The Sound Issue (Seinabo Sey Cover)

#9 The Sound Issue A Magazine For Girls Autumn/Winter 2018

Artwork by Eve Archer

S CONTENTS

THE SOUND ISSUE 12

5 EDITOR’S LETTER 6 CONTRIBUTORS 8 MANSPLAIN ME THIS: BEING A WOMAN IN POLITICS 12 THE SOUND OF SILENCE 16 CHLOE PETTS 18 EARWAX COLLECTIVE 21 I DON’T OWE YOU MY WOE 22 AMIKA GEORGE 34 THE REGRETTES 34 38 SOUND BATH 40 STATIC 42 THE SLUMFLOWER 56 SOUND AND BEING 59 BRONAGH WAUGH 63 @UGLYVEGAN 66 SEINABO SEY 74 SOUND ISSUE THE COMIC

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Cover stars, L-R: Seinabo Sey shot in Stockholm by Frida Vega Solomonsson. Chidera Eggerue shot in London by Desirée Cremona. Amika George shot in London by Polly Hanrahan.

BECCY HILL beccy@sistermagazine.co.uk ROSIE FAYE ELLIS rosie@sistermagazine.co.uk JAMES UDEN james@sistermagazine.co.uk

SUPPORT SISTER! This year, we are working to expand Sister Magazine into a full time business with global reach. We want to increase our publishing cycle, put on more events and connect with our audience further by producing more content. However, to be able to do that, we will need your support. We hope to begin crowdfunding later on this year, where the public will have an exciting opportunity to invest in Sister Magazine. If you would like to help us, or might consider investing even a small amount, then please register your interest by emailing: beccy@sistermagazine.co.uk We will send you more information closer to the time. Thanks!

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FROM THE EDITOR

“The sound of a voice is the sound of belonging.” If this is true, then out of all the different voices you will hear over the following pages, hopefully The Sound Issue will make you feel like you belong. Because here, you do! Bisi Akintoye writes about code switching, and vocally adapting to our surroundings on page 56. This is an idea also touched on by Northern Irish actress Bronagh Waugh on page 59, who says this was a useful tactic being raised from England to Thailand, and now in her current career.

Perhaps the loudest ‘sounds’ I can hear from the issue as a whole, are that of race and identity. Being a woman of colour is an experience that all three of our cover stars are vocal about, and their heritage is extremely important to them and their messages. Seinabo Sey, Chidera Eggerue and Amika George - all forces of nature, all using their voices in different ways. For change, for entertainment, for visibility. Working with them all has been nothing short of inspirational, and I hope you find hearing what they have to say so as well.

Jamie Windust speaks about the experience of being non-binary on page 12 and proudly expressing gender identity, despite the resistance you may be met with. Louise Nesbitt chats to lesbian stand up comedian Chloe Petts on page 16 about her place within the comedy circuit. In our political climate, it’s never been more important to carve out a space for yourself and for what you believe in. However, nobody within these pages, myself included, will tell you that it’s an easy task. We all have days where we want to just curl up in a ball of existential dread, and quit fighting the good fight. That’s when we need to recharge our batteries and start afresh - like Esme Marsh who pays a visit to a sound bath on page 38.

As I hope is the way with all issues of Sister, the frustrations of being female are also heavily present throughout this issue. Deeba Syed shares her story of sexual assault in parliament on page 8 (illustrated by our previous cover star Hattie Stewart) and her current campaign to change things from the inside out at the Labour party. London based Earwax Collective bring women together through sound based practices, and you can read about the nights they put on on page 18.

This is our ninth print issue, and nobody has been able to shut us up since 2012, although it feels like many have tried! Thanks for reading and supporting what we do. I hope we inspire you to make some noise of your own. You never know who might be listening.

BECCY @rebeccajanehill

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the publishers. © 2018 SISTER. 5

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO AT THE MOMENT?

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HANNAH FRY

ANNA RINDOS

LUCIE JOHNSON

“Voice notes from the WhatsApp group with my friends giving me life.” @hannahrosefry

“I’m currently obsessed with Design Matters. It’s super interesting to hear about creators’ processes and careers!” @annarindos

“I am listening to Phoebe Bridgers ‘Stranger In The Alps’ (RIP MEEEEE)” @lcuie/@uglyvegan

HATTIE STEWART

SUKHY BHANDAL

CHLOÉ CAVALIER

“‘まともがわからない’

by Shintaro Sakamoto.” @hattiestewart

“Foxy Brown, ‘Get Me Home’ (it’s my fave hehe).” @sukhyb_mua

“Declan McKenna’s song ‘Humongous’.” @neoncece

BISI AKINTOYE

DEEBA SYED

LIBBY DOYNE

“Right now I’m listening to Kamasi Washington, Young Fathers, Thundercat and the Tindersticks!”

“‘Shame Shame Shame’ by Shirley & Company.” @deebaalinasyed

“I’m listening to Girlpool and Lizzo.”

POLLY HANRAHAN

FRIDA VEGA SALOMONSSON

ESME MARSH

“Podcast - ‘Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness’, Music - Mahalia.” @pollyhanrahan

“I’ve had three songs on repeat: Believe - Your Planet Is Next Pump Up The Jam - Technotronic Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life Indeep.” @fridavega

“My intuition. I’m learning to strengthen my inner voice and to empower my truth.” @esmemarsh_

ROSIE FAYE ELLIS

JAMIE WINDUST

JULIA EDWARDS

“My latest 2018 playlist consists of Florence’s new album, Jorja Smith, Rod Stewart forever and way too much Selena Gomez…” @rosiefayeellis

“I’m listening to a lot of Robyn at the moment, her new song Missing You is killer and she’s just a perfect throwback!” @leopardprintelephant

“I have the Trixie & Katya Show on in the background while I’m getting ready. I’ve listened to each episode 10 times but it just gets funnier and I recommend everyone watch it.” @juliaedwardsmakeup

EVE ARCHER

AIEASHA PAUL

NATASHA BLAKE

“Forever Beyoncé” @archer_eve”

“Ariana Grande - ‘Light Is Coming’.” @aieashadoeshair

“‘Vente Pa Madrid’ by Ketama and Toumani Diabaté.” @fuegonailsldn

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MANSPLAIN ME THIS: BEING A WOMAN IN POLITICS DEEBA SYED

“If you’re a woman who has something to say and wants to contribute, you’re painted out to be an ambitious, cut throat bitch.”

After a few months I actually managed to muscle my way into some meetings and for a moment there I thought I was doing pretty damn well considering. I was brought crashing back to reality after experiencing an incident of sexual harassment by an older and very senior male individual. I was actually a victim of what I’ve now come to understand was a sexual assault which took place in my office on what was supposed to be a normal weekday afternoon. After it was over, I locked myself in the disabled toilet and cried.

Then I went back to my desk and finished the email I had been writing. The next day I walked into work like nothing had happened and never reported it to anyone. I never said anything.

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At the time, I was scared that if I told anyone he would retaliate and possibly get me sacked. My mind spun all the possibilities of what he might do. Sexual harassment has that special toxic mix where not only is your dignity and worth attacked, but suddenly your financial and professional position is threatened too. So, I said nothing and just carried it around with me for the next few months, wondering how I could ever tell someone in a way that wouldn’t backfire against me. When I think about it now, I mostly felt that no one would believe me or that they wouldn’t listen not really listen. I barely believed it myself, so why should anyone else, I thought. I’m hardly alone in this. According to the Office for National Statistics’ recent crime survey more than 80% of victims choose not report incidents of sexual assault to the police.

Afterwards, I left Parliament and stopped being politically active. I felt like I had been driven out, chewed up and spat out. After #MeToo became the social phenomena it has come to be and other victims started telling their stories in all different industries - politics included - I finally decided to report what happened to me to the Labour Party. Suddenly, the world was paying attention, so I finally had hope I would be listened to. Lots of people have said how brave I was to come forward with my story and while it’s very nice of them to say, I always wince a little. I wasn’t particularly brave in anything I did. I felt cowardly for not reporting it and ashamed because I’d force a smile at him whenever I saw him afterwards.

I’ve come forward only because I felt I had some safety due to the sheer number of other women coming forward with similar stories. The word ‘brave’ makes me feel like what I really should be is afraid. Afraid of what people will think and

Artwork by Hattie Stewart

When I was younger I used to think I had a lot to say for myself. I was pretty loud actually. It was only later I started questioning whether I had anything worth contributing to a conversation. When I got my first job in politics walking the corridors of Parliament and working for a senior Labour MP and Shadow Cabinet Member, that’s when I started questioning the worth of what I had to say. I was proud of getting myself there, I had basically no political understanding or background beforehand. But it was very clear to me that the strategising and high-level policy discussions that I craved to be part of would almost always take place in rooms where it seemed women were not welcome. It was hard not to notice that the admin, diary management and event organisation was nearly always the realm of women, but that’s not to say it was always the case. As a researcher, I knew I was junior and had to pay my dues, although I resented what I perceived as this entrenched patriarchy I saw around me. I felt I had so much more I could contribute if I had the chance to do that kind of work.

how they’ll judge me. How other people would react was exactly why I stayed silent. But now I’ve decided I shouldn’t have anything to be afraid of because I didn’t do anything wrong. A few people (some men, but mostly women) have come to me and said that they have similar stories that they now want to report. I make a point of never saying that’s brave, I just say it’s good that they are coming forward.

Politics just makes the power dynamics that much more potent. Bright-eyed, hungry young people in the beginning of any career are easy to take advantage of, and are less willing speak out for fear of making powerful enemies. It’s because of this that it’s understandable, yet startling, that a ComRes poll from last year suggested that 63% of women who have been sexually harassed didn’t report it to anyone. It’s as if our words alone aren’t enough to be proof. We have to have caught it all on CCTV to not waste anyone’s time with our claims. But our word should be proof enough.

There isn’t a lot of statistical data that has been collected on sexual harassment before #MeToo. No doubt there’ll be much more now, so we can start to understand the true extent of the problem in the workplace and beyond. What we do know is that sexual harassment can have a devastating impact on women’s lives and their careers. The Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee have just a published a five-point plan designed to tackle sexual harassment in the workplace by calling employers to finally take full responsibility.

It seems incredible to me that we are only now shifting the responsibility on the employer and it’s something I can relate to with what happened to me. It felt very much like my problem to deal with where my choices were to put up or shut up.

I’d like to see us do more to overturn the entrenched sexism in our culture which leaves these perpetrators feeling entitled to do such things. I believe the reason he did what he did to me is because he feared no consequences.

It should be the responsibility of employers to prevent sexual harassment and the Labour Party is an employer like any, but currently employers are under no legal duty to take steps to prevent harassment in the workplace. Even if you prepared to bring a claim against a harasser to an employment tribunal, you only have three months to do it from the incident, which is simply not enough time perhaps to come to terms with what

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happened, or to build up the nerve to do anything about it.

All this means employment rights just aren’t strong enough, and bolstering employment rights is natural territory for the Labour Party. However, they need to sort their own house out before lecturing others. Currently the Labour Party’s sexual harassment complaints process - which was hurriedly cobbled together to combat ever-growing media scrutiny - is inadequate at best and makes the Labour Party judge, jury and executioner in the complaint process. Some incredible Labour sisters and I have been campaigning to make this system an independent process in which victims can have confidence, and to ensure that the process is free from political machinations where friends and colleagues end up investigating themselves with undue knowledge of complainants and respondents which would never be allowed in an employment tribunal. I never went into politics thinking this would be my fight but in only a few months we’ve managed to get a Parliamentary inquiry put in place which has recently released its recommendations. Procedures are now being put in place for employees working in the Houses of Parliament that just didn’t exist at all when I was there.

Sexual harassment is always a means of asserting dominance and control over another - it is an abuse of power. That can manifest even in the smallest examples, like when I’m being interrupted or talked over in political meetings, dealing with aggressive outbursts or outright being called names. Sometimes it can feel impossible for women in politics to be able to participate or feel included, and sometimes our safety isn’t guaranteed if we do. You can end up feeling like your voice isn’t worth as much as men’s, or they use gendered language against you if you step out of line. I feel there is a strong sense of entitlement amongst many of the men I’ve encountered in politics. If you’re a woman who has something to say and wants to contribute you’re painted out to be an ambitious, cut throat bitch. Sometimes, it’s as if I’m usurping them of their very birthright.

Some of the behaviour feels like it’s straight out of ‘Lord of the Flies’ and there’s plenty of bullying tactics. It shouldn’t happen in the Labour Party. We are supposed to be the Party of equality. We are supposed to be better.

“It was very clear to me that the strategising and high-level policy discussions that I craved to be part of would almost always take place in rooms where it seemed women were not welcome.”

So how do we overcome it? I think it begins with building strong support networks with other women facing the same issues who can rely on each other and who will support you. A sisterhood to rival and play the ‘old boys’ networks at their own game. I’ve managed to start having a sisterhood as part of the ‘Jo Cox Women in Leadership’ scheme set up in memory of Jo Cox - the Labour MP who spent her life defending women’s rights and improving women’s representation in politics and was tragically killed in 2016. The women on the scheme are all incredibly talented activists and advocates at all levels of politics; from local branch secretaries, to councillors to parliamentary candidates. We were all united in our shared experiences of the barriers we faced in politics - be that the childcare issues, internet trolling and heightened scrutiny of what we said, did and looked. However, we graduated from the scheme, we had a few more friends in our corner and together we could be a stronger and louder voice to be heard - and that much harder to ignore.

You can follow Deeba on Twitter @deebasyed

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THE SOUND OF SILENCE JAMIE WINDUST Music has always been a helpful tool for me when it comes to roaming the streets and visibility.

Many a dissertation could be written about the relationship between strong female divas and queer people, and the ways in which we gravitate towards each other like a hornet to a twister lolly, but it’s true. They fill me with energy, strength, confidence and power on the streets.

But sometimes, what’s stronger than the octaves of Mariah or the beat of Beyoncé, is the sound of silence on the streets.

Street harassment is at an all time high, and the LGBTQIA+ survey released by the government this year highlights just how low LGBTQIA+ people are feeling in this world, especially non-binary and trans people. Measuring life satisfaction sounds odd doesn’t it? But the survey did just that, finding that non-binary people scored their satisfaction for life at just 5.1/10. Half. On average we are living out our lives at just half of our satisfaction level. 76% of us said that actively expressing our gender identity in public is not something we feel comfortable doing all the time, solely because of the reaction that we receive when we are doing so. So here we are. This is the sound of silence.

The sound that makes us not want to leave the house. The sound that allows us to feel like we are being battered both emotionally and physically for breathing. For blinking. For speaking. For thriving.

For walking. For looking. For loving. The silence is so loud that we drown it out with obsession.

With addiction. With a wall that is sometimes too tall to climb.

Now don’t worry, I’m going to stop with all these amazingly poetic metaphors and actually get into what I’m talking about. The sound of silence for non-binary people on the streets is far too common. Allyship is a term we throw around in circles for straight cis people to feel better about themselves. I know it and you know it. For some, it’s a word that boosts their ego and legitimises their evenings spent reading The Guardian. But for others, Allyship is a way of life intrinsically implemented into all that they do, and this is often not out of choice but out of necessity. It’s 12

something that they have to do to help us live and feel safe.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the label of allyship is always used as something to make straight white cis people feel better about themselves. However it’s the age old situation of the oppressor wanting to rid themselves of the title of ‘oppressor’ rather than change their behaviour that makes them the oppressor in the first place. Call that tea if you will. Allyship in 2018 has changed and we need more than for you to come to pride, get pissed and take selfies with Alyssa Edwards. Take your allyship through the other 11 months of the year, and see us, support us, and help us to thrive. Non-binary existence for me is wonderful, however visibility in public spaces comes with negativity and transphobia at all levels, and it’s something that is completely forgotten and ignored during ‘gay pride’. Leaving my house and walking to town for me is something I find both easy and difficult. I almost forget about my presentation to the world, and forget people haven’t seen people express their gender identity like mine before. And in some ways, this is great. I don’t alter, or change, and continue to exist in a way that meets my own criteria. But the cis-hets can find this problematic, and verbal abuse is common. Shouting, staring, taking photos without permission and general comments are something that non-binary people like myself have sadly taken on board as normal.

A shell of words and unwanted opinions adorns itself around me every time I am in public, and the silence surrounds that, like a wall of useless thoughts that somehow are my problem.

Smiling in London is something we are almost told not to do, and the classic clichés that come with London and public transport are just that.

Clichés. Fake. False. Let’s break them. Smiling for me is such a supportive tool. Take for example, the tube. A crowded melting pot of humans on their way from A to B, feeling all kinds of feelings and in all kinds of moods. For me, I know I’m going to encounter laughs, stares, and unsolicited opinions. Just last week I got into an argument

with a group of tourists for taking a photo of me as I was stood on my way from London Bridge to Waterloo. ‘Why do they bother?’ I ask myself.

‘What are they actually going to do when they look back on their holiday photos and see me on the tube? What are they going to tell people when they show them this photo?’ I tell myself it doesn’t matter and move on. In my own world. To the next person who decides to invest their time into attacking my space. And this is where I hear it.

The silence is loud as the tube carries on through its tunnel and drops me off at Waterloo. Mariah is on and I am picking myself back up, only to 14

get knocked down again as a group of children shriek at me as I get onto the escalator. The volume in my ears goes up, and my eyes go down.

I hold my head high, but make my way to my destination. And do you know what would make this all easier? A smile. It once happened on the tube actually. I was being laughed at hysterically by two builders covered in white paint up to the knee, and a woman stood up to get off, and looked me dead in the eyes and just smiled for three seconds. Three seconds is actually quite long when you think about it. I took in her energy, and thanked her with my eyes and my smile. Now this

isn’t hardcore activism, but it doesn’t need to be.

Noticing I may be feeling vulnerable is enough for me to instead feel warm, and thankful. I thanked her peacefully and she moved onto her B, and I moved onto mine. The builders continued in their oblivion, and I continued to stand swaying. RuPaul in my ears, but annoyance and confusion in my eyes. ‘I guess this is just what life is like now’ I thought to myself.

find as much as it is for us to find them, and that’s really helpful when it comes to then supporting us. It often comes as a surprise to us when people actually speak to trans and non-binary people knowing the right language to use and just be appropriate (not to sound patronising) but for me personally it’s light relief when I’m surrounded by liberal, aware minds. It creates a non-issue which is exactly what I am.

Let’s actively be better. Ask your non-binary and trans friends how they are. Check on them. Check on us how you would check to see if he’s read your DMs. Ask us for coffee. Give us a hug. Campaign for us. March with us. Listen to us. Let us speak for ourselves. Sometimes we want to fill the silence with noise because we are loud and we have a lot to say, and allow us to do so. Allyship comes as a result of education, and we shouldn’t always be your initial and main source of self fulfillment.

The resources are out there, and it’s for you to

It’s time to fill the silence with education. Fill our silence with your allyship. Vulnerability isn’t always something we have control over, and to feel vulnerable and alone is a cocktail no one wants on the rocks. We aren’t asking for the world, and at the end of the day, we are all humans, and humans making steps towards change make a lot of noise.

You can follow Jamie on Instagram @leopardprintelephant

“Allyship in 2018 has changed and we need more than for you to come to pride, get pissed

Photography by Matt Joy for Crumb Agency

and take selfies with Alyssa Edwards.”

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CHLOE PETTS

LOUISE NESBITT CHATS WITH THE COMEDIAN

Chloe Petts is a London based stand up comedian. I first met Chloe backstage at a show. We were the only two women on the bill and she was sitting between a broken microwave and a broken water cooler. Before she performed I knew I liked her because she was willing to share uncomfortable eye contact with me whilst a comedian decided to introduce himself to the headliner (who was blind) by yelling “HOW MUCH CAN YOU SEE?” LN: So Chloe, how did you get into stand up?

CP: Well I’d always threatened to do it from around the age of 14 or so. When I went to uni, I did a fuck ton of drama and theatre stuff… looking back now I was just playing various versions of myself. Then by the time I left uni I knew that I wanted to stay in London so that I could basically do stand up. Well I wanted to stay and be a performer, I knew that that was what I wanted to do, but I needed to get a job to fund my life. I did my first gig in May 2015 - it was just a little open mic, but it was cute! Well it wasn’t that great, I was so drunk. But then I got better.

LN: Is that when you first knew you were funny? When you were around 14?

CP: Yeah I think so. I don’t think I ever really believed myself, but when I was around 21 I kept telling people I would do stand up because it made me accountable.

It meant that any time I ran into someone they’d be like “Have you done stand up yet?!” and eventually the guilt got too much.

LN: What’s your day job?

CP: I’m an outreach worker with homeless people.

I go round helping people get off the streets into accommodation.

LN: Wow, how does that fit in with stand up?

CP: It’s not massively compatible, and it’s at a point now

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where I’m getting more and more gigs that I can’t really turn down. I’ve also been thinking a lot recently about the emotional toll that my job has, because you just get on with it. It’s really hit me the past couple of weeks just how upsetting some of the cases that I’m dealing with are, it just makes you tense all the time. It can be quite difficult to juggle two stressful things. However, I don’t think I would have got to where I am in stand up now if I didn’t do this job because I see a lot of cross over skills in terms of talking to people, having a thick skin, being able to react on your feet, and the confidence.

LN: Does it affect you having to go from such an emotionally draining position, onto a stage where you have to be a performer?

CP: I never think of it like that. I finish with a client who’s really unwell in hospital at 6pm and then I have to go to a gig, be there for 7pm, on stage for 7.30pm. I know that doesn’t take its toll then and there in the moment, but I will have periods or weeks of exhaustion where I can’t do any of my commitments because I’ve just made myself so unwell. I think the overriding point of it is that I don’t see any of it as an option. I feel like I have to do it, not from any external pressure, it just comes from myself that I don’t think I would be as satisfied with my life if I wasn’t doing it.

LN: Is that how you feel about stand up? Like you have to do it?

CP: Yeah I think so, because there’s no other rational reason that I could say is why I do it. You can say all of the clichés of like a big buzz and a big rush but I don’t feel that, I just feel like this is what I’m meant to be doing, this is what I need to do.

LN: So where do you see yourself with stand up? I won’t ask you where you think you’re going because that’s a horrible question, but where would you like to be?

“I think we’ve had our camp comics, we’ve had our lesbian comics and I feel like maybe with the new generation there’s going to be more of an intersection, and more of an intersection with women is important.”

CP: I’ve got 20 minutes, but I want a really good 20 minutes. I want to do Edinburgh, my debut hour, either next year or the year after. I want to do it all basically, I want to write sitcoms, go on the panels, do Live at the Apollo. And Taskmaster, I really want to do Taskmaster!

That’s like pie in the sky dreaming, but I hope I can make it happen by continuing to work really really hard.

LN: Sometimes as a queer performer, I get apprehensive about telling certain jokes in case people in the audience don’t fully understand. Do you ever feel that way?

CP: Not really, although I think that it might be slightly different for us because you’re femme presenting. The largely problematic groups that you’ll find are going to be like stag do lads and I will deal with that by positioning myself as one of them, so I’ll sort of be ‘one of the lads’ but then frame it without the toxic masculinity.

and Eddie Izzard are more of an intersection because they’re not straightforward gay guys, they cross dress, but it’s still very much a package for the heterosexual eye.

I also feel like with online you don’t have to appeal to 60 million people who tune in to a prime time Saturday night spot on the BBC, you can have a YouTube channel that gets 100,000 subscribers because they like that niche.

LN: So tell me about the queer comedy night you run.

CP: It’s called The LOL Word, it’s a play on the The L Word. There’s five of us, so four acts. Me, Chloe Green, Jodie Mitchell, and a double act called Shelf. We created it at Edinburgh 2017 and we did a week run, just cause we had some time to kill and it went really, really well and we’ve done a London night at The Albany in Great Portland Street for about six months. It’s just been sick, we’ve sold out every time, with a massive queer audience, and yeah it’s gone from strength to strength.

LN: Do you find it is different with how you present?

The problem with using the word queer is that it’s not always people’s point of reference, but then (referring to LN) using the word bi has its own issues in terms of erasure or ‘pick a side’. So it might be a bit easier for me because I fit into a heterosexual understanding of binaries.

LN: In terms of LGBT+ comedy, it’s definitely becoming more popular but do you think that it gets enough coverage?

CP: No, but it is moving that way. I have a very skewed knowledge of it because I’m in London - it’s like when we all thought that Brexit wouldn’t happen because we were in London, we’re in a bubble. I co-run a queer comedy night and I do queer gigs all the time, but I never do them outside of London so I think it would be a bit different nationwide. In terms of television comics that go into every household in the UK, I think we’ve had our camp comics, we’ve had our lesbian comics and I feel like maybe with the new generation there’s going to be more of an intersection, and more of an intersection with women is important. You could say that Julian Clary

LN: Was it something you created because it wasn’t something that existed?

CP: No, I think it was just a happy accident in that Shelf happened to have a venue available for a week in Edinburgh and we were just like “Let’s get some mates together who are queer and fill the space for a week.”

It just became a really fruitful collaboration. We just did it for a laugh and then realised that there was a real market for it and a real appetite for it. It’s got interest in a way I would never have expected for it.

LN: So what advice would you give to girls thinking about trying stand up?

CP: Just fucking do it! You’re gonna be average at first, but there are so many average men doing it that have been doing it for years and years and years, and they’re still fucking average. Basically I want to get to a point where we deluge the comedy circuit with average women as much as there’s average men. Don’t worry about what everyone else says, just do it. And don’t listen to unsolicited feedback from men. Don’t fall for it if you go to a gig and it’s all men and they’re making really shitty jokes, or they’re trying to intimidate you, and trying to make you feel like they own this. They don’t - it’s just as much yours as it is theirs.

Follow @ChloePetts on Twitter

Photography courtesy of Chloe Petts

CP: 100%. It’s that ignorant remark of “But you don’t look like a lesbian!” Whereas I do, I haven’t subverted people’s expectations, I adhere to what they understand to be a gay person.

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EARWAX COLLECTIVE IZZY DUBOIS + ESME LEWIS-GARTSIDE Earwax Collective are an all female sound and performance collective. We believe there is a need for a space within the arts that prioritises women who work with sound based practices such as spoken word artists, musicians, sound artists, writers and DJs. We want to create a space for women’s voices, opinion and experience to be heard.

Earwax Collective consists of a core group of women; Esme Lewis-Gartside, Izzy DuBois, Olivia Douglass, Ranya El-Refaey, Arabella Turner and Joy Effiong. However, the nights and events are about bringing larger groups of women together.

There are women who have consistently contributed or performed at the nights from the beginning, and who have helped form Earwax into a wider community which connects with

other artists and supports one another. Yewande Adeniran (DJ and founder of Intervention) has played at a number of our nights, and Earwax has now built a relationship with her that has allowed for future collaborations with her own collective.

Sofia Hill (graffiti artist, illustrator and model) has designed the posters for each of our nights and has also performed. She has been a crucial part of creating an aesthetic for the collective which people recognise immediately. In this sense, Earwax Collective is a platform to help give women the opportunity to explore new work and empower one another.

Earwax was founded by Esme Lewis-Gartside and Izzy DuBois after graduating from Goldsmiths in June 2017. It came from continuous conversations around the male domination of sound as a medium whether that be in music or art, and the

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frustration we felt in art school about being heard when our practices became overshadowed by our male counterparts.

Photography by Arabella Turner

We have regularly hosted nights at Rye Wax in Peckham since founding in June 2017, giving us space and support to grow as a collective. Earwax has brought together spoken word, live edits, live music, readings and DJs with a continuously evolving line-up, giving the opportunity for more

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women to perform - no event is the same. Each artist brings their individual voice and experience.

It is important to us that sound art doesn’t become defined by a single practice, that it is open and varied and can progress in form from nights, to writing, to podcasts and plays.

Follow @earwaxcollective on Instagram and on Facebook.

I DON’T OWE YOU MY WOE JESSICA MAY NADEN BATTEN I don’t owe you my woe.

I could have said something, I could have told you.

I should have said something?

I shouldn’t have to tell you.

The sound of silence, Words that couldn’t find a vibration.

Sound of fear from violence, Confessions that cause complication.

I didn’t say no.

The word ran from my eyes.

I didn’t say it aloud.

Word heard through my cries.

But you didn’t need to hear, To know what was going on.

You didn’t need to be there, To know what he did was wrong.

You are not blind, Do not need eyes to see.

Yet you pretend you couldn’t have known, As though the past couldn’t help you foresee.

The onus of undress, On me alone, but only hypothetically.

The cause of the mess I wasn’t alone, I only wanted to be.

I could have been, maybe I should have been?

But I wasn’t and I won’t, Be vilified, drown in shallow lies; I won’t go hungry, only high on hope.

Why didn’t I say something?

Why didn’t you?

Why didn’t I scream?

Because it’s on deaf ears I describe what you can’t believe to be true.

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Jewellery: Amika’s own, Bikini top: Stylist’s own, Jacket: Teatum Jones, Trousers: Alistair White

THE PINK PROTEST Photography by Polly Hanrahan/Styling by Jaime Jarvis/Make Up by Sukhy Bhandal/Hair by Rohmarra Kerr Concept + Art Direction by Beccy Hill + Rosie Ellis

Despite being so softly spoken, Amika George is certainly managing to make a lot of noise.

She is the 18-year-old powerhouse behind the #FreePeriods campaign. Like many of us, Amika was shocked to discover that plenty of young girls and women in the U.K. cannot afford sanitary products which results in them missing school, or going to extreme lengths to find protection. Not one to sit back, Amika took action by starting the #FreePeriods movement, which called for prime minister Theresa May to provide free menstruation products for girls in the U.K. who already qualify for free school meals. It quickly picked up huge momentum and had secured backers from MPs Jess Phillips and Paula Sherrif, plus celebrities such as Adwoa Aboah, Suki Waterhouse, Daisy Lowe and Tanya Burr. They all turned up outside the Houses of Parliament for a friendly protest, along with over 2000 people on the 20th December 2017 to support Amika’s mission to end period poverty. Rosie Faye Ellis catches up with the schoolgirl by day, activist by night about how much her life has changed since beginning the #FreePeriods movement.

How has your life changed since #FreePeriods and were you surprised by the support?

Hi Amika! I know we spoke to you in March earlier this year for our online International Women’s Day series and it wasn’t long after the #FreePeriods Pink Protest had taken place.

Could you tell us how things have been since?

It was so surreal! I was a little nervous, but I was with nine other women, who had all achieved unbelievable things. We got on really well, and spent all day chatting and laughing. It was so fun. Being interviewed by Naomi Campbell was unforgettable. She put us all at ease and we all really enjoyed it, I just wish it had been for longer!

Thanks so much for having me, this is so exciting!

Things have been really intense, but amazing. Since the protest in December, the campaign has kind of blown up and everyone seems to be talking about periods at the moment, which is incredible. In March, the government announced that it would give £1.5 million from the Tampon Tax Fund, to end period poverty in the U.K. That was their first acknowledgement of period poverty existing on our doorsteps, which was really great. It proved that, by coming together and making our voices heard, we could actually elicit change. It made me really hopeful that one day the government will agree to implement a long-term statutory pledge to provide free menstrual products in schools.

My life has changed massively! I started #FreePeriods in April last year, and, at the time, never thought it would reach anyone outside of my family and friends. After watching the petition gain a lot of attention, I realised that it was a much bigger movement than just me. So many people, all over the world, were and are so dedicated to fighting to end period poverty, and it’s amazing.

Some have asked to start #FreePeriods offshoots in other countries, and some have started mini campaigns in their schools or local areas. It’s so inspiring. The protest was amazing because it was the first time I could actually see just how many people were on board, as over 2000 people turned up - especially as it was freezing and five days before Christmas!

You were named as one of British Vogue’s ‘female stars reimagining our future’ and and were shot for Nike with Naomi Campbell. How was the day shooting for Vogue?

It’s easy to forget that you are only 18 years old as you have achieved so much and are so amazingly aware – do you ever find it daunting that people know who you are?

It is slightly. I don’t know if I’ll ever really get used to it!

How did you balance the campaign and school work?

It’s summer now, but during school term time, I had to set aside some time each evening to do emails and other campaign things, which my 23

friends found hilarious. I’ve had some really amazing experiences though, which did interfere with school a little. I had to go to Washington DC to speak at a Facebook event during my A level mock exams, which was pretty cool.

I know you’ve been super busy with sitting your exams and then going travelling. Where has been your favourite place you’ve visited?

I went interrailing with my friends for three weeks and we had the best time. I really loved Prague, as I’d never been there and it was so beautiful. We also went to Ljubljana, in Slovenia, and I swam across Lake Bled which was a really incredible experience. My favourite was probably Zagreb though, as we were there for the World Cup final, so the atmosphere was electric. My friend Isabella and I actually climbed on stage and danced in front of everyone which was really unforgettable (and kind of embarrassing…)

Are there any stories you found particularly moving, that always seem to stick with you?

Once you receive your exam results, what are your plans?

One girl told me that she would search through the crevices of her sofa, trying to find spare change to buy pads with. That really upset me. Others have said that often their parents will have to choose between food or sanitary products, so there isn’t really a choice. Often, teachers have to use their own money to buy menstrual products for their students in need. It’s not fair on any of them. I really think the government needs to intervene, and allow these girls to return to school.

I’m going to Cambridge in October to study History, which I’m really excited for!

What do you think is the hardest thing about being a young woman growing up today?

Do you see #FreePeriods as something you’d like to continue with long term?

Although there has undeniably been so much progress made in our fight to achieve gender equality in recent years, unrealistic expectations and stereotypes do still exist. We still live in a world where, older generations particularly, have quite a fixed view of what it means to be ‘feminine’ or a woman, and although I think it’s changing slowly I’m really excited to live in a time where all people of all genders can be accepted. For young women or teenage girls particularly, I think we’re still fed images through the media and Instagram which set out what we’re ‘meant’ to look like or live like.

That really needs to change.

Definitely. I’ll continue with it as long as I need to. I’m so disappointed that, a year a half since the campaign began, the government has still not considered introducing the provision of free menstrual products in all schools in the U.K., so I’ll keep fighting and shouting about that until they do.

How did you first come across period poverty as an issue, what drew your attention to it?

I read an article in March last year highlighting the existence of period poverty in the U.K. A charity called Freedom4Girls was providing free menstrual products to school girls in Kenya, but they were then contacted by a few schools in Leeds, who noticed a pattern in their absence records, as the same girls were missing school every month. As it was discovered that girls all over the U.K. are suffering from period poverty right now, the charity began to redirect their products to schools over here. That’s what really shocked me. I’m fortunate enough to have never been faced with period poverty, so hearing that 24

girls my age or younger were going through this every month really upset me. I could imagine just how distressing it would be to have to use socks, toilet paper or newspaper instead of menstrual products, and there are girls as young as nine or ten going through this, alone. The taboo around periods makes it really hard, particularly for young girls, to open up about what they’re going through, so I’m working really hard to try and dismantle that stigma too.

On the flip side to that, what’s the best thing about being a young woman growing up today?

I think feminism is ‘cooler’ now than it has ever been before. With just one scroll through Instagram, we’re seeing empowering images of incredible, powerful women, and young girls are growing up in a time where we’re being told that we’re allowed to ask for better treatment and demand equality. As feminism has become more mainstream, we’re also seeing more boys and men getting involved than ever before, which is incredible. I’m really excited for the future of

feminism.

abortion ban, to the Women’s March in July - I’m definitely hopeful.

Who is the strongest woman you know and why?

My late, great grandma was the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. She grew up in South India, and was expected to be a ‘typical’ housewife get married, cook, have kids etc. After doing those things, she decided that that wasn’t enough for her. She left her husband and two young children, and flew to Ohio on her own to study a degree in English Literature. After doing her Masters and studying journalism, she returned and became a really eminent journalist, writing about women’s issues in major national newspapers. I think defying expectations, and unapologetically following your own ambitions and dreams, regardless of what people might say, is the strongest and most incredible thing.

What has been the best advice you’ve been given so far?

If you could sit down with one person and tell them all about what #FreePeriods does, who would you choose and why?

I would have to say Theresa May! I know she has A LOT going on at the moment, so periods probably aren’t her priority. But I’d love to sit down with her and tell her why period poverty is such an urgent, ongoing, and widespread problem in the U.K., which is stopping girls from going to school.

It’s really disgraceful that, in 2018, one in ten girls can’t afford menstrual products, and 40% of girls in the U.K. have used loo roll instead of pads or tampons, because they couldn’t afford them. Period poverty is robbing these girls of an education, and those who miss school for a week every month face real, social isolation. It needs to end now.

Do you have plans for another protest?

I’ve always tried really hard to be as open as possible about my period, so I’d tell everyone to do the same. It’s so empowering.

What has been the biggest obstacle you’ve faced in your journey to date?

I’ve been really lucky that the campaign has received such a positive response, generally.

There have been a few times where people have criticised me (mainly on Twitter!) for talking so openly about periods. I think only when everyone, regardless of gender or whether they have periods, can talk about them without any hesitation, we can achieve gender equality. At the moment, we live in a world where so many men find periods disgusting. That’s really problematic because 70% of our MPs are male, so it’s really hard for political decisions that affect women to be given priority. I remember hearing about an MP who refused to say the word tampon in Parliament! When all men can openly discuss menstruation, and the taboo is a thing of the past, we’ll live in a far more equal world.

Possibly! It’s all under wraps at the moment, but I’m thinking of teaming up with the Pink Protest again to organise a similar event at the end of the year.

When you’re not on a period positive mission, sitting exams or travelling, what do you like to do to unwind?

It’s pretty boring, but I just go out with friends, or watch ‘Friends’! I’m obsessed.

And finally, as this is The Sound Issue what are you listening to at the moment?

I’ve always loved the Guilty Feminist, I think Deborah Frances-White is hilarious and amazing.

Follow @amikageorge and check out freeperiods.org

How can women and girls still stay hopeful about the future of feminism in a Trump era?

I think women have shown real strength and solidarity in the time since Trump came to power.

From the #MeToo movement, to the equal pay campaign, to Ireland voting to overturn the 25

Shirt: Teatum Jones, Corset: ASOS, Trousers: Longshaw Ward, Shoes: River Island

Jewellery: River Island, Ruffle Top: Irene Sj Yu, Pink Top: For Love And Lemons, Skirt: Teatum Jones

Top: Natalie B Coleman, Coat: Florence Bridge, Cycling Shorts: AYM

Crowns: Amber Sakai, Earrings: River Island, Dress: Natalie B Coleman

Sunglasses: Stylist’s Own, Shirt: Berta Caberstany, Gilet: Longshaw Ward, Skirt: Natlie B Coleman, Leggings: Elissa Poppy

"I REMEMBER HEARING A WHO REFUSED TO SAY T PARLIAMENT!"

ABOUT AN MP TAMPON IN

Earrings: River Island, Shirt: Teatum Jones, Latex Top: Elissa Poppy, Trousers: Teatum Jones

Crowns: Amber Sakai, Earrings: River Island, Dress: Natalie B Coleman, Boots: ASOS, Socks: Stylist’s Own

THE REGRETTES JAMES UDEN MEETS FRONTWOMAN LYDIA NIGHT “It’s been a day,” sarcastically chuckles Lydia Night, singer and guitarist of The Regrettes as we chat ahead of their set at the Old Blue Last.

They are playing in London tonight, however the start of the U.K. leg of their summer tour had suffered a devastating knock the previous night in Birmingham. After loading in to the gig, the band’s possessions were stolen, leaving them with just their instruments and whatever they happened to have on them. Knowing this ahead of meeting Lydia just 24 hours later, I was introduced to a young musician half in a medley of shock and frustration - processing what had happened, and half dealing with it as cool as you like - confident and just itching to perform. The group had travelled to London, spent the day at the US embassy sorting out passport admin and still strode in to tonight’s venue in high spirits and ready to play.

“Life is usually amazing. Right now it’s still amazing, just a little less so because there’s a lot going on.” Says Lydia, as we begin to discuss the band’s incredible journey so far. “But overall I’m really grateful for what I do have, so I can’t really focus on what I don’t.” Lydia is literally 17 years old and already a bonafide rock star. At this point she is the only member of the band I’ve met, however I can only assume that her composure extends across the entire group amongst such an unforeseen crisis. “This is part of it, the up and down of my life. It’s very much extreme highs and lows.” she further reflects while processing this horrible experience.

Growing up, Lydia reveals that her first favourite band was The Ramones, while sounds from the 50s and 60s would always be playing in the house. Her taste and curiosity led her to explore punk staples like The Clash and Dead Kennedys, before soon delving in to bands with strong female influences like Hole and Bikini Kill. (It all becomes very clear when seeing her perform later where Lydia’s confidence and authority as a performer stems from). Such influences naturally weave their way in to the sound of The Regrettes.

Mashing punk rawness and energy with catchy 34

hooks and pop fundamentals (all while finding a way to nod to those nostalgic sounds of the 50s and 60s), The Regrettes haven’t needed long to establish a signature sound of their own, taking all of their collective inspiration on board. “We met in music school four years ago and reconnected later on.” says Lydia, explaining the eventual coming together of the band. “Our sound isn’t forced at all.” She continues, “It’s just a natural result that comes when you listen to so many different genres, they all find a way to come out in different sneaky ways.” After listening through their already extensive and impressive catalogue, it’s clear that some ground rules have been longestablished when it comes to crafting a Regrettes song. Infectiously catchy melodies across three guitars - a must. Honest and fierce lyrics, whether sung, spoken or screamed - absolutely. Punchy, upbeat percussion - nothing else makes the cut.

Everything built from that foundation finds itself signed off with such crisp quality in production.

And it’s this refined quality that ultimately reflects how studied and skilled this group of musicians are in their craft - going beyond wanting to plug in and record, there is a refreshing, likeable extra level of quality in their music when it comes to the fine tuning. This was immediately apparent when first introduced to the band with the video release of Come Through. I became a fan immediately.

The video itself is so vibrant, compelling and creative - only further reflective of a band more than comfortable owning their own ideas.

Naturally clicking back and watching through previously released work, an honest, relatable, storytelling narrative is clearly a recurring theme for The Regrettes when it comes to bringing their songs to life; “Our videos are created through a lot of brainstorming.” Lydia chuckles when asked about their origins. “I’ll collaborate with Claire Vogel who made our last two videos. A lot of the time I’ll go to her like ‘Hey, I have this idea, what’s your spin on it?’ then she’ll totally make it her own and be like ‘Here’s what I’m thinking’ and go ‘what about this?’ and we’ll just go on bouncing ideas off each other.”

Within just a few years The Regrettes have

“If we didn’t have this, we would have nothing”

independently released their music, they put out an EP in 2015, have supported the likes of Kate Nash, Bleached, Pins and Deep Vally, played South

By South West, signed to Warner and are now owning a summer headline tour with pit stops at Summerfest and Riotfest. When asking Lydia if all of this has felt like it’s been achieved as quickly as it actually has, she swiftly responds; “No. The puzzle just came together at the right time. We’ve all been playing since we were so little. I’ve been in bands since I was 7.” The fact as a band they have come such a long way in a relatively short space of time might give the impression of too much, too soon for some. Certainly when it comes to industry exposure and the pressures of touring, but Lydia straight up reaffirms that while The Regrettes may not have anticipated such immediate success, each person involved has been working towards reaching this level in their own right from the getgo; “When we formed, everything happened really quickly for us as a group, we’ve all separately and individually been working towards something like this for so long though.” This certainly goes long way in explaining the sheer coolness and modesty of her personality. That being said, the one holding the microphone bears a lot of responsibility when it comes to owning a vocal authority, and when considering her role, Lydia admits with a lighthearted confidence, “I think I am pretty outspoken.

I say what I want. Sometimes it’s not smart to, but I do. I can’t really control it.” It’s this honesty and confidence Lydia speaks with that similarly oozes out of each Regrettes song. Unapologetic and brilliantly brutal. They may be young, but they’re producing music that a wide demographic of fans can be both passionate about and relate to. “It’s my favourite thing.” she reflects, “After a show, having someone come up who’s related to our music - it’s amazing. It’s the best. It’s the most rewarding part of doing this.” She then considers when questioned how it hits home that fans can relate to her on such a personal level, “I just think that when you see someone who is owning and shining a light on all of the things that society criticises, it really makes the people who are seeing that know that they aren’t alone. It can actually be something to be proud of and to flaunt, almost. If you own it, who gives a shit?” (Preach!) “People own awful stuff all the time. Like you see someone you really look up to and they’re wearing Crocs - and you’re like oh, Crocs look cool now, wow! - kind of like that.” A crystal clear metaphor if there ever was one…

Before letting Lydia go and prep for the evening’s set, it felt important to ask with the Sound Issue in mind, if (instruments aside) as the singer in a band, she sees lyricism and using her voice as a sound as an empowering opportunity to vent/ reflect/provoke/inspire - all of the above… “One thousand bagillion, bazillion percent.” She doesn’t hesitate to respond. “I think that for me, as a personal tool for keeping good mental health, I use it as a kind of therapy. But then also at the same time by doing that, it turns into something that other people can use as something that makes them feel a little less alone, which I think is the coolest thing in the world. My personal therapy can become other people’s too, which is so cool.”

Catching their set later in the evening, it’s safe to say Lydia truly owns the platform she creates to have her voice heard. She has the crowd up and down off their feet from the word go. With a fearless presence and desire to feed off the energy in the room, she has each person in the palm of her hand. “We don’t like to plan what we’re going to say and shit.” She told me earlier, and the rawness of this performance holds true. The band are in a particularly fragile and shaken state tonight, but you wouldn’t know otherwise from this set. They had lost everything (an important side-note - except for their instruments) and they approached this show like any other when it came to the performance, only with an added spark behind fuelling those damn infectious melodies.

“Everyone has a type of music that makes them feel something and that they believe in.” Lydia noted when speaking earlier in the evening. That sentiment couldn’t have rung around this room any stronger tonight. The Regrettes are in this for the long run and they’re owning everything that comes their way on this unpredictable journey so far.

Follow The Regrettes on Instagram @theregrettesband and Lydia @lydianight

“My personal therapy can become other people’s too, which is so cool.”

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All photography by Charlotte Patmore

SOUND BATH ESME MARSH

I have a complicated relationship with meditation.

Now I know it should be the easiest thing in the world, but time and time again I find the act of choosing to take time out for those deeper breaths and quietening my mind profoundly hard to succumb to. Actively stopping whatever I’m doing to sit on my yoga mat or lay down on my bed for just five minutes wildly requires a huge amount of dedication and commitment, it seems.

And no matter how much I want to, I just cannot overcome the resistance.

I hope some of you feel a sense of relief wash over yourself as I write this - mediation is not the easiest act to admit you suck at - cue me proclaiming it to be the ‘easiest thing in the world’. But I believe that there are a lot of us like me, closeting our relationship to mediation. As an obsessive of all things holistic, self-developmental and straight-up mystical, I was determined to find something that could offer similar benefits to meditation but in a more accessible way.

Enter, Sound Healing.

Sound Healing - usually carried out in the form of a Sound Bath, is a holistic healing practice that has been present throughout various cultures over thousands of years. Without the concern of me leading you to expose yourself in a group bathing exercise a-la Roman Empire, participating in a Sound Bath doesn’t require communal cleansing in the most obvious sense - it doesn’t include nudity or even water in the slightest. Instead, a Sound Bath is an experience of basking in healing frequencies and vibrational instruments to aid everything from sleep to clearing deep-rooted blocks. Lead by an experienced sound practitioner using gongs, crystal bowls, biosonic tuning forks and chanting, a Sound Bath allows your mind to relax into a meditative state. Unlike regular mediation which usually ends up with you (or at least me) questioning whether I’m doing it right or ‘relaxing hard enough’, listening to these harmonious sounds lets your mind ease into its 38

natural flow rather than you being caught up in your conscious thoughts. Describing the experience as “a gateway drug to mediation” Sound Specialist, Steph Reynolds (Liver Happy Life) advocates Sound Bathing for its accessibility to beginner or reluctant meditators. I was sold.

Like many holistic practices and treatments that look to the moon to target specific intentions, my first Sound Bath was no different. Booking in for a Full Moon in Capricorn session with Steph at East London’s She’s Lost Control, I prepared to activate my intuition under Capricorn’s desire to create motion in my professional life. Having just handed in my notice at work and longing for clarity in setting new long term goals, I decided this was the perfect lunar event to begin my Sound Bath journey.

Arriving flustered from the rushed commute, stepping through the doors of She’s Lost Control was a total dreamland. The space was transformed into a serene decadence of soft furnishings, low lighting and shelved crystals. I took my shoes off at the door, placed my belongings in the back and made home to a cushion in the welcoming goddess circle. Despite the blistering London heat and a room full of apprehension towards the option of residing under a blanket once laid head to head in Savasana (Corpse Pose), Steph explained that your body temperature drops when you lay down. Happily cosying up under a blanket (I’m not brave enough to sleep without a cover in my own bed let alone as I lay next a group full of strangers), I shut my eyes. As my cosmic journey began, the ringing of the planetary gongs began to echo through the room. I acknowledged my thoughts as they came and allowed them to leave as they pleased - the composed chimes definitely helping to eliminate the distraction of my inner voice commentating on whether or not the process was working. I even learnt to ignore the snores of others who’d dropped off within minutes of the session.

As I made my way back to the tube station, I noticed myself floating along without a care in the world.

I felt as zen as could be whilst simultaneously overwhelmed by the intensity of the Full Moon I’d tapped into. I felt what it meant to truly exist in my body - whilst, as Steph said feeling “suspended between time and space”. So this is what it means to have successfully meditated, I thought.

It’s no surprise we find solace in music. Those records that send shivers down your spine and

those memories of pure adrenaline at concerts. It makes even more sense then, that the vibrational element of sound has the capability to balance our life force - or at least influence it. “It isn’t always a comfortable experience - no two sessions are ever the same,” explains Steph, but when it comes to connecting with something deeper than our physical selves and being open to the vulnerability of within, I would expect nothing less.

When I first thought about the theme of ‘sound’ for this issue, my mind raced towards standing up, raising your voice and making a hell of a lot of noise to invoke change. But perhaps change, internal or external, is equally in the moments of serenity and knowing when quiet is your biggest superpower.

Tips for your first Sound Bath: - Wear something loose and comfortable.

- Arrive with an open heart and mind.

- Make sure you drink plenty of water afterwards.

- Take it easy for the rest of the day.

Artwork by Esme Marsh

Just under an hour passed and I was falling deeper and deeper into my subconscious. By the end I wasn’t even aware of my thoughts - the sounds instead just encapsulated my entire physical and emotional body. To end, Steph chimed a lighter instrument around the circle, drawing us to softly awaken and come back into the room. Finally, she invited us to stretch it out before going about our evenings. “Every experience is different but there is a common feeling of being suspended between time and space, an hour can feel like fifteen minutes,” said Steph when I later asked what her favourite thing about this form of healing was.

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STATIC

LIBBY DOYNE

“On the date we never had, you looked amazing and we weren’t shy.” — Francisca Silva ••• I wake up hot, stuck to my sheets the lingering memory of my dream about you we were laying in your bed together like we’ll never actually do I listen to the songs that make me want you as if their melodies can summon you to me as if because I imagine those footsteps coming up the stairs to be yours they somehow will be I can’t focus on anything I get distracted thinking about touching your face I start the same page over and over again retrace, retrace, retrace I look for any sign from you I want your hand to linger on my waist, as if to say I know your secrets, I have secrets too for all the times you’ve imagined me, I’ve imagined you how exhausting it is to desire you how utterly useless it renders me you are a hot day that I can’t take shelter from a sweat I cannot escape

Collage by Anna Rindos

how the heart still beats when it’s broken how a warm hue can be blued how it’s more fun to imagine us together then to go live my life without you

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THE SLUMFLOWER

Jacket + Trousers: Naya Rae Sunglasses: Kaleos Eyehunters Shoes: Topshp

Photography by Desirée Cremona/Styling by Hannah Fry/Make Up by Julia Edwards/Hair by Aieasha Paul/Art Direction by Beccy Hill + Rosie Ellis

Bralette: Sacred Hawk Skirt: American Apparel Sunglasses: Grey Ant Necklace: Stylist’s Own

FROM THE CONCRETE...

WORDS BY BECCY HILL

How do you begin to introduce someone like Chidera Eggerue, who is more of an allencompassing, multidisciplinary force as opposed to a regular person? Award winning blogger, author of ‘What A Time To Be Alone’ and founder of #SaggyBoobsMatter merely scratch the surface of this Peckham native’s list of achievements.

Despite appearing on ITV’s This Morning, winning Cosmopolitan’s Changemaker Of The Year award and featuring on the Dazed 100 list, Chidera tells me her highlight of 2018 so far has been giving blood. “My biggest fear is needles. I hate, hate needles! But I decided that I really wanted to give blood, because the blood register hasn’t got enough black people on it.”

Better known as The Slumflower, Chidera started blogging when she was 19 years old. “The blogging world was very, very white women-centric - I just didn’t see enough black women. What I saw was a lot of white, middle class women who were wearing really expensive clothes that I liked, but I couldn’t relate to them. I could only vicariously live through them.” Chidera began theslumflower.com as a response to this, and also because “I wanted my fashion blog to be about more than just clothes. I wanted it to also be about the person wearing the clothes. I wanted to be more than just a quote on quote influencer.” Chidera initially had hopes of being a fashion designer, and was studying Fashion Design and Development at London College of Fashion. She failed her degree in her final year due to depression, but that hasn’t stopped LCF from referring to her as alumni. “I had to publicly blast them on Twitter to stop doing it because they clearly gave me a fail, they clearly didn’t give me the support I needed, but then any time I achieve something they’re like ‘previous student Chidera Eggerue’ and I’m like why are you using me to make you look good?”

Chidera was pretty busy when she was 19, as this was also when she decided she would stop wearing a bra. Inspired by Rihanna’s 2013 44

collaboration with River Island, where in true Ri-Ri fashion most of the collection was styled braless, Chidera thought “Oh my gosh, Rihanna’s tiddies are out and she looks cute as hell, and it’s summer and she’s not wearing a bra and I want to do the exact same!” However, the world wasn’t ready for her and her 32DDs. “Apparently if your boobs are above a certain size, you’re not allowed to partake in comfort, like you’re apparently not allowed to be comfortable. You have to hide yourself in bra, and I just wasn’t down with that, so I continued to not wear a bra despite people’s comments.”

As someone who has had the burden of E-F cup breasts since my teenage years, I can relate. My mum even tells me to put a bra on in the house, as the sight of my swinging boobs beneath a t-shirt (despite being behind closed doors) is apparently too much to cope with.

Chidera reflects “So fast forward to being 23 now, my boobs are still saggy but I’ve reached the point where I’m happy with how my boobs look. I’ve never actually been in a scenario where a man has been able to see my boobs and been like ‘Oh my god, your boobs are hideous! Put them away!’ Men pretend to have all these standards, but in reality, they’re just happy to even be in your presence.” I wonder about the unsolicited attention she must undoubtedly receive in public when going braless.

“I used to feel embarrassed about them jiggling, but now I’m like ‘HA HAAAA, jiggling YAAAS!’ Like if you want to look you can look, but that’s because you want to look. It’s nothing to do with me. They’re going to jiggle because they’re boobs, and I’m not in charge of how you should respond to my body.”

Chidera tells me the reaction to the movement has been fantastic, not just from the press, but from users of the hashtag itself. “People have been messaging me telling me that they’ve stopped wearing a bra, or this is the first time they’ve left their house without wearing a bra and they feel really good, and it’s just really exciting to know

that this is allowing people to take control of their own bodies.” One thing she wants to make clear however, is that she’s not here to spark a debate on ‘real’ versus ‘fake’. “If you’re a boob bearing woman, then you’re invited to join this conversation. Whether your boobs are real, whether your boobs are augmented, whatever, it’s all about you just being able to say I like my boobs as they are, so there’s a misconception that this movement is about a real boob versus fake boob rhetoric, and it really isn’t. It’s essentially about saying my boobs are mine, and they don’t need to meet anybody’s standards but mine. As long as I’m alive I’m a real woman, regardless of how much work I’ve had done on myself.”

So how the hell did Chidera get to be so positive?

I want to know where she gets her never ending amount of self-confidence from. When we speak on the phone and on set, there is never a trace of self-deprecating humour, which I find highly unusual. She explains “For me, my strength comes from believing that I deserve to be here. If you think about it, millions and trillions of events had to happen for each of us to even be born. She continues “The fact that every single day we beat death without knowing - some people don’t even get to wake up today and we get to wake up, that’s magnificent within itself. I try to see life in a way where I just feel grateful to even be here, and I don’t want to be beating myself up for not meeting anybody else’s standards.” Well, that’s a mic drop if I ever heard one.

Earlier this year Chidera teamed up with BBC Newsbeat to make a documentary called ‘Too Young To Go Bald’ investigating hair loss in young people and highlighting her own traction alopecia. I wonder if she feels brave by constantly baring herself, warts and all to the public. “I do see it as brave, but I find it quite sad that being yourself is something that is seen as brave. The easiest thing to be should be yourself, but in a world where from the moment you’re born you’re told that everything about yourself is wrong and you’re taught that you must adapt yourself to other people beliefs, I’m not surprised that being yourself is seen as an act of bravery.” Chidera wants to enforce and drive change in people’s attitudes, and whilst she has a huge social media following, she feels her purpose is beyond likes and followers. She hopes that by people choosing to invest their time in her, she can reciprocate by offering her knowledge. “By me choosing to be myself and choosing to love myself, that allows

me to rather than just lead by example, to live by example, so through what I’m doing I’m trying to make the protest effortless by actually just doing the work on myself in front of people.”

To continue on her mission, Chidera released a book in July this year, entitled ‘What A Time To Be Alone’. She has spent the past two years writing it, starting with her own tweets as the inspiration. “I really wanted to play on the phrase what a time to be alive, because it’s something that you tend to say when you’re expressing how crazy life is or how excited you are about something, like oh my gosh, we exist at the same time as Beyoncé, what a time to be alive!” She continues “But then what a time to be alone is all about celebrating solitude, I really want to make solitude great again. I want to make it trendy to be alone, and not in a ‘I’m emo and lonely’ way, I want it to be more of a ‘I’m alone because I’m really working on myself’ I think you learn the most about yourself when you’re on your own.” The book has already been named as a must read by Vogue, the Guardian, i-D – you’d be hard pushed to find a UK publication that isn’t writing about Chidera and her message at the moment. “The book purposefully hasn’t got any page numbers because I want people to be able to pick it up from any page and still be able to get started on themselves, because when you’re working on yourself there isn’t actually a sequence or a particular order, you need to just start where you are.” Featuring hard hitting Nigerian proverbs passed down from her mother, Chidera says she wants the book to drag the reader. “It’s like a really endearing, loving drag. It’s like bitch wake up, go get it, come on, you deserve it. It’s like that type of vibe.” However, Chidera warns that whilst it is a self-help book, it’s not here to fix you. “This book is here to encourage you to take control of your life.

This book is supposed to be a mirror, essentially.”

As someone who has made a name for herself by being vocal on the internet, I imagine that Chidera can’t always have been met with praise. I still see people go off in her comments section, and she reposts men who react to her #SaggyBoobsMatter images. “I just try to remember that people behave either out of fear or love. A lot of the time when people respond to me with negativity, they’ve seen something that I’ve said that has awoken a part of them that they have probably left dormant for a while because they don’t know how to address that part of themselves, so they meet me with resistance and tension.” Chidera assures me she knows this by coming from that position herself. “I’ve been there, 45

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“If you want to look you can look, but that’s because you want to look.

It’s nothing to do with me. They’re going to jiggle because they’re boobs.

I’m not in charge of how you should respond to my body.”

Jacket: Vjera V

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Dress: Naya Rae Robe: Little Sunny Bite Choker: TFNC

I’ve been the troll before. Years ago, I used to be a troll because I was unhappy and I had loads of spare time and loads of internet access. It’s a way of making yourself feel better.” I can’t help but ask who suffered her keyboard wrath. “Do you know what, I trolled Azealia Banks and to this day she’s still blocked me. And I really regret it, she’s not ever going to unblock me now. I can’t even remember what I said to her.”

Naturally we are all becoming more and more aware of the mental implications of spending too much time online. We all know we need to take breaks, and as an advocate for self-love and self-care, Chidera is also not averse to putting her phone on aeroplane mode. “I leave it in a completely different room in the house, and start reading a book. I treat each book I read as something that gives me a sense of achievement.

I definitely think doing things that make you feel like you are adding value to yourself is so rewarding and the plus of it is that you don’t have to spend time on the internet absorbing other people’s crazy opinions.” I wonder if she worries about going silent on social media, and leaving the community she has built there. “Once in a while I do have that worry of ‘If I disappear for one day is everyone going to forget who I am?’ but then other times I’m like, well my favourite people like Naayirah Waheed or Yrsa Daley Ward, they don’t feel the need to be on Twitter or to be on Instagram 24/7 they just say what they need to say and bounce.” She continues “If people genuinely like you, and are genuinely receptive to what you have to say then they’ll make room for you. Also, people aren’t just sitting there twiddling their thumbs waiting for you to say something like you’re the only person that they follow. You don’t have to constantly be feeding them with yourself for them to remember that you exist.”

Chidera used to record a monthly podcast with Radar Radio. In April this year, DJ collective Pxssy Palace issued a statement against the station, saying “they have tokenised women, feminism, queer and trans culture and black and other people of colour for capitalist purposes, whilst making little to no effort to praise intersectionality within their own organisation.” This was followed by a longer list of accusations. This then led to Ashtart Al-Hurra, a former studio assistant and producer coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour from her time working there. Chidera, and many other DJs and presenters, decided to remove themselves from 50

the station. “As a black woman who is so used to being gaslighted, so used to people speaking over me, and so used to people telling me that I’m just angry and I’m not actually looking for a solution, when I saw the other women of colour and black women speaking out I felt I had to somehow support them, and as much as I personally did not experience any sexual harassment whilst I was at the station, I still believe those women.”

Chidera continues “Any time a woman who is marginalised speaks out, I believe her. That’s how it should be, but surprisingly you find that when women speak out on abuse, people often come with the whole ‘there’s no proof’ conversation, and so I just felt like immediately the right thing to do was to detach myself from a station that makes people who look and feel like me unwelcome.”

Practicing what you preach and living your values is so important in our current climate of hashtag activism, even when it comes as personal sacrifice.

“Radar was the only facility that I had to actually record my podcasts, but I still had to leave because who am I to talk about black women deserving incredible treatment and who am I to talk about maintaining a system where black women, especially queer black women, are given room for space and still align myself with a place that does the complete opposite. I can’t do that and then stand up for what I believe in, it makes no sense.”

Race is something that Chidera regularly brings to a conversation, regardless of the topic. “I think the world is becoming a bit more receptive to blackness, but I don’t think anything is actually changing structurally. Blackness is where the coin is.” She’s not very optimistic about future change – probably the only time I have heard her sound anything less than 100% positive. “Racism is always going to be a problem as long as white people refuse to acknowledge the structures of race and how we have things like whiteness and blackness. I feel like racism is not black people’s problem, as in it’s not a system that black people created, it’s a system that we’re affected by.”

This has also infiltrated her stance on feminism.

“As long as feminism doesn’t prioritise the most marginalised, feminism isn’t doing anything, it’s just another extension of whiteness.” She continues by saying “I don’t even refer to myself as an intersectional feminist, I just refer to myself as a feminist because as a black woman, my feminism is already intersectional because it does include the black experience and the experience of women who are of colour.”

“The easiest thing to be should be yourself, but in a world where from the moment you’re born you’re told that everything about yourself is wrong and you’re taught that you must adapt yourself to other people beliefs, I’m not surprised that being yourself is seen as an act of bravery.”

So, what’s next for Chidera? “The point I want to reach and the absolute end goal for me is I really want to have a television show. A talk show that is mine and I get to just invite really cool people on and talk about the kind of things that we’ve been talking about in this conversation.” Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t end there. “I want to be someone who infiltrates every facet of the media. I want to be in all the adverts, I want to be everywhere in your life, just popping up in all you guys’ faces reminding you how great you are. I do want to dominate radio, I do want to dominate the book world, I do want to dominate television, I want to dominate as many things as I can through just choosing to be myself and I really want to encourage young black people, especially young black women to be able to believe that they can actually look like themselves, be themselves and still be successful.”

Whilst Chidera fully acknowledges that this is a self-appointed purpose, her fire and sense of self is almost frightening. I feel like there isn’t anything that can stop her. “I’ve made so many mistakes and I’m glad that I’ve made those mistakes because they’ve given me character, they’ve given my

perspective context, they’ve given me a reason to actually be able to speak because I know exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve got the experience, been there done that, worn the t-shirt, cut the t-shirt into a crop top, like I’ve done all of that.”

Almost everything that comes out of Chidera’s mouth is a ready-made quote. I want to cram all of them into this article, and take out as many of my own words as possible to make room for hers. It’s also her delivery, her presence and her energy which are so magical and difficult to put down on paper. “I think my drive comes from not wanting to be forgotten. I want to be someone who is the queen of people’s hearts, in terms of I want people to give me room in their hearts and I want to do that through helping them.”

At the rate Chidera is growing, I highly doubt The Slumflower will ever be forgotten.

What A Time To Be Alone is out now.

Follow @TheSlumflower on Instagram and Twitter to keep up with Chidera.

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“I wanted to be more than just a quote unquote influencer.�

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SOUND AND BEING BISI AKINTOYE

There’s a video of Barack Obama buying a hotdog in a black-owned restaurant in downtown Washington D.C. His voice is different from the usual sonorous, distinguished tone that we’re used to hearing. There’s something else to it, some other version of him. His bearing is relaxed and jovial, and he’s got an easy manner about him that we wouldn’t expect to see in an official presidential broadcast. He sounds like a man who feels at home in his surroundings, and like a native Chicagoan. A waitress asks him if he wants change from the $20 bill he gave her. His reply, instantly viral – “Naw, we straight!”

Much was made of Obama’s occasional use of so-called African American English (AAE) when he was in black spaces, which was identified as a kind of code switching. For many black and brown Americans, this clip was a perfect encapsulation of their own realities; it was instantly recognisable and even more instantly identifiable. At the same time, Obama received criticism from other sections of American society, to whom it was ‘unbecoming’ for the President of the United States to speak in such a fashion. These criticisms reflected the enduring prejudices against languages, accents and dialects that differ from supposedly mainstream American English, rooted in ideas of race, wealth and class as it always has been. Naturally, these same people haven’t had quite the same energy in response to the current president’s highly questionable use of language, which tells us something about how expectations of language differ depending on who is speaking.

In its literal sense, code switching is mixing languages or different patterns of speech in conversation. But its real life use is more interesting and more telling. Without even realising it, many of us alter the ways we express ourselves every single day, responding to conscious or unconscious cues in our environment. We use sound as a manifestation of our identity, with language and accent providing an indication of the speaker’s background, class and nationality. As Gene Demby of the excellent and appropriately titled podcast ‘Code Switch’ explains “Many of us subtly, reflexively change the way we express ourselves all 56

the time. We’re hopscotching between different cultural and linguistic spaces and different parts of our own identities — sometimes within a single interaction…the different spaces we each inhabit and the tensions of trying to navigate between them. In one sense, code-switching is about dialogue that spans cultures.”

The Obama clip is telling, because it illustrates the element of choice inherent in code switching. One thing no one could dispute, and even the most virulent racists couldn’t help but concede, is that he is a highly intelligent and articulate person.

The way he speaks in the clip is deliberate. It’s the way he chooses to express himself in that environment. This is a concept that is extremely relatable to many of us. Immigrants, people of colour, members of the LGBTQ+ community – all of these groups and more are all too familiar with the concept of sounding one way in a given situation, and switching to another voice or accent

in another. It’s is a vital feature of multilingual people, particularly ones that move in majority white spaces. It took someone with the platform Obama has to demonstrate code switching before it was properly discussed in mainstream discourse, but code switching has been a part of people’s’ lives for a long time.

different. At school I was surrounded by wealthy English people, or at least that’s how it felt. I was acutely aware of how different my accents and experiences were from theirs. It only took a few teachers asking me if I’d had help with my homework and some kids mimicking my accent before I realised what was up.

What does it mean for you to sound different from the people that surround you? What kind of disadvantages does it give you to sound different from everyone else? Would it have been different if I went to a blacker school? What toll does it take on your sense of self to be in a constant minority?

Back then, I thought my accent betrayed me. I was angry at it. My parents told me I would have to work harder than the other kids to be respected – and it didn’t even matter how well I did at school, there would still be some people that wouldn’t respect me for no reason other than being black.

I quickly learnt the way I spoke affected my ability to relate to others. I figured out when to use this voice or that voice. I would sound a certain way when answering questions in class - I didn’t want to give anyone any room to think I was less than.

I figured they would probably think it anyway, but at least I was in control of this, at least this much was in my power. And when breaktime came, I would sound entirely different when playing with the other girls, and then even another one when I spoke to the boys. After a while, my Nigerian accent began morphing into an English one, until eventually I sounded like everyone else. But by

The need to move between different spaces is what makes code switching so necessary. Many first, second and third generation immigrants use code switching as a way of navigating the different environments we find ourselves in. One voice in the office, and another with your barber. It’s much more complex than the mere desire to fit in.

I moved to the U.K. in 1995 when I was seven years old. To put it mildly, it wasn’t exactly cool to be ‘African’ back then, and while even as a kid I wanted to be different, I didn’t want to be THAT

this point I had already realised something. I had the ability to switch from one version of me to another when I wanted to. A part of me thought maybe it meant I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t, but somehow it never felt fake. It just felt like I had different voices, and all were me.

was doing it. Not for a second would I allow myself to be seen as less than. You are going to know that I’m your equal. Here’s my evidence – listen to the words I’m using, listen to how I pronounce them. I am one educated motherfucker and you’re going to treat me accordingly.

As I got older and entered professional environments, I noticed the way I communicated with my colleagues and superiors, who were invariably wealthy white men. My enunciation and language changed again. I pronounced my Ts, but now I began to REALLY PRONOUNCE MY Ts. It was subconscious, but there was no mistaking why I

So here I was again, doing that voice thing again.

No longer a ‘school voice’, but now a ‘work voice’.

And here came again that feeling of guilt. Why was I so desperate to make sure ‘they’ knew I was like them? Why was my sense of belonging so conditional, so easily threatened?

Illustration courtesy of Venus Libido

“You are going to know I’m your equal. Here’s my evidence – listen to the words I’m using, listen to how I pronounce them. I am one educated motherfucker and you’re going to treat me accordingly.“

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“The sound of a voice is the sound of belonging.”

And amongst all of this, there are of course the other times when the expectations thrust on you are spelled out. The question that’s impossible to escape “Where are you from? OK, but where are you really FROM?” And then, them finding out I’m Nigerian and asking what language I speak at home. The looks of mild disappointment when I say English. What kind of African are you?

The strangers at parties (not all, but there’s always one)adopting what they believe is a ‘black accent’ when they talk to me. I wonder how many times this barrister has used the word “girrrrrl” before – I’m almost positive it’s his first time at the rodeo.

Now, I KNOW he’s never said “sis” before. He’s never had the opportunity, so he’s taking full advantage of being in a conversation with me. Ironically, he thinks he’s speaking my language. I wonder if he realises he’s doing it. I deliberately reply using my work voice. He’s surprised at the sound. “You’re so well spoken” he says, impressed. “Why shouldn’t I be?” He doesn’t know what to say.

This is an interesting time for anyone who has ever felt the need to code switch. The influx of black and brown faces into increasingly prominent places in society, bringing with them their languages and accents, has had a significant effect on culture and our experience of language. The effect of social media has meant that different forms of speech have been given a platform previously denied to them. The shared language of Black Twitter has provided the foundation for countless memes and expressions. It seems that the majority of dominant online culture is rooted in blackness and a large part of this manifests through language. AAE becoming the official language of online discourse is important. It is not just accepted, but actively encouraged to use so-called ‘black speak’ online in memes and viral videos. And yet, all the while, the same language and accent is frowned upon in real life. Of course, these kinds of prejudices aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, but there’s something kind of gratifying for our cultures to be given the attention they deserve, even if it’s only in these circumstances.

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What I’ve realised since is that code switching is not some damning indictment of your character.

It’s not about ingratiation or impressing others, but about adaptation to your environment. Those of us that code switch have felt the expectations on us, both internal and external, in the different environments that we have find ourselves in.

For minorities existing in white spaces, it’s about being able to move fluidly through different environments and is an instinct that develops from a young age. Whilst it doesn’t mean you feel entirely at home in these environments, it goes a long way in ensuring you remain part of the conversation. We might not be able to do much about the preconceived notions imposed on us by others, but code switching allows us to express the different sides of ourselves as and when we need to. And it doesn’t hinder the way we express ourselves when we are at ease in our home environments – if anything, it reinforces it.

Code switching is also about comfort. Whether it’s not wanting to be judged, or wanting to appear part of the community, or just wanting to make your friends laugh. The sound of a voice is the sound of belonging. We experience community through lived experience and performance. It tells us if the speaker is ‘one of us’, whether they are to be trusted or rejected from the fold.

For the code switchers, it’s a representation of the dynamism and fluidity of culture that we are able to move seamlessly through these opposing worlds. Sometimes it seems there’s almost something Darwinian about it. It’s about survival in hostile work environments and vexing social environments just as much as it as about the freedom you feel hanging out with your friends and family. We use our voices as a signifier of our authenticity and to experience belonging, and code switching is an integral aspect of that. There are different versions of us, but these are parts of a whole.

BRONAGH WAUGH ROSIE FAYE ELLIS

You may recognise Bronagh Waugh as Sally Spector.

The Northern Irish actress stars alongside Jamie Dornan, her on-screen husband Paul Spector, in the TV series ‘The Fall’. Myself and many others are a huge fan of the show, so it’s no surprise when Bronagh names it as the proudest moment in her career so far. “The Fall was such a huge leap from the genre that I had been working in for five years previously, soap. We’ve all been so lucky with the success of it and it was great to make a drama in Belfast that was not surrounding the troubles, and just showcased Belfast as a modern, cool city of it’s own. I’m very proud of that project.” More recently, we can find her on our screens every Sunday night in the ITV drama ‘The Unforgotten’ as Jessica Reid, which Bronagh describes as a bucket list job.

“I was lucky enough to have most of my scenes

with Nicola Walker and Brid Brennan. It was such a huge honour to work with two women who had been such huge influences on me and whose work I admired greatly. They were absolutely lovely smart, supportive, strong and inspiring women.”

Bronagh’s journey into acting hasn’t been straight forward, although she always knew something creative was on the cards from a young age. “I flitted between being an artist, a writer, a potter, a dancer and actor. I was surrounded by a lot of art growing up as my grandmother was an English Literature lecturer, and she ran an arts and craft shop that sold paintings, so I was always inspired a lot by what was around me. But my favourite thing to do was definitely entertain and make my family laugh. I loved doing impressions of people.”

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“It seems crazy that in this day and age, gay couples cannot legally marry in Northern Ireland.

You can disagree with it, sure, but you shouldn’t have the right to stop people from living and being treated like every other citizen in our country.”

Bronagh is extremely well travelled, to the point where I can’t quite pin down where she spent most of her childhood or even where she calls home as an adult. One of her first serious acting roles was based in Thailand on the soap ‘Khrop Khrua Angrit’ when she was just 12 years old, and Bronagh learnt to speak Thai as a result. “I was raised by my single mum and we lived with my grandmother for a time in Northern Ireland. With my mum’s job came a lot of opportunities to move around, so I went with her.” As an actress it’d be easy to describe Bronagh as a chameleon based on the variety of roles she has taken, not to mention her smooth transition from playing comedic character Cheryl Brady in ‘Hollyoaks’, to the wife of a serial killer in ‘The Fall’. I wonder if moving around a lot throughout her childhood helped her grow, not only as a person, but also nurturing her craft as an actress? “100%. Sometimes I found it unsettling and I wasn’t sure where I belonged, but the skills it gave me as a person at coping and adapting to change were hugely influential to who I am today. I also learned to mimic people and their accents and mannerisms to be able to fit in and not get bullied, which I think has lent itself hugely to my job as an actress. I slip very naturally between different accents all the time, as that was what was normal for me growing up.”

The concept of home is still a tricky question for Bronagh to answer. “I continue to live a very nomadic existence with my job. I think I have always felt that Northern Ireland is home to me, in the sense that I feel very strongly and intrinsically linked to the island of Ireland. It feels part of me, my make up and runs in my blood.

But I guess England has been home to me for so many years now.” She continues “I think ultimately, as cheesy as it sounds, home is where your people are. Wherever your family or your tribe are, that is 60

home. It’s taken me a long time to work that out and be at peace with that… home doesn’t have to be just one place.”

Bronagh’s roots are definitely something that she hasn’t forgotten. Growing up in Northern Ireland with gay parents, two strong female role models, Bronagh has since decided to use her platform to become a strong voice within the LBGTQ+ community. She recently attended the same sex marriage rally in Belfast in June, alongside ‘The Fall’ co-star Niamh McGrady. “We are still having to fight for equal rights for our LGBTQ+ community, and for better education about these issues, and there is still a great deal of work to do in dealing with stigma. One of the beautiful things about Northern Ireland is the history that it is steeped in and it’s traditions, but often with that will come with prejudice, especially when it comes to religion, and a lot of barriers still need to be broken down within our communities surrounding that.”

Bronagh goes on to explain that since starting to campaign for equal marriage she’s noticed that fear is at the heart of many problems. However, she firmly believes equality is nothing to be feared, it’s a vital and good thing. “It seems crazy that in this day and age, gay couples cannot legally marry in Northern Ireland. People can disagree with it, sure, but they shouldn’t have the right to stop people from living and being treated like every other citizen in our country.” Bronagh explains how she’s been seriously campaigning for the last three years, and is shocked that change still hasn’t been made. “The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) are adamant that they do not support change and we have been without an active government for 18 months now in Northern Ireland, which means human rights and community issues are going ignored.”

If you follow Bronagh on social media you would have seen that she was a strong voice backing the

Repeal The Eighth campaign, as Ireland voted yes to end the country’s ban on abortion after a historic referendum. “It was an incredible campaign run by the whole Repeal side, and one that I think we can learn a lot from in going forward in fighting for abortion rights in Northern Ireland as well.

It was such a huge and joyous day for Ireland. I cried with tears of joy for the women of Ireland, which very quickly turned to tears of sadness for all those women who have suffered over the years and that continue to suffer in the North because we do not have those rights.” For many of us the Repeal The Eighth campaign fed us with positivity for the future of politics, and in particular the future of politics within Northern Ireland. It could hopefully be a reflection of the change that would be coming. “I think we have a long, long way to go in terms of full equality - women’s rights, education and protecting our NHS. It is so important that

Illustration courtesy of Kati Kirsch

Bronagh has a long term partner and has said that until same sex marriage is legalised in Northern Ireland, she won’t get married herself. In less than a month they are having a “Celebration Of Love” ceremony in England, and her best friend is doing a blessing for them. Once the law has changed in Northern Ireland they will go back home and do the “legal thing” in a special place that means a lot to everyone in their family. “I felt that if my parents’ marriage wasn’t recognised at home, and none of my friends or colleagues who were gay could get married there, then why should I get that privilege too? It would be something that would separate me from people that are very dear to me and I do so much campaigning on the issue that it would have felt hypocritical.”

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“Wherever your family or your tribe are, that is home. It’s taken me a long time to work that out and be at peace with that… home doesn’t have to be just one place.”

all of us are engaged with this, that we challenge our local governments on these issues and stand up for the things we believe in, or we will lose them.” The root of much political discourse in Northern Ireland, Bronagh believes, is that it’s extremely tribal and religious. Large groups of the community get ignored, marginalised and suffer because of people in power’s religious views. “In my experience, religion and government do not go well together.”

Not only does Bronagh want to make huge changes within the politics, laws and human rights of Northern Ireland, she’d also love to set up a school for people to train in acting if they don’t want to or simply can’t afford to go over to drama schools in England. “I am really passionate about ‘passing the baton on’ in terms of my craft. I don’t know if it’s something I would be capable of, but I’d love to support that dream and help facilitate it in some way. The talent back home is incredible, but when there is a strip of sea separating you from the mainland it can be quite difficult. The industry is blossoming with shows such as Game Of Thrones, Line of Duty and The Fall, so it’s important we support local talent both in front and behind the camera.”

In late August we saw the final installment of The Unforgotten, season three (which I won’t spoil for you) but how does someone who appears to be constantly travelling, campaigning for a better future or acting in a hit TV series unwind?

“I love hiking and cycling – my partner and I are members of the National Trust so we love taking wee trips out to explore the countryside and make the most of that. I also love paddle boarding and anything that takes me to the coast. I grew up by the sea in Northern Ireland and living near London now makes me really miss the ocean.

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I also love being creative and am known to be fond of a crafternoon!” As this is The Sound Issue, I want to know who Bronagh is listening to at the moment. “I’m obsessed with podcasts. I love true crime ones like S*Town and Convicted and have been loving the comedian Jarlath Regan’s ‘An Irishman Abroad. He interviews loads of fantastic Irish actors, sports people, writers and musicians and you get a real insight into their lives. Musicwise, I’ve been revisiting some Foy Vance, he’s a modern Irish folk artist. Also, watch out for a young musician and songwriter called Rosie Carney, her voice is stunning, haunting and her music is truly bewitching. I definitely think she is one to watch.”

When we speak, Bronagh name drops so many incredible talents who are coming out of Ireland and you can tell that she truly supports and is extremely proud of her heritage. However, the more I get to know Bronagh I can’t help but think that Northern Ireland are lucky to call her one of their own and that she’s definitely on a mission to make the world a much better, more inclusive place. She tells me “My mother has been such a huge influence and inspiration to me. She has taught me resilience, strength, perseverance, grit but also kindness, standing up for what you believe in and looking out for others. I was very lucky to be raised by incredibly strong, smart and tenacious women.” And that is exactly how I would describe Bronagh herself. She’s someone we would all want fighting our corner. So what’s next? “This year has been pretty full on so I’m going to take it easy, but I’m sure it won’t be long before the suitcase is packed and I’m off again!”

Follow @bronaghwaugh

@UGLYVEGAN EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW

Lucie Johnson has been making waves on the interweb as her alter ego Ugly Vegan. As the username suggests, she posts photos of ugly vegan meals, and has reached a sort of cult following amongst those who eat a plant based diet. We caught up with her about DMs, potato smilies and working with London’s homeless community.

How did Ugly Vegan start?

Ugly Vegan began three years ago. I’d been vegan for a little while but I always felt like such a fraud. The internet and social media made veganism look like this wholesome yoga diet of impossible-to-pronounce-or-afford seeds and vegetables presented in gallery wall worthy ways.

I was eating vegan because I gave a shit, but my food was just the ugliest fucking smush in the world. I would send photos of my depression dinners to my fellow vegan friends and quickly learned that I was absolutely not alone. I started the page as a joke, literally just poking fun at the buddha bowl Instagrams and people loved it.

My pictures, captions and chosen name of ‘Ugly Vegan’ completely juxtaposed social media’s narrow depiction of the vegan world at the time, and although there’s a lot more vegan fast food in the spotlight now, it still follows the same theme.

When did you become a vegan, and why?

This is a question I’m constantly asked, and I’m always keen to be super honest about it. I actually found veganism through a borderline eating disorder. I’d lost three stone through a weird and unhealthy (non-vegan) diet that I’d invented and

was in a very strange and dark spot in my head. I chose veganism as an excuse to control my diet in more of an extreme way, and to retain my weight loss. My crash diet had inspired a lot of unhealthy habits and thoughts and veganism was the next step into the abyss.

Thankfully, as soon as I took the plunge, I actually found myself feeling physically and mentally good for the first time in ages. To add to all of this, veganism gave me a really healthy and fun attitude to food. I enjoyed exploring new cuisines and the challenge and adventure of finding and making interesting food. Veganism added new sociable pleasures like getting excited about a new ‘cheese’ or trying a new restaurant with likeminded friends. This new relationship with food honestly pulled me out of the confusing brain spot I’d found myself in, and accidentally saved my ass. I’ll never ever preach that veganism ‘cures’ anything, and my attitude to begin with was actually quite dangerous looking back...but I am honestly so thankful to what it gave me.

Through my accidental vegan epiphany, my brain was ready to invite information about animal agriculture in. The reasons I remain vegan are simple - because it’s fun, because it’s kind and because now I find it completely alien to want to play a part in harming the environment or animals.

What do you like most about veganism, and what do you hate most about it?

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To be completely honest I love all of it - warts and all. I don’t get bummed out about ‘but plants have feelings’ or ‘where do you get your protein?’ or having to order side salads and chips from country pubs. I really do believe that a good way of promoting veganism is to just set a good example - I try to have a good attitude and approach to veganism all the time (and it’s easy because I genuinely love it!) I don’t believe in the ‘vegan police’ or people telling others off for not being vegan or not being vegan enough. I really just think that by trying your best with good intentions is enough to call yourself vegan.

Why do you think so many people resonate with Ugly Vegan and ugly food?

I think people resonate with Ugly Vegan because we’ve all fucking been there. The meals I tend to showcase are the ones where you’re too lazy to do grocery shopping and have just emptied the random contents of your freezer and cupboards, and you’re sitting in your pants eating this pile of garbage like ‘who the fuck am I’. I think Ugly V is a nice combination of what I call ‘lonely meals’ and also the kind of shit your childhood self would be proud of eating. People always tell me that they love it because it doesn’t demonize the usual food groups, puts a middle finger up to social media’s horrible diet culture, and celebrates eating trash when you feel like it.

Tell us about your volunteer work with the homeless.

I honestly just started feeding the homeless because I had a massive hunger to be kind and give something back. I am very aware of how privileged I am, and I preach a hell of a lot about kindness, but it’s really important to be proactive.

If you care about something, sometimes you have to seek a way to help out. One day I got off my 64

ass and just did some research. I found a little London based homeless charity that I liked the sound of and jumped straight in. Although I said I initially did it to ‘be kind’, I very quickly felt that I benefited much more than my homeless guests do at our services - I never learn or laugh as much as I do with them. The homeless community is an incredibly interesting, smart and lovely bunch of people who have really fucking important things to say and it’s absolutely vital that we start listening to and acknowledging them. It’s so easy to find your mental health spiralling out of control and although most of us are fortunate enough to have great support networks to pick us back up, it’s a sad fact that any of us could find ourselves in similar positions. It’s so important to know that the homeless community isn’t a collective of lazy people, rejects or addicts - it’s made up of great people who found themselves taking wrong turns.

My homeless friends are fathers, wives, sisters, dancers, soldiers, IT consultants, chefs, people who fucking love Nightwish, people who rate the opera, people who are terrified of society... they are us and they deserve to be treated with absolute respect.

Funnily enough, most of my homeless guests absolutely detest vegan food - and will have a good old chuckle at me when I tell them about the ‘strange’ things I eat. The charity isn’t a vegan one so we serve meat which is often donated by restaurants and supermarkets, but always offer a vegan option. I would say that the volunteer work I’m involved in is completely separate to the vegan bits I do, but I guess that there is definitely a recurring theme of kindness.

A vegan diet is becoming much more mainstream, with most chain restaurants and supermarkets now offering vegan options. In your opinion, what are the pros and cons to this?

Mainstream chain restaurants and supermarkets offering more and more vegan options is an absolutely great thing. The more we make veganism seem normal, accessible and in demand - the less fucking weird we look. I have no doubt that this will help a lot of ‘on the fence’ vegans take the leap. Admittedly, we are a very lazy society and we’ve gotten used to having anything we want, whenever we fucking want it. I know that a lot of people are afraid of having this luxury taken away from them through going vegan so the more mainstream options are out there, the better. I will forever opt for chucking my money at an all vegan/independent business, but this isn’t

What item of food are you waiting for there to be a vegan alternative to?

You know what, nothing really. If there’s a will there’s a way. Anything I’ve ever craved I’ve managed to find an alternative to and that is part of the adventure. Get at me for vegan tiramisu, smoked ‘salmon’ bagels or whiskey sours (complete with ‘egg’).

What’s the weirdest DM you’ve ever been sent?

I get some incredible DMs... the fucked up meal submissions are sometimes honestly horrifying. I bonded with a man’s dog on the tube (as you do) the other day and somehow we got talking and found out that not only was this guy also vegan, but he followed my page and brought up ‘That Sausage’ - which is a current Ugly Vegan phenomenon. It’s a submitted video of a sausage filled with cheese... spurting out.. er... liquid cheese.

A lot of people have expressed their disgust about it. I also have more than once received video DMs off complete strangers just singing drunk at me which is always great.

What’s the worst vegan meal you’ve ever eaten/ made?

Man, I ran out of bread so made a filthy burger in a hot cross bun and it was not delicious.

What’s your best vegan life hack/pro tip?

Potato waffles can be cooked in the toaster. Enjoy yourself. OG Bisto gravy is fucking vegan.

Do your family + colleagues know about your Ugly Vegan alter-ego, and what do they think of it?

Yes! Literally only this year I’ve really ‘come out’ my dad thinks it’s great and often texts me photos of his ugly vegan meals hoping that one day he’ll be famous. Some of my colleagues know too - we had a vegan food truck cater for us once and they took great pleasure in embarrassing me about it! They quickly ate their words because it was absolutely delicious and they had to admit it to me that my ‘people’ did good.

Any advice for people who are thinking about going vegan?

I mentioned it before, but just try your best. I remember being terrified of how overwhelming it all was. Adopting new habits like checking labels and venturing to weird corners of supermarkets feels really alien at first. I’d totally say just do as much as you can at your own pace and don’t panic too much. The vegan police absolutely doesn’t exist and if someone tries to call you out, they are crap vegans. I cut out dairy and meat and checked labels super early on, but it was months later that I realised that certain toiletries, toothpastes etc weren’t. You sort of adopt information as you go along and it’s so crucial to not be overwhelmed by it because it’s supposed to be a good thing! Enjoy the adventure! Also don’t panic if vegan cheese weirds you the fuck out at first, I promise you’ll get there!

Finally, describe your relationship with potato smilies.

Mate, who doesn’t want their food to smile back at them. It’s life affirming shit.

Photography courtesy of Ugly Vegan

always possible. I always visualise me picking a vegan option at an omnivorous establishment as me ticking a box for veganism - showing them that the demand is fucking there... and may end up meaning that they end up re-thinking how much meat they order. I’ve seen a lot of omnivorous restaurants go vegan over the past couple of years and it honestly makes me beam. It’s definitely a thing.

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SEINABO SEY

Sweater: Carhartt WIP Dungarees: Carhartt WIP Jewellery: Seinabo’s Own

Photography by Frida Vega Salomonsson/Styling by Selam Fessahaye Make Up by Sainabou Secka/Hair by Momo Sabah/Concept + Art Direction by Beccy Hill

All Clothing Stylist’s Own

Shirt: Carhartt WIP

Jewellery: Remake, Caroline Swedborn

“if we only express ourselves through our music, I think that nothing else should be expected from us because that’s really all I’m promising to be good at.”

Forward ever, backwards never WORDS BY BECCY HILL “What’s the difference between making an album and a comeback?” I speak to Seinabo Sey on the phone from Stockholm. The Swedish-Gambian singer is about to take the train to Gothenburg for a week’s vacation after finishing up in the studio, where she’s spent the past three years recording her second album. “I mean to me, it’s not a time out at all, because I’ve been in the studio basically every other day for all of that time. But I guess the way music works nowadays people would call that like a comeback or something. I hadn’t really thought about it that much until recently when people started telling me that…”

I get the sense that making music isn’t the easiest thing for her. “I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of sound I want, what I want to keep from last time, and what I need to change and make better.” However, Seinabo has dropped three singles so far in 2018 - ‘I Owe You Nothing’, ‘Remember’ and ‘Breathe’. Seinabo describes her writing process for the powerful and self assured, ‘I Owe You Nothing’. “We did something that we call beat roulette, it works like Russian roulette, and they just play me a beat where I have to freestyle over it. So I freestyled the chorus for that song, and then it took about a year to fill the verses up with something that I felt was strong enough, but also vague enough to be able to apply anything to it. That’s really what I wanted, because I love it when stories are able to open up and become something for the listener, rather than being so clearly my experience” Visuals for all three singles were shot in Gambia, where Seinabo’s father is from. “The idea of me shooting there has always been a super distant dream. I never ever thought I would have the money or be able to get a crew to do that. I was so blessed to be with the people that I wanted to follow through my vision with.” Gambia has started to feel more like home to Seinabo as she has gotten older, despite being brought up in Sweden.

“I really feel like I’m not a complete person if I don’t get to be in both places. I’ve come to terms with that and realised that about myself, so I’m 70

just going to do all that I can to go there often.”

Seinabo has always been extremely open about not feeling like she belongs in the primarily white society of Sweden. However, she says she has started to feel better about it in recent years. “I guess I’ve been able to control my surroundings more. It’s a very conscious choice, like all my friends are people of colour and we try to, even though there’s not very much urban culture here to be honest, we just try to speak to each other and speak more openly and vocally about it. So I feel less alone even though the situation is pretty much the same.” She says going to Gambia has helped her to be able to be herself, which comes across strongly in the lyrics for her single Breathe.

However, when I ask if she’d ever move from Stockholm she responds without skipping a beat.

“Oh yeah, absolutely. Definitely. I’m ready to leave.

I’ve been thinking about going to Paris. Senegal has also been in the back of my mind for two years now, so I might go there. But then again, it’s just this problem I have with [language] French!”

Being in the studio for the second time has given her a new lease of confidence. “This time around I knew so much more and I wanted to experiment.

It wasn’t always easy to get people who are pretty set in their ways to do that, but I’m very curious about music and I really want to try new things, and for me that was a hard thing as well. It was a balance between inspiring people and kind of forcing them to do what I want!” It seems this was a huge learning curve for Seinabo. “I tried to not be so scared of not being liked - I realise as a woman that that is probably my biggest fear.

And I just realised that it’s bullshit, and I want to get things done so I’ve had to rewire my brain.”

When we speak about being a female artist, Seinabo is quick to point out that whilst women being oppressed is one of the world’s greatest injustices, it’s not up to her to use her platform to rectify that. “I think it’s absolutely within an artist’s right to not be literal or political, and if we only express ourselves through our music, I think that nothing else should be expected from us because

that’s really all I’m promising to be good at.” This is amplified by being a woman of colour - to use her own words, she doesn’t want to put any more responsibility upon herself. “As a black woman, I feel like we just need to be able to be carefree. Of course I’m going to speak about the experience of being a black woman forever, because I am and I enjoy that, I also think it’s needed, but I don’t want to talk about more than in my music.”

Seinabo’s father, Maudo Sey, was also a musician who drummed with a popular afro-pop band called Ifang Bondi. He died in 2013. Whilst she starts off by telling me that he neither encouraged nor discouraged her from getting into music, once she decided upon her path, it was all or nothing. “I remember for a while that he was pretty harsh. I haven’t thought about this for a very long time but he would be like if you’re going to do this, then you have to do it properly, you have to rehearse. I guess that stuck in my mind, but it’s the standard of being raised black and getting to hear your whole life that you have to work twice as hard as everyone else, at whatever you do.” She goes back to her thoughts on black women needing to be more carefree. “We have to start, and this might sound weird, but embracing our mediocrity, and

things we do which are mediocre, and to just live in that fully. I realise that I stop myself from doing all kinds of things because I’m not an expert at it, which is a privilege that white people have.”

From October, Seinabo will start a short tour of Scandinavia. This she says, is her favourite part of her job. “I’d say it goes touring, music videos, and then the rest of it, haha! I love touring, I’ve missed it so so much, I really feel like a part of my whole personality has been missing because I haven’t got to do it in like two years.” She says if she could change one thing about the music industry, it would be the extreme fixation with appearance.

“I don’t think we’ve done anything where women can just stand with a piano or with a guitar, in a t-shirt and jeans and just be a rockstar, it’s so unfair.” She has a point - it’s hard to imagine a female equivalent of Ed Sheeran being responded to well. “We miss so much music because we don’t want to look at the people creating the music. It’s ridiculous, I feel like that is the saddest part of my job.”

When I ask Seinabo what her plans for the rest of 2018 are, she remarks “Oh god...stay alive!”

I think most twenty something year olds can 71

relate (myself included). “I feel like for once I just want to try to do this and have fun. I’m not super obsessed with perfection anymore, so I just want to be excited about everything, that’s my goal for this year.” With her new album dropping in September, things are bound to get hectic, and I admire her attitude. “We’re young people, and we should really be excited about what’s going to happen and not be so worried about everything.

At this point I know I can survive almost anything, so the rest of this shit is just going to have to be fun.”

So what can we expect from “I’m A Dream”, Seinabo’s upcoming album? “There’s one song that’s an iPhone recording in its entirety. There’s a lot of songs with live instruments, as well as a couple of the produced Magnus (Lidehall) tracks that are like so vital, and make everything go full circle.” As someone who started singing professionally when they were in their late teens, it seems that Seinabo is not only just discovering who she is, but really starting to embrace that as well. On the phone she is softly spoken, extremely polite, but I get an underlying sense that she knows exactly what she wants. She might not want to be a political poster girl, or use her platform for activism, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t extremely clued up about the world around her. “I just feel like there’s a disconnection with a lot of things in society, and we’re not really connecting.” However, she continues “There’s always hope, but sometimes I just feel like I should maybe be more proud of myself for not losing it because everything points that way, some days. Can somebody just get me an award for staying alive?” Whilst I feel her pain, I imagine they’ll certainly be different kinds of awards on the horizon for her.

The album “I’m A Dream” is out now.

Follow @seinabosey on Instagram.

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“At this point I know I can survive almost anything, so the rest of this shit is just going to have to be fun.”

Artwork by ChloĂŠ Cavalier

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