Issue #3: End of Year Wrap-Up
“Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them." - Edwidge Danticat, Create Dangerously
Welcome to Shamira Explains It All/Shamira Explique Tout, a culture newsletter discussing the origins and impact of Black production and exchange, identity, and intellectual property via our digital, social, and archival discussions - and whatever else may be timely and interesting. Part English, Part Francophone. Reach out with feedback, suggestions, tips, and ideas at contact@shamirathefirst.com.
When I initially launched this newsletter, I had the full intention of dropping content here on a monthly basis. That clearly did not happen, and for a couple reasons:
I truly underestimated how much energy just living and working through this pandemic would take.
In my natural fashion, even in a limited output, I want this to be very ambitious in its scope, and essentially writing monthly essays AND translating certain chunks isn’t the easiest with limited energy (especially when I’m doing it purely out of my own pleasure)
I learned several very hard lessons about needing to take it slow - or rather, my body taught me several very hard lessons. So I paused and reassessed the self-generated anxiety that was constantly building up, and realized it would be okay to move some of this work into next year. A lot of the work I try to do, in sentiment, is evergreen, even if the prompts are topical.
My output on here in 2021 may just be quarterly instead of monthly - who knows - but I am genuinely looking forward to seeing where this goes from here. While I may not have had the production I desired, much of the latter half of this year involved building connections and groundwork with peers and mentors I deeply respect for the years to come. As those who are invested in my work know, I am focused in archival work across the Black diaspora (the use of this term, in my context and an academic one, includes Black Americans), with nuances of my lived experiences and expertise providing me additional frames of reference. I’ve had the distinct privilege of connecting with the amazing team at Hiistoriya on Swahili culture, am making inroads I could never have dreamed of in the Francophone music community, and have much more work to come about digital Black culture and pan-African collaborative touchpoints that trace back to Black America that I hope to be able to share in the coming months and quarters. And of course - the ever-looming book, which is always in progress.
With that said - in a quick end of year round-up, I just wanted to share 5 pieces that I was genuinely proud of having the honor to write this year, in no particular ranking. I tend to minimize my work, or push it to the back of my head after publishing after obsessing over it for so long during the churn of writing and editing. But considering the last year, I am choosing to take time to celebrate the work I have managed to put out - and I encourage you all to do the same, in your respective craft and industries, no matter what it is. This is a Black Holiday, after all. Step into your superpowers and claim your gifts! ♥️
NYLON Magazine, POP SMOKE LIVES AGAIN IN BROOKLYN - “Pop Smoke’s music threaded together the chaos, fury, trauma, hope, and joy in New Yorkers in a way that no one else had done in quite some time. That accomplishment alone is feat enough to unify a sea of now-burgeoning activists who are screaming to be heard in a system that continues to take Black lives for granted.”
The Atlantic, Ramy Meditates on the Pitfalls of Self-Righteousness - “Ramy’s Achilles’ heel is his inability to grasp the journey of restitution via non-egotistical means, and he exercises self-imposed discipline without empathy. Just like his uncle and mother, Ramy is crippled by the perception of the absolute binary of haram and halal—what’s forbidden and what’s permitted—applying its maxims without consideration of the impact they may have on others. It’s a contextual failure that absolves a person of the responsibility of care in pursuit of moral righteousness.”
Pitchfork, On the Record Attempts to Set the Record Straight for Black Women in Hip-Hop - “The calculus of acknowledging the pain of Black girls and women is still determined by how much it offsets the accepted threshold for collective sacrifice. As long as a legacy is critical enough to “the culture,” mechanisms are in place to protect abusers—positioning them as the victims, and the victims as living crime scenes.”
Zora Magazine, 90 Day Fiancé Is Everyone’s Guilty Pleasure. But Is It Exploiting Immigrants? - “Instead of confronting what measure of complicity 90 Day Fiancé has for weaving these discussions into the cultural zeitgeist, viewers seem to be more invested in getting a person who they view as unsavory out of sight, out of mind, and ultimately out of American shores. Underneath the well-scored theatrics and entertainment lies a dangerous tale of unethical disruption that enshrouds the love story arc the franchise purports to sell. And when the watch parties come to a close, it is frequently the non-Americans who are left to deal with the fallout.”
Pitchfork, Album Review, AYA (7.6) - “While some members of the French establishment may look askance at her heavy use of argot, she remains dominant, with a cultural penetration that hasn’t emerged from a woman in France since the days of Edith Piaf. Nakamura may be a self-designation, but she is indeed a superhero of sorts; informed by the line of griottes in her maternal Malian heritage, fearlessly genre-bending, shunning the unspoken limitations of genre labels. Like Piaf, Aya “ne regrette rien”—her musical fingerprint is an intimate portrait not just of her life, but the interplay of dominant sounds from the African and West Indian communities in France and how well she can slide between them, both in lingo and melody.”
I truly hope you all appreciated my output this year. I am constantly trying to push myself in the craft of writing and critical thought; I look back at some of my work from a couple of years ago and cringe, but I also think it reflects growth. Hopefully, I’ll be responding similarly to some of this work in 2025.
Music Corner:
I contributed to a few ranked lists and playlists this year that I think are worth checking out - at Vulture, that was The 100 Songs That Define New York Rap, Ranked, and at NPR, 2020 Was The Year Female Rappers Dominated. Check out the features, and the corresponding playlists are below.
This was an amazing year for La Francophonie. Chart-topping albums were released by Franco-Malian chanteuse Aya Nakamura , and Franco-Comorian Says’z dropped a follow-up to his project, Bleu, titled Jaune, with the single Afro’Classic 3 already becoming a Tiktok hit (I also recommend ça joue, Doudou - including the Kompa remix - and Baby Luv, which is sung in our traditional language of shikomori/shingazidja). Franco-Congolese legend Fally Ipupa just released Tookoos II, reminding the world of his legendary status in the musical echelon (Tookoos means “great”) with phenomenal collaborations with Ninho, Matt Pokora, Dadju, and Naza. The project 13Organisé - a compilation album of around 50 Marseille rappers across generations, organized by Jul - was released to great acclaim, with the standout single Bande Organisée playing at protests throughout France. For some additional reading and watching about the Francophonie’s impact, I suggest the following: Aya Nakamura x Clique*, D'IAM à Jul, Marseille capitale du rap*, and this great Interview with Lubangi Muniania in Afropop Worldwide about the history of Congolese music and its current state. (*these will need a VPN if you are not in France)
A couple of one-off tracks I have heard that I really like and think people should listen to:
Kid Cudi, Skepta, Pop Smoke - Show Out - I lost my mind when I heard this on Man on the Moon 3. Pop Smoke was really going to take over in ways that people were not ready for. What an amazing fusion of sounds, emotions, and voices. What a loss. Rest in peace, Barakah Jackson.
G Herbo - Statement - in a time when the authorities are closing in on a bevy of artists purporting to hold them accountable for their misdeeds in society as opposed to helping maintain communities blighted by this pandemic, Herbo chose to hop on wax to address the allegations, backed by the classic chopped up sample of Major Harris’ “I Got Over Love”, infamously used by The Diplomats in the track “I Really Mean It.”
Enny - Peng Black Girls (feat. Amia Brave) - “I was Black back when it wasn’t even in style.” Make way for another woman out of the UK with nothing but flow, promoting self-love with her first hit. There was a subsequent remix recorded with Jorja Smith that was promoted on the COLORS platform; that has been the subject of a lot of debate with respect to Jorja getting attention over Enny, the lead songwriter, in a track honoring darker skinned Black women, and removing Amia’s vocals from the hook.
Ms Banks - You Don’t Know - “Bitches growing wings but this shit can get sticky/Imma workaholic but I still get busy.” If you haven’t been paying attention to the girls across the pond by now, you really need to, and Ms Banks is top tier with the pen, vibes, and energy.
Alors, c’est tout. Sign up now so you don’t miss the next issue.
In the meantime, tell your friends! Happy holidays and see you all in the New Year.