Last updated: 6 days ago
“[I wrote because I loved] seeing my inner worlds personified and visualised in the world outside of me, in a way that made it more real, you know? I just loved creating an external world of my world that I could live in all over again, and then share with whomever I invited into my space.
I started doing this around four years old. I would doodle and scribble all over my bedroom walls with crayon—which, according to my mom, I was never allowed to do, so I would get my ‘tail to’ up.’ But I don’t remember that; I just remember the joy of having my stories on my walls. I vividly remember that freedom.
To me, that art—those ‘illegible’ words and toddler sketches—was my earliest hand at writing, at poetry. Then, as I got older, I [compiled] composition books of songs I would write, alongside poetry and more sketches.
Instead of my writing being influenced by my identity, I explore the many facets of my identity through my writing. What comes of it… influences me or shape-shifts who I’m becoming. So, my writing is like a mirror, a spiritual map that my [through-line] across lifetimes create through me, for me to find myself, and for others to find themselves.
[Like Basquiat did. His art] reminds me of my childhood room and the freedom on those walls. I’ll never read those stories through adult eyes; that whole trailer park is woodlands now. Yet, Basquiat’s work makes me feel a direct connection to it all, honouring the ‘Rasquiat’ in my own work.”
~Afrique Noire Interview
I started doing this around four years old. I would doodle and scribble all over my bedroom walls with crayon—which, according to my mom, I was never allowed to do, so I would get my ‘tail to’ up.’ But I don’t remember that; I just remember the joy of having my stories on my walls. I vividly remember that freedom.
To me, that art—those ‘illegible’ words and toddler sketches—was my earliest hand at writing, at poetry. Then, as I got older, I [compiled] composition books of songs I would write, alongside poetry and more sketches.
Instead of my writing being influenced by my identity, I explore the many facets of my identity through my writing. What comes of it… influences me or shape-shifts who I’m becoming. So, my writing is like a mirror, a spiritual map that my [through-line] across lifetimes create through me, for me to find myself, and for others to find themselves.
[Like Basquiat did. His art] reminds me of my childhood room and the freedom on those walls. I’ll never read those stories through adult eyes; that whole trailer park is woodlands now. Yet, Basquiat’s work makes me feel a direct connection to it all, honouring the ‘Rasquiat’ in my own work.”
~Afrique Noire Interview
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