Sedene's time to shine

19 year old Jamaican model Sedene Blake is continuing the dream start to her international modelling career, if her record so far at London Fashion Week is any indicator.

 Since LFW started officially on Friday, Sedene has walked in no less than seven shows so far - an impressive run for a newcomer.  Her walks have included some big names like Vivienne Westwood's Red Label and fashion favourites Nicole Farhi and House of Holland. 

 Take a look at some of her catwalk appearances so far.

[caption id="attachment_2089" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Vivienne Westwood Red Label. (photo credit: style.com)"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_2088" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Todd Lyn. (photo credit: style.com)"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_2087" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Richard Nicoll. (Photo credit: style.com)"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_2084" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Osman. (photo credit: Style.com)"][/caption]

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Islandista on the rise: Speech Debelle

Because we love to read stories about islandistas doing well and even better yet, doing well against the odds... today we bring to you... Speech Debelle.

Who's she?

Well, just the under-underdog winner of one of the most prestigious awards in British music - the Mercury Prize.

Her story is the break-out, fairytale story of this year's prize, which went down last week.

With just 1500 copies of her album Speech Therapy sold thus far, the underground rapper burst into the mainstream when she won the Mercury, which is given for the best album in the United Kingdom.

Speech Debelle came up as Corynne Elliot (so much more West Indian sounding, isn't it?) in South London. Her back story is unfortunately, not that unusual among British Caribbean people. She was born to Jamaican parents. Her father left her mother when Corynne/Speech was 6 years old. He went on to be the village (or council?) ram, having eight more children with six women.

They don't get on, to say the least. In her song Daddy's Little Girl, she raps:


'Daddy, I think I love you cause I hate you so much that I must love you.'


She kicked up trouble at school, getting suspended 11 times and getting expelled at 15.

Her mother, a housing benefits officer trying to raise her on her own, was not amused.

On top of that, Speech/Corynne started using weed, which made her moody and depressed. She and her mother got into it all the time and she eventually moved out when she was 19.

She bounced from friends' places to hostels, was essentially homeless and committed petty crimes to keep clothed and fed. She admits now that she was too blasted hard-ears to return home to her mother, telling the Times:


“I didn’t want to. You don’t, if you feel like nobody really gives a f***. I wasn’t talking to my mum; I never talk to my dad. I’ve got my aunts and uncles doing their nuts. When you’re like that, you really don’t care about anyone. It’s hard to get out of that frame of mind.


Eventually, years and maturity brought her to her senses and when she was 23, she made back up with her mother and moved back in.

 Her outlet of  course, was music, which brings us back to the present day and her big win, which many say is the biggest surprise ever sprung even in the usually unpredictable Mercury Prize.

Speech is looking forward to her musical future. She's planning to start a record label with the £20, 000 first prize and she told the Daily Mail:

 


"There's a lot of music that sounds the same, all day on the radio and my album don't sound like their album and it's still won the Mercury Prize. Hopefully this will throw a wrench in the system and people will hear this album and realise they don't have to make music that sounds the same - they can make music that sounds good."


[caption id="attachment_1481" align="alignleft" width="214" caption="Photo credit: Getty Images"][/caption]

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Islandista on the rise: VV Brown

Islandistas, have you heard of VV Brown?

If you haven't, you probably will soon.

The British-born soul rocker of Jamaican and Puerto Rican parentage has only been on everyone's Hot List for 09.

Seriously.

The Guardian, the Daily Mail, the LA Times, the Independent and BBC all placed her on their lists of ones to watch in 2009. 

Her musical style is a bit vintage, like that of other female stars of this new Brit invasion such as Amy Winehouse, Duffy and Adele.

[caption id="attachment_1114" align="aligncenter" width="327" caption="photo credit: Ben Yacobi"][/caption]

 However, unlike them, VV draws more on  more up-tempo, 50s and 60s era doo-wop and rock, as heard in her breakout hit Crying Blood which is easily the most cheerful sounding song about a heart-wrenching break up that we have ever heard.

If that is not enough for you, VV (real name Vanessa) is well set to take her place among the ranks of other islandista it girls such as Rihanna and Vashtie Kola, whose sense of style is so quirky, fierce and yet independently theirs, that fashionistas are falling over themselves. 

At 5 "11 and with some seriously exotic looks (we're not sure but she looks to be a combination of Jamaican black chinese and hispanic) she was basically commandeered into modelling. She has done a shoot for UK Vogue and performed at London Fashion Week earlier this year, at the invitation of Indian designer Ashish, who is a big fan of hers.




The fashion pack loves her look, with her signature retro flat top rolled bangs and her charity/vintage shop dress sense. Amidst launching her album, she is also preparing to open her own vintage clothing store, VV Vintage.

So what is the 's' on this islandista-by-descent?

Well to start at the beginning, she is the oldest of six children born to a Jamaican father and Puerto Rican mother in Northampton, England. Her parents run their own school, Overstone Park, which VV attended. She got four As at A'level and turned down Oxford, LSE and a few other big name unis to pursue her music career.

By age 17, she was performing backing vocals for groups such as Westlife, Madonna and the Pussycat Dolls when they did live tv appearances.

She also ended up writing for both the Dolls and British girl group, the Sugababes. Record labels showed interest and she eventually signed a solo deal with Polydor but that ... didn't go too well.

She told the Times:

"The production took my songs somewhere I had never envisioned. The more strings they added, the more the music lost its honesty and innocence. I was too scared to say I hated it."

The deal broke down and she ended up broke and worse, in love with an "arsehole" as she so succintly puts it. As the relationship broke down and she became even more broke, she sold her keyboard to get a ticket back to London, moved into a teeny unfurnished flat, bought a one-stringed guitar and began to write and sing her heartache.

And that heartache is what has led to her debut album, Travelling Like the Light and her album deal with Island Record.

And now everything has come full circle as she is back in London where she first started her musical career and as it turns out, where fame would find her after all.

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Political power players with island roots

Eric Holder may be the most prominent Caribbean descendant on the U.S. political scene right now but he's not the only one.

There are quite a few islandistas-by-descent who are on the political scene or the power behind the throne (as it were).

They all just happen to be hugely intelligent and educated, career-minded, successful and fabulous - in other words, the definition of islandistas, even if they are some way from home. These are no ordinary women - but would we expect less of daughters of the Caribbean?

Heading the list is the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, whose maternal grandparents emigrated from the beautiful country parish of Portland in Jamaica to the United States.

[caption id="attachment_1040" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Photo credit: Annie Leibovitz/style.com"][/caption]

Rice, who is featured in this month's Vogue (see pic above) is to put it plainly... super-bright.

A Rhodes Scholar, she attained her doctorate from Oxford University by 25 and joined President Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff when she was 28. By 32, she was the assistant secretary of state - the youngest ever of course. And now she is the second-youngest ever U.N. Ambassador.

Whew.

And she has two children and a husband.

Because yes, sometimes you can have it all - prevent nuclear proliferation and raise well-adjusted children.

Another prominent politico who is an islandista by descent is San Franciso District Attorney Kamala Harris.

 

 


 



[caption id="attachment_1041" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Photo credit: kamalaharris.org"][/caption]

 

 



Harris, who was featured in fellow islandista-by-descent Gwen Ifill's book 'The Breakthrough' was born to a Jamaican father, Professor Donald Harris of Stanford University and an Indian mother, Dr. Shyamala Goapalan.

Harris' election was a lot of firsts - the first female D.A. in San Francisco, the first black D.A. in California (the state that is home to the LAPD, after all) and the first Indian-American D.A. in the United States.

She told Ifill:

"There is something to be said for being the first in terms of breaking the stereotype of who can do what. It's not because  you're the first person that could do it, at all. It's just everyone's ability to imagine who should or can, do what."

She may become yet another first next year, as she's running for Attorney General of California in 2010.

Behind the scenes, but still bringing the tempo of the islands to politics is Washington D.C.'s other first lady - Michelle Cross Fenty, wife of Mayor Adrian Fenty.

Mayor Fenty himself is of Caribbean descent a good ways back - that distinctively Bajan surname is a dead giveaway and indeed his great-grandfather was a Barbadian who emigrated to Panama. People joke that he may be related to Rihanna (aka Robyn Fenty) but that surname is actually so rare in Barbados that he probably is.

However, it is his wife Michelle that has the closer Caribbean connection, born as she was in south London to Jamaican parents. 

Michelle's parents -  her father Charlie was a contractor and part-time reggae singer and her mother Annett was a nurse, emigrated to the United States with their three daughters in 1987.

That reggae influence still holds strong - at her husband's inaugural ball in 2007, she specially requested that the band include a ska number and some reggae!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="320" caption="Photo credit: Rick Reinhard/bisnow.com"][/caption]

Somewhat like First Lady Michelle Obama, she was actually her husband's mentor - but in law school at Howard, rather than at work. Her husband confessed:

"I had probably seen her walking the halls for some time. I asked her to be my mentor. . . . It was love at first sight."

Like the other islandistas-by-descent in this post, Fenty is fearfully bright. She still works as a lawyer with D.C. firm Perkins Coie, in a highly specialised post as a global technology transactional attorney. A Washington Post feature on her noted:

Her legal specialty is so complex her own sister can't explain what she does for a living. "She does something that only eight lawyers in the world do," says Athena Cross, 32, a pharmaceutical representative in Brooklyn, N.Y., exaggerating a bit.

Perkins Coie managing partner John Devaney says more than eight lawyers do what Fenty does, but still, "There are just a limited number."

She is a global technology transactional attorney. Translation: Technology is patented, and different countries have different laws; "my job is to write the contracts designed so that they can build systems that can talk to each other," she said. One deal she negotiated was worth $100 million.

Lawd. See what we said? No ordinary women, these. They make us proud.

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Jourdan Dunn conquers US Vogue and French Elle

So yuh know that our favourite islandista fashionista Jourdan Dunn is still running tings in 2009.

Fresh from her Model of the Year victory at the British Fashion Awards at year end, she has landed two major, major magazine appearances to start the year -  a spread in the January edition of US Vogue magazine, alongside Chanel Iman and the cover of French Elle.

Check out her shots from the Vogue spread below.





 




[caption id="attachment_484" align="aligncenter" width="284" caption="Photo credit: David Sims via fashion junkii"][/caption]

 

 



[caption id="attachment_489" align="aligncenter" width="276" caption="Photo credit: David Sims via fashion junkii"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_490" align="aligncenter" width="283" caption="Photo credit: David Sims via fashion junkii"][/caption]

Now while we can see clearly through US Vogue's clunky attempt at finally getting with the 21st century and acknowledging that black has been in style from when, Jourdan is so damn fierce  and bad to rhatid that we are almost willing to overlook the obviousness of their attempt. The world has a black US president now - time to get with it Vogue - tokenism will not do in '09!

As she continues to blaze, Jourdan has also made it onto the cover of French Elle's December issue. Check it out below.

[caption id="attachment_491" align="aligncenter" width="250" caption="Photo source: Make Fetch Happen"][/caption]

And we have finally been able to pin down which island Jourdan's family hails from - though if we had studied the last name, it should have given us a hint cos Dunn is a pretty yaadie surname and sure enough she is of Jamaican descent, as is mentioned very obliquely in this Sunday Observer profile on her.

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Outrage: Jamaican mother of 6 left to die on NY hospital floor

By now, I am sure news-savvy islandistas have heard or read of the tragic story of Esmin Green's emergency-room death at Kings Country Hospital in Brooklyn.

While others, including patients and a security guard looked on, Green who had been waiting 24 hours for a hospital bed, fell out of her chair to the floor. There, she thrashed about a bit, obviously in distress and even attempted to get on to her side to get herself back up. Then she fell still.

No-one came to her aid for over an hour. Security footage of the incident, released by lawyers who are suing KCH on an unrelated matter, showed a doctor passing by and peeking in at her and then going on about his business nonchalantly. A security guard also takes a look at her lying face down on the floor and a nurse who comes in prods her with her foot. Still no-one does anything - for an hour until a second nurse comes in and realises Ms. Green is dead. Esmin Green was left to die on the floor, worse than an animal.

So who is Esmin Green? My islandistas, she is one of us. A Caribbean woman - like us, striving to make a way for herself and her children and do better - just like us, or our mothers or aunts or grandmothers. She could have been anyone's Caribbean auntie or granny or sister that was living 'over in away' and sent back remittances to help those at home. She could have been anyone of us.

According to CaribWorld News, the 49 year old Ms. Green...

Was a cheerful resident of St. Catherine, Jamaica who served for a while as a teacher while raising six children. ... Eight years ago, in amove for greener pastures, Green migrated to the US alone. She became an integral part of a Canarsie, Brooklyn church community with many coming to know her simply as 'Sister Green'. And she worked hard as a housekeeper and a day-care worker to send money back to Jamaica to take care of her children.

Two years ago, she apparently suffered a nervous breakdown and it is this condition that led her to KCH, where she was admitted involuntarily, suffering from agitation and psychosis.

Her children, including one who is just 14 years old, are devastated. Her eldest daughter Tecia Harrison was quoted as saying: "Not even a dog is treated that way."

Making an already horrific situation worse, the second nurse who eventually called for help and too-late resuscitation efforts, falsified the records, saying she got up around 6 a.m. to use the bathroom when she actually collapsed at about 5:30 - half hour earlier. It goes on to say that she was "sitting quietly in the waiting area" at 6:20 a.m. - when the surveillance video shows her already sprawled on the floor.

Islandistas, I am heartsick. And afraid. We all know that there are more Caribbean people living outside of the region than in. We all know them - they are our family. They go to make better for themselves. And look at this. This woman was well-trained enough to be a teacher but ended up as a housekeeper in the US. And then in her dying moments she was just treated with a callousness and indifference that is shocking. They prodded her with their foot... like a dead animal in the road.

Bob said it best:

Man to man is so unjust...

You don't know who to trust.

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