jamika

i came to "earth an alien" the original title of poem that later became song for one zenzile track (www.zenzile.com) has been a life motif for me. Just ask my dad. He was witness to one of my first works of fiction i wrote as a awkward nerdy kid in which i described an encounter with extraterrestrial life forces which told me to have patience that now is (was) not the time for you to go "home". Maybe not too hard to imagine where this story came from. growing up chocolate chip in a predominately white suburb. but it was deeper than that. I didn't feel as if i fit anywhere. In the black community i didn't adhere to codes of blackness. Or it wasn't me. In the straight community I couldn't pass for girl and i had feelings for other girls. And though i wasn't a manhater (some of my best friends are boys) i always found myself putting my hands around their wastes during slow dances. And my dad was annoyed with me wearing baseball caps all the time. Out in the "real world" I tested my "Black ability" still searching for other aliens like me. and of course discovered all of them weren't necessarily black. I found links with others who were often hailed with calls and glances that said "wot are u- u freak", as we did not fit nicely into any category. And our lives were made difficult because of this. And we were told we should hate ourselves because of this. This made my little alien inside really angry and i began to shout about it. Make films about it. Write poetry about it and eventually write songs about it. After awhile i guess i realised nobody really fit.
Only some of us could pretend to fit. And the pretending leads to the tragedy of souls decaying whilst still clinically living. We live in a society that makes it difficult to be who we really are comfortably, and makes profit out of our discomfort, out of the spiritual deaths, and real physical genocides worldwide. People are dying in front of their televisions as well as in war torn countries. People are dying from hunger in the bars and pubs as well as in those third world lands, which have been stripped of their natural resources to benefit the few. People have been living in concentration camps both in their CCTV and debt filled existences as well as in various torture camps known and unknown. And that has been the impetus in someway behind the album i have been working on for the last several years HELIUM BALLOON ILLUSIONS--- I found myself travelling searching still for like souls, landing me for last several years over here on the small island that likes to call itself the Empire and working with misfits all over Europe. the making of HELIUM BALLOON ILLUSIONS has been a labour of love, with other like minded individuals who are also resistant to fixed definitions- internalised as well as externalised restrictive borders. peace to the aliens.



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