COLOUR THE CONTOUR ISSUE
ISSUE NO. 3
colour Editor-in-chief Oluwatobi Alawode
Creative Directors Photo Director Photographers Photoshoot Director Production Director Design Director Graphic Designer Graphic Design Editor Make-up Artists Stylists Staff Writers Models
THE CONTOUR ISSUE
Ishvinder Kaur, Le'Aysha Pearson, Jerusha Simmons Taylor Bird McGuire Darius Calliet, Taylor Bird McGuire Briana Anderson Darius Calliet Ashley Hanqiu Zhou Sara Wang Sydney Tucker Aja Welch, Bree Williams Le'Aysha Pearson, Ishvinder Kaur Maya Mahendran, Helen Li, Destinee Shipley, Megan Khu Reuben Hogan, Joseph Narcisse, Gideon Oyekanmi, Derrick Ogola, Kevin Sargeant, Chris White
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con·tour /ˈkɒn tʊər/ noun: an outline, especially one representing or bounding the shape or form of something verb: mold into a specific shape
contents 5 FREEKEV 13 TALKING BODY 17 AN OPEN LETTER TO FRANK OCEAN 21 WORLDVIEW 26 THE COLLEGIATE 100
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FREEKEV On life, the current state of the game, & his upcoming mixtape
Written by: Oluwatobi Alawode Photographed by: Darious Calliet
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INTERVIEW FreeKev is a man of few, simple pleasures. “To-
growing up, or his celebrity Doppelganger Kid
biiii,” a deep voice drawls out to me, and I look up,
Cudi, who gave him this “loner, sadness
squinting against the sun’s wrath. Standing six
perspective [that before, he] didn’t know you
feet tall in the darkness of his doorframe, Kev
could talk about in music”. Cudi’s vulnerability was
flashes me his signature grin, and ushers me into
relatable to young black boys like Kev, and the
his loft apartment. I step inside, taking solace in
rapper helped Kev realize he too could touch on
the cool setting, and have to wait a few moments
such stigmatized topics in his own songs. But the
for my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit scene. Kev
one rapper Kev believes is the realest in the game
situates himself in his usual spot: posted up in
is BasedGod himself. Referring to him as “The
front of the TV with the game on, one leg resting
Goat of Hip-Hop”, Kev thinks LilB has more to offer
on the ottoman, while the rest of his lengthy body
than people give him credit for.
sinks comfortably into the plush couch cushions.
me, since he doesn’t want to go outside, but is still
When I ask him who his hero is, musically, he sounds disappointed. “Oh man, I was so ready to say my mom,” he says, laughing at himself.
somehow enjoying it. Like I said, Kev is a man of
He feels he owes his mom everything, recognizing
few pleasures, music being one of them.
the sacrifices she made so he could have
A box of Cheez-It, his first love, sits casually within his reach. It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and the juxtaposition of Kev peeking through the blinds on his window at the scene is amusing to
Hailing from the same city as Childish Gambino, the Stone Mountain native proudly reps his district, never letting anyone forget that East Atlanta is the actual “6ix” (Yeah, your fave isn’t original). His parents are both from Guyana, which sits on the northern coast of South America, but is culturally akin to the Caribbean. “Oh, you’re from South America? Your parents speak Spanish? And I’m like, no,” he laughs. Growing up in the dirty south hip-hop scene of Atlanta that produced legends like Outkast and T.I., FreeKev was heavily impacted by music from a young age, 12 to be exact. That was around the time he started listening to Lupe Fiasco, who made him fall in love with music. “It really kinda blew my mind and changed my whole perception of like, music as a whole,” Kev recalls feeling after listening to Lupe’s mixtape and first two albums. Favorite Lupe song? “He say, She say,” he finally decides after a beat. For Kev, it was all about who was doing it the most authentically. Artists like Chuck D from Public Enemy, who Kev felt was the “black voice” for him
“everything he needed”. Whether it was paying for him to play AAU basketball, or sending him to a school in another district to receive a better education, Kev’s mom supported him in his endeavors. Kev actually began rapping while riding the bus home from school. He had to take two different buses to get back and forth, and on the second one, it was just boys because they weren’t allowed to ride the same bus as girls. “Afternoons, most of the guys played football, so many didn’t ride the bus...so we just started rapping.” Kev found friendship in the few guys who regularly rode the bus like him, and what started as an after-school pastime turned into a career choice. “I started saying to myself, ‘Hey, I can do this’.” As he got older, he formed various rap groups with different friends before going solo, and at 18 he began to craft his sound. Kev prefers to simply rap over the beat, no hooks, and tends to offer that loner perspective he really relates to. There’s a specific vibe you can expect from his music. “It’s fall. You’re outside, walking down the sidewalk, you got a hoodie on.
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You lowkey cold but you didn’t want to wear your bigger jacket because you’d be hot.” He’s not trying to make another ‘Trap Queen’ bop to play at your next function, but rather, Kev’s music is predominantly the type of music you listen to when you’re alone; feeling kind of sad, or maybe happy. “I’m trying to expand to different things, do more melodies, cause you can’t come through with too, too much bluntness. You’ll lose a lot of people. I’m just trying to mold it into something more accessible.” What defines FreeKev is his commitment to being true to himself, regardless of whether he gains millions of followers or not. “Honestly, my main goal is to become somebody’s favorite rapper,” he admits. The feeling you get when you listen to certain artists, as if they understand you and what you’ve gone through, is the feeling Kev wishes to evoke in just one person. “[Then] I’ll feel like I’ve succeeded as a rapper,” he says contented. With this kind of platform, Kev wants to share his story to reach anyone out there who can find comfort in their shared experiences. But how will he transition from Kevin, a senior at Washington University in Saint Louis, to FreeKev, the rapper? As an independent artist, Kev faces some tough barriers to entering an already saturated market, but he’s already confronting these obstacles as he plans his next move. “The game right now to me is kind of like the Wild Wild West. You look, and you see Chance the Rapper, who’s basically one of the biggest independent artist at this point. And then you got millions of artists basically trying to do the
" I’m just trying to mold it into something more accessible.. "
same thing...it’s really every man and woman for themselves. So, it’s kind of like, how can you stand out?”
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In the meantime, Kev is balancing school while working on his first mixtape, Rookie. I ask him about a timeline, and when we can expect it to drop. Kev tells me to keep it on the low, but gives me the exclusive anyways. “Shoutout to my boy Rod for helping me out with the mixes. But um, like I said, it’s that hoodie weather, cold but not that cold though, so if I’m gon leak a little something, maybe y’all can look for it in October.” As we enter into November’s colder embrace, we slowly reach for our hoodies in anticipation.
If you haven’t checked him out yet, follow the links below to stay connected with the upand-coming rapper that you need to hear: Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/freekev Twitter: https://twitter.com/FreeKevMTN Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevin_up/ COLOUR: THE CONTOUR ISSUE
Talking Body
WRITER: MAYA MAHENDRAN
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#ImNoAngel
We hear this simple instruction everywhere, from Buzzfeed videos to the body positivity groups at the activities fair. There’s a new wave of promoting self-love spreading
“Love yourself ”
throughout the media, and I surf it constantly, preaching it to my baby brother, self conscious about his skinny arms, to my friends groaning about the thigh gap, and to myself. But loving your body isn’t just about your size, although that does play a huge part. Growing up in the US, and even internationally, I have been gripped by the vice-like claw of the Eurocentric Beauty Standard. It’s hard to love your dark skin in northern India when the lighter kids at your school actively call you the
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Victoria's Secret: Perfect Body Campaign (although many of them have never even seen a black person) and you’re given a tube of “Fair and Lovely” whitening cream as a gift from a family member. It’s hard to love the curve of your nose when everyone famous that looks like you has had surgery to make it straight. Add insecurities about size and weight to that and you’ve got a hot mess that seems impossible to unpack. It’s easy for somebody small, white, and blonde to tell me to love myself, but where is the body positivity movement amongst the people who look like me? Colorism and body-hair-shaming are ingrained into parts of Indian culture that I have witnessed, but cutesy Buzzfeed videos don’t address this.
Dove: Real Beauty Campaign
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Love Your Body
IMAGE: VITALWARE.COM
Even trying to sit down and think about my body leads me down a tortuous circle of self-reflection. How do I exercise “thin privilege” (even though I don’t think of myself as thin)? Where is the line between being bodypositive and being healthy? What does being “healthy” even mean? Do you measure it by how far you can run, how many stairs you can
climb, or by your pant size? And if it’s the last one, at which store? H&M? Forever 21? There doesn’t seem to be an easy answer to anything, and maybe that’s good. Maybe if everyone realized that people’s bodies are their own business, I wouldn’t be sent to write a simple article about body
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positivity and instead want to throw myself off a cliff. Your thoughts on my body are entirely unwelcome.
AN OPEN LETTER TO
FRANK OCEAN
Jerusha Simmons
Image: vice.com
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Thank you. Thank you for ignoring the petty, unrelenting tweets and pleas to release the album. For allowing yourself the time to properly cultivate and mold your art. For reminding us that we ain’t shit. For reaffirming the masses that you are creating not only music but also art. Thank you for the creating the soundtrack of my life. For encouraging brief moments of selfreflection during the pregame. For momentarily sending me into a quarter life crisis while I contemplate whether that shot is worth it. For tricking me into thinking that “Nights” was a banger only to get to part II and reevaluate every decision that I had ever and will ever make. Thank you assembling the musical version of the Avengers within your features. For continuously dragging André 3000 out of whatever hole he lives in for 360 days out of the year. For selling the rights to your first born for the gift that is Beyoncé, only to use her as a back-up vocalist. Thank you for providing a nuanced, provocative performance of masculinity –a performance that evades and refutes the hegemonic ideal of hypermasculinity oft portrayed in popular culture. For illustrating the manliness in fragility, the strength in delicacy, the power in vulnerability. Thank you for forcing us to remember and acknowledge the pains of the past. For showing us the lasting effects of Hurricane Katrina. For refusing to let us forget Trayvon Martin and the persisting injustice in our country. For illustrating the shortcomings and the relentless struggles of being black in America. Thank you. I’ll see you in 8 years. Love, A fan that thinks your raps are great too
DEAR FRANK
Frank.
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Be Yourself "Listen, stop trying to be somebody else. Don't try to be someone else. Be yourself and know that that's good enough. Don't try to be someone else."
THANK YOU, FRANK. COLOUR: THE CONTOUR ISSUE Image: Hyperbeast.com
"I was growing up and thought about things one way and that was the only way to think about them. For example, holding someone’s hand was immature, like not being able to cross the street by yourself. I later learned that it’s also a sign of caring for someone else."
DESTINEE SHIPLEY
WORLDVIEW
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Image: canva.com
Image: canva.com
WORLDVIEW Change My whole existence is encapsulated by change I pack the pieces of my life up And they never quite fit the same When I get to my destination Cognitive dissonance making me Cognitively diss my stance On the world I have experienced for so long
Crying, for instance, used to be for babies Or whiners Or I guess the people who were too weak To handle their position in this world
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Something to look down upon Activism was yelling and screaming and frightening And angry‌always angry When people forced their views on others And were not fair to those around them Holding hands was a sign that you were immature Too little to make it on your own Having to rely on someone bigger, stronger Separation--that's how you counteracted that one Striking it off on your own Proving yourself Love? Only reserved for significant others And moms and dads And favorite books and TV shows and chocolate And maybe siblings And you know, siblings are under the constraints of Sharing your flesh and blood Who grew up in your house and shared your stuff Until they didn't And then that love comes into question
I didn't know of any experiences That could possibly change how I thought Thinking is eternal and everlasting And you always are however you came And I just didn't realize How misconstrued my vision of the world was
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"I am this world Constantly spinning and shifting And becoming a new version of myself Never flat Dynamic" COLOUR: THE CONTOUR ISSUE
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That is until I experienced my first real heartbreak And every subsequent heartbreak after that And the times where my heart felt so full I thought it would burst All the love I've experienced by the people that I love and who love me But I didn't know that love could exist in all the ways that it does Support, care, a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on Something real and tangible to fight for Suddenly nothing was as it seemed My life was much more complicated Than some jaded definitions of what it means to be A person
How could I be so ignorant to think That only roses are red and only violets are blue My view is not stationary Heck, neither is the world Constantly turning, circling Finding new angles And never quite being the same Each time it makes its way around the sun
I am this world Constantly spinning and shifting And becoming a new version of myself Never flat Dynamic
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The Collegiate
100
Photographer: Taylor Bird McGuire
Who We Are
The Collegiate 100 is an auxiliary branch of the 100 Black Men of America, Inc. The chapter here at Washington University in Saint Louis, which was chartered in the spring of 2016, is comprised of young black male leaders who seek to serve the Saint Louis community through volunteerism, mentoring, and programming. As a new presence on campus, it is actively seeking young men who want a more developed and meaningful involvement both with black men on campus and with others in the Saint Louis area. Founded upon the pillars of Education, Health & Wellness, Economic Empowerment, and Leadership Development, 100 Black Men offers great networking opportunities and events for those within and outside of the organization. For example, the Collegiate 100 at Washington University has attended the annual Black Tie Gala of the 100 Black Men of Metropolitan Saint Louis for the past two years. In addition, the Washington University in Saint Louis chapter has hosted events such as The Barbershop, an event where popular barbers were invited to cut hair on campus, and Black Male Company, an event where black male faculty and black undergraduate men mingled in a more social context than the classroom. If you are interested in hearing more about the chapter’s events, follow us on Facebook or Instagram @Collegiate100StLouis. COLOUR: THE CON*TOUR ISSUE
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Model: Joseph Narcisse
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C O L O U R : T H E C O NU T O U RR II SS SSUUEE
Model: Chris White
C O L O U R : T H E C O NU T O U RR II SS SSUUEE
Model: Gideon Oyekanmi
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Model: Reuben Hogan
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Model: Derrick Ogola
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Interested in Getting Involved?
Email: colourmag.wustl@gmail.com Facebook: Colour
EST. 2015
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