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Africa Fashion Week Coverage.

I froth at the mouth every time I even attempt to blog about it, I'm overwhelmed with pride every time I see any sort of a runway shot, it's detrimental to my health how proud I am, plus, I'm lazy, there is just SO MUCH TO COVER. So to satisfy your curiosity and need please go on over to my sister blog for brilliant coverage on the greatest fashion event of the year.

Africa Fashion Week

New discovery.

Duro Olowu Spring RTW 2010

Now Playing

You have got to be shitting me.

Black models as furniture? Is that how you really feel Interview? I start my boycott as of right now, and I don't care how fabulous Madonna looks in your new issues, I'm tired of her crypt keeper ass ANYWAY!

For a closer look at this terrible idea (whoever came up with the concept and thought it would be in good taste is an incompetent baboon) click here.

5 steps forward, 500 steps back.

A New Love

Pop'Africana

I know some amazing people.

So I was having a rough couple of weeks and one night on the way home from the office I was just at the limit, you know when you're about to cross over into the threshold of complete and utter apathy? I was so utterly close, and then my iPhone did that brilliant shuffle to a song you didn't even know you had thing and TADA...it's pretty cool that I know the nigga too...also pretty cool that he is pretty fucking cool.

Anyways enjoy it, feel it, caress it, all that stuff, hopefully internet will cooperate with me so I continue updating and finally put up Learning to be African; Step Three...if not....toodles.

xx

Learning to be African; Step Two - Get your armor ready.

Learning to be African

Step Two – Equip yourself with the right armor, it will not be made easy.

As soon as I landed in Ghana on the 28th of August my life changed dramatically instantaneously as was to be expected. I was quite content riding home from the airport to my Grandparents house, but still held a small amount of trepidation within. This was my home, to be sure, but not everything is sunshine and roses on this side of the planet.

I had a history here, a history I knew a lot of my counterparts had been privy too, a history that ended up acting like a slow poison, affecting me more and more as each day went by until I had finally overcome it.

So why did I still harbor fear?

My first official day in Accra I was incredibly apprehensive of anything and anyone. As beautiful as my people are, they are not to be trusted, not in the sense that we are all thieves and crooks (cough Nigerians cough) but more along the lines of the fact that we simply cannot keep our damn mouth shut about situations that do not and will not concern us. I didn’t want to be the subject of anymore malefic conversations and I didn’t want to create any more havoc than I did by simply existing.

The thing about this place is, although we remain without civil war and actual everyday threats to our physical survival, spiritually? This is the bloodiest battlefield I have ever had the displeasure of coming across. Without strength and self conviction this country will destroy you.

Not with machine guns, or rebel leaders, or AIDS.

But with words. You will find yourself slaughtered by the hands that you hold dearest to you, and because you see Ghana as such a calm and peaceful place the shock of such a disturbance completely overwhelms you.

You have to understand one thing, before anything else.

You are still a foreigner.

Because you do not speak the language, and might not even look Ghanaian, as desperate as you are to fit in, to be a part of your people understand that this will never be the case, because you are different, you are raised differently and you come from a completely altered home. So there will never be such a thing as “fitting in”. Although all of the things that make you different were completely out of your power you have to learn how to embrace the fact that you can never truly be THAT kind of Ghanaian and there is a reason for this.

I’ve come to think of myself as a prototype, there are plenty of kids out there who are just like me, were raised just like me outside of their cultural region and are feeling the exact same way I am, and believe it or not a lot of my counterparts want to make the move I have, and we have been afforded all the amenities that the so called “white man” has and this education, these opportunities that have been given to us now can be used to better the home our parents were so desperate to get away from.

We’re all rushing back, hearts filled with hope and about a thousand schemes and proposals to put to work as soon as we get “home”, we never question how receptive the locals will be, because after all “I’m Ghanaian too”.

And that’s where we get shot down. Because in all honestly, sometimes it feels like the people in this country have no interest in progressing at all. My mentor touched on something very interesting the other day; it goes a little something like this;

“You can do business like a white man, or a black man, I do business like a white man. The black man will open a shop selling drinks, bread, the staple stuff that has no need to be refrigerated, and doesn’t try to develop the stall at all so the stall stays the same and he makes the same amount of money for the rest of his life. The white man on the other hand, will use bits and pieces of his profit to develop his product, he’ll buy a refrigerator to enable himself to sell more goods, he’ll buy more land, more products to sell and he will in turn grow. Always striving for something more, that is the problem here. People like to live just as they did 5 years ago. We cannot survive like that”

And that is precisely the problem the average Ghanaian seems to have, no one wants to grow, and so when we come along, ready with new seeds and a brand new irrigation system they seem to want to make it their life goal to sabotage EVERYTHING.

In turn sabotaging themselves.

The trick is to not let any of this get to you, my motto for my life now in Ghana is simply “Forgive them father for they know not what they do” and I will not let any naysayer deter me from developing my country as much as I can.

I’ll even buy said naysayer a mother fucking Range.

The trick is to protect and prepare yourself. Laughing generally helps, face the world with a quaint sense of placid amusement and continue on with your work, because they might not accept you now but they will have no choice but to thank you in the end.

But still remember, that when they kiss your feet, as soon as your back is turned they will still try to stab you.

So I’ve learnt to embrace my difference, to embrace my foreign background with the clear knowledge that such a background has enabled me to kindle the fire of evolution. With the knowledge that my laughable “Obroni” ways gives me a different view of my home.

I am willing to give this land a chance simply because I am knowledgeable of the shortcomings of others. Before I had even boarded the plane to Ghana I had messages in my facebook inbox along the lines of "A lot of people like you come down so full of enthusiasm but get deterred very quickly, Ghana isn't easy oh" You know what I would say back?

“It doesn’t take a day to recognize sunshine.”

So now, no matter what I hear being said about my person, or my work it doesn’t affect me as much as it would’ve say 2 years ago. I got my bulletproof vest of guaranteed success on, so much has been said about me simply because I am a foreigner, simply because no one knows me, a foreigner who chose to leave what some would call a Mecca and return to what most refer to as hell.

Maybe one day you’ll notice that you’ve set yourself on fire.

Because I downright refuse to move back to America and work like a slave for a country that will never give back to me.

I refuse to invest in my own slavery.

So no matter how much trouble you get, how many “best friends” stab you in the back, no matter how many ridiculous and downright malign things are being said about you always remember the reason you came back, always remember your future.

STAY STRAPPED.

Rumor Control

So I've been in Ghana for about 4 months now and unlike my last visit here I have been as serious as possible, my entire life has been about work because I am trying to build a future here, before anything else Ghana is my home base. I rarely go out, I mind my own business and I keep to myself, completely out of the lime light, that's if you don't count the modeling, but at the same time that falls in line with my career so I cannot be judged because of that.

I have been a relatively good girl, a freaking Nun some might say, at least compared to what I could be doing, at least compared to what most of YOU are doing. But despite all this. Ghana still finds something to say about me.

And I get that, it's Ghana, you people have nothing else to do but talk, I feel for you, I do BUT, if you're going to spread malicious rumors about me, even go as far as contacting my boyfriend to share them in hopes of creating some sort of problem at least come up with something original, something juicy, something worth my aggravation!

Because I am so tired of this lesbian shit.

I have a best friend, she also plays the role of my mother and sister when the situation calls for it, and because I never fight with her, because I refuse to stab her in the back, because I defend her when I hear slander I MUST be sleeping with her?

Must you corrupt everything?

I don't understand this. Because Ghana has to be one of the most "boys boys" centered cultures on this damn continent, niggas stick to each other here like glue yet NO ONE accuses them of being homosexual.

And these niggas have THE most homosexual tendencies I have ever seen, and yet there is no talk, no form of backlash, it's just seen as the norm when we all know that shit ain't normal! But when a female has the same type of relationship with another female all of a sudden it's gay?

And you don't see the ignorance in any of this?

Continue to slander me if you must, there is no such thing as bad publicity in this point of time in my life. Keep talking, it'll just get me more modeling contracts, but if you must talk, if you must fucking talk.

At least come up with something worth my time.

Lesbian though?

For real?

And even if I was a lesbian? And so the hell what? What is wrong with being a lesbian? What exactly about lesbianism designates the need to talk in such a way? And if I was a lesbian, why do I have a boyfriend?

And most of the people who spend so much time talking about the life and times of the 19 year old Franki Acolatse have NEVER met me in person.

It's just so pathetic. And you don't even realize it.

Pathetic and incredibly sad.

The last time I was in Ghana, the same things were said about the females I was hanging out with then, but those words were given to me in an attempt to force me to disassociate with said females, the guy I was dating hated them and in a way wanted to control me and my movements, these girls prohibited such control over me, and thats when the "They're all lesbians, stay away" rumors started flying.

Do you understand what I am trying to say?

When you spread rumors, in a way you are lying, therefore creating the most negative energy possible for yourself and your future, you fuck yourselves up without even realizing and because you've sown the seed of fuckery everything you touch will crumble, you'll find far too much unproductive free time on your hands and you'll continue to gossip, while the people you go on about transcend you in ways you couldn't ever have imagined for yourself.

Now do you understand what I'm trying to say?

If not, just please create some better stories about me ok? The lesbian shit is just boring now.

Learning to be African; First steps PT. 2

My Ghanaian Passport Picture

Learning to be African;

Step 1 – Immerse yourself completely within your country of origin

It all started the summer after I graduated high school, my mother had then decided that America was poison for me, poison in the form of a boyfriend I had reacquired, a decision that she did not at all agree with. So the day after I graduated I was in Ghana. And to be completely honest, my first few weeks there I absolutely detested it. There was nothing to do, no one to see, I was in this new and foreign land that didn’t even have Internet in the home I stayed! No Internet equaled no facebook, and no facebook obviously means HELL for the average 17-year-old girl.

It wasn’t until my cousin came to baby-sit me. She was a couple of years older but we were interested in the same things and she luckily knew a lot of people that I now hold very dear to me. She took me out a couple of times, we met some people and that was that. I was in love with Ghana.

Everything was just so foreign to me, and equally as amusing, and I was seeing things in my 3rd world country that I had never had the pleasure of witnessing back “home”. Ghana introduced many firsts;

- My first view of an actual gun, and not just any gun, a mother fucking AK 47. The policemen at the checkpoints just wield them like they’re fucking magic wands. Wingardium Leviosing niggas left and right.

- My first couple of a hundred club fights, I was never included in any to be sure, but I sure as hell witnessed a few, I was seeing this guy at the time who always seemed to be slapping or beating someone. I even got blood on my dress my last night out that summer. Whose blood you ask? Fuck if I know.

- Maids. Niggas to cook, clean, turn on the television, lay your bed, worship the ground you walk on and just generally feed you positive energy.

- A fucking fan base. EVERYWHERE I WENT, I commanded attention, now…. this happened in America but for some reason Ghana just isn’t used to me, will never be used to me because still to this day I know I can stop traffic, but I’ll never know why. And back then, all of this attention was detrimental to my development as a teenager, I had crap self esteem. I thought I was absolutely hideous, because I looked different, and in America different? Is otherwise known as ugly.

I had so much fun that summer I decided to put off University for a small period of time and basically trick off in Ghana for a couple of months.

My Mum paid off some lecturers to put me in their classes got me a room at a hostel and it was a go. And although a lot of negative things did crop up from those few months of enjoyment, I learnt so much, about myself and about my culture without even realizing what was happening. I was like a newborn baby learning how to crawl for the very first time. But it all came to an end, and I went back to what I called home and started University.

A year or so went by, and things at home also started to change, my mother got a job in Saudi Arabia and so we sold the house in the suburbs and I got an apartment in the city by myself, I didn’t realize how completely out of place I felt until my mother left the country. The first month or so was fine but then I realized that I was uncomfortable in this land.

I have been raised outside of Ghana my entire life, and grew up under the impression that simplicities like running water; electricity; MTV and French fries could never be attained in my country of origin. My mother had also cleverly used Ghana as the severest of all sentencing whenever I misbehaved, so my image of Ghana was a National Geographic prison filled with children whose parents had sentenced them to a life worse than death, a life without Facebook and running hot water. And so when I caught a glimpse of my land on my own terms, and then discovered that there was running water, there was facebook, there was even a strip club, it completely revolutionized my way of thinking without my noticing.

That small correction of thought completely changed my entire outlook on my existence.

And so after I was left by myself, the slow creep of unhappiness and unrest started to overtake me. I truly felt imbalanced and quite lost. Although I had already decided that come the end of the year I would leave and transfer back to a school in London I still felt…wrong. Like I had been put on the operating table and my surgeon had placed my fucking heart where my liver should be you know?

That time I was under the impression that my bout of melancholy was due to a love scorned and in turn lost, but now I know (I’ve run into the nigga a couple of times) that it wasn’t him, it couldn’t possibly have been him that made me so miserable, it was Ghana, or lack of Ghana.

It was like I had spent my whole life just eating one type of cereal every morning, never offered anything new, never wanted anything new because I was always told that anything else would poison me so I continued with the same cereal, neither hating or loving it, just surviving, and then one morning I am force fed something entirely different from the norm and the taste of it fills my mouth and lights up every single taste bud, a sensation I had never felt before.

And then once more I return to my normal cereal.

How the hell did I expect that to work?

I was sick and tired of that stale ass cereal, and even though I’d throw in a couple of strawberries here and there it didn’t affect me the way home did. Nothing touched me; I was filled to the very brim with apathy.

I just didn’t care. About anything.

And then there were my medical issues, and then I was alone. Not relationship wise but family wise, I didn’t have anyone to continue lessons about my culture, I didn’t feel connected in that way to anything around me and that tore me apart, and made it so hard to be happy, so hard to keep a smile on my face.

None of this came to me until I stepped out of the plane and set foot on the tarmac of Kotoko International Airport. It was like a light had switched on inside of me, and although I couldn’t understand the sighs of relief and contentment in various Ghanaian tongues that were being released around I knew exactly what they all meant.

“Finally. I’m home”

I’ve learnt how to crawl.

Time to walk.

Stay tuned for Step 2.

Just to let you into the know.

Obviously a lot of my Naija and Ghanaian counterparts already know about this tune and this rapper, but for my Americans here's a little something something from the motherland.