In my letter for Boy.Brother.Friend issue 3, ‘Movement and Migration’ I was bold enough to share the then recent passing of my father Engr Chukwunweike Onyeamaechi Obi, KSC to COVID-19 complications. I also mentioned my father in my letters in issue 1 and 2 for various reasons, which he read and acknowledged in his silent way, after which my Aunt said a prayer and blessed the issue. Those of us who are fortunate enough to know and be raised by our biological or non biological fathers can attest to how that shapes us and our entire belief system. Myself and family are devastated. Impressing my father has aways been my ultimate goal in life, which has not been easy at times for a Queer Nigerian first child and son, so I have had to rethink and re-visit those ambitions and Value-Systems. This led me to the starting point for Boy.Brother.Friend Issue 4 and its theme of ‘Value’.
I retreated inwards for my research on this issue to the familiar names and voices that have shaped my creative consciousness and settled on sub-themes: The Importance of Being Earnest, Moral Code, Family Values, & RWA – Rich With an Attitude. During the intense and traumatic process of planning my father's funeral I took my first ever trip to Accra, Ghana which we intended to be our geographical focus for the issue. There I met close friends and Boy.Brother.Friend co-inceptors Priscilla Yeboah-Newton and Emmanuel Balogun.
Historically, West Africa has been a prime fiscal value resource for western countries. We measure this with colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade and more recently exportation of natural recourses. West African exports to the EU accounted for €22.4 Billion in 2020 consisting mostly of Oil and Gas and food products. Ghana, like Nigeria and some other West African countries, is a former British colony and used to be called the Gold Coast. In the transatlantic slave trade era, Europeans identified the region as the Gold Coast because of the large supplies of and market for Gold that existed there. Ghana became the first West African country to gain its independence from British colonialists in 1957.
I met Moses Sumney at the David Adjaye designed Sandbox Beach Club for a function being hosted by actress Michaela Coel. He was in head to toe black and exuded so much confidence we instantly became friendly. He told me how home-coming was extremely important to him and his practice as a Musician/Artist amongst other things. We continued speaking and met again in London where we walked the Burberry by Riccardo Tisci London Fashion Week show and again in Venice where he gave an incredible performance for the opening of Kehinde Wiley’s solo show An Archeology of Science at the Fondazione Giorgo Cini for the 59th Venice Biennale. Legendary Dutch photographers Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin have been vocal supporters of Boy.Brother.Friend since we launched, so it only made sense to suggest a portrait sitting with Moses, which they loved. Supported by Burberry and Riccardo Tisci we made some striking imagery for No one can really define my Blackness. It is mine to define. Moses was interviewed by writer, creative producer and fellow Ghanian Ekow Barnes.
Lu Philippe Guilmette joins Boy.Brother. Friend as contributing Fashion Director. In Face Value he recruited photographic artist Pieter Hugo to create a masterclass in beauty story making. They unpack various types of value signifiers in a superbly grotesque kind of way.
If you look at all our previous issues one name pops up every time. So when we found out Adjoa Armah's first traveling solo exhibition was in the works we knew we had to be involved in some way. Adjoa is an artist, educator, writer and editor with a background in design anthropology. Her practice is concerned with the entanglement between narrative, the archive, pedagogy, black ontology, infrapolitics, and spatial consciousness. She is founder of Saman Archive, a gathering of photographic negatives encountered across Ghana, through which she explores models of institution building grounded in Akan temporalities and West African technologies of social and historical mediation. In her show The Sea it Slopes Like a Mountain with Auto Italia, Adjoa sets out to translate a series of trips into the language of an exhibition. Adjoa documented and travelled 330 miles along the Ghanian coast from Beyin to Keta, a stretch of sand, soil and rock with more European former slave forts than anywhere else on the African continent. Using sand gathered from the locations of personal significance she sculpted objects selected for their function as sonic, linguistic, spiritual and historical technologies. In The Sea, the Shores and its Memories Adjoa spoke to Tate Modern's International Curator Osei Bonsu about how all this came together and the next steps for this exhibition which continues on to the Nubuke Foundation.
Earlier this year we were approached by good friend Charlene Prempeh and her creative agency A Vibe Called Tech to create a selection of satirical stories for internet file transfer service WeTransfer’s content platform WePresent. I styled Paul Mendez in a previous issue of Fantastic Man and had great funny conversations that centred around Black queer experiences in London. In Three Stories of Blackness, Queerness and Masculinity, Paul conjured up three very witty and very relatable scenarios which then inspired the brilliant illustrations by artist Alex Mein.
I first encountered Paa Joe’s work in a London art galley thinking it was a sculpture of a vintage Mercedes Benz car, not knowing it was a Coffin. Paa Joe is considered one of the most important Ghanaian coffin artists of his generation. In Looking Through Generations With Paa Joe, Paa speaks to Junior Editors Nelson C.J and Jojolola Dopamu about fantasy coffin making and the value systems that enable him, at 75 years of age, to continue to create. Elsewhere in the issue we explore thought text pieces from Kareem Reid, Reece Ewing, Jeri Hilt, Matthew Benson, Mahoro Seward, Juergen Strohmayer and more.
This issue took longer than expected to finish, I'm uncertain if its because I am still grieving. But putting it together has been a kind of therapy. Proper professional therapy is still needed on my part, but what gets me through is knowing that my father always wanted the best for me, which allows me to want and strive for the best for myself and in turn hopefully delivering the best for you. Hold your friends and loved ones close at all times.
With Love…
Kk Obi
In my letter for Boy.Brother.Friend issue 3, ‘Movement and Migration’ I was bold enough to share the then recent passing of my father Engr Chukwunweike Onyeamaechi Obi, KSC to COVID-19 complications. I also mentioned my father in my letters in issue 1 and 2 for various reasons, which he read and acknowledged in his silent way, after which my Aunt said a prayer and blessed the issue. Those of us who are fortunate enough to know and be raised by our biological or non biological fathers can attest to how that shapes us and our entire belief system. Myself and family are devastated. Impressing my father has aways been my ultimate goal in life, which has not been easy at times for a Queer Nigerian first child and son, so I have had to rethink and re-visit those ambitions and Value-Systems. This led me to the starting point for Boy.Brother.Friend Issue 4 and its theme of ‘Value’.
I retreated inwards for my research on this issue to the familiar names and voices that have shaped my creative consciousness and settled on sub-themes: The Importance of Being Earnest, Moral Code, Family Values, & RWA – Rich With an Attitude. During the intense and traumatic process of planning my father's funeral I took my first ever trip to Accra, Ghana which we intended to be our geographical focus for the issue. There I met close friends and Boy.Brother.Friend co-inceptors Priscilla Yeboah-Newton and Emmanuel Balogun.
Historically, West Africa has been a prime fiscal value resource for western countries. We measure this with colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade and more recently exportation of natural recourses. West African exports to the EU accounted for €22.4 Billion in 2020 consisting mostly of Oil and Gas and food products. Ghana, like Nigeria and some other West African countries, is a former British colony and used to be called the Gold Coast. In the transatlantic slave trade era, Europeans identified the region as the Gold Coast because of the large supplies of and market for Gold that existed there. Ghana became the first West African country to gain its independence from British colonialists in 1957.
I met Moses Sumney at the David Adjaye designed Sandbox Beach Club for a function being hosted by actress Michaela Coel. He was in head to toe black and exuded so much confidence we instantly became friendly. He told me how home-coming was extremely important to him and his practice as a Musician/Artist amongst other things. We continued speaking and met again in London where we walked the Burberry by Riccardo Tisci London Fashion Week show and again in Venice where he gave an incredible performance for the opening of Kehinde Wiley’s solo show An Archeology of Science at the Fondazione Giorgo Cini for the 59th Venice Biennale. Legendary Dutch photographers Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin have been vocal supporters of Boy.Brother.Friend since we launched, so it only made sense to suggest a portrait sitting with Moses, which they loved. Supported by Burberry and Riccardo Tisci we made some striking imagery for No one can really define my Blackness. It is mine to define. Moses was interviewed by writer, creative producer and fellow Ghanian Ekow Barnes.
Lu Philippe Guilmette joins Boy.Brother. Friend as contributing Fashion Director. In Face Value he recruited photographic artist Pieter Hugo to create a masterclass in beauty story making. They unpack various types of value signifiers in a superbly grotesque kind of way.
If you look at all our previous issues one name pops up every time. So when we found out Adjoa Armah's first traveling solo exhibition was in the works we knew we had to be involved in some way. Adjoa is an artist, educator, writer and editor with a background in design anthropology. Her practice is concerned with the entanglement between narrative, the archive, pedagogy, black ontology, infrapolitics, and spatial consciousness. She is founder of Saman Archive, a gathering of photographic negatives encountered across Ghana, through which she explores models of institution building grounded in Akan temporalities and West African technologies of social and historical mediation. In her show The Sea it Slopes Like a Mountain with Auto Italia, Adjoa sets out to translate a series of trips into the language of an exhibition. Adjoa documented and travelled 330 miles along the Ghanian coast from Beyin to Keta, a stretch of sand, soil and rock with more European former slave forts than anywhere else on the African continent. Using sand gathered from the locations of personal significance she sculpted objects selected for their function as sonic, linguistic, spiritual and historical technologies. In The Sea, the Shores and its Memories Adjoa spoke to Tate Modern's International Curator Osei Bonsu about how all this came together and the next steps for this exhibition which continues on to the Nubuke Foundation.
Earlier this year we were approached by good friend Charlene Prempeh and her creative agency A Vibe Called Tech to create a selection of satirical stories for internet file transfer service WeTransfer’s content platform WePresent. I styled Paul Mendez in a previous issue of Fantastic Man and had great funny conversations that centred around Black queer experiences in London. In Three Stories of Blackness, Queerness and Masculinity, Paul conjured up three very witty and very relatable scenarios which then inspired the brilliant illustrations by artist Alex Mein.
I first encountered Paa Joe’s work in a London art galley thinking it was a sculpture of a vintage Mercedes Benz car, not knowing it was a Coffin. Paa Joe is considered one of the most important Ghanaian coffin artists of his generation. In Looking Through Generations With Paa Joe, Paa speaks to Junior Editors Nelson C.J and Jojolola Dopamu about fantasy coffin making and the value systems that enable him, at 75 years of age, to continue to create. Elsewhere in the issue we explore thought text pieces from Kareem Reid, Reece Ewing, Jeri Hilt, Matthew Benson, Mahoro Seward, Juergen Strohmayer and more.
This issue took longer than expected to finish, I'm uncertain if its because I am still grieving. But putting it together has been a kind of therapy. Proper professional therapy is still needed on my part, but what gets me through is knowing that my father always wanted the best for me, which allows me to want and strive for the best for myself and in turn hopefully delivering the best for you. Hold your friends and loved ones close at all times.
With Love…
Kk Obi
