Heeey!

How has your 2024 started out? Are you still on track with your resolutions and goals, or intentions as they are now being called? And no I’m not conflating the three things, just being on trend, LOL. Nevertheless, you know what I mean and I’m wishing you well as you try to stay on track.

Seeing that I’m South African, it’s never too late in the year to say Happy New Year! So I’ll do it as we do in Mzansi: COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON!

Speaking of seasons, it’s good to be back making a new season of the podcast. There are so many incredible women featured in the episodes and their careers span the gamut of possibilities. We have a medical doctor, fashion designers, publishers, tech innovators, beauty mavens and yogis at different stages of their entrepreneurial journeys. Their stories are both inspiring and of course (as you can expect from Shades and Layers) instructional.

This is also my birthday month, and depending on where in the world you are, it actually just might be my birthday when this edition reaches your inbox, so Happy Birthday to me and all the Aquarius babies out there. It’s also the start of a new personal season for me: our family moved from Seattle, Washington to Boston, Massachusetts and while it feels good so far, I’ve done this a few times in my life and I know all the ebbs and flows that come with new beginnings, so wish me luck during this period of adjustment. If you know anything about the East Coast creative community, give me a shout by hitting reply.

Ok Pod Friends, let’s get into the business of the first edition of 2024 of the Shades and Layers newsletter, here’s what you’ll find:

-Latest Episode

-Companion Episode

-Shout Out to the Firsts

-Bits and Pieces

Oh, and one more thing : A quick reminder to bring your friends along for a ride with the squad. And if this edition was shared with you, don’t miss the next one. Please do as the button says👇🏾

We’ve read countless times about how the Covid-19 pandemic pushed a lot of medical professionals out of the system due to burnout. Others also reassessed their relationship with the health system and the kind of care they could to deliver to their patients. Dr. Margret Towolawi took advantage of the Covid reset and founded her own holistic wellness center, Nurture Well Center and its accompanying spa and skincare line SkinstatMD in Seattle.

Her story is a demonstration of ways one can still serve patients outside of public health institutions and traditional private practice. Take some time to hear how this Nigerian-American doctor does it and how she also realized her lifelong dream of becoming an author during this re-set.

Nigerian-American yogi and entrepreneur, Abiola Akanni has been breaking the mold throughout her life and career. She is the founder of the yoga teacher training certification programme IYA Well and the influencer behind the popular YouTube channel, Yoga By Biola.

After years of working within traditional fitness industry structures, Abiola found that she was spending more time striving and competing to reach the top of an industry that was not designed with differently-shaped and differently-abled bodies. She wanted an alternative to the competitive-style of Western yoga and a more holistic and inclusive approach to wellness.

Find out how she went about finding the answers and founding her very own certification programme, IYA Well….

Let’s talk about the most famous First in recent times: United States Vice President, Kamala Harris. I’ve been thinking about her a lot during this Groundhog Day season that is American Elections. She became the great Black and Asian Hope when she and Joe Biden won the 2020 elections, but has since disappeared, leaving many in the Black press and in the community disappointed. I mentioned to a friend that perhaps Kamala’s disappearance had something to do with the general erasure of Black women in the USA. What do you think? Her theory is that mainstream media would not be so intent on erasing her. However, I don’t think it’s even a conscious effort to erase her, it just happens because it’s normalized.

The fact that the vice-presidency is inherently a sideshow that should never outshine the presidency, it’s fair to say that Kamala wasn’t going to be in the spotlight for everything she’s doing everyday and surely she’s also doing a lot quietly behind the scenes, but can you think of a more invisible VP? How in the world did we know everything that Joe Biden was up to all the time when he was Obama’s VP? Even Al Gore was visible during his time as Clinton’s second in charge. By the time Obama and Clinton left office, both their VP’s were serious candidates for the top job. So, given the history of the office that she occupies (and frankly Biden is ancient) shouldn’t she be the one running for president this time around? A deeper dig reveals some discontent in her camp about the assignments she’s been given since the fitful start of her term of office, but come on it’s nearly four years later. Just saying. Nevertheless, she seems to be back in the spotlight as campaigning is underway and once again campaigning for another mandate from the electorate that put her and Joe Biden in the White House last time around. Visible or not, a huge shout out to VP Harris for being a first many times over and showing up for the job everyday, no matter what obstacles are thrown in her way.

On a more positive note, this week we get to shout out all the African artists making waves achieving firsts in the hardest market to crack: the US of A. Shout out to all the African musicians who showed up and showed out at the Grammy’s this past week. Special shout out to South Africa’s favorite niece and winner of the inaugural Best African Performance Grammy, Tyla for keeping it real, accent and all during her acceptance speech. It must be both exciting and overwhelming to be thrown in the stratosphere like that. But she looks ready and handling it all like a boss!

Shout out also to South African living legend and patron saint of all the Afro rebels, Thandiswa Mazwai who was a featured artist on Me’shell Ndegeocello’s album The Omnicord Real Book which won the first ever Best Alternative Jazz Album Grammy. After an epic performance at Global Fest in New York last month and teasing a new album, this is a good start to the year and a good omen of things to come, especially in the USA. Can’t wait!

Another nominee in the Best African Performance category, Burna Boy made his Grammy debut performance during the televized ceremony and shared a stage with R&B’s forever princess Brandy. Ceremony emcee Trevor Noah got to introduce freaking Tracy Chapman’s first performance in yonks, and earlier this year he achieved his very own first earlier this year with an Outstanding Talk Series win at the Emmy’s for The Daily Show.…. However, even as we celebrate, not everyone is feeling this new Best African Performance category at the Grammy’s. happy about who is out there representing Africans. Check out how others feel that this is the narrowest slice of African music that is being presented to the world at the Grammy’s. Perhaps its time to bring the Kora Awards back ….

On that note, we can wrap it up and say that being a first comes with a lot of pressure to be everything and carry the hopes of those who look like you, not to mention the scrutiny from those who are threatened by your presence in spaces they’ve never had to share. So, keep going. Show up. Do your work.

That’s it from me! Let me know what’s exciting you or making you happy these days. I’ll be digging into Jonny Steinberg’s Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage this week and watching Tracy Chapman’s Grammy performance of Fast Car (with Country Music star Luke Combs) for the millionth time. Don’t judge me but Tracy Chapman was the very first album I ever bought with my own pocket money. Furthermore, she looked so cool with her dreads. She embodied a rebelliousness and freedom I could only dream of as a sheltered Catholic school girl in Apartheid South Africa. She embodied possibilities I couldn’t articulate back then. I’d also just started playing guitar around that time. With no musical talent to speak off, I’m sure my parents were dying just listening to my attempt at deciphering the chords. We couldn’t just download the sheet music from the internet back then. Fun times. Another live version of Fast Car…as Country as it has always been 👀 IYKYK.

And with that, I’m out Pod Friends. Until next time, please do take good care!

Cheers,

Kutloano

(your host with the most)