T BE IGNORANT, LEARN.

[soulfulmaniac]

From a city with so much to offer From where the journey of a barefooted boy began Home is what I've come to call this place Pretoria stand up!! Rep Your City Hard

[soulfulmaniac]

When Day 1's reunite It was an OG day

[soulfulmaniac]

Molasses...By God

“Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don’t want to be around each other? You know. Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.” -Malcolm X- I just needed to kick off with one of my favourite speeches from a man who was a strong believer in the power of melanin! Anyways… I exist in a society where beautiful dark women want to look white…why? Does white mean beauty? Power? Success? Establishment? The answer to these questions should be a big NO! For 500 years, slavery and segregation has made the melanin consumed masses red with fury! So now, you want to oppress your self for another 500 years…your skin resembles chocolate, a decedent confection…it resembles molasses, the beautiful sweet and thick molasses…why do you want to remove what God has painted in his special gallery? You are a Picasso, an art piece to God, a unique extract to the world… You want their hair and skin? They want your sense of culture, your roots? Still hate the colour of skin? You are just a piece of a lineage of pharaohs, kings, emperors, scientists, explorers…

I live in a society where women’s perception of beauty has been reduced to the amount of comestics that a woman swins in daily or by popular demand…how fat your ass is, at some point in life, it was the “in thing” to look like a twig! Guess there’s no pleasing the world now is there? And another thing that seems to be in fashion is this insane obsession between the “dark skin and light skin” whatever it is, isn’t it bad enough that the fact that your ethnicity still stands as a rock solid remainder of oppression meanwhile within our race…you are still oppressed! Beauty shouldn’t have to be defined by how white as snow your skin is or how chocolate your skin is…what happened to intellectual beauty? You know…the kind that mesmerises your mind? A woman with a beautiful body surely is kind to the eyes, but what are you feeding your mind with? I’m not talking about using the Queen’s tongue to be associated with being smart

Black women, you are your own but you are really acting like a defying force owns you! What happened to the confidence, self love that you were blessed with? Now you are just drowning in self doubt and self hate. You have already drawn conclusions that you aren’t beautiful according to society’s twisted definition of beauty!

Isn’t being unique supposed to be the most beautiful thing ever? What happened to looking into the eyes of a person in order to see beauty and not the size of her breasts. The point of this article is not too diss my full figured sisters but to make them realise that they worth more than just the size of their curves…Gentlemen, treat women like the queens they are, they are the carriers of life, they bring warmth, belonging and comfort! Women, you are the paragon of happiness, the rock solid structure of our development, the queens!

The true architects of society aren’t big bellied and greedy men in their Italian suits and German cars, the architects of our society are women! These beautiful creatures made with love by God. The molasses…by God!

[soulfulmaniac]

2015 is looking like a hell of a year already with young people making heavy moves from Africa into the rest of this world. Trevor Mashilo aka Trey Mash who hails from the City of Pretoria in South Africa recently dropped his 1st mixtape and looks like it deserved all the hype it was getting! #PHAME a mixtape saturated with quality, incredible beats and a variation of Kasi Rap, New Age Kwaito and Skhanda Rap. This is one kid who is here to stay! Download #PHAME and support local!

[soulfulmaniac]

The smooth, velvet and soothing sounds of the realm of deep house music and soulful house complied into what seems to be a very dangerously contagious concoction of feel good music for your mature listening pleasure. Mix made by a young hustler by the name of DJ BlackMyth hailing from the humble city of Pretoria in South Africa! His musical prowess is certainly one that you cannot mess with! Share and Enjoy!

[soulfulmaniac]

Put on them headphones, hit a blunt, pop a bottle and listen to the sensational kasi rap my nigga Treymash has within his arsenal Slowly coming up in the complex world of a new age lethal combo of Rap music and the indigenous style of music called Kwaito... Support, share and most importantly, ENJOY!!

[soulfulmaniac]

Eternity

We live a life where we fear the inevitable Raised and bred in the presence of paralysing fear Afraid of the day we will part ways with the world Fearing the days and nights of eternal slumber We live on borrowed time Guarded by the angels of our maker A time comes where we part ways with what God has made So that we can join him in eternal rest For eternity, we shall guard those wandering and still fearing In spirit, we will cherise and love Protect and remain a tingling and everlasting memory For we will make you smile, laugh and love again Worry not of the day we rest but reminisce the days that go by like a wind saturated with gust For when the day comes, you will remain a guardian of those living the journey Giants fall but even when they perish from the earth...their footsteps remain And leave behind a footprint, a memory! Rest In Eternal Power!

[soulfulmaniac]

My Niggas!

[soulfulmaniac]

Pastures

Ever heard of “greener pastures”? Well, that statement that keeps you on your toes! You are told of a place better than this one, oh damn, they told you that the lifestyle is so much better for you It is tranquil and mind-numbingly amazing, its a breath of fresh air, its “pure” They are the same people that give you hell in those pastures that they told you about many moons ago They charge you for living and practically breathing there Oh, they didn’t tell you? Are you too busy letting your brain fall for this nonsense Their below-the belt tactics, their “kick them while their down” antics and give you something in the form of a moronic food package and lousy social security? While you listen to their indiscrepancies and childish insecurities! You led into growing backwards, a lifesize oxymoron, that is scary! So tell you now…how do you think you can find greener pastures when you mind is dark and foggy, tainted and impure You really did this to yourself, you know! Allowing your mind to mimic the sublimal traps set by… (you know who! ) Free your mind! Up your game! Be happy Play like a child! Rage against their mind distracting antics!

[soulfulmaniac]

Mmago boi...this pic still strikes me hard!

Nolo in her Heritage day outfit :) #HeritageDay2014 #AfricanGirl