“A theme that’s coming through a lot in our generation now is that the youth aren’t settling for a 9 – 5 job, going through school or going to uni.” Instead, just as Jonique Purcell has done – start her own music and culture website – youth are using the internet to commandeer their own futures and represent themselves. The bedroom producer/ dancer-choreographer and blog director begun Nah Zone as a personal passion in October 2017. It’s grown so fast that today she has a team with her and works a separate day job so she can keep building the community that’s formed around her website. She also does this with interviews of local artists, weekly top 5 playlists with local music makers and a section called ‘Keep It Real’ where people write in about personal experiences from losing a baby or dating someone who is suicidal.

Speaking of a theater show she danced in at the end of 2017 called Ave, Jonique says:

“Auckland is my home but even here you don’t have a real belonging so you’re kind of in-between and that’s what was really cool from that whole experience I got to bond with other people who also felt the same.” Directed by Tia Sagapolutele, the piece looked at six young women finding their identity as Kiwi-born Samoan living in Auckland city.

Purcell says: I was very honored to be a part of that but it was also very emotional for me personally just discovering more things about my history because I don’t know that much about my Samoan history.

..You don’t really have a sense of belonging when you go back to Samoa because the people that live there, they’re still there and they’ll see you as a stranger, they’ll call you like Palagi.

Listen to the audio interview HERE.

Nah Zone are also going to host their first event at Neck of The Woods on May 25th check it out HERE.

Below is a video from the first event they did, You’re Welcome:

“Don’t you know, we’re talking about a revolution sound, like a whisper” — Tracy Chapman

Producer Mia Marama and Director Hanelle Harris are the duo behind a recent TV series called The Baby Mama’s Club. Unique in the way that it captures the lives of four young brown women from New Zealand, humorously linking them together on a quest to hunt down they’re children’s father Johnny who is missing, the series proved critics wrong when they said it was unoriginal, boring and no one would watch it. This criticism came among other concerns it wouldn’t sell and was therefore unworthy of a funding investment from NZONAIR.

Determined to execute their vision the pair self funded the pilot episode before receiving a $100,000 grant in the 2017 NZONAIR funding pool. “Our audience came in droves” offers Harris. Attention toward its potential came after the pilot episode racked up over half a million views.

“Let’s be real, we were probably one of the strongest applicants for that funding round – we had views on one pilot that amounted one projects total views in a season,” says Harris.

When You've Done Nothing Wrong But Your Parents Are Roasting You 😂 Watch Full Episodes Free Now: NZ: TVNZ OnDemand INTERNATIONAL: YouTube Links In Bio 🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴🇹🇴

A post shared by Baby Mama's Club (@thebabymamasclub) on Dec 4, 2017 at 11:59am PST

The pair are proud of their progress but plan to keep pushing representation of minority communities in mainstream NZ media. For Baby Mama’s Club the pair said TV executives didn’t interfere too much with their creative vision.”We were really privileged that the broadcaster was hands off but we’ve got really great executive producers at South Pacific Pictures. They’ll give their advice which comes from a raft of experience from making so many TV shows and they’re considering the budget and the feasibility of what we wanna pull off.. in the end I don’t think we cut anything really that I wanted to keep.”

“We’re so grateful for the support and people really need to understand we can’t do it without them, we don’t have the power. When people are asking us for season two or more episodes they need to really hear us when we’re saying the power’s not in our hands, its really in their hands. They need to be active and fight for it and hear us when we’re saying we have had to fight harder but it is a battle, we cant do it on our own,” says Harris.

Mia says “In order for us to be enabled to make anything as brown people it has to become a media sensation, so like Hanelle said, comment share post about it talk about it and support the kaupapa”.

“We have been able to prove to the primary broadcaster in the country that there is an audience for Maori and Pacific Island voices and they’ve come in droves, our audience has come in droves and TVNZ have been wonderful not only have they platformed us they’ve put us front and center.

Villette and Baby Mama’s Club cast at series premier, TVNZ December 2017

“Representation matters because it validates us as a people that should have an equal voice in society and when you don’t see yourself in media you are therefore an other and being an other means your voice doesn’t get heard and when it is heard….it doesn’t have as much weight…

It really is on that psychological level, you really are grooming the perceptions of people when you’re saying these are the faces that represent New Zealand that is what you are saying, when you are constantly seeing white faces on New Zealand screen you are telling the next generation, this generation, the one before it, that this is what New Zealand looks like and we know it’s not true,” says Harris.

Producer Mia Marama points out “As Polynesian peoples, story telling is a very natural and integral part of our culture, something that’s been happening for generations and generations so whether we’re channeling that in the media, music, film, television it probably hasn’t been done more because of opportunity, but I don’t think that limits us — as people we’ve already shown we’re resilient now we just need to continue to fight for those opportunities so that we can share those stories to a global audience because it’s clear now that people want to see it.

“Once Were Warriors, Whale Rider, Boy, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, these are films that have made millions and millions of dollars so the fact that we’re still trying to prove our ‘diverse’ stories can make money is tiresome.”

Hanelle says “I don’t want to be comparative to mainstream media, my goal is to be better than mainstream media in New Zealand and to be getting the money, not based on the fact that we have this cool, hip, niche audience but based on the fact that we’re fucken good and everyone likes it, and that’s the point which is that white people do love our show, they fuckin love it and I think there are actually white New Zealanders out there that agree that the New Zealand we see on TV is not the NZ they know and if you live in Auckland that’s definitely not the NZ that you’re seeing every day”.

In this interview for Ryz FM and The Plug they discuss NZ MUCIC, RACISM IN NEW ZEALAND, FEMINISM, TALL POPPY SYNDROME, HATERS, YOUNG FATHERS, and THE NEED FOR MORE genuine BROWN MEDIA & more.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW:

https://audioboom.com/posts/6559807-the-baby-mama-s-club-interview-by-aleyna-martinez

Watch Pilot episode HERE.

The video for Solange’s new single ‘Cranes in The Sky’ was directed by Solange and her husband Alan Ferguson, with the aid of photographer Carlota Guerrero whose style permeates the wave of film inspiration this film student needed, and found while watching.

Their shots are in the same vein of movement, style, creativity and femininity that’s been filling up my black book all year, it’s exiting to see! There are about 30 different frames used to compile the complete song; working like a sultry montage that translates as sweet with the piano keys in the track; and strong with the power of Solange’s voice — it all just pushes her power as a major contributor to contemporary pop culture further and harder.

The unapologetic presence of her work ethic is inspiring as shown in the making-of teaser below. I like that she is a solid, tall looking vessel of a woman; comfortable, confident and matter of fact in her approach – which is kind of an oxymoron because her approach feels effortless and nothing like she’s working at all. But, I’d imagine this is the craft of being a pop star; like she humbly knows it’s good, all of it. Both her release videos,Don’t Touch My Hair and Cranes In The Skyare a pleasure and inspiration to see because they both show Solange boldly owning her space, watch her embody a freedom dance with producer, Sampha HERE.

I like the sense of organic, non-constructed beauty in the project, contrasted with the gentle pastel pallet; mixed with a sense that there is strength in showing vulnerability. I like the bold femininity and the sensitive subjects addressed with no sorry or fucks given about how a hater might feel about it. A Seat At The Table features the track ‘F.U.B.U’ (for us by us), it pays tribute to the classic smoker film, How High and sweetly coos, “All my niggas in the whole wide world, play this song and sing it on your terms, for us, this shit is for us”..  I love this side of Solange, she’s real, too real.

Master P also narrates the album with no prompts or hints regarding his own public status, like he and Solange are two homies who appreciate a common understanding; like when he gets deep on a level that addresses how black people don’t get rehab, “We have to rehab ourselves”, he says.

The production features credits from Sampha, Raphael Sadiq and others. The making of video shows Solange freestyling and building her songs over a span of three years. In another interview she said she wanted to make an ode to Mary Jane with a feminine touch, something she has done as a woman, rather than a girl – it promises a budding creative future for females still slugging away in a predominantly male saturated arena.

Solange basically honed in on everything that matters to her demographic with this release and promoted her community with subtle visual elements representing friendship, camaraderie, social consciousness and a hunger for minds to be more open in the public sphere. It is an album that drips a rich, concentrated good-juice by letting itself into the minds of the socially conscious and settling into the hearts of those craving political change and a more heart-felt approach to issues being faced globally.

Solange has said the album is a “confessional autobiography and meditation on being black in America” and that “she doesn’t believe that protest is just marching in the street but that protest can be creation.”

It is an album for those who can recognise there is a bubbling for positive change happening beyond newsfeeds, worldwide; under little rocks in communities all over, there is proof in projects and work like this that artists, musicians, clothing designers, web designers and more are crying out for more inclusiveness, less racism and less bigotry in the world; this is for people looking forward to a time when the mainstream can experience real culture without it needing to be appropriated first; it is an album for those who know that if these kinds of projects keep making small waves only — the opposite to what their creators intended — then there may just be a war instead of a revolution.

Sudan is home to the Nubian people and the Kingdom of Kush. It’s a deeply magical place documented as an ancient central meeting point for the world’s longest living race recorded – Africans.

Fatima Sanussi (known to friends and family as Nunu) recently returned to the capital, Khartoum with a desire to make a difference. Her family left Africa due to her father, who worked in politics, having to seek asylum in New Zealand. For her, this year long trip is about returning to her motherland, or ‘THE motherland’ as many Africans who’ve had to leave call it. Over the Christmas/ New Year period her Instagram feed expressed how the trip was about replenishing her soul.

Nunu is telling  her people’s story through photography; using her camera to capture words and emotion in a place where raw desire and cries for fairness and justice can only be expressed internally much of the time.

Below we talk about how her current project, a digital piece consisting of photography and theory called ‘ the triangle of death’; targets “factors which contribute to the problems Sudan is facing and has a photo component I named Do You Still Dream”. Nunu also invests time and energy toward NGO offices in Sudan and the UN and supports an organization raising awareness of child cancer in Khartoum.

Instead of saying ‘I am just one person, what difference can I make to a country nowhere near recovered from centuries of war, religious tension, famine and political unrest?’ Nunu has packed up her late night Big Mac drive-thrus as well as other first-world conveniences in New Zealand to go back to Khartoum and say, “I am one woman, but I will do what I can”.

Where were you born?

I was born in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa

How did you come to be in New Zealand and when did you arrive?

I came into New Zealand in 1999 due to my father’s political background in Sudan and Ethiopia. My father worked for a Sudanese political party. However due to a political movement he started he was forced to flee to Sudan he then worked in Ethiopia for the UN and continued his movement which was unsuccessful and only caused more controversy so he was again forced to leave Ethiopia. So he took my brother mother and I to New Zealand as a political asylum.

Which part of Sudan are you in and what took you back there this year?

At the moment I’m in Omdurman but I’ve been moving between Omdurman and Khartoum. I came out here for a bit of soul searching to connect with the motherland. Also to complete a piece I’ve been writing for a while. It’s called the triangle of death which targets factors which contribute to the problems Sudan is facing. With it consists a digital side which I named “Do you still dream”. The project consists of photos of people I have photographed in Sudan. I’ve always dreamed about going back home and making a difference I guess this is me pursuing my dreams.

 What are your plans and hopes to do while you’re there?

My hopes are to finish this piece I’m writing within the year I am here. Also to finish my digital project and get as much photos as I can, and speak with a lot of different people all over Sudan and get enough content. So far I got asked to photograph for a private NGO (non-governmental organization) called AWN Initiative To Support Childrens Cancer . This organization is fighting for the rights of kids battling cancer. So I’ll be photographing to help their movement on the digital side of things also I’ll be working along side them in the children homes. I’ve also recently been asked to be part of the UN Worlds Food Programme in Khartoum so I will be doing some work with them in abou 2 weeks. I’m also trying to get involved in more NGOs that focus on different causes and do as much work as I can.