Good Hair/Bad Hair do you care?

Last night I went to watch Chris Rock's documentary Good Hair. Mr Special joined me. This film has apparently been banned in the US because people stopped going to get relaxers and hair salons were loosing cash.



It was showing at Ritzy in Brixton and afterwards Chris was there for a quick question an answer session. Its been out for a couple of years now but it was the first time I have seen it.


At first, like many, I thought that Chris being a comedian was going to be making fun of black woman but it wasn’t that at all. Sorry for those of you who know but the documentary was made because his daughter came home one day and asked him "Daddy why don’t I have good hair?" So he decided to investigate the whole good hair/bad hair thing. He visited India where the hair is shaved off at the temple to be made into weave on hair. He visited salons where people some people were spending $1,000 on weaves! He visited the Atlanta hair show. he had a session with a scientist which showed you what Sodium Hydroxide (Relaxer) does do your scalp. (The way it burned through that chicken it was scary!) I think it was really an overview but what I did like is he didn’t take sides or alienate anyone.


It did put me off relaxer especially in the Q&A session afterwards when he talked about the scenes he took out. There was one with a coroner where they examined the scalps of black women and found that a black women's scalp who has been using relaxer for years is something crazy like 60% thinner than a white woman's. I cant remember the correct figure but I know that this stuff is eating away at your head and seeping though to your brain!


I felt sad as well when I saw girls as young as three getting this stuff put on their heads. Chris said in the Q&A that to him his daughters are perfect he wouldn’t want to change anything so he also felt sad when he was filming those scenes.


It was informative but I did feel he skimmed the surface on many of the issues especially when talking about exactly how much these hairstyles are costing us as a community. Has anyone else seen it??


Oh yeah, there were a few white people in the audience and in the Q&A a long haired white guy stood up to ask a question. Before he asked it he stupidly pointed to his head and said to everyone "GOOD HAIR!" As you can imagine I was afraid for him! The boos were loud and not good natured! Idiot man.




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I was robbed by Jagged Edge :(

Since the first Album I have been a fan of Jagged Edge (JE) so you can imagine my delight when I heard they were coming to London to launch a new album. They were playing last night March 21st at Indigo2.

Seeing my excitement Mr Special got us some tickets as a gift to me and I was hyper. I dusted off all the CD's (as now most of my musical is digital I have no need for CD's) and played their music all week, I’m sure that Mr Special was starting to get tired of them as he wasn’t really a fan like me.

On Sunday I was looking forward to it and even becoming stressed as I had no idea what to wear. When we got there at 7pm and I saw the queue I couldn’t believe how many people had come out to show them love it was going to be a good concert.

Because of the size of the queue and the fact that they had not started letting people in we didn’t really get into the venue until after 8pm, we handed in our coats and got a really good spot right at the front facing the stage. There was a DJ playing with Kat from Choice FM hosting and they were playing some serious tunes like Joe, 112, Usher, oh it was good.

There was a long line into the place...

The first warm up act came on, some dude tried to sing Jodeci I wasn’t that impressed (there are some tunes you should never cover) and although he was ok the crowd just wanted to see JE and didn’t really care, but sadly one after another crappy warm up acts kept coming on. You got the impression that they picked the warm up acts from a Brixton Talent Show lol. No one had ever heard of them and as time went by on the crowd started becoming restless, some people had been in the queue since 5pm!

At around 10pm (Remember we arrived at 7pm) people were starting to get annoyed and Mr Special said to me "babe I don’t care who is coming on next but if it aint JE I don’t think the crowd are going to be happy" it was getting late and people were getting irritated so unfortunately for the next guy when they announced him everyone booed and started chanting 'We want Jagged Edge' He tried to talk to the crowd and make us happy but it was too late, if it wasn’t JE we were not going to be interested so to keep us happy they came on.

When they came on the excitement of it meant that you didn’t notice but they were not at all dressed for the occasion, they looked like they were just going to the corner shop, one was missing, there was only three of them on stage and they also sung with a PA not a live band.

However I was caught up in the excitement and jumping and screaming, the music was great! They sung 'Promise' and then 'Hard' and then 'Where da party at?' and then lets get married and then a couple more and then...…..well then….then they left.

Less than half an hour on the stage a few songs and done….WTF?

I was gutted, no, really gutted, like I want to cry gutted, I have been a fan for 13 years! Luckily I wasn’t the only one, as we waited thinking it was some joke and they were about to come back on the realisation that we had just been stung kicked in and people started booing louder than ever and chanted "we want refunds"

Today I was telling my friend about it and he said "hold on, are you sure it was even them?" lol

As I Exit 2008...

It wasn’t easy to review 2008, when looking back I realised that it’s been a huge year for me. You don’t even know the half of it!

This was there year where I truly learnt what stress, despair, depression, loneliness and guilt were. I thank God for teaching me those things. I guess they happened so that I was also able to experience and recognise happiness, relaxation, achievement, freedom and LOVE!!

I was able to look at all my friendships/relationships and understand that there are always two people in the boat and that if only one of you is rowing you should stop for a while and see what happens – that taught me a few things.

I ran many 5k races (good for my body) got good at Yoga (good for my sprit), passed some finance exams (good for my mind) and started another business (which will eventually be good for my pocket lol)

I visited Venice, started to express myself through writing and as well as getting some things published I started this blog. I made some new friends, stopped rowing for others, learned to pole dance - for exercise only I promise.

I was lucky in 2008 I won a few things like theatre tickets and dinners and someone who loves me brought me a pink DAB Digital radio where I rediscovered Jazz FM and fell in love with it.


It was a good transitional year where I started off on one journey and ended on a new one. I'm really excited to get it over and done with now though and it ends on Wednesday night at my house where I'm having a joint party with Mr Special!

I'm now in a place with an open heart where I hope to remove any last traces bitterness that I was carrying. I forgive myself for any mistakes I think I made and know that I can’t change anything that I did, I can’t go back I can only go forward, so with that knowledge roll on 2009!!

I need to start wearing make up!

On Tuesday I went on my first theatre review assignment to see 'Do you know where your daughter is?' written and directed by Angie Le Mar. You know the more I read and research about her the more I am impressed.


For those of you don’t know she is a British comedian, writer, director and actor. She used to do the Saturday Morning show on Choice FM and also she was on the Real McCoy on BBC, which was a comedy. Good Huh? She also made history in the west end with the first ever sell out show by a female black comedian. So she is doing well.


When I came out of the show on Tuesday, I was genuinely impressed (here is my review) however I was more impressed to read all about her school and see pictures on the wall of what she is doing for the children. She wanted to give something back so she set up 'The Angie Le Mar School of Expression' a stage school for children ages four and upwards. Fantastic isn't it? Helping those lost children especially the teenagers that would probably be hanging around on the streets bored and getting into mischief . That school gives them some goals and direction and a way of expressing themselves. What an inspirational woman!


Anyway I had to grab a picture with her and she, as always looks fantastic…I on the other hand I look like….well…all I can say is the time has come where I need to invest in make-up! Lol