Michael Onwutalu — Houston, TX Illustration by Ines Alto I had been listening to a lot of Kelsey Lu in anticipation of their newest album, So Help Me God. Specifically, I had been hooked on the singer’s debut album, Blood, the music capturing a pre-Covid naïveté that I’ve grown fond of. “Due West,” the album’s 2018 lead single, is so 2019, and what was I doing then? I was completing the transition to high school, binging Game of Thrones, tuning in weekly to Euphoria, and prac

The Beginnings of Ntozake Shange and her Literary Elsewheres. By Nnema Épée-Bounya Illustration by Iris Pope On the fourth floor of Milstein Library, in box nine, folder three of the Ntozake Shange Papers sits a stapled, slightly stained, magazine. Tucked between the manilla folders of Barnard’s Archives, its cover is a loose sketch of a nude Black woman—her arms delicately wrapped around her body, her hip popped to the side, her featureless face turned toward the reader. To

On swenking, Sapeurs, and dressing well . By Nnema Épée-Bounya Illustration by Iris Pope I am in the back of a theater, the smallest theater I have ever been in. The seats are made of wood and have red velvet cushions. The woman next to me is eating a bag of chips extremely loudly, slowly, and self-consciously. The woman in front of me has an afro shaped like a heart, and I wonder if it’s intentional. Two middle-aged Black women sit beside me after arriving with the director

Embracing physical media in the AI age. By Nnema Épée-Bounya​​ Illustration by Isabelle Oh Numerous times over the last few months, I’ve...