Why I Love My Hair (For Sorella Onyinye)

Why do I love my hair?
Because it doesn't care
Just like me
It just wants to be free
To just BE
No creamy crack
No water to slick it back
No verbal attacks
Yeah I'm nappy and happy
That's why I love my hair

Why do I love my hair?
Because it's confident and self assured
Nesta listens to no one
Not even me
Nesta knows she's on the right path
To be exactly who she wants
And when she wants to get there
By the way, she apologizes
For not formally introducing herself sooner
That's why I love my hair

Why do I love my hair?
She has taught me patience
She has taught me strength
We Baganda have a saying
The thing that doesn't talk
Cannot beat the thing that talks
So I chalk
All my victories in the battles
Between Nesta & Me
With moisture
And style
All the while
We both look fabulous
That's why I love my hair

Why do I love my hair?
Simply because
Nesta is a part or me
Nesta IS me
And if I don't love me
Who will I love?
Who will love me?
That's why I love my hair

don't make me away

don't make me run away

cuz you may not like where i run to

you may not like what i do

don't make me stay away

cuz once i go i'll be gone

and you'll be singing the same song

about how i am wrong

to anyone who will listen

don't make me hide away

for i might hide in different places

take on different faces

for my peace mind

don't make cry away

all the stress from you

because i might decide

that i have cried enough tears

for a river

whose current would carry you

downstream and away

don't make me grow away

from the dark light you shine

because i can grow

and will grow

then you won't even know 

who i have become

To Be A Poetess (For Chinyere)

You ask me
What it is to be a poet
The fact that
I can come back
To tell you this way
Says
To me
That I am a poet-ess
Nothing less
Than express
And precise
Expounding through verses and rhyme
Been doing this a long time
First tried my hand at 7
After Maya Angelou's biography
Her life said something to me
A shy little overweight only child Black girl
I had something to contribute to the world
Without opening her mouth
I could weigh my words to pick the heaviest
So my words & poetry sounds the best
I would say that I claimed my poet-essness
At 18
I became a woman poet
For a poet could be any gender
Realizing who I am
Reflects what I write
So I think it's only right
That I call me as I completely am
Any more questions, fam?

Romantic Standards

~ As I jam to Kendrick Lamar on Spotify, I think of men. MENS-ES. I think about begin a woman.  I think about standards. My standards. What does it mean for man to approach a woman? What does it mean for a man to approach me?
~ I have had the unprecedented role model of men and manliness in my late father, Sam Kibaya. He loved to dress and was the life of the party. It was effortless for him to draw people in with his kindness, his stories and his genuine love for others. I grew up with an already high standard of love and its manifestation. My parents were nonconformist Ugandans in American married for almost 30 years at my father's home going.
So there's stuff I don't tolerate by default. Cheating, lying, beating. Using. Sugar mamas, daddies and babies.
~ I require a gentleman. Step to me completely single and on your own. All it takes is a simple "Hello, my name is....." I probably have been scoping you as you have been scoping me and I have some info about you before you make your way to me. What you say will either confirm or change what I know.
~ Control is not tolerated. Love isn't control. God doesn't control us so we shouldn't control each other as two adults. I am a grown woman and I will remain one. My father is dead.
~ Intelligence is important. You have to be my friend, my colleague AND my man. If we can't talk about anything except the bedroom boom, you're out. Current events, politics, interests, engage with me mentally before even thinking about physical engagement.
~ Believe in God. I am a Christian first and a Catholic second. I need a man I can go to church with and engage spiritually with. Pray with, read the Bible with, approach God with. I am woman of God and I require a man of God.
~ No judgmental men. We all have dirt. Don't judge me or anyone else. JUDGEMENT IS GOD'S JOB.
~ Compassion is important. Compassion for family, women , for the have nots, everyone.
.......DONE! ;-)

Mike Jones (Who?)

Back then they didn't want me

Now I'm hot they all on me

All on me 

Like rice to cheese

Got me begging please

STOP SWEATING ME

I've been hot

For a real long time

You being late

Ain't a fault of mine

Shoot, it really should be crime

That I was standing here

That whole damn time

I might lock you up for 

For 5 to 10

You go commit a crime

To get locked up again

Because my keys jingle

And I'm single

I like to mingle

Go tell a friend

Today is Valentine's Day

People be caked up with they boos

Me I'm going out to dinner

With a new fit and some shoes

Because I'm my own sweetie 

I do my own thang

So no sharing apartments

Till I get ma wedding rang

I'm an only child I'm selfish

Betta not ask me to share

If I find out you cheatin'

It means that you don't care

So go run with that homewrecker

Betta hope she got some money

And won't play ya ass like checkers

Back then they didn't want me

Now I'm hot they all on me

If you on me then come correct

Don't waste my time with disrespect

When I Grow Up...

Let me preface this by saying I am 24. Yeah, I know that is considered and adult in the eyes of the law, but do you know any full grown 24 year old people? I don't.

So here goes:

1. I wanna be independent. On my own. My own place, my own wheels, my own money. 

2. I wanna work my own. Handle my own businesses (and be successful). Got the first part! www.etsy.com/shop/ManiakStudios  

3. I wanna love a man and marry him. Keeping my name though. Have a few kids too, no more than 3. 

4. I wanna be skinny. Naw, just playing. Smaller though, barely plus size but always thick wit it. 

5. I wanna be a DJ. 

6. I wanna travel the world more.

Ummm, I think that's it for now.

SA House (All Tatenda's Fault)

Let me start by saying TATENDA, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. Wherever you are in the UK, I blame you. You were tweeting all this hype about South African house I had to find some and now I have listened to this 40 minute mix on youtube.

Anyway, South African house has the African-ness, the percussion and the vocals and sometimes other instruments with the dance/house feel and mixing.I am all about fusion. I love it. My life is about fusion. I fuse my Ugandan heritage with my American citizenship and African American culture.

So I appreciate mixes and music that bridges the gap and brings things and people that seem so different together.