SAY MY NAME
Say My Name, is
a documentary film set in the multicultural inner-city
communities of London, New York City and Atlanta. It
tells the stories of female MC's and R n B singers, and
the women that they inspire. The story is built around
narratives from these entrepreneurs- mothers-artists
who are fighting to be themselves in a society that
creates few chances for women. The film is now in its
final stages of post-production, and will premiere in
the next festival season.
SAY MY NAME AFRICA
Say My Name
Africa is a
feature length documentary currently being filmed.
Mamamess is focusing the lens on the lives of young women in urban Africa, centering on female vocalists and MC's. We will be filming their daily experiences across the lower-income landscapes of Africa, including Luanda, Abidjan and Johannesburg.
We will portray the issues these young women face, from economic concerns to HIV, equal rights, education and identity. We will honor the linguistic diversity of Africa by celebrating the feminine lyrical expression of the young artists we meet. By shedding light on THEIR perspective, we will portray the strength of these women in the face of adversity.
Our ultimate goal is to create a film that will provide a stage from which to inspire other young women. To promote the final project, we will create an awareness campaign (posters and a book) as we go.
Mamamess is focusing the lens on the lives of young women in urban Africa, centering on female vocalists and MC's. We will be filming their daily experiences across the lower-income landscapes of Africa, including Luanda, Abidjan and Johannesburg.
We will portray the issues these young women face, from economic concerns to HIV, equal rights, education and identity. We will honor the linguistic diversity of Africa by celebrating the feminine lyrical expression of the young artists we meet. By shedding light on THEIR perspective, we will portray the strength of these women in the face of adversity.
Our ultimate goal is to create a film that will provide a stage from which to inspire other young women. To promote the final project, we will create an awareness campaign (posters and a book) as we go.
Côte d'Ivoire
NASH
CATEGORIESHIP HOP
Nash was the first person to shake my hand as I walked out of the terminal the day we arrived in Abidjan. With a charming smile and a firm handshake, she said in English: “My name is Nash. N – A – S – H, Nash”. Her face looked familiar and later I remembered that I saw her online when I was researching this area. She is pretty much a local hip-hop hero and can be found on youtube. I am excited: I’ve never met a real African B girl.
Nash lets me come with her to her family home and accompany her to TV appearances and radio interviews. She does her best to show me modern life in Abidjan for a hard working independent woman who’s well versed in using modern-day tools like email, youtube and sms, as well as charm, to spread her name. I am impressed and touched.
She seems real supportive of what I do and I LOVE what she does. We share a love for hip-hop - the music, the style, the attitude and the sneakers. We become friends.
In this world where everything is divided into South and North, black and white, you name it, this kind of exchange is rare and very special to me. I guess that’s sisterhood.
Atta Jessica Aimee & Remi Lynx
CATEGORIESHAIR
Jessica has been Nash’s hairdresser for years. Today she’s going to braid her name on the back of her hair - N-A-S-H. While she works we gossip about women in Abidjan. Nash is 27 years old and still has no children, which very rare in Africa. “Why would I have one, I don’t wanna have a baby and be left to care for him alone with no man”. Jessica nods her head in agreement.
A little girl runs into the yard and jumps on Jessica. Remy is Jessica’s daughter, and Jessica tells me how she was in love when she fell pregnant and happy about the baby. But the father just turned away, saying he was too young. It frustrates Jessica that he still lives locally but makes no effort to see his daughter.
In Abidjan abortions are illegal and although they are performed, most women don’t believe in abortion as an option. Jessica is lucky, her own father told her he that he was happy about becoming a grandfather and allowed Jessica to stay at the family home. Jessica’s mother tells us that Remy is the light of the family: “look” she says “if Jessica had had an abortion, this light would not be here today”.
PRISS-K
She has had a career as a singer since a young age. People in Abidjan remember her as the girl that sang with Alpha Blondy. Now she’s grown up into a beautiful independent woman, who is outspoken and likes a challenge.
Abidjan is known for being the music capital of West Africa. Many people try to make it as a musician and there are as many producers as artists. In the local landscape producers get to control the music and the artist’s image, pocketing the lion’s share of any money made and putting the artist in a helpless position. Priss-K is determined to do it her own way: “I am my own producer” she announces, “so you have to talk to no one but me”.
It will be a hard road to take but Priss-K confidently tells me: “We African women have been putting our heads down for too long, things are getting better but they are still too far from being ok”. Her travels taught her that there are other ways. Hip-hop is but one thing she adopted along the way.
She’s a busy lady and sadly we don’t get the chance to hook up too often during my stay, but I’m glad I came to visit her. “Come into my ghetto” is the name of one of the songs she is recording for her debut album. I admire her and eagerly await the album’s release – go Priss-K!
Maria, abidjan day care
CATEGORIESHAIR
Priss-K takes us for a day in Trashvielle, a colorful and crowded local market. We follow her into a hair saloon where Marie greets us with a sweet smile before getting to work. It’s work that takes patience and skill: Marie braids the hair real tight around Priss’s skull before sewing in some fake hair. Once she is done Priss-K goes to the hairdresser to get it all cut into shape.
The girls chat and laugh while they are busy. Some run out to pray in the front yard at regular intervals as it is still Ramadan. A little boy runs around trying to get Marie’s attention. She puts her son to sleep in the corner and smiles: “day care….”
Monique & Blandine
CATEGORIESTRADE
In Abidjan, they say that trading is a woman’s game. It’s women’s faces that you see on the streets running the market stalls, the stores and the small stands. They’re mostly self-employed: if they sell their produce they win, if not no one is paying their wages.
Monique runs a small stand selling nuts and fruit. Everyday, she cleans the nuts by hand before putting them into bottles and jars that line the shelves in a mosaic of random glass containers. She always greets me with a large smile and a great vibe. Once, I missed some change to buy my nuts and she trusted me to bring her some later – wow! – you don’t find trust like that too often in today’s world.
One day she proudly asked me to take a picture of the girl who works with her. When I shot the image I discovered that the girl is her daughter: her name is Blandine and with a smile like hers, it seems that the business is not the only thing that runs in the family.
Stephie Joyce
CATEGORIESJOURNALIST
Stephy joice writes an advice column for a local magazine. Most of the letters she receives are about relationships and sexual issues, which were a taboo in Abidjan until not so long ago. Every woman in Abidjan knows her name and she believes that her column is an important way to start breaking down the walls of silence that have built up between mothers and daughters as a result of personal issues being taboo for so long.
A white French woman used to write her column and Stephy is proud to be the first African woman to address such provocative issues.
Aliman
CATEGORIESSINGER
Aliman’s face looks out at me from posters spread all over town to promote her upcoming record. I hear her angelic voice everywhere: on the radio, on TV, in shops…
As the first woman to sing devotional Muslim songs on TV, Aliman is a pioneer. She is small and always traditionally dressed in colorful rich cloth and matching veils. She sings with sensuality and passion. To my foreign ear, her songs sound like emotional love songs and they stay in my head. I fall in love with her music
When we meet, she tells me how she began her career by going to the TV station with her video in hand. Initially, she encountered disbelief that a woman wanted to sing devotional songs in public (traditionally, it’s a man’s role). Now she regularly performs in front of large crowds – sometimes as many as 5000 people gather in cultural centers chanting her name. Since her debut, a slew of veiled women have been seen singing on TV.
We spend a lot of time together and I see something of her struggle to balance traditional and modern values. She makes use of cell phones and wears Coco Channel veils while struggling to balance a hectic career with her duties as a wife and a mother to her one-year-old son Manoonoo. She respects her position as Muslim woman and accepts her place behind her man. It impresses me that she so lovingly obeys her religious obligations despite the fact that it makes it more difficult for her to follow her dream.
She is a serious soul who only really smiles when she is singing. It’s not easy for her: she cannot read and write so she depends on the help of others to manage her career. On top of this, she has to stay strong in the face of disapproval from those in her Muslim family that don’t agree with what she does.
She hesitates to speak about her troubles but conveys her pain and difficulties through her songs - she sings with such intensity that it brings tears to my eyes We became so close during our time together that it hurts when I leave Abidjan. I wish her well.
Laisha
CATEGORIESHAIR
Laisha is standing on the street just in front of the door to her house doing a girls hair. It’s an African thing. Some do it to make a little bit of money; some just hang out and chat while weaving that hair in. You see any number of different colors and styles - women in Africa are obsessed with hair, hair, hair.
WE DON'T KNOW HER NAME
CATEGORIESTRADE
When we decided to travel to Africa with a camera we thought long and hard about the ethical issue taking people’s pictures: we didn’t want to feel like we were stealing anyone’s image. Of course, every picture tells a story, but I decided to make sure that we only took images of women we had at least spoken with. We wanted ours to be a gallery full of strong images of women with a name.
While running around with Priss K in the market one day I met the girl you see here. I asked to take her portrait and in the rush to move on with Priss K, I forgot to ask her name. This beautiful strong face became the exception to my self-enforced rule.
SALLY OUATTARA
CATEGORIESJOURNALIST
Sally is a highly educated woman who has 20 years of experience as a journalist. Currently, she is chief editor of an Ivorian newspaper for women.
When we meet, we talk for a long time about women in Abidjan and in Islam. Sally’s dress is modern and she speaks eloquently on a range of issues: her opinions give me some perspective and she impresses me.
The Muslim women I’ve met in Abidjan appear to embody a delicate mix of traditional and modern values: they are smart (some are well-educated), independent to varying degrees and very religious. Sally is no different in this respect. We meet during Ramadan, which she keeps, and although she engages with my provocative questions about Islam, she does it with respect towards her position as a Muslim woman and the responsibilities that entails. She has a peaceful way about her.
Sally surprises me when our talk turns to the issue of abortion, which is illegal in Abidjan. Women that go for ‘back street’ abortions here put their lives at risk, and I was sure that the feminist in Sally would be supportive of legalizing abortion. Instead, she emphatically tells me, “No! They shouldn’t have abortions”. I ask her if she feels the same about women that become pregnant as a result of being raped, or who simply cannot care for the baby, and she tells me that she believes that abortions are wrong no matter what.
She doesn’t agree that we (women) should have the power to abort, and believes that women who do so harm themselves – their own souls - more than they know. She explains that Abidjan has extensive adoption facilities, and that adopted children are well taken care of. She tells me that many women choose to have babies adopted and that very few believe in abortion for much the same reasons as her.
Sally is 38-years-old and married. She has no children and is not sure she will have any. Her job takes up most of her time and her husband already has children from a previous marriage.
KONE KOROTOUM
CATEGORIESTRADE
I first met Kone in the hairdresser at Trashviel and then again when she came to Alima’s house to do our Henna tattoos. She is a voluptuous woman who walks around with a small bag filled with styling goodies. Her craft is so intricate: in free hand she tattoos works of art on our hands and feet.
She notices that Alima and I have become close and that we’re emotional at my departure the next day: “take her with you” she says, “take her away from all this”.
And I think about the cold streets of Amsterdam compared to the sensual streets of Abidjan, filled with sunshine and smells.