Azúcar, the latest novel by British-Ghanaian writer, Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a story as sweet as the title suggests. Set across the fictional Isle of Fumaz, Ghana and the USA’s ‘Sun Coast’, Azúcar explores themes of belonging, grief, legacy and community through protagonists Yunior and Emiliana. Ghana-born Yunior moves to Fumaz as a teenager, escaping […]
Category: Feature
Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené Represent Authentic Black Adolescence in The Offline Diaries.
Authors of Slay in Your Lane, Elizabeth Uviebinené and Yomi Adegoke, make their fiction debut with The Offline Diaries. The book follows Adé and Shanice, two young Black girls navigating secondary school social dynamics, grief, new beginnings, and complex inner worlds expressed through a series of diary entries and social media interactions. AZ recently caught […]
A Conversation With Elegance Bratton
Pier Kids is a documentary film by Elegance Bratton. The film interrogates the meaning of community within at-risk LGBTQ+ youth of colour and also the larger gay community. It’s not uncommon for those within the arts to immerse themselves into the environment they wish to film – but for Elegance, Pier Kids was an extremely […]
AZ Creative Fund Recipient Kandace Siobhan Walker On Being a Writer and Filmmaker
Recently, I had the honour and the delightful experience to speak with Kandace Siobhan Walker, award winning-writer, filmmaker, and a recent recipient of AZ Mag’s Creative Fund. Kandace is funny, honest, insightful, and inspiring. Our interview touches on themes of creativity, inspiration, artistic practice, and craft, winning awards and her new short film Cleaning Ladies. […]
K Bailey Obazee On The Importance Of Inclusive Black Storytelling
“It’s about the history of us.” In an interview, K Bailey Obazee describes a core principle of PRIM, the platform she founded to archive and amplify inclusive Black storytelling. As a queer Black British woman and multi-faceted creative, K was dissatisfied with only having limited access to narratives she could relate to and says: “If […]
“Stay Weird You Only Live Once”: Yasmin Benoit On Being Alternative and Asexual
Happy LGBTQIA+ History month! I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of speaking with Yasmin Benoit, asexual model and activist. Yasmin is witty, incisive and passionate. In the interview we chat about a range of topics from Yasmin’s guilty pleasures, what it was like growing up, asexuality and media representation, being sexualised and why […]
Grace Barber-Plentie – The Curator Envisioning a Fat Utopia
Depictions of fat women in TV & film have rarely done them any justice. Whether it’s the mockery of fat Black women seen in Tyler Perry’s Madea and Eddie Murphy’s ‘Norbit’ or various fat characters sidelined to the funny best friend (à la Kim in Moesha), the representation of fatness in TV and film has […]
It’s A Continent Podcast: Decolonising African History One Episode At A Time
This March, best friends Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata launched It’s a Continent; a podcast “passion project” exploring African history, with aims to dispel shallow perceptions of the continent and its people. Humble in their ambitions, neither woman imagined the podcast would gain as much traction as it has, in just seven months. “To even […]
7 People To Watch In 2020
We have now entered a new decade and it wouldn’t be right without acknowledging talented members of the QTIPOC community who are set to be game changers this year and beyond. Liyah Mai Leoni This girl is making waves! Liyah self published her first book entitled, ‘Sincerely yours…’ last year and the reviews have been […]
Womanhood and Power: Perception Festival
Each year, multi-award-winning independent Clapham Omnibus Theatre hosts their Perception festival which celebrates and explores different topics and themes relevant to our modern-day society. Perception 2019 theme, ‘nasty woman’ explored the, ‘perceived notions of femininity and womanhood in a rich and riotous range of voices’. The line-up was a compelling collage, ‘of theatre and performance […]