• Standard Tickets: N5, 000,
• Standard VIP Silver Tickets: N20, 000
• VIP Gold Table: N350, 000
• Platinum VIP Table: N1, 000,000

• Eko Hotel and Suites Reception - VI
• Genesis Deluxe Cinemas  - Oniru
• Ozone Cinemas - E- Centre - Yaba
• Silverbird Cinemas VI & IKEJA
• Get Arena  - Oniru
• Le Reve Pieces – The Jewellery Store, 1b Niyi Okunubi street - Lekki

I was having a little bit of a shitty day, but it's better now. I'm in Stranger with a half pot of coffee I can scarcely afford and Yegwa the proprietor, is reading an article out loud about how Ted Talks lie to us. I wish you could be here. This is a sort of home for me.

The time has come for me to drop a line or more about Beyoncé. I was hoping to avoid it but I have read so much rubbish over the past few days that I cannot bear it any longer. She's been swimming around in my head, and I must exorcise her. You see, my traditional stance on Beyonce is that I am not a fan of hers. It is not that I do not like her music, or that I do not like her as a person. It's just that I'm not sure that this is enough to be a Beyoncé fan in 2013. In fact there are no Beyoncé fans, there are only stans. They're the ones that stand on the ready to decimate anyone that dares criticise their king. They buy her albums twice or thrice, and talk and tweet about her all the time. I would know. My twitter live feed is filled with people like this. These are the people that saw her twice in London during her Mrs. Carter tour, and still bought tickets to see her again in 2014. It isn't a bad thing to be a stan. In fact it's quite a lovely thing. I like Beyoncé. I really do... but not that much.

Beyoncé is an enigma for me. I do not feel that we know who she is when she stops being Beyoncé. There is nothing about her that we know that she herself didn't tell us. She's probably one of the most guarded celebrities out there. What we hear and see are things that she herself puts out there so they could not be real. She more than most others makes it clear that what she does is a job. And she's very good at it. She's perfect celebrity for such an imperfect world. She's black, but not so black that white people can't relate to her. A friend of mine from Uni once told me that while he wasn't racist he couldn't imagine shagging a black woman. I asked him if he would shag Beyoncé and he said yes. I informed him that Beyonce was a black woman and he kept quiet. We never spoke about it again. Her body is black-esque. She celebrates her curves, but she really isn't that curvy. She's curvy enough that black girls with phat booties can identify with her, but at the same time her booty is small enough that white women don't feel like they're left out of the conversation. When she's on stage she doesn't wear a lot, but you cannot call her a slut, or a whore, because when she's not on stage she's fully covered up. Beyoncé's Christian, but liberal. She supports the LGBTQ movement. She's feminist but at the same time, she's chosen some of the things feminists have fought against. Of course, if a woman calls herself a feminist it is impossible to say that she isn't. Feminisms cannot be compared with one another. Different women will want different things, and who is anyone to say that one of them is righter than the other? She sings about love, and sex, but then she's happily married. She's the perfect balance between Conservative and Liberal. She plays both sides of the fence. She is a blank wall, the people that support her take from her what they will. She stands for so much that it is impossible not to find one facet of your life that she supports. 

Beyoncé dropped her latest album on Thursday night or early Friday morning and it set social media afire. People were quick to say that there was no marketing for it but there was. It wasn't obvious, but it was there. It started late last year when she signed that $50 million dollar deal with pepsi. The internet didn't blow up, but I remember reading several articles about how she was somehow supporting child obesity. I disagreed with the sentiment. I love pepsi. I drank a 50 centilitre bottle of it earlier today. I know enough that I shouldn't drink 20 a day. Then in January, there was Beyoncé-gate. She sang the American National anthem over a backing track and it blew up. Everyone covered it. It was impossible to miss. We knew then that she was going to be headlining the Superbowl halftime show and what's more during the press conference she gave for the Superbowl half time show she belted out the National Anthem acapella and silenced even her most determined critics. The year before, Madonna headlined the show, and she released a single (Give me all your luvin) shortly before it. The Superbowl halftime show is the perfect promotion vehicle. I expected Beyoncé to take advantage of this. I was waiting for the single. There was none. Her Superbowl performance was epic, but that was almost a sure thing, she scarcely puts a foot wrong live. After her Superbowl performance she announced that she'd be going on tour. I was surprised because there was no new album to promote. It seemed like a tour from out of the blue. In March, Ryan Tedder, the man who penned Halo, said that he'd been in the studio with her, but that her album wasn't ready. In the same month  I've Been on/Bow down leaked, so we knew that there was definitely new material out there. That too caused a little bit of a buzz because of how vulgar it was. She said nothing. Writers said everything that there could be said about a song, and her fans pined. On the fourth of April, she released her pepsi commercial with a clip of her song "Grown Woman." Her fans were pleased but they were also disappointed. She'd announced that there'd be something new on her youtube page with #BEYHERENOW. They were expecting a new single, but they made do with 30 seconds of a song that was good enough to be one, and 20 seconds of their queen dancing with past versions of herself. And then she went on tour.

While she was on tour, her H and M commercial that featured the song, Standing on the Sun was released. It too was good enough to be a single. After that she performed Grown Woman live, and we all heard it. We all watched a fan's recording of it. There was no way I could escape it because I follow pop culture so closely. I longed for her to stop dominating my radar. I wanted her to drop her album and be done with it. If I felt like this I can only imagine how her stans felt. They must have been starving for something new, something they could buy, something tangible. A bit after that she performed Standing on the Sun live as well. We would have continued talking about her if Miley Cyrus hadn't happened. After Miley's antics lost all of their shock value, she was back. She wasn't as news dominant as she'd been before but she was there lurking. As late as a week before her album was released I was reading articles that said her album could be expected next year. These articles were followed by the news that she would continue touring in 2014. Her hive almost died. They'd endured a year of tantric foreplay with no release.

They'd been teased mercilessly with the hope of new music  so when she made it available all at once, complete with videos, they gorged. It isn't marketing or promotion as my generation has known it, but I think it still counts. It's like when you go through a period of immense poverty and then you receive a windfall. You always splurge. You gorge yourself like a starved lion. And that's exactly what her fans have done. Has it changed things? Not really. She probably won't be able to do this for a while. In fact no one will be able to do what she's done for a while. She's put her name on the surprise release. Anyone that does it now will be mentioned together with Beyoncé. She'll steal the story. I imagine that she and her team's busy now, working on her next move. There's one thing that's clear, Beyoncé is the annoying child in school that never sleeps. Rihanna's partying, Katy Perry's shagging John Mayer, Miley's twerking with Mike Will Made it,  Lady Gaga's being weird, and Beyoncé's working. 


Happy Days,
Afam

I'm sorry I've been away for a week. A week's a long time when you claim to take something seriously. At the same time, I'm not sorry. I needed a break. Sometimes, I need to watch things and live through things before I can blog again. Yes, I need to live to blog. I know it's cheesy but it's true. The other day, someone said, "you're such an awesome events blogger." I almost died. I can't blame him for thinking that. I've been rather eventy since Fashion Week. I practically shut the blog down for fashion week. It worked. It got me some followers that I wouldn't have snagged otherwise and I'm grateful. I would go on to say how grateful I am for everything, but then I'd probably cry. But this blog post isn't about all of that. It's about what da what happened to me in Edo.

I'll backtrack a little bit. Every Nigerian that intends to live and work in Nigeria in any serious, not self employed, government contract getting capacity has to have completed the compulsory year of National service. During this year, you're posted to any one of Nigeria's 36 states. I know! It's fairly surprising that Nigeria has 36 states. No, they aren't all like Lagos but that doesn't mean that they're villages either. Those with means and connections make it so they serve in the place that's most convenient for them, and those that haven't got the means get on with it. I wanted to serve in Lagos. The blog could thrive in Lagos. Lagosians like to read about things that happen in Lagos. They aren't so keen on things that happen elsewhere. Papa Afam promised to make it so I served in Lagos. I was stupid. I should have sorted it out myself. Nigerian parents are mostly confused about what to do with their twenty somethings. On the one hand they berate them for not being independent enough and on the other they treat them like they're tragically incapable of independence. The result is a sort of confusion about everything. They bark out orders while expecting you to make your own choices. The conflict kills me. Papa Afam did nothing, and I was posted to Edo state.

I won't tell you that I took it well, because I didn't. I ordered a bucket of KFC and some ice cream and binged. I almost never eat that much at once, but I did that night. The next day I went a little bit mad and that's when the Mammy water thing happened.


Yeah, I super glued sea shells to my man ta tas, put on a wig and a skirt and pranced about the place. Don't ask me to explain this.  It's awkward for me. When I did this, it was important that the images didn't look feminine. They were meant to be funnier than they were controversial, and I think they were. If they weren't then I'll try harder next time.

After that I calmed down some. It was in that brief calm that I donned the Afam Mantle. The Afam Mantle is the equivalent of a bottle of tequila. It lets me do any and all things. I can walk down the street naked, if I'm wearing the Afam mantle. It's a space I go to in my head where I contain everything that sucks in my life and radiate the good. It's a flood of enthusiasm, and truly dizzying heights of felicity. It's like a drug for me. It isn't easy to put on, and sometimes it's even harder to maintain. There were four instances when it cracked in Camp. The first was when I got diarrhoea, the second was when I got Malaria and the flu at the same time, the third was when an insect flew into my eye and effectively scratched my cornea (It's a longer story than that, but you'll have to make do with the short version for now), the fourth was when I didn't originally get relocated. It's easy to put on a brave face for three weeks, but I wasn't ready to put it on for a whole year. Papa Afam said I'd be back in Lagos every weekend, but sometimes he tells the sweetest lies. I don't blame him though. I had a full blown freak out session on the phone. I would have lied to me too. Apart from those four instances, I had the best time.

Me in the middle of a Man O' War drill

Another one. They're both kind of awesome. The drill was so much fun. I'd just finished 30 days of the insanity so my body was nearly in peak condition. I aced all of the obstacles on the course. There weren't any bits where I required assistance.

This was the first cultural dance I did as a member of the Edo State Dance and Drama (Theatre) troupe. They saw me in my platoon's play and asked me to join up the next day so I did. It was a Yoruba one. There was no count but, du ke ke, gbe di gbe gbe di. I did it like a man on steroids. My smile didn't falter. My energy couldn't be matched. It was exciting in an odd look at me cultural dancing and killing it way.
This is me dancing in the carnival. My platoon won. Yes, I glittered my man ta tas. And that is a palm frond skirt. It's so bloody grand! My platoon won the carnival and how could they not have. We had a skelewuing tortoise.
This is me and the jungle masquerade king. As you can probably tell, we were in the same carnival section. He's got platoon 3 written on his chest.

Alaska was my twin masquerade during the carnival. My abs looked good here. I haven't got them anymore though. I called Alaska, Alaska, because I met him over a bottle of Alaska Vodka. I have a thing for giving people names that aren't theirs. It's a fun thing to do.
Blacky and I before dance number 3. Blacky was my best mate there. The make up here was amusing.

;)

From the left, Alaska, Pull Over, Thirsty girl, me (Shot Put), Purple

This was another part of the man o' war drill.

This was after we won the carnival. People popped beer like it was champagne. We had fun though. My leaf skirt was falling apart and my bits were starting to show. Oh yeah the girl with me's Pull Over.

That slit is kind of crazy though.

Me atop the 6 foot wall.

I photo bombed this shot.

This was the Zulu dance aka dance number 3. Have you met Blacky? He's the guy in the back.

Predawn jogging

The play I was in for the Edo State Dance and Drama Troupe

My platoon's play. I was the white man.

Blacky, Thirsty Girl, and I.

Pullover and I making a fictional love picstitch.

Grace and I mucking about during one of the theatre troupe rehearsals

My dorm. There were over 200 of us.

Before dance number 2.

Dance number 2. This was an Ibo themed one.

The guy on the far right's Chichi. You've met everyone else.

This was taken on my second day there. I was getting my tan on. When I left, I was considerably darker than when I got there. But that's okay. I'm doing some research into bleaching products. It isn't bleaching if you're restoring your original complexion right? Team light skinned all the way. That's how ill fitting my trousers were before I got them tailored.

The guy on the far right's Winchy Winchy.

where is the diamond?

These are a few of the shots I have of my time there. I have to say that it wouldn't have been half as much fun without my crew, the Super Turn Uppers, Blacky, Thirsty Girl/Dirty Girl/ Rafiki, Alaska, Chichi, Winchy Winchy, Ajebo, Purple, and Pull Over. I was the master namer here. Can you tell? But they got back at me by calling me Shot Put. In camp terms, Shot Put is the art of flinging your shit into the bush. I talked about my toilet adventures a lot so I earned the name.

The aim of NYSC camp isn't to survive. You're not meant to go in for three days, and skip out on it because you've got imagined asthma. It can be fun if you let it. All you've got to do is find that mini-sun of delight that lives at the bottom of the rainbow in your heart. I would say more but we're renovating the house and builders need to turn the internet off. I don't know that I'll write about Edo again here. It was too long ago, and my backlog is immense. If you ever meet me in person, ask me about it, and I'll tell you everything.


Happy Days,
Afam.

There has never been a bigger example of stating the obvious than this. Mandela is dead. We all know it. We all feel it. Another legend's gone. I feel as bad as I did when Diana died, and when Theresa died and when John Paul died. I ignore their titles because let's face it, titles don't exactly make the great crossing with you. There aren't as many of them as there once were and that's a shame because we could use a few more. We could always use a few more. Or maybe we just haven't seen the next crop of them. All the legends I just listed peaked in the nineties and as a child of the nineties, they're special to me. The nineties were a mood. The nineties were Sex and the City. The nineties were early and new conversations. At the end of the nineties, I was only nine, but I was a part of it even though I did not understand the events that would make me feel connected to it a decade and a bit later.

Mandela became president when I was four. Diana died on a Sunday while I sat on a rickety stool at our breakfast bar in the apartment we used to live in. I fell off it when I heard. I can't quite say why. It could be because she took my death virginity. It was more like death rape to be honest. I didn't consent to hearing that bit of news. Theresa died five days after. There was no shock value to be had then, I was already used to the concept. John Paul kept on until 2005. His death in my mind is mixed with imagined scenes from the Da Vinci code and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Now it's 2013, and Mandela's gone. The only legends of my childhood left are Clinton, Tutu and my Grandfather. They were my more realistic super heroes. They were my ninja turtles and my avengers. They were the people that did everything in their  power to make the world even slightly better.

During Obama's speech at Madiba's memorial service, he said that there would never be another like him. I disagree. To say that there will never be another like him is to halve his legacy and trivialise it. There will be others. There will be several. I know this just as I know that the sun will come up tomorrow.

Sitting at my desk remembering,
Afam

Pocket squares by Post Imperial

There's this store in Lagos that's more than a store. They sell clothes but the clothes they sell are more than clothes. They brew tea and coffee but at the same time they don't, not really. You pay for these things, these services that they offer, but at the same time you don't, not really. It's an experience, not because of the clothes that they sell, or the tea that they brew, or the magenta light that filters in through a sliding door. It's an experience because the moment you step through the metal door that could really be the door to your friends apartment you're transported to some great other. You can't put your finger on it. Chances are that it's like nowhere you've been before. It isn't vintage, but it smells like it, and it isn't like any store you'll find in London or New York or Tokyo, but it somehow captures the spirit of the three. It's the East Village, meets Camden, meets an apathetic Otaku who's got money and at the same time it is none. It's effort that isn't necessarily effort. It's the anonymous homeless man that isn't actually homeless. It is all these paradoxes and more.

That's my silhouette. Stranger makes for great pictures.

In stranger, you are lost, and then you are found. It exists in complete isolation from the rest of Lagos. It is decidedly anti-fashion. It stocks clothes that are anti-fashion but they must not be mistaken more being unfashionable. They are subtle and timeless, which is a stark juxtaposition from Lagos fashion. The other day, I was at a premier for a tv show and I noted that seven out of ten shoes worn by men were bedazzled, bespiked, bejewelled or beglittered. What many fail to realise is that in a room where all the birds try to outshine, out colour and out glam each other, it is the dullest darkest one that steals the show. This is what most of the clothes that the stranger sells will do. You won't be the brightest, but that doesn't mean that you won't be the most memorable.

They stock Yohji Yamamoto, Orange Culture, Post Imperial and a few other brands who all fit into the Stranger spirit. It's got more menswear than womenswear but menswear and womenswear are words that hold no sway there. Several of the pieces sold feature a sizeless aesthetic that is distinctly sexless.



The second half of the store is a magenta tinged coffee house and tearoom that I have come to love. I do not use love lightly. You must understand that it opened in August this year, and I only made my way there in December, but there no longer exists a future for me where there isn't Stranger. I'll be there on today for a five minute conversation with Yegwa and Bibi, the proprietors. We'll talk about Shingeki no Kyojin and One Piece, and they'll tell me about Yohji Yamamoto and everything he's accomplished. They say that they need the space, and I understand their need profoundly. I need the space. Anyone with even a smattering of creativity needs the space. It's everything, it's nothing, it's strange. There aren't enough words, but at the same time these are too many words. It's the space between the line. It's the current that moves the words that drop from our lips. It's a place of refuge for everyone that's been searching for that thing. There's something about the space that communes with your spirit and calls you. Once you have been called, you'll find yourself going back.

Yegwa in the magenta tea room. I like how noisy this image is.

These are far too many words for a store but then again it's more than a store.

Here we've got Mai Atafo, the iconic designer and Mode´ of the Studio of Mode´, both shot in Stranger.

Happy Days,
Afam

ps. Stranger's on nuMber 3 Hakeem Dickson street, Lekki phase 1. Their number's 0802 761 4903