#Femi Collection

[ceevee5]

[gacha-incels]

this is mtl of the article that I’ve edited. you can click the link and see the original, if there’s any glaring issues lmk and I’ll edit the post ✍️

[Exclusive] 'Nexon 🤏 Witch Hunt' Victim: "Police Justified Femi Attack…Daily Life Stopped" (archive link) [Interview] Victim A: "We need to end the pinched fingers suppression…I will appeal to the police and fight to the end"

A victim of the 'Nexon Forefinger Witch Hunt' complained in an interview with The Pressian that the police investigation justified the accusations against her as "logical conclusions" and that she was suffering from pain that made it difficult to go about her daily life. However, she vowed to appeal to the police and fight to the end, saying, "I want to stop the situation where all creators are forced to censor the shape of their fingers as soon as possible."

The online harassment of Ms. A began in November last year, shortly after it became known that a pinched forefinger hand appeared in a promotional video for MapleStory, a game operated by Nexon Korea. The video was produced by B (Studio Ppuri), an animation company that A works for, and it was claimed that A, who had posted feminism-related posts on social networking services (SNS) in the past, had inserted awkward hand gestures to demean men, especially in male-centric communities.

However, the animator who drew the controversial scene was a male artist in his 40s who was outsourced by Company B, and the other scenes with the index finger were also the work of male artists. Nevertheless, the attack against A continued. In the two months after the incident, A collected more than 3,500 online harassment messages, including sexual insults and harassment that continued into this year.

She filed a complaint with the police for 308 of the most serious cases, 267 and 41 respectively. "The pinched hand is a natural hand gesture for drawing," she said, and she wanted to "stop the situation where all creators have to censor their pinched hand as soon as possible."

However, the Seocho Police Station decided not to prosecute the 41 cases filed by Ms. A, citing reasons such as "it is currently taboo to use index fingers in corporate advertisements," "Ms. A is not the person in charge of the drawings involved, but there is evidence that she sympathizes as a feminist," and "it is obvious that the investigation is fruitless."

After receiving the Seocho Police Station's non-sentencing notice, Ms. A described her condition, saying that she was "unable to work all day" and that to this day she "stops thinking, easily forgets things and memories, and suffers from lethargy."

The police described the bullying directed at her as "logical" and she said she could not understand the police's decision to side with the perpetrators. "If we don't set an example for the perpetrators, the number of people who harass others will increase thanks to anonymity, and the level of harassment will become more severe," she said, adding that she will appeal the case so that the perpetrators can be punished. The following is the full interview with Mr. A, which was conducted at a cafe in Guro-gu, Seoul, on the 2nd of this month.

"Is it okay to be harassed because you're suspected of drawing an index finger?"

Q: What is your current state of health?

A: I have been going through a difficult time since the incident. I suffered from severe depression and am still seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication. I've also become very afraid of meeting people, and when I go outside, I'm afraid that someone will recognize me, and I walk faster because I feel like they're looking at me when I walk by.

I have been unable to work, especially on the day I received the notification of the outcome of the investigation. Even now, I often stop thinking and forget things and memories. I am constantly tearing up involuntarily, and I feel scared because I don't know how to solve the problem in the future.

Q: Why did you decide to press charges against the perpetrators?

A: The pinched hand is a natural hand gesture in the animation industry when drawing. However, when the pinched hand became a target of criticism, it reached a point where creators in the industry, including myself, were forced to censor all hand shapes. I felt that the only thing I could do to stop this was to sue the perpetrators and make sure they were punished.

Q: The police decided not to prosecute, saying that "the use of the index finger in corporate advertisements is taboo in the current climate."

A: I don't think there's anything wrong with the index finger, but there's no denying the current controversial situation. However, the mere suspicion of drawing a pinched finger can lead to severe levels of harassment, and law enforcement should not come in and say, "It's okay to criticize the creator because it's taboo in the industry.” The police are supposed to be equal to everyone and distinguish between harm and victimization. But the police rationalized the attack on me because I had posted feminism-related posts on social media, even though I hadn't drawn a claw hand. It's like saying, 'Feminists deserve to be attacked.

Q: Do you plan to file an appeal?

A: Yes. If the police drop the charges because they are not investigating, the perpetrators will not face the consequences of their actions. This will encourage more and more people to attack others, fueled by anonymity. Someone needs to catch the perpetrators and make an example of them. I'm scared of what the future holds, but I'm determined to fight to the end.

Q: What are some of the cases you've brought up that you really want to see prosecuted?

A: People who are convinced that I put the pinched hand in the video because I'm a 'feminist'. These people attacked me for being a feminist, not for drawing the hand. I've also had people send me abusive and sexually explicit comments on social media, not just in the community. People who see feminism as a weakness or use it as a means of harassment, saying that feminists deserve to be criticized, must be punished.

Q: What do you want to say about the 🤏 witch hunt in the gaming industry and in Korea?

A: The pinched hand is just a natural hand gesture that can be found in many videos. It's so common in everyday life that you can easily find photos of lawmakers in the shape of a pinched hand. Nevertheless, the index finger witch hunt has spread beyond the gaming industry and into live-action advertising. If we don't stop it, the phenomenon of capturing a moment in time and then harassing creators who claim to have spotted a 🤏 with a specific intent will continue to happen. I hope that society will realize the seriousness of the witch hunt and that police and companies will step up to the plate and put an end to it as soon as possible.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Amanda Borschel-Dan

Published: Oct 5, 2018

The term “Femi-Nazi” became all too accurate when a trio of academic tricksters participating in an elaborate hoax submitted portions of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” rewritten through a feminist lens to a leading peer-reviewed feminist journal. The satirical paper was accepted this past academic year for publication by Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work.

The sting operation against academic journals became public this week.

In a truncated year-long project aimed at highlighting the alleged influence of extremist dogma and confirmation bias in academia, the trio wrote 20 farcical “scholarly” papers — three of which were based on rewrites of “Mein Kampf” — for leading cultural studies journals. All 20 of the papers were based on “something absurd or deeply unethical, or both,” the authors have said; seven were accepted for publication.

One of the papers, “Our Struggle is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice,” was written under the alias Maria Gonzalez, PhD, who claimed to be based out of the fictitious Feminist Activist Collective for Truth (FACT).

According to the real-life authors, “The last two-thirds of this paper is based upon a rewriting of roughly 3,600 words of Chapter 12 of Volume 1 of ‘Mein Kampf,’ by Adolf Hitler, though it diverges significantly from the original. This chapter is the one in which Hitler lays out in a multi-point plan which we partially reproduced why the Nazi party is needed and what it requires of its members.”

Hailing from differing countries and fields, the trio of academics is made up of self-proclaimed liberals who claim to want to fix a broken system, not ban the fields of study themselves: Helen Pluckrose, a UK-based English literature and history scholar; James Lindsay, a math PhD; and Peter Boghossian, a professor of philosophy at Portland State University. The project was documented by Australian filmmaker Mike Nayna, who released a viral YouTube video with an authors statement on the project this week.

The scholars targeted high-ranking humanities journals in the niche subjects they label as “grievance studies.” These relatively new fields, which have become popular in the past 50 years with the rise of the civil and women’s rights movements, examine the lives of the historically and traditionally oppressed: women, racial, religious and cultural minorities, and the LGBT community.

With a steep learning curve, the team quickly took six of their initial attempted hoax papers out of circulation, believing they could do better. After adapting their submissions based on peer reviewers’ comments, within a few months, an unheard of seven absurd papers were accepted. Leading the pack was “research” on rape culture at urban dog parks, which was recognized by leading peer-reviewed feminist geography journal Gender, Place, and Culture as “exemplary scholarship.”

It was skeptical media attention after the publication of the dog parks paper which brought the project, initially scheduled for 18 months, to an abrupt end this summer. All papers are available online, as well as the name-redacted comments of the peer reviewers.

According to the trio of scholars, it is likely that another six fictitious papers would have been accepted for publication as their experiment in “reflexive ethnography” within the world of grievance studies progressed.

Is there any idea so outlandish that it won't be published in a Critical/PoMo/Identity/"Theory" journal? Helen Plucrose et al. submitted a dozen hoax papers to find out. https://t.co/TTDLuIQN9p via @areomagazine — Steven Pinker (@sapinker) October 3, 2018

The trio contends that the fields have been infiltrated by radical and intolerant theories. And what better way to prove their point, they figured, than turning to one of the most extreme manifestos in recent history — “Mein Kampf.”

Mathematician Lindsay told The Times of Israel on Thursday, “We decided to try to rewrite something from something old and nasty, and ‘Mein Kampf’ not only is the pinnacle document, it proved accessible for our methods.”

Theological fire and brimstone writing “didn’t transliterate easily,” Lindsay said. However, “much of ‘Mein Kampf’ is an autoethnography.” This style of self-reflective writing is en vogue in the grievance studies’ academic journals and therefore the substitution of feminist or anti-patriarchal terminology for Hitler’s well-known screed was evidently undetectable to the peer reviewers.

According to a comment from the co-editor of the journal, the reviewers were “supportive of the work and noted its potential to generate important dialogue for social workers and feminist scholars.”

A quest to expose ‘sophistry’

In a long co-bylined essay published Tuesday in Aero Magazine, which Pluckrose edits, the trio wrote that during the course of their experiment, “the reviewers’ comments are in many ways more revealing about the state of these fields than the acceptances themselves.”

The team explained their motivations and methodology: “We set out with three basic rules: (1) we’ll focus almost exclusively upon ranked peer-reviewed journals in the field, the higher the better and at the top of their subdisciplines whenever possible; (2) we will not pay to publish any paper; and (3) if we are asked at any point by a journal editor or reviewer (but not a journalist!) if any paper we wrote is an attempted hoax, we will admit it.”

The basis of each paper was “something absurd or deeply unethical (or both) that we wanted to forward or conclude. We then made the existing peer-reviewed literature do our bidding in the attempt to get published in the academic canon,” they wrote.

[ Perpetrators of an elaborate hoax against academic journals (from left) mathematics Ph.D. James Lindsay, UK academic Helen Pluckrose and philosophy professor Peter Boghossian. (courtesy) ]

“This is the primary point of the project: What we just described is not knowledge production; it’s sophistry. That is, it’s a forgery of knowledge that should not be mistaken for the real thing. The biggest difference between us and the scholarship we are studying by emulation is that we know we made things up,” they wrote.

In undertaking the hoax, the use of satire was often employed. According to the authors, every paper “also endeavored to be humorous in at least some small way (and often, big ones).”

The team was so successful that four journals asked the papers’ fictitious authors to become peer reviewers themselves. For “ethical reasons,” they declined.

The proverbial wheels came off after a Twitter account called “New Real Peer Review” sniffed something foul from the Dog Park essay. Soon, local newspapers became suspicious, and eventually, in cooperation with the hoax team, the Wall Street Journal broke the story this week, with an ever-widening international ripple effect and coverage.

Satire as social commentary

It is not the first time scholars have written hoax papers to illustrate a broken academia. While other fields can be equally guilty of publishing unscientific work, gender studies in particular has already been repeatedly flagged as problematic.

After the current hoax experiment became public this week, author and Harvard lecturer Yascha Mounk proclaimed on Twitter that “Three intrepid academics just perpetrated a giant version of the Sokal Hoax… Call it Sokal Squared. The result is hilarious and delightful. It also showcases a serious problem with big parts of academia.”

In 1996, mathematics and physics Prof. Alan David Sokal submitted a nonsensical paper to Duke University’s Social Text journal called “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” in a (successful) experiment illustrating editorial bias and the prevalent incorrect use of scientific terms.

The Sokal hoax was the basis for a May 2017 experiment when two of the current project’s authors, Boghossian and Lindsay, attempted to replicate his success with the publication of a fake paper that claims “that penises conceptually cause climate change.” They write about the experiment in an essay, “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies,” which discusses the problematic nature of “pay-to-publish” open access journals.

In September 2017 the duo became a trio with the addition of Pluckrose and the new, much more elaborate project was launched.

According to the scholars, the goal of the current project was not to end the study of these niche academic disciplines, rather highlight the intolerant thinking within their lock-step that is infiltrating popular culture.

Asked by The Times of Israel if academic journals in the field of Jewish Studies would also be in their sights, Lindsay answered that the team didn’t fully examine this particular field. “The grievance studies methods are dubious, and I hope [Jewish Studies scholars] don’t take them up,” he said.

“I’ve only looked closely at one paper in Jewish Studies and it seemed to use similar methods but criticized a nasty streak of antisemitism in critical race scholarship,” he wrote via Twitter, citing a paper called, “Critical Whiteness Studies and the ‘Jewish Problem.'”

The cited paper was written in response to the increasingly trendy theory proposed by Critical Whiteness Studies and promoted by young American Jews on college campuses, social media, and even mainstream Jewish media, that Jews are not “white.”

According to the paper’s abstract, “‘whiteness” is used as a critical concept denoting those who enjoy white privilege in American and other Western societies.” Calling a Jew “white,” however, “is more than controversial, for it assimilates the most persecuted minority in European history to the dominant majority, while downgrading the significance of antisemitism.”

The fact that this type of topic itself is being debated within the ivory tower and infiltrating popular culture is not what appears to bother the scholars. Rather, it is the fact that there are few skeptical and critical checks within peer-reviewed journals and that what they consider to be a “kind of blatant corruption” through confirmation bias is pervasive in the fields.

“Politically biased research that rests on highly questionable premises gets legitimized as though it is verifiable knowledge. It then goes on to permeate our culture because professors, activists, and others cite and teach this ever-growing body of ideologically skewed and fallacious scholarship,” writes the team.

“We managed to get seven shoddy, absurd, unethical and politically biased papers into respectable journals in the fields of grievance studies. Does this show that academia is corrupt? Absolutely not. Does it show that all scholars and reviewers in humanities fields which study gender, race, sexuality and weight are corrupt? No,” they write.

[ Perpetrators of an elaborate hoax against academic journals (from left) mathematics Ph.D. James Lindsay, UK academic Helen Pluckrose and philosophy professor Peter Boghossian. (courtesy) ]

However, when a journal publishes — without revisions — a paper written in under six hours by a man which describes “moon meetings” for women in womb rooms with vulva shrines, it might reasonably be thought that something is deeply amiss. When an essay which promotes the pedagogical boon of silencing and chaining “privileged” pupils to the floor to affect “experiential reparations” is taken under serious consideration and given notes for improvement, one might wonder about the Ivory Tower’s foundations.

The authors are now calling upon universities to conduct a thorough review of the grievance study fields “to separate knowledge-producing disciplines and scholars from those generating constructivist sophistry.”

“Research into these areas is crucial, and it must be rigorously conducted and minimize ideological influences,” they write. “The further results on these topics diverge from reality, the greater chance they will hurt those their scholarship is intended to help.”

--

==

Flashback to the days when this was shocking and hard to believe, rather than ordinary and everyday.

[silkjade]

hello jade ! ! finally built up the necessary amount of courage to drop by your lovely inbox 💌 i've seen you via the lookbooks you've made and i had to say ! ! your style nd taste are truly phenomenal, i adore it so much <3 everything abt u just screams elegant with capital E ! trust me when i say i'll have to be the first in line when you put up your own runway show one day heh 🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️ also i have to learn more abt you and haitham, you two are so beautiful together~ definitely can imagine you styling his outfits here and there hehe.. it's nice to meet you and i hope you're having a lovely day so far .. 💐🐇

hi femi, it is lovely to meet you as well ^^ ahh tysm, i’m glad you think so ! and i will definitely save u a vip seat ♡ in the same sphere, i think your art style is SO CUTE and dainty — how talented ! wahh i can’t imagine how fun it must be to be able to draw femitano for yourself, so i hope i’ll find the time some time soon to lurk :3c !! and lastly, i have to mention plssss there is no need to gather courage to message me (੭;´ -`;)੭ in fact — i’m collecting all the excess n sprinkling it atop your head like pixie dust so now u have double the amount for whatever you’re off to do today (•̀ᴗ•́ )و ♡

[sydsaint]

I might be obsessed with him. Just a little bit. <3

Summary: A certain someone almost makes reader late to Mania weekend.

It's a chilly morning in Philly for Mania weekend. As co-gm of NXT along with Ava, you've got a full day of work ahead of you. But truth be told? Work is the furthest thing from your mind at the moment.

Golden sunlight streams in through the window of your highrise hotel room. Beams of light illuminate your bare skin as you lay spread out on the bed in nothing but your bra and underwear. Your chest rises and falls at an accelerated pace, one hand placed over your mouth to keep yourself quiet due to the relatively thin walls of the hotel room.

"Dom, I've got to get ready for work. I'm going to be late for my meeting with Ava." You remove your hand from your mouth in a whimper.

Above you, Oba Femi's latest challenger for his North American title, and one of your employee's, Dominick Dijakovic aka Dijak, hovers above you with hungry eyes. His eyebrows raise slightly, a mischievous grin plastered on his face before his hulking frame dips down toward your exposed body. "We've got time, baby. Relax." He whispers against your skin, causing a shiver to run up your spine.

You let out another pathetic sounding whimper as Dijak litters your stomach in sloppy kisses. He drags his incisors across your skin delicately and a gasp escapes your lips. "Fuck." You let out a shaky breath. "Dom, please." You plead with him.

On the nightstand next to you, your phone buzzes for what seems like the millionth time in the last hour. The buzzing stops after a minute and your voicemail catches the message.

"Hey, YN, it's Ava again." Ava's voice drowns out your noises. "I was just wondering where you are...again." She continues. "We've got that meeting before the show in like an hour. And you're sort of starting to worry me. So, call me back, please."

The voicemail ends and you curse the air silently. You can't be late to this meeting. Especially since it's Mania weekend. With the hand you aren't using to keep yourself quiet you card through Dijak's hair and pull him up off you.

"Okay okay. That's it!" You assert yourself. "I have to get ready for this meeting. And I can't do that if you're on top of me."

"Alright, fine." Dijak sighs through his nose and reluctantly backs off of you. "We've got unfinished business tonight then, sweetheart." He adds matter-of-factly.

You take a moment to collect yourself before you slide off the bed and walk over to your suitcase. "Shouldn't you be worried about your title match with Oba later?" You ask him while searching around your suitcase for a nice blouse. "Normally people hit the gym for a warmup, or something like that."

"I think that we both got plenty of exercise this morning, don't you think?" Dijak replies and steps up behind you.

"I'm not a athlete, how would I know?" You quip back, finally having found and acceptable blouse. "Now go put your pants on. I've got to do my makeup really fast." You pull your blouse on and head for the bathroom.

Dijak reaches out to you as you walk off, his gaze transfixed on the way your hips sway as you walk away from him. You quickly do a simple makeup look, finishing it off with the new lipstick that you bought a few day ago in a pretty shade of purple. When you come back out of the bathroom Dijak is fully dressed and sitting on the ege of your bed looking at his phone.

"You're still here?" You tease with a grin and walk over to him.

"Well I couldn't leave before getting a glimpse of what you'll be wearing all day. And what I'll be tearing off of you later tonight." He adds with a sly smile.

You come to a stop in front of Dijak. He's sitting down and yet he still manages to be taller than you. "Tearing off?" You flash a frown. "I like this blouse, so no tearing please." You warn him.

"I can be gentle." Dijak replies, his arm snaking around your waste and pulling you closer to him.

You roll your eyes playfully and wrap your arms around his neck. "So you claim." You muse. "The amount of full-coverage concealer I've had to buy in the last month would say otherwise."

"A justifiable expense if you ask me." Dijak shrugs, his hands gliding up your back despite your shirt.

You sigh and lean down for a kiss. How you manage to find yourself in the clutches of this frustratingly tall and alluring man, you don't know. Especially when you consider the fact that you're his boss. Not that it matters to Dijak. Or yourself as of late.

Forty minutes later you roll up to the office just in time to meet with Ava Her head jerks up when she hears the door and pops to her feet when she sees that it's you.

"YN! There are you!" Ava rushes to your side. "Did something happen? I've been trying to get ahold of you all morning." She explains.

"I know, sorry Ava." You nod. "I was caught up in an important meeting." You lie and head over to your desk.

Ava follows you over to your desk with a million ore questions to ask you. "A meeting? What meeting? Did I miss something." She asks you.

"No. It was a personal meeting, of sorts." You reply and set you bag down to grab some stuff out of it.

"Personal meeting?" Ava furrows her brows. "With who?" She asks you.

You dig through your bag and Ava waits for an answer. She gets a closer look at your appearance and can't help but notice some discrepancies. Your blouse has obviously been wrinkled and then smoothe out again in a haste. Plus your lipstick is slightly smudged in the corners of your mouth.

"Your lipstick? It's smudged." Ava looks at you pointedly. "YN...please don't tell me that you were with someone and that's why you were late." She frowns.

"I'm not late." You reply sharply and reach back into your purse for a pocket mirror.

Ava huffs and walks back over to her desk. "Well, do I at least get to know who was so important that you were almost late for work? On Mania weekend of all times?" She asks you.

"No, you don't." You reply and begin fixing up your makeup. "It's not important anyway, Ava." You assure her. "It's nothing serious."

"Right." Ava nods. "So it's someone that we work with then?" She glances at you to gauge your reaction.

Your eyebrows twitch ever so slightly and Ava smiles to herself. Now she just has to figure out who the mystery man is.

Later into the afternoon, backstage at the Stand and Deliver show, Dijak meets up wit Josh Briggs before their match with Oba.

"Dijak! There you are." Josh greets his opponent for the night. "I was beginning to think that you chickened out on me and Oba." He jokes.

"Not a chance." Dijak scoffs. "I can't let you and Oba off that easily." He claps Josh on the shoulder playfully. "I was a little tied up with management this morning." He explains.

Josh nods and happens to notice an odd purple stain on Dijak's collar. And once he's spotted the first one, it's not hard to notice a few more littered on his friends jaw and neck.

"Umm, Dijak?" Josh clears his throat. "You've uhh, got something on your neck. Right there." He points to his own neck.

"Hmm?" Dijak raises a hand to his neck and rubs it before looking at his now purple tinted fingers. "Oh, shit! I'll e right back man." He quickly dismisses himself.

Josh nods and watches Dijak hurry off. A few minutes later he is waiting for Dijak to come back when you walk by with Ava. Josh waves at you with a smile and you smile back at him. You and Ava walk off and it takes a moment, but Josh realizes that your lipstick shade looks awfully familiar.

Dijak coes back to meet up with Josh again and finds his friend grinning like an idiot. "What?" He confronts Josh.

"Nothing." Josh continues to grin. "Tied up with management huh?" He chuckles to himself. "Yeah, okay." He muses and walks off.

[boonesfarmsangria]

At the end of the month, Yannis & The Yaw will release the EP Lagos Paris London, a collection of songs that sees Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis team up with late Afrobeat legend Tony Allen. Sessions began back in 2016 but were uncompleted when Allen died in 2020, Philippakis getting the tracks to the finish line with Allen’s trusted team of collaborators in Paris over the past couple of years. It makes for an excellent melding of sounds, a union of Allen’s restless, toppling grooves and Philippakis’ knack for dexterous rock riffs and yearning vocals. Last week, Niall spoke to Yannis over Zoom about how rehearsals for Yannis & The Yaw’s live shows are coming along (see here for ticket and date details), his favourite memories of working with Allen, where the Yannis & The Yaw project could go next and more…

Hello Yannis, how’s it going?

Yeah, good. I got back last night after being away for two weeks, so it’s one of those where the hot water isn’t working, the internet doesn’t work, the house smells like bins…

Haha.  I saw some videos you put up from rehearsals. How are they going?

It was loosely rehearsing, it wasn’t full band. I’ve been going over to Paris semi-regularly now for a few years, obviously to finish the record and since then to explore how to do the live show because without Tony being around, we have to be thoughtful about how to do it. We’ve also got to create more material for the show, because the EP is only about 20 minutes long.

Like an early Foals show!

Yeah, exactly. It’s like when we first headlined Brixton and we played for 40 minutes, the shortest ever headline set at Brixton Academy.

I was at that gig. It wasn’t just that you didn’t have loads of material, it was that you played the songs you had really quickly too.

The nerves controlled the tempo that day.

So have you cracked that nut in terms of what you’re going to do for the Yannis & The Yaw live shows?

We jammed a bit with this Malian guitarist so we’ve got some extra material. We’re going to do some improvised sections, extend certain sections, jam out bits of the songs that people know, and then we might do a couple of Tony Allen covers as well.

We’ve got an amazing band. We’ve got Dave Okumu on guitar. We’ve got Seye Adelekan, who plays bass for lots of people and is the live bass player for Gorillaz and who’s really awesome. I’ve wanted to play with him for a long time. Then the Vincents, Vincent Taurelle and Vincent Taeger, who were the producers and musicians on the EP so I’m quite familiar with playing with those two. And Kit [Monteith, a member of Foals’ live band] on percussion. As a collective, we’ve never played together so there’s definitely a big question mark about how it’s going to come together. But it’s exciting because I have absolute faith that the other guys are going to come and elevate all of the music. There’s some nerves, I want it to do justice to the EP and to Tony and for it not to suck.

Who’s playing drums?

Vincent Taeger. He’s perfect for it. Tony really admired a couple of younger drummers. One of them is Femi from Ezra Collective and the other one was Vincent. Vincent had worked on other Tony Allen records and had been in Tony’s orbit for a long time and knew him intimately to the point where when we were mixing the record, both the Vincents could tell me exactly the frequency that Tony would want his kick drum mixed at and things like that, they know it so intimately that they almost can translate what Tony would have wanted. Because Vincent was in on the sessions, it just felt right.

I love the EP. What’s the full timeframe from when you started it to release?

How many years? I mean, do I have to say?

Yeah.

It’s probably like six or seven years, or maybe the better part of a decade. I think we first got together in 2017, I’m not that good with dates.

I read 2016.

It might well have been 2016.

What’s it like living with a piece of music like that for so long?

For a while, it was OK, because I quite liked to pull out this little trump card late at night at parties when everyone’s playing their own music and I’d be like, ‘Oh, have you heard this stuff I did with Tony Allen?’ and whack it on at three in the morning. It would most often be heard in that kind of setting.

I didn’t want that chapter to close, so part of the reason why I think we didn’t hurry to finish the tracks was that we enjoyed the collaboration with each other. And also, it wasn’t something that was driven by a record label or by an idea of completion. It was an exploration with Tony and we enjoyed jamming with each other. I think that we would have probably done a whole album had things turned out differently. We were enjoying each other’s company, we enjoyed playing so there was a part of it which was pleasant that there was this material bubbling away on the back hob for a long time while he also made other records and I was focusing on Foals. The problem with that obviously was that we didn’t get to complete it while he was alive so that’s the bit that’s the bit where now there’s a feeling of slight remorse that we just didn’t finish it.

But in terms of like having the songs living alongside you unfinished, it wasn’t something that was aggravating to me. I quite enjoyed the fact that they were just there in the ether but it does now feel awesome to have it done and have it out. I think that that needed to happen once Tony passed away. They needed to be completed.

Thinking back to when you first went to Paris to meet Tony in the studio, how did it go in terms of what you were expecting versus what actually happened?

I didn’t really know what to expect, it was all quite French in terms of the communication! Genuinely, when I got to Paris that morning, I didn’t know whether I was playing on a written piece of music that I was going to be slotting into, or if it was one tune or many. In terms of expectation, it was quite loose. All I knew was that I was going to go into a studio with Tony Allen and I was excited. I guess I was a bit anxious about how it was gonna go. I didn’t want to get there and be like, ‘Oh, this isn’t clicking’ or ‘I’m a letdown’ or something.

The not-knowing what I’m walking into would freak me out.

It didn’t freak me out but I just didn’t know. I had a guitar and a loop pedal. I knew if I needed anything, I could find it on that loop pedal. It’s quite a Luddite way of working but I had about 80 loops in this little box that I’d go around with. I went in there and it wasn’t necessarily frosty, but it was kind of quiet. It was a cold morning, pretty early, it was December, it was a bit grim outside. And Tony was sat there in this basement studio and it was already pretty smoky in there.

What was incredible about it was the realisation that we were going to build something from scratch, them saying, ‘Oh no, there’s nothing written, you’re not playing on something that’s pre-written, we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna jam and you’re gonna play with Tony’. That moment was like, ‘Alright, OK’. Once we started playing and just how natural it felt, it’s been one of the peaks of my musical life, the fact that it flowed so well with Tony and there was this innate understanding and appreciation that felt like it was a two way street.

What your favourite memory of hanging out with Tony?

Probably Café OTO because it was the first time that I hung out with him fully socially in London. He came to play a small show at Café OTO in Dalston. It was amazing to watch him onstage, post having played with him, in this intimate venue. He was beckoning me over into his roped-off area, we were drinking whiskey together all night. To see him for the first time in a social context and to remember how much of a legend he is but then also to just be hanging out drinking Chivas Regal with a single cube of ice and a plastic cup well into the night, it was good fun.

Tell me about how some of the songs on the EP came to life. What about the opening track, Walk Through Fire?

Walk Through Fire was super quick. It’s basically the riff that I was checking my set-up in the studio with, it almost felt a bit like ‘Whoa, steady there’ because Tony was already playing along to it and and the producers were recording already. One aspect of the EP was things would happen very quickly in the studio, and then there’d be long lunches. I’d always be like, ‘Guys, can we just get back into the studio now?!’ I had to slow my rhythm down to conform with that way of working. It was Tony’s way of working as well, not to force stuff. He didn’t do many takes. There’s actually audio of me asking him to play something again and him refusing, saying, ‘No!’ and leaving the room.

My voice was feeling really strong at that point as well. I’d come straight off a tour and my voice felt elastic, like the range was kind of at its best. I remember that moment of singing some vocal takes and kind of seeing Tony not expecting that to come out of me. He seemed to be more into my voice than than the guitar stuff.

That must have given you confidence.

Yeah, even though he collaborated widely, I think that’s a point of newness, where it’s a kind of rock energy meeting with his style. We had some discussions about the lyrics, I wanted to make sure that he was included in it, and also to find a point of difference with Foals, so they are less introverted and more outward looking. He wanted the songs to be engaging with the streets or society more.

How did Rain Can’t Reach Us come about? I love that tune.

I do too. It’s one of my favourite pieces of music I’ve been part of. I was basically scrolling through my loops and when we were on that one, people got interested, Tony was like, ‘Let’s try that one’. There was probably five layers of guitars, so one went to the marimba, one went to a keyboard, one went to one guitar and another guitar and there was four of us playing that those parts in the room. And then Tony came in, and then I sang over it. There was definitely work done to it afterwards in terms of all the strings and the keys and stuff, but the first time we played it with Tony, that was it.

Is part of you sad it’s completed now?

Yeah, definitely. I’m really pleased to be releasing it, but there’s also a corner of it in which there’s sadness that we’re not doing it together, even the interviews and stuff. It would’ve been fun to have done them together. I’m looking forward to people hearing the EP in full and playing the shows to celebrate it. The idea of the Yaw means that there is a possibility in the future to collaborate with other people or do a record, some sort of continuation of it. It’s not necessarily a full stop or a dead end, but obviously the material with Tony, this is it, there’s no more.

Is this somewhere you could maybe find a home for the stuff you did with Karl Hyde that’s never seen the light of day? You also once told me you wanted to make a Greek folk record…

I need to figure it out. The Karl Hyde stuff would be awesome, I don’t know where he’s at with that. I’m feeling a pull to wanting to do more with Greek music. I’m not sure where that sits, it might be with this or it might be something different. I need to think it through a bit more. I like the idea that this record is postcards from different locations from different cultures, so maybe a future record could be like that. But this pull towards Greek music is definitely happening and I need to deal with that. That’s the big thing I’ve learned from this project with Tony, it is important to throw yourself into wherever you’re being pulled and finish it as well.

What about Foals, what’s the plans for that at the moment?

It’s at the stage where I think we’re enjoying having a bit of time off, all of us individually. We’re chatting quite a lot. It’s [Foals guitarist] Jimmy’s 40th today, we’re jumping on a call later to virtually wish him happy birthday because he’s on the other side of the world right now. We’re probably going to go to Iceland to hang out towards the end of the year to and we’ll know more about what we’re doing after that. We’re going to go to a remote house in Iceland and see what happens

[bishopofblack]

[ID: Digital art of Femi and Irastenys. Femi is a trans woman with  green eyes, medium tan skin and rich red hair that flows in long, thick  waves. She has dots of red henna on her forehead and on the back of her  hand, in the middle. Her lips are painted red, and a red streak runs  down the centre of her chin. There’s another marking under her eye, a  line that runs down from the middle of her eye and terminates in a  hollow circle. She’s wearing a red dress with an opening revealing her  cleavage. Irastenys is a trans man with medium-light tawny skin and long dark  hair. His eyes are closed and he is dressed in black. Femi holds  Irastenys in one arm as he reaches up, her cheek resting on his  forehead. There are tears in her eyes. /End ID]

Chapter One | Femi

The war games between the kingdoms of White and Black are all together an event that feels more like a dream than reality. After nearly three thousand years of tension ranging from bloody, gruesome war to quiet, politically-driven disdain, the idea that the major pieces of each army might come together like this for bloodless games feels to Femi, who is a Black medical Pawn, like some sort of mirage even when this is the third time now that it’s happened. In moments like this it does especially, when warrior Pawns are racing back and forth over the smoothed, packed ground not to do violence upon one another but to compete in sport only. Races and shows of strength, hands touching, eyes met, and very little harm done all around, for days and days… The two kingdoms are separated by encampments each night and their differing holidays during the games, but here on the field, they move as one and are often mixed between Black and White in the allocation of teams. Femi has watched friendships and rivalries form in these games and that too is cause for hope. She is positioned on the side of the field in all of the events because she is technically one of the lowest rung of major Pieces, meant to lead medical Pawns in battle to assist the injured and collect the dead. She's found work in this despite the safety of it comparatively, sprained ankles and bruises and the occasional bloody nose all her responsibility. It is a beautiful, hopeful dream, this. Never before have the circumstances been more perfect for reconciliation between the long warring kingdoms of old.

Continue reading for free on Patreon! New chapters every Tuesday at 3pm, EST. <3

[lboogie1906]

Iyeoka Okoawo (born April 28, 1975) is a Nigerian-American poet, recording artist, singer, activist, educator, and TEDGlobal Fellow. Her music includes elements from soul, R&B, rock, hip-hop, and jazz.

A first-generation Nigerian-American, she was a practicing pharmacist before launching her musical career.

She began her musical career by founding the group The Rock by Funk Tribe, a collective of musicians that enabled her to interweave her poetry with jazz, blues, funk, and gospel. She released her first solo full-length album of poem songs, called Black and Blues, through Phanai Records. Then she began to tour and appeared on other artists’ albums, including The Press Project’s Get Right album and Memoirs of the Tempo by Tempo Valley.

She released her second album of poetry and music fusion, Hum The Bass Line, again on Phanai Records. She made a cover of U2's hit song “Desire” for a compilation of U2 covers called In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2. The album featured Grammy Award-winning/nominated African artists, including Angelique Kidjo, Les Nubians, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, Vieux Farka Touré, Vusi Mahlasela, and the Soweto Gospel Choir.

She released her new album, Say Yes, containing nine songs and two poems, through the Underground Sun artist development company. The first song, “The Yellow Brick Road Song”, was featured in an episode of How To Make It in America. “The Yellow Brick Road Song” is being used as the theme song for the series “Fairly Legal”.

She was nominated in The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards for her song “This Time Around” in the R&B Song category.

She is touring in support of the new album and her poetry. She has toured in support of artists such as Femi Kuti, Zap Mama, and Soulive, as well as playing at musical festivals, including Bonnaroo. The buzz surrounding her poetry has garnered her national attention through performances at the TBS Trumpet Awards, the Sullivan Honors Awards at the Kennedy Center, and Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[nourfk]

BASICS

Full Name: Nour El Farouk

Nickname: N/A

Gender: Cis Female

Pronouns: She/her

Sexual Orientation: Questioning / Unlabeled

Romantic Orientation: Questioning / Unlabeled

Birthdate: February 9th, 1941

Birthplace: Alexandria, Egypt

Neighborhood: Oakbury

Occupation: Mail Courier at Stillwater Post

Ethnic Background: Egyptian-Palestinian

Religious Views: Muslim

Language(s) Spoken: English, Arabic

PHYSICALITY

Face Claim: May Calamawy

Hair Color: Dark Brown

Eye Color: Green

Height: 5'6''

Tattoos: NONE

Piercings: One on each ear lobe

Style/Aesthetic: Nour loves fashion; she normally sports long skirts and shirts with sleeves and flare pants. She loves knits and an earthy color palette. She would most likely say her fashion icons are Farrah Fawcett, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, and Charlotte Rampling.

Usual Expression: 🌻 🍵 📬 click the emojis to view

Distinguishing Features: Curly hair and a big smile

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Physical Ailments: NONE

Neurological Conditions: NONE

Allergies: Mild seasonal allergies

Sleeping Habits: When she's stressed, its hard for her to stay asleep for more than 3 hours. She'll often wake up in the middle of the night but she's found routines and methods that will help her go back to sleep.

Exercise Habits: She enjoys walking outside and jogging too, and will work out at home when she can. Otherwise, she enjoys doing physical activities if they're fun, like hiking!

Emotional Stability: Nour is a pretty composed person. She has a very gentle demeanor but harbors a lot of loneliness that she tries to keep to herself.

Sociability: She's very friendly! Due to her job, she's not a stranger to small talk and doesn't mind talking to strangers. She knows how to mind her own business so she's definitely the person people will go to if they need to rant or let off some steam. She's a good listener but it's tough for her to share her own problems at an equal level.

Body Temperature: Warm/cold

Addictions: NONE

Drug / Alcohol Usage: She tries not to partake in anything that would harm her body, due to her religious beliefs, but there are times when Nour can't help but indulge if she feels desperate. The times are very rare though.

PERSONALITY

Positive Traits: compassionate, hard-working, warm-hearted

Negative Traits: stubborn, jealous, overcritical

Goals/Desires: Nour often feels like her goals and desires are out of reach, mostly because she still feels like that teenage girl who has to make her parents proud. Still, she'll daydream about living in a place that's away from the city, probably on a farm where she can be by nature with someone she loves.

Fears: Running into people from her past that she's actively tried avoiding. For example, bullies from high school or a particular doctor from Stillwater General. As she gets older though, Nour knows she has to move on but she doesn't feel like she's quite there yet.

Hobbies: Nour has fantasies about being a fantastic roller skater like the ones she watches at The Hub, but hasn't had the courage to jump into skates herself. You can say she enjoys people-watching and seeing others do things she wishes she could do. She also loves doing crochet, collecting records, and sewing.

Habits: She's a hair twirler! Absentmindedly, she'll often twirl her curls when deep in thought, and she'll also nibble on her bottom lip. She also shakes her leg quite often without thinking.

FAVORITES

Season: Spring

Color: Purple

Music: Her music taste ranges all across the spectrum; there isn't much she doesn't like, and she struggles to say who her favorite artists are. It changes every week!

Movies: West Side Story, The King and I, Cabaret

Food: Sushi

Beverage: Lemon water or tea

Animal: Birds

FAMILY

Father: Jabari Farouk

Mother: Rania Farouk

Sibling(s): Femi El Farouk (younger brother by 7 years)

Children: NONE

Pet(s): NONE

Family Financial Status: Middle to low income

Relationship: Single

EXTRAS:

Astrological Placements: Aquarius Sun, Virgo Rising, Cancer Moon

MBTI: IXFJ

Enneagram: Type 2: The Helper

Moral Alignment: Neutral Good

Primary Vice: Envy

Primary Virtue: Humility

Element: Earth

[makingqueerhistory]

Letters to a Writer of Color

Taymour Soomro (Editor) Deepa Anappara (Editor)

A vital collection of essays on the power of literature and the craft of writing from an international array of writers of color, sharing the experiences, cultural traditions, and convictions that have shaped them and their work "Electric essays that speak to the experience of writing from the periphery . . . a guide, a comfort, and a call all at once."--Laila Lalami, author of Conditional Citizens Filled with empathy and wisdom, instruction and inspiration, this book encourages us to reevaluate the codes and conventions that have shaped our assumptions about how fiction should be written, and also challenges us to apply its lessons to both what we read and how we read. Featuring: - Taymour Soomro on resisting rigid stories about who you are - Madeleine Thien on how writing builds the room in which it can exist - Amitava Kumar on why authenticity isn't a license we carry in our wallets - Tahmima Anam on giving herself permission to be funny - Ingrid Rojas Contreras on the bodily challenge of writing about trauma - Zeyn Joukhadar on queering English and the power of refusing to translate ourselves - Myriam Gurba on the empowering circle of Latina writers she works within - Kiese Laymon on hearing that no one wants to read the story that you want to write - Mohammed Hanif on the censorship he experienced at the hands of political authorities - Deepa Anappara on writing even through conditions that impede the creation of art - Plus essays from Tiphanie Yanique, Xiaolu Guo, Jamil Jan Kochai, Vida Cruz-Borja, Femi Kayode, Nadifa Mohamed in conversation with Leila Aboulela, and Sharlene Teo The start of a more inclusive conversation about storytelling, Letters to a Writer of Color will be a touchstone for aspiring and working writers and for curious readers everywhere.

(Affiliate link above)

[ceevee5]

“In the northern suburb of Ikeja, tucked away amid warehouses and factories, is the home of that sound, the New Afrika Shrine. This cavernous auditorium, with its corrugated metal roof and walls drained of their colour by years of humidity, is a reincarnation of the musical home of Fela Kuti, whose Afrobeat style – defined in part by the polyrhythmic drumming of Tony Allen – pointed the way to today’s Afrobeats sound. Although he died in 1997, Kuti’s life and influence are celebrated with Felabration, an annual week-long festival of music, art and politics. Ezra Collective, one of the most exciting bands to come out of Britain in years, have been invited to grace the stage at the Shrine for this year’s festival. It is more like a pilgrimage than a normal gig. Bandleader and drummer Femi Koleoso arrives at the venue by 2pm looking excited and tired: “I went back to the studio with some local musicians last night so didn’t get much sleep.” It must have been a late one as he was still dancing on the side of the stage to Made Kuti, grandson of Fela, at 1am. Clearly, he was determined not to waste a minute of the trip.”

[depressedraisin]

hold on a fucking minute. why did it take me this long to figure out that femi koleoso of ezra collective and the drummer of gorillaz live band is the same person.

[sapphirestudiosdesign]

'St. Ivy' skull engagement ring

View the collection -

[mixtapet]

Mixtape T: Dance the Stress Away

Listen HERE or the playlist below. SHAKE YOUR BOOTY!

Pon Pón -Khruangbin

God Gave Me Feet For Dancing (feat. Yazmin Lacey) -Ezra Collective

Kimbara -Barry Can't Swim

I Go -Peggy Gou

Lover Chanting (Jayda G Remix)- Little Dragon

Dance Wiv Me (Radio Edit)- Dizzee Rascal & Calvin Harris & Chrome

The Salmon Dance - The Chemical Brothers

D.A.N.C.E. -Justice

Life (ft. Robyn) -Jamie xx

Crowded Roomz -Nia Archives

Come Find Me -Caribou

Baddie (Remix) -Yemi Alade feat. Konshens, Femi One

Limb by Limb -Cutty Ranks

Dancing On My Own -Robyn

[newwavenewsandentertainment]

Femi Falana Speaks Out: Denies N10 Million Claim for Pardon Letter Amidst Bobrisky Controversy"

Human rights advocate and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has addressed recent allegations linking him to a financial transaction involving social media influencer Bobrisky. The prominent lawyer firmly denied claims that he collected N10 million in exchange for writing a letter seeking a presidential pardon for Bobrisky, following the influencer’s conviction related to misuse of…

[accuratenewsng]

I Don’t Know Bobrisky, Have Never Spoken To Him – Falana

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, has denied having anything to do with popular crossdresser, Idris Okuneye known as Bobrisky and his alleged bribing of prison officials to serve his prison sentence outside the correctional facility. In a viral video by a blogger, Martins Otse known as VeryDarkMan, some unnamed EFCC officers collected the sum of ₦15m from Bobrisky to drop money laundering…