We talk about wanting and needing Black work/art of ALL possibilities. We talk about ‘allowing’ Black artists the same freedom to experiment and/or fail. So why the ‘particular’ disappointment/criticism when Black work/art does not fulfil ALL expectations?

Is ‘only excellence allowed’ one of the key drivers for the frustrations around the breadth of work from Black artists? And how much do we censor our ideas/artistic urges because of this? And that impulse to be somehow more disappointed by Black work/art that doesn’t speak to us

Do you feel it in your chest or your ego? Can Black art/artists ever take burden off of just representing some part of themselves instead of the whole diaspora/community? How many Black artists don’t bother to create from the real fear of being demonised/vilified?

How long are we going to keep buying into the lie of the single story? And inspired by Chinua Achebe...do we believe there is only one story the lion can tell? Whilst the hunter comes in many forms?

Still my favourite proverb -
“Until the lion has their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”

As a Black artist, I ask myself these questions everyday. This is what some of us wrangle with before we write a single word because I know that one wrong move and my work/existence/art is dismissed. That’s a pain we all lose from. A sadness under my ribs. But still I write...

And my resistance to excellence is a resistance to colonial bullshit. And my resistance to the single story is a resistance to colonial bullshit.
And the fight becomes about my work/art thriving in spite of the colonial bullshit in any form or body it lives in. Resist. Redefine.

Individual taste in art is not in dispute but if you think work/art of your faves in anyway escapes matrix of colonial undertones/white patronage/money/personal takes, then all I feel is pity. We want the work but maybe not range that actually exists in our Blackness?