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We have curated a selection of creative opportunities for you to digest. We know how difficult and overwhelming it can be to find opportunities. So as a way to support your creative journey we have separated this newsletter into different mediums. We hope you find something that resonates with you and helps lighten the load.

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In my last blog, The True Cost of a Curl, I broke down some of the key contributors keeping their foot on the necks of our pockets. One of those was a lack of understanding about our hair.

Now, I’d say I’m pretty knowledgeable about mine. I know it’s fine but dense, I know it doesn’t like tension, and I know that, for the most part, braids and other protective styles don’t sit particularly well with my scalp. However, there are times when a particular style tricks me out of better judgement, and I always end up paying the price.

I’ve built my Instagram Explore page brick by brick. The fashion, the hairstyles, the culture, the music — you name it. One recurring style I’d kept seeing was this gorgeous half-braid, half-sew-in look, and I was obsessed. I kept seeing stylists putting their own spin on it, and everyone looked truly gorgeous. With a holiday coming up, I knew this was the style I wanted to try.

When travelling, I personally believe choosing a style that’s easy to manage is the best way to go. My preference is usually a braided or twisted-back style with a quick weave at the back, or I’ll go with bundles and leave my natural hair out. Plenty of factors go into that decision, but climate is definitely the main one. If it’s somewhere hot, the absolute last thing I want to be doing is gluing down a lace frontal and worrying about the wig sliding backwards while I’m pop-locking and dropping it in the club, or the treacherous tan line I’ll be bringing home with me.

Unfortunately, I’d failed to factor in the state of my hair before deciding on this particular style.

I’d recently suffered a lot of breakage after my hair became super dry and brittle from using a cheap dye kit. Not a good move on my part. My hair was also growing out at an awkward length from a previous style I’d done a few years ago, which only intensified the situation.

Picking my hairstylist was the easy part. I already knew I could sit in my Auntie Marianne’s chair without having to tell her what to do. Back in 2022, I got a vixen sew-in for my birthday, and my hair grew SO much. Essentially, it’s a sew-in that leaves the perimeter of your hair out, giving you plenty of styling flexibility.

Surprisingly, I kept that install in for two months without any issues. I think there were a couple of reasons for that. The areas of my hair that are more prone to breakage were left out, meaning the stronger hair in the centre of my head took most of the tension. I also bought the hair from a shop in Ghana and experienced absolutely no itching.

Naturally, I thought I’d book a full service this time: wash, treatment, cut and blow-dry. At least when I took the style out, I figured my hair would be healthier and more manageable.

I knew I’d messed up when I saw the first braid going in.

The braid was so… thin. It looked nothing like the inspo pictures I’d been looking at for months, so I quietly sat there, experiencing a sudden moment of foreshadowing as I slowly realised this wasn’t going to eat the way I’d imagined.

We also had to cut off quite a bit of my hair. I wasn’t too mad about that. I love cutting off old hair, especially if all it’s going to do is snap off and cause me more problems anyway. When the braiding was complete, two things came to mind: my forehead is huge, and this style is going to take some getting used to.

I spend a lot of my free time trying to understand my hair better, and one of the people I watch regularly is trichologist Naka Trichology. She creates incredible content explaining the science behind our hair. One of the things she discusses is the difference between hair density and strand thickness. Fine hair has a smaller diameter, meaning you can have fine hair and still have high density — in other words, lots of hair on your head.

Fine hair can also be weighed down by heavier products, and certain styles may be less suitable depending on the condition of your hair, the tension involved and your scalp’s sensitivity. Caring for fine hair isn’t necessarily the same as caring for thicker strands, and understanding those differences has helped me make more informed decisions about mine.

Looking back, I can see why this install wasn’t the best choice for me. It wasn’t just about the style itself; it was the combination of my fine strands, recent breakage, awkward hair length and a scalp that already struggles with certain protective styles. It was a reminder that I could be just one questionable hairstyle away from undoing some of my retention progress.

Once the style was in, I told myself I just had to get through two weeks so the money I’d spent wouldn’t go to waste. It was uncomfortable, itchy and heavy, and I noticed it took a toll on the fragile hairs around my nape. I even washed it while I was away, trying to make the experience more manageable.

Lesson learned.

Understanding my hair doesn’t just save me the hassle of dealing with issues like scalp irritation and breakage; it can save me money, too. When my hair is out, I’m comfortable managing it myself. I know how to treat it, when to trim it, how often I like to wash it, and which products work for me.

I’m not a stranger to my hair. But when I put it into styles that don’t agree with it, I can end up dealing with a whole new set of problems — sometimes undoing progress I’ve spent months trying to make.

Looking back, I’ll probably be keeping m y distance from some of those Instagram styles and sticking more closely to what I know works for me. There are plenty of options out there; it just takes a little more discipline to choose what suits my hair over what looks good on someone else’s.

Because sometimes, the real cost of a curl isn’t the product, the appointment or even the install itself. It’s what it takes to get your hair back to where it was before.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

For only £6 a month (price of a coffee) you get access to the opportunities, the knowledge and the community that keeps you close to the culture. Whether you are building something or you just care about what is happening - this is where you want to be. And every membership puts money directly into the hands of the writers and creators telling the stories that actually matter.

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On Boxing Day 1920, more than 46,000 people gathered at Goodison Park in Liverpool to watch a football match. The players were the Dick, Kerr Ladies, a team of factory workers from Preston whose performances had become major public events. Their opponents were St Helens Ladies. The terraces were packed, the occasion attracted national attention, and the match formed part of a wider movement that had made women’s football one of the most visible expressions of women’s changing place in public life.

It was a remarkable crowd for any football match. For a women’s team, it was a statement about the size of an audience that already existed.

A century later, football operates on a different scale. The sport has become a global entertainment business, with broadcasting deals spanning continents, transfer fees that make international headlines and clubs whose identities extend far beyond their home cities. Women’s football has also entered a new period of visibility, attracting record crowds, major sponsors and a generation of players who are becoming familiar names well beyond their own competitions.

And yet, the conditions under which women play remain uneven. Some compete in world-class stadiums before enormous audiences. Others struggle with insecure contracts, inadequate facilities and the practical difficulties of building a career around football.

The distance between those realities is often discussed as a question of money. But the story begins much earlier, with a decision that would alter the development of the sport for generations.

In 1921, the Football Association effectively shut women out of its affiliated grounds. Its reasoning was explicit. The consequences were far less temporary than the people who made the decision might have imagined.

The history that followed raises a question relevant to football in 2026: when a sport develops under radically different conditions for men and women, how much of the resulting inequality can reasonably be attributed to the market, and how much has been shaped by the institutions that control the game?

The game before the ban

Women’s football did not emerge as a recent extension of the men’s professional game. Women were playing organised football in Britain during the nineteenth century, and the sport developed considerably during the First World War.

As men left factories to serve in the military, women entered industrial workplaces in greater numbers. Factory teams became an important part of working-class social life, with football offering recreation, community and a public platform for women at a time when their roles were changing rapidly.

The Dick, Kerr Ladies became the most famous of these teams. Based in Preston, they attracted substantial crowds and played matches across Britain. Their Boxing Day fixture in 1920 was a landmark, but it was not an isolated spectacle. The team became a major attraction, demonstrating that women could play competitive football before large audiences.

The game’s popularity existed within a wider struggle over women’s participation in public life. Women had only recently secured the right to vote on the same terms as men in Britain, following the Representation of the People Act 1928, which extended equal voting rights to women aged 21 and over. Questions about women’s physical capabilities, social roles and independence were being contested across society. Football was part of that larger argument.

On 5 December 1921, the Football Association announced that its affiliated clubs should no longer permit women’s matches on their grounds. The association declared that football was “quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” It also raised concerns about the handling of match receipts, but the ruling itself rested on a judgement about whether women should be playing the sport at all.

The consequences were substantial. Women continued to play, but they lost access to many of the grounds and networks that could have supported the game’s development. The ruling remained in force until the FA rescinded it in January 1970. In 1971, the association formally permitted women’s football to return to affiliated grounds.

Nearly half a century had passed.

The history is documented by the Football Association and the National Football Museum.

The significance of the ban extends beyond the years during which it was enforced. Football develops through accumulated opportunities: regular competition, access to grounds, coaching networks, youth teams, spectators, media attention and the relationships between clubs and their communities. When those opportunities are restricted, the effects travel forward.

Men’s football continued to develop within an established network of clubs and competitions. Women’s football had to maintain itself at the margins of a system that had formally discouraged its growth.

A prohibition can end on a particular date. The conditions it helped create can persist for decades.

This history complicates the familiar claim that the men’s game simply became more successful because people preferred it. Popularity matters, but it does not develop in a vacuum. Institutions influence which competitions receive attention, which athletes are supported and which audiences are given opportunities to form lasting relationships with a sport.

The women’s game was not starting from nothing when the ban was lifted. It was continuing a history that had been interrupted.

When the market becomes an excuse

There is a persistent argument in football that the men’s game generates more revenue, so it naturally receives more resources. From a purely commercial perspective, the logic appears straightforward. Clubs have costs to cover, broadcasters want audiences and sponsors expect a return.

The problem begins when the current financial position is treated as a complete explanation of how the sport should develop.

Men’s football has benefited from generations of professional infrastructure, regular broadcasting, established international competitions and a vast commercial ecosystem. Those advantages reinforce one another. A strong competition attracts viewers; viewers attract sponsors and broadcasters; the resulting income supports better facilities, recruitment and development. Successful clubs can use their reach to build even larger audiences.

This is a familiar cycle across professional sport. The crucial point is that the cycle has to begin somewhere, and it is much easier to maintain once it has been established.

Women’s football has often been expected to demonstrate the commercial performance of a mature industry while still building many of the structures that allow a mature industry to exist. The difference is not simply that one side generates more revenue. It is that the two sides have not had equivalent opportunities to develop the sources of that revenue.

Consider broadcasting. Audiences cannot follow a competition consistently if matches are difficult to find, schedules are unpredictable or coverage is limited. Sponsors are less likely to recognise the value of a competition that receives little exposure. Young supporters are less likely to build a relationship with players and clubs they rarely get to watch.

Visibility shapes demand, just as demand shapes visibility. Treating those forces as entirely separate misses how football actually grows.

There is also a difference between a club making a sensible commercial decision and an entire sport using its existing commercial hierarchy as a reason to preserve the status quo. Financial discipline matters. So does recognising that the present balance of resources reflects historical decisions, not simply a neutral ranking of potential.

The relevant question is not whether the men’s and women’s games produce identical returns. They do not. It is whether the women’s game is being given a fair opportunity to develop, and whether decisions made today are based on its long-term prospects or on assumptions inherited from a very different era.

The distinction has practical consequences. A club that prioritises short-term revenue above everything else may struggle to develop its academy, retain players or build a sustainable audience. A governing body that treats women’s football as a secondary concern can limit the very growth it later claims to be waiting for.

The market is part of the story. It is not the whole explanation.

The conditions behind the performance

Football is often presented through its most visible elements: the match, the shirt, the stadium, the trophy. But elite performance depends on a network of less visible conditions.

A professional environment includes training pitches, medical teams, recovery facilities, nutrition, transport, coaching, scouting and the everyday organisation that allows an athlete to concentrate on football. These are not decorative extras. They influence how players prepare, how they recover and how long they can sustain their careers.

In women’s football, access to these conditions varies considerably between clubs and countries. Some teams operate within the infrastructure of major men’s clubs, while others have to build their own systems with fewer resources. Shared facilities can offer significant advantages, but they can also mean that women’s teams have to fit around schedules and priorities established elsewhere.

The question is not whether every women’s club should have a replica of a leading Premier League training complex. It is whether each club has the facilities and support appropriate to the level at which its players are expected to perform.

Michele Kang’s approach to London City Lionesses offers one example of a different model. Her plans for a purpose-built training centre, expected to open in 2027, reflect an ambition to create an environment designed around female athletes. The significance lies not only in the building itself, but in the decision to treat women’s football as the starting point of the design rather than an additional requirement within an existing structure.

That principle extends into sports science and medicine. Female athletes have historically been underrepresented in parts of medical and performance research, leaving gaps in knowledge about physiology, injury prevention and recovery. The issue has become increasingly important as women’s football reaches higher levels of physical intensity and professionalisation.

Research into anterior cruciate ligament injuries, for example, has drawn attention to the burden of ACL injuries in women’s football. The causes are complex and involve multiple factors, including biomechanics, playing conditions and training. Better evidence, appropriate prevention programmes and access to high-quality medical support are essential parts of addressing the problem.

These questions cannot be reduced to a simple comparison between men’s and women’s bodies. They require research that takes female athletes seriously on their own terms.

The same applies at grassroots level. Elite players do not materialise at the age of 18 with their technical ability fully developed. Their careers are shaped by years of training, coaching, competition and access to opportunities. If girls have fewer teams available, less convenient training times or limited access to experienced coaches, the effects accumulate long before professional clubs begin recruiting them.

Two players can have similar ability and ambition but very different routes through the game. One may encounter a clear pathway from school football to an academy. The other may have to travel farther, work around limited facilities or leave the sport because the next stage is inaccessible.

Their eventual careers may appear to reflect individual talent alone. In reality, talent has been developed under different conditions.

This is why the future of women’s football cannot be judged only by the quality of its leading teams. Its long-term strength depends on the depth of the game beneath them: the number of girls playing, the quality of local coaching, the accessibility of competitions and the possibility of progressing from one level to the next.

A strong professional league needs a strong football culture around it.

The patriarchy that does not announce itself

The FA’s 1921 ruling was unusually direct. The institution openly declared that football was unsuitable for women and used its authority to restrict their participation. Contemporary inequality is rarely expressed in such explicit terms.

Today, it is more likely to appear in decisions about scheduling, budgets, staffing, facilities or which teams receive the best available resources. Each decision can be defended as a practical matter. The wider pattern becomes visible only when those decisions are considered together.

Patriarchy does not operate exclusively through individual prejudice. It also survives through assumptions about what is normal, valuable and worth supporting.

For generations, boys have been encouraged to see football as a natural part of growing up. The sport offers a social language, a source of local identity, a route into friendship and, for some, a possible career. Girls have often encountered different expectations, shaped by the idea that football is primarily a male space or that sporting ambition should occupy a secondary position in their lives.

These expectations influence families, schools, clubs and institutions. They affect which children are encouraged to join a team, which facilities are built and which competitions receive attention. They also influence how sporting achievement is recognised.

Women players can find their technical ability and tactical intelligence discussed alongside disproportionate attention to their appearance, personal lives or suitability as role models. Male players are also subject to scrutiny, but the questions asked of women often carry an additional burden: their presence can be treated as something that must be explained, defended or made palatable to an audience.

The pattern is not universal, and attitudes have changed significantly. Women’s football has supporters, coaches, journalists and administrators who have helped transform the sport. But progress does not mean that the assumptions inherited from the past have disappeared.

One of the more subtle effects of inequality is the way the established order comes to appear neutral. Men’s football occupies the central position, so its needs are treated as the default. Women’s football is framed as an additional category, expected to fit around existing arrangements or demonstrate why it deserves more space.

That distinction shapes the language of the debate. The men’s game is often discussed in terms of its potential, its global reach and its future commercial opportunities. Women’s football is more likely to be asked to prove its value through attendance figures, viewing numbers and revenue growth.

There is nothing wrong with measuring those things. The problem is applying the demand for proof unevenly, as though one side of the sport has an inherent right to exist while the other must continually make its case.

The consequences of a male-dominated history are not limited to who receives a budget. They influence who feels entitled to take up space in football, who is expected to adapt and who gets to be regarded as the natural occupant of the pitch.

Changing that culture requires more than removing formal restrictions. It means examining the everyday decisions through which institutions determine whose ambitions are treated as ordinary.

A professional career, or a professional appearance?

The growth of women’s football has created a striking contrast between its most visible stars and the working conditions of many players elsewhere.

Major tournaments bring packed stadiums, international broadcasting and athletes whose names are increasingly recognised outside football. Leading clubs attract commercial partners and build substantial audiences. These developments matter. They have created opportunities that were difficult to imagine for many players a generation ago.

But a sport can become more visible without becoming equally secure for everyone working within it.

In October 2026, FIFPRO published findings from a global employment report based on a survey and interviews involving approximately 800 players. It found that average inflation-adjusted monthly club salary had tripled since 2017, reaching $2,601, while the median was $1,669. Only 56 per cent of players surveyed had an employment contract, and 47 per cent said their clubs lacked sufficient staff. The report also identified significant disparities between countries, including leagues where average player earnings remained below national minimum wage levels.

The findings, published through FIFPRO, complicate the image created by the leading clubs and international competitions. A small group of well-resourced teams can coexist with a global profession in which many players lack financial security, adequate support or the certainty that football can sustain a career.

Professionalism is often used to describe an athlete’s discipline, preparation and commitment. But professionalism also describes the environment in which that athlete works. It requires reliable contracts, medical support, appropriate facilities, time to recover and the ability to devote oneself to training without having to secure a second job to pay the bills.

A player can be exceptional in her approach to football and still work within an employment structure that treats the sport as an unstable occupation. That contradiction is not a reflection of her ambition. It is a reflection of the conditions surrounding her career.

Insecure employment affects more than an individual’s immediate income. It can make it harder to plan for family life, access specialist care, prepare for life after retirement or remain in the game long enough to develop experience. Clubs lose continuity when players leave for more secure opportunities, while leagues struggle to retain talent.

These realities also complicate the idea that the women’s game simply needs more visible role models. Representation matters, but a young player needs more than the image of someone who has made it. She needs a credible route towards doing the same.

The aim should be to make professional football a sustainable occupation across a wider range of clubs and countries, rather than a viable career for a relatively small group of elite players.

The audience has already arrived

The attendance figures from recent women’s football tournaments have become familiar enough to risk losing their significance.

UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 in England drew 574,875 spectators, including 87,192 for the final between England and Germany at Wembley. Three years later, Switzerland set a new tournament attendance record, with 657,291 spectators across 31 matches. The 2025 competition demonstrated that major women’s football events can attract enormous crowds across an entire tournament, not only for a single final.

The club game is developing too. Barcelona’s women’s team has drawn substantial crowds at the Camp Nou, while clubs across Europe have worked to turn occasional high-profile fixtures into more consistent relationships with supporters. The scale of that progress differs between leagues, but women’s football is no longer a proposition whose audience exists only in theory.

The financial picture is changing alongside it. Deloitte’s 2026 Women’s Football Money League reported that the fifteen highest-revenue women’s clubs collectively generated €158 million in the 2024/25 season, a 35 per cent increase on the previous year. Average revenue among those clubs exceeded €10 million for the first time.

The figures require context. The leading clubs do not represent the entire women’s game, and revenue can include commercial agreements and support from wider club organisations. Growth at the top does not automatically translate into security throughout the football pyramid.

Still, the direction is significant. The sport is creating commercial opportunities, attracting supporters and giving broadcasters and sponsors reasons to pay attention. The task now is to turn that attention into durable structures: accessible tickets, reliable scheduling, consistent coverage, strong youth pathways and competitions that supporters can follow throughout a season.

A packed stadium is an achievement. A league capable of producing the next generation of elite players is a different achievement. The future depends on both.

There is also a cultural dimension that cannot be measured entirely through revenue. Women’s football has its own histories, rivalries, communities and styles of play. Its players are building public identities and influencing the way younger generations encounter the sport. Supporters are not simply transferring their interest in men’s football to another category. They are developing relationships with teams and players in their own right.

The women’s game does not need to become a replica of the men’s game to justify its place. It needs room to develop its own culture, audiences and commercial models, supported by the conditions that professional sport requires.

What the next century looks like

Football is approaching the end of 2026 with more evidence of the women’s game’s potential than at any previous point in its modern history. International competitions are attracting record crowds. Leading clubs are generating growing revenues. Players are performing at the highest level while continuing to expose the uneven conditions under which the profession operates.

Yet visibility and opportunity remain different things. A player can become globally recognisable while girls in her hometown still struggle to access regular coaching. A tournament can sell out while professionals elsewhere lack secure contracts. A club can celebrate its women’s team while the team continues to operate around facilities and schedules designed primarily for someone else.

This is the contradiction at the heart of the current moment. Football has become increasingly comfortable celebrating the women’s game. Celebration is visible, immediate and easy to communicate. Structural change is slower. It requires consistent decisions about facilities, research, employment, coaching, broadcasting and the development of players long before they become stars.

The women who played before the 1921 ban understood that football was worth playing even when the institutions around them refused to make space for it. The generations that followed kept the game alive through decades in which its development was constrained. Today’s players are competing in a world where the audience is larger, the commercial possibilities are clearer and the quality of the football is increasingly difficult to overlook.

The challenge is to stop treating the consequences of unequal opportunity as evidence of unequal potential.

There is no single solution, and the needs of a global sport will vary between countries, leagues and clubs. But the direction should be clear: stronger grassroots pathways, better employment conditions, appropriate facilities, more serious attention to female athletes’ health, and a football culture in which girls do not have to justify their presence before they are allowed to develop their ability.

The question raised by that crowd at Goodison Park in 1920 was never simply whether people would watch women play football. Thousands already had.

The question was what the sport would allow those players to become.

A century later, football has the opportunity to answer differently.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

For only £6 a month (price of a coffee) you get access to the opportunities, the knowledge and the community that keeps you close to the culture. Whether you are building something or you just care about what is happening - this is where you want to be. And every membership puts money directly into the hands of the writers and creators telling the stories that actually matter.

Subscribe now

WHO’S BUILDING THE FUTURE FUNCTION?

Culture is often most visible when the doors open, the music starts, a campaign goes live or a room fills with people. Less visible is the work that makes those moments possible. Who builds the spaces, relationships and networks that allow culture to thrive, and what does it take to keep them going?

Who’s Building the Future Function? explores four founders shaping London’s cultural and social life in different ways. From Sika’s approach to nightlife and community, to Tito Mogagji’s work connecting underrepresented audiences with arts and culture through Nourishment, Janay Marie’s commitment to more thoughtful representation at TALLAWAH Agency, and Dubi and Esther’s vision for One House Social Club as a second home, this series looks beyond the finished experience. These are stories about the people behind the scenes, the ideas that drive them and the practical work of turning a vision into something that lasts.

PART ONE | SIKA

For Sika, a great party is only part of the vision. Beyond the music, packed dance floors and familiar faces, the ambition is to build a sustainable platform for community, creativity and connection. What matters is creating a space where people can express themselves, discover new experiences and feel welcome, while giving DJs, artists and creatives opportunities to reach new audiences.

The story of Sika begins with something familiar: a birthday celebration that sparked the idea of building something bigger. What started as organising parties gradually developed into a platform where people could come together through music and shared experiences.

At its heart, Sika is about making nightlife more than just a night out. It’s about building something that can grow with its community and remain meaningful for generations to come.

What the vibe really takes

Ask what defines Sika, and the answer is simple: the vibe. For the founder, however, that feeling is the result of deliberate work. It comes from creating an environment where people can let their guard down, enjoy the music and feel comfortable just being themselves.

|“At the end of the day, we work hard to actually create all of these things that we do, and we play hard.”

“Work hard, play hard” is a philosophy that runs through the brand of Sika. Behind every event is a team working to ensure that everything runs smoothly, from production and music to communication and guest experience. Getting everyone on the same page, understanding individual strengths and putting the right people in the right roles are essential to making the night work.

For Sika’s founder, the reward is increasingly found in the planning itself. Seeing people reconnect with friends, meet new people and come together for a much-needed catch-up amid the busyness of everyday life makes the work worthwhile. Sika aims to be more than just another event, but something people look forward to, save the date for and make time for in their calendars. A few hours on the dance floor can create memories, strengthen friendships and give people a reason to come together despite their busy lives.

| “I know people that go to Sika by themselves… even if you’re coming from a different community, you still feel welcomed.”

Community has been central to Sika’s growth. Before social media began bringing wider attention, word of mouth helped establish its reputation. That support remains important, with the aim of creating an environment where people feel they belong, whether they arrive with friends or come alone. As the audience grows, Sika wants to preserve that sense of familiarity while welcoming people from different backgrounds.

The vision also extends beyond the party itself. Through collaborations with other organisations and community-led initiatives, Sika sees an opportunity to share knowledge, introduce new perspectives and use its platform to bring attention to issues that matter.

Music that brings people together

| “A fundamental to a great party is always going to be the music. The way we create our events, we want it to be like a journey.”

Music is fundamental to the Sika experience. Afrobeats, Amapiano, Dancehall, R&B and nostalgic sounds from the 2010s are not simply genres to include in a playlist. They are part of a carefully considered journey, with the right DJ, track selection and timing helping to shape the atmosphere.

For Sika, music can break the ice between strangers. A familiar song might bring people together in a singalong, while an unexpected track could encourage someone to explore a sound they have never considered before. These moments create connections naturally, without anyone needing an introduction.

The intention is to balance familiar favourites with opportunities for discovery. By treating music as an essential part of the experience, Sika creates a platform for DJs and creatives to showcase their talents while giving audiences something new to enjoy. As the brand develops, finding ways to elevate its musical offering will remain a priority.

Building a business with purpose

In Twi, sika means money, a name that reflects the practical realities of building something sustainable. For the founder, money is not everything, but he honestly reflects on how it is necessary to turn a vision into something lasting. Better venues, stronger DJ line-ups, production, merchandise and new experiences all require investment.

| “Margins matter. That’s just the reality of doing these types of events. At the end of the day, everything costs.”

“Margins matter,” Sika explains, acknowledging the risks involved in organising events. Every decision, from choosing a venue capacity to deciding when to host an event, requires an understanding of costs, audience habits and demand. Financial sustainability means knowing when to grow and how to make those decisions without losing the qualities that brought people to Sika in the first place.

That balance is central to the long-term vision. Growth is not simply about selling more tickets or filling bigger venues. It is about bringing the community along, staying connected to its interests and continuing to offer experiences that feel authentic. As Sika reaches new audiences, the intention is to remain culturally engaged while creating room for collaboration and fresh ideas.

For Sika, a successful night goes beyond a packed dance floor. It means guests enjoying themselves and getting home safely. It also means creating an experience where artists and team members feel supported and valued, and where everything runs as smoothly as possible. Ultimately, success is knowing that people have had a good night, felt looked after and can leave with positive memories.

A vision beyond the night

| “Keep pushing. Just keep pushing. Believe in your vision. We’re not there yet, but we’ll get there.”

Looking ahead, Sika wants to become a household name and a lasting presence in London’s nightlife. The ambition is to build a platform that can adapt to changing trends, create opportunities for emerging talent and continue serving its community over time. That vision continues with Sika’s next event, Sika x Trendy, taking place on the 7th of November. The collaboration promises a major line up and a chance to bring people together for one last dance before the year ends. Another opportunity to put Sika’s approach into practice, bringing music, community and shared experience together for a night designed to end the year on a high.

For the founder, the advice to an earlier version of Sika would be straightforward: keep pushing and believe in the vision. There is still more to learn, but the goal remains clear.

Sika is building more than a party. Through music, community, collaboration and careful planning, it’s working towards a space where people can connect, creatives can thrive and nightlife can have a lasting impact beyond the hours spent on the dance floor.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

For only £6 a month (price of a coffee) you get access to the opportunities, the knowledge and the community that keeps you close to the culture. Whether you are building something or you just care about what is happening - this is where you want to be. And every membership puts money directly into the hands of the writers and creators telling the stories that actually matter.

Subscribe now

Welcome to GUAP’s weekly newsletter.

We have curated a selection of creative opportunities for you to digest. We know how difficult and overwhelming it can be to find opportunities. So as a way to support your creative journey we have separated this newsletter into different mediums. We hope you find something that resonates with you and helps lighten the load.

Read more

I recently asked someone what they did for a living. They gave me a 45-second answer.

“I’m a photographer, but I also do creative direction, I’ve got a clothing thing, I DJ sometimes, I help my friend with his events and I’m working on a documentary.”

I nodded like this was completely normal. Then he asked me what I did. I suddenly became very aware that “I’m a journalist” sounded incredibly underachieving.

Welcome to London, where apparently nobody has a job anymore. We have things. Your barber has a podcast. Your DJ is a model. Your model is a photographer. Your photographer is launching a clothing brand. The clothing brand has an “experience”. The experience has a DJ. The DJ is also a videographer. The videographer has started a supper club. The supper club is “a community”. And somebody, somewhere, is probably making a documentary about all of it.

This isn’t just a funny observation. Britain currently has around 1.3 million people with a second job. In the April-to-June 2026 quarter, the Office for National Statistics recorded 1.293 million people with second jobs, about 3.8% of everyone in employment. So when your friend says, “Yeah, I do a few bits on the side,” there is a decent chance the “few bits” are actually holding their entire financial life together.

But London has taken this phenomenon and given it a creative direction. Nobody simply has a job. They have a portfolio.

“I work across fashion, music and visual culture.”

Brother, you sell vintage jackets on Depop, and I respect it.

Because underneath the jokes is something very real. London is expensive. Ridiculously expensive. So expensive that “I love London” increasingly sounds less like a statement of affection and more like the beginning of a financial problem.

Young people have responded in the most British way possible: by getting another job. Then another one. Then turning their hobby into a business. Then turning the business into a brand. Then turning the brand into an Instagram page. Then spending three hours making a logo for it.

We have become a generation of accidental entrepreneurs. Not necessarily because we grew up dreaming about invoices and business banking, but because having one income stream now feels like playing Jenga with your rent.

And there is something strangely admirable about it. People are making things. A lot of things. They are starting magazines in bedrooms, putting on parties in warehouses, selling clothes from Instagram pages, photographing their friends, making music in flats, hosting dinners, organising football tournaments and turning random interests into entire little worlds.

Nobody is waiting for permission.

That part is beautiful.

And there is an actual economic ecosystem behind it. The UK creative economy accounted for an estimated 4.3 million filled jobs in 2025. The creative industries alone accounted for 2.464 million. And London is disproportionately responsible for that ecosystem, with 30.3% of creative-industry jobs based in the capital, compared with 15.9% of jobs across the UK overall.

London isn’t just a place where creative people happen to live. For a huge number of them, it is the workplace. The meeting. The networking event. The shoot location. The launch party. The afterparty. And, occasionally, the place where you sleep for four hours before doing it all again.

But there is also something slightly insane about the amount of self-promotion required to keep all of this alive. Making the thing is only half the job. You also have to convince everyone that the thing exists.

You made a T-shirt.

Congratulations.

Now make twelve Reels about the T-shirt. Post the behind-the-scenes. Post the moodboard. Post the packaging. Post yourself folding the T-shirt. Post a photograph of somebody wearing the T-shirt. Post a video explaining why the T-shirt is more than a T-shirt.

Please do not forget to add subtitles. And remember to post between 6pm and 8pm.

This is the strange reality of being young and creative now. Making the thing is only half the job. You also have to become its social media manager. Your own PR. Your own receptionist. Your own accountant. Your own unpaid intern.

You are simultaneously the CEO and the person asking your mum if she can lend you £20 until Friday.

And you have to do it while pretending you don’t care whether anyone notices.

This might be the most exhausting part. Everyone wants to be seen. Nobody wants to look like they’re trying to be seen. So we have invented a complicated language for ambition.

“I’m just experimenting.”

“I’ve been working on a little project.”

“Something small I’ve been putting together.”

“Not ready to announce yet.”

It is never small.

It is a full company. There is a website. There are three Google Drives. There is a moodboard. There are six people in a WhatsApp group called “PROJECT FINAL FINAL”. There is a photographer. There is a videographer. There is somebody’s cousin doing graphic design.

And nobody has been paid.

Then someone says:

“We should definitely do a pop-up.”

London has become a city of pop-ups. Everything is temporary now. Pop-up shops. Pop-up restaurants. Pop-up exhibitions. Pop-up clubs. Pop-up careers.

You can build an entire professional identity and disappear before anyone has worked out what your actual job was.

But perhaps this constant reinvention is also a uniquely London thing. This city has always attracted people who want to become someone else. You arrive with a suitcase, a vague plan and approximately £600. Three years later you are telling people you “work across culture”.

Nobody knows exactly what that means, including you, but it sounds good and maybe that is the point.

The modern creative economy has made identity itself part of the job. You are no longer just selling what you make. You are selling the person who makes it. Your taste. Your lifestyle. Your network. Your face. Your story. Your ability to make a room full of strangers feel like something important is happening.

Which explains why everyone seems to be doing everything.

People aren’t necessarily indecisive. They are trying to build enough pieces of themselves to survive.

The photographer becomes a director because photography isn’t paying enough. The designer DJs because it puts them in rooms with people. The DJ makes clothes because it creates another income stream. The musician starts an event because streaming money is basically pocket change.

Everyone is connecting the dots. Somehow, we’re all trying to turn a collection of unrelated skills into a career. And occasionally it works.

Someone you know will suddenly announce that they’ve signed a deal, opened a studio, launched a brand or moved to New York. You will like the Instagram post and comment:

“Big things 🤞🏾”

Then immediately check your bank account.

£17.43.

Back to work.

Maybe this is what being young in London now actually looks like. Not climbing a traditional career ladder. There isn’t really a ladder anymore. There is a pile of unrelated objects you’ve collected from different jobs, hobbies and friendships, and you’re desperately trying to construct a staircase out of them.

And somehow, people are.

They are building careers out of taste. Out of community. Out of friendship. Out of curiosity. Out of the things they were told were “just hobbies”.

So yes, London is full of people with seven jobs. But maybe that isn’t a sign that we don’t know what we’re doing. Maybe it means we’ve stopped waiting for one job to tell us who we are. Just don’t ask us what we do for a living. We’ll be here a while.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

For only £6 a month (price of a coffee) you get access to the opportunities, the knowledge and the community that keeps you close to the culture. Whether you are building something or you just care about what is happening - this is where you want to be. And every membership puts money directly into the hands of the writers and creators telling the stories that actually matter.

Subscribe now

The Danny Bones movement

Far Right sentiment has been attempting to infiltrate Black music both in the United States and here in the UK, with voices appropriating the music, sound and culture to appeal to those who resonate with their far right ideologies. We’ve slowly seen artists show who they are politically and then had to deal with them accordingly. The far right political ideology is deeply entrenched in anti-Blackness and has no place within Black music culture.

Now, through the use of AI, artists can opt for a digital persona to create perceived distance between themselves, their ideologies, and plausible deniability. The Danny Bones character is something I’ve heard bubbling about, but was shocked to see it was two Manchester creatives behind it. Both the digital artist and DOP who produces the digital persona, and the writer and producer who provides the voice, are people who have been in and around the scene for a while, collaborating with artists of multiple heritages, identities and nationalities.

This raises the question: how can you pivot from working with and embracing the diversity of the city to then condemning it, presumably for profit?

A long history of confused appreciation

This is nothing new. There is a long history of confused appreciation of Black music by White Britain, with people in the 70s and 80s who would listen to reggae or punk with messages of liberation, freedom and equity, but still hold problematic views. This cognitive dissonance is part of the armour of institutional whiteness within Britain, enabling White creatives who hold racist and/or xenophobic views to camouflage themselves within the culture; to absorb all of its creativity, brilliance and greatness to build portfolios under the guise of “platforming local talents”, only to pivot when the opportunity comes and burn aspects of the very communities who helped them get to where they are.

Silence as complicity

Like many artists, I messaged my contemporaries I know who worked with these two. The levels of silence or apprehension at engaging with the piece also spoke volumes. What is the value of your association and participation within the culture if you are not prepared to pay the cost in defending it from those who seek to make profit from exploiting its people? The last six years have taught us that to be silent in the face of injustice is to be complicit in upholding it, and so I think there is a wider piece around reflection required.

Manchester, cotton, and cultural leadership

To be honest, it wasn’t shocking to me generally. Manchester as a whole needs an honest discourse about race. Its past and links to the transatlantic slave trade are hidden behind the rebranding of its links to cotton, with “Cottonopolis” or “Cotton Place” etc. popping up. Its cultural leadership is largely culturally monolithic and views its music culture through a binary lens which often doesn’t include any music of the diaspora. Again, these circumstances are the perfect breeding ground for this to occur.

AI personas and cowardice

Opting to hide behind an AI persona is deeply cowardly to me, given the origins of hip-hop and it being something that was used to speak change to power: people standing in front of crowds, spreading their beliefs, thoughts and viewpoints with the word. Perhaps opting to hide behind animations speaks to the level of conviction for the thoughts and ideologies that exist.

Again, this is why culture-checking those who come into our creative communities is important. These people always show semblances of who they are long before these issues arise. The question is: did we all turn blind eyes to aspects of this?

Privilege, multiculturalism, and who gets to speak

Another aspect to this discussion is the way in which privilege manifests within the idea of multiculturalism within the UK. A white artist can take Black music and use it to spread far right sentiment and ideology with fairly little news coverage or critique. However, if a Black artist is critical of the establishment, or if Black Britons critique a British institution or practice that feels outdated or inequitable, it is everywhere. The digital lynching of Prof. Jason Arday exemplified this in the loudest possible form.

What now?

We are seeing a shift in the emboldening of extremism within the UK, where those supporting can hide behind anonymous accounts, spread hate speech, and platforms do not do anything to mitigate the impact or remove them. This is why, as a culture, we must now start to question: who gets to participate? What are the values that they are adding? And when is it time for us to start to weed out problematic voices?

This will get worse with time if unacknowledged. But the question is: how many of us are really down to undertake the effort, and how many are simply worried about saving face for connections, partnerships and opportunities?

What I’m asking

• Reflect on your collaborations and partnerships. Who are you working with, and what values do they hold when the cameras aren’t rolling?

• Call out harmful projects and ideologies, even when it’s uncomfortable or costly.

• Support Black led initiatives and spaces that centre diaspora music and culture in Manchester and beyond.

• Have honest conversations in your circles about race, power, and who benefits from the culture we help build.

Silence is a choice. So is action.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

For only £6 a month (price of a coffee) you get access to the opportunities, the knowledge and the community that keeps you close to the culture. Whether you are building something or you just care about what is happening - this is where you want to be. And every membership puts money directly into the hands of the writers and creators telling the stories that actually matter.

Subscribe now

When Creativity Comes With Expectations

Fashion celebrates individuality. It thrives on experimentation, reinvention, and the ability to challenge what already exists. Yet the freedom to create without explanation isn’t always extended equally.

For Black designers, creativity can come with an unspoken set of expectations. There is often an assumption that our work should reflect a particular aesthetic, cultural reference, or category. Streetwear, sportswear, and urban fashion have become familiar spaces in which Black creativity is recognised and celebrated.

And while those categories are important parts of fashion history, they should never represent the limits of our imagination.

Black designers have contributed to nearly every corner of the industry, from luxury fashion and tailoring to footwear, textiles, accessories, and experimental design. Yet the conversation around Black-owned brands can still feel narrower than the work itself.

It raises a question worth examining: Who gets to create freely, and who is expected to explain their creativity through the lens of their identity?

The Difference Between Recognition and Creative Freedom

There is nothing wrong with being associated with streetwear. Black culture has played an undeniable role in shaping its global influence, and that contribution deserves recognition.

The problem begins when recognition becomes expectation.

When a Black designer launches a sneaker brand, is the assumption that the product must be athletic or streetwear-inspired? When a Black-owned label introduces luxury accessories, unconventional textiles, or experimental silhouettes, is that work given the same space to exist without explanation?

These questions aren’t about rejecting cultural influence. They’re about rejecting the idea that cultural identity should determine creative boundaries.

Designers should be able to draw inspiration from their heritage, personal experiences, vintage fashion, architecture, art, or simply something they find beautiful.

They should also have the freedom to change direction.

A designer can appreciate streetwear while creating tailored outerwear. They can make sneakers and still explore jewelry. They can embrace cultural influences without making every collection an explicit statement about identity.

Our backgrounds can inform our creativity without being expected to define its limits.

Building PerryCo Outside Traditional Categories

(PerryCo Heirloom Jacket)

When I founded PerryCo in 2018, I didn’t come from a traditional footwear design background. I had no formal training in the industry, no established network of manufacturers, and no outside investment.

What I had was an idea and the determination to build something of my own.

From the beginning, I wanted PerryCo to challenge conventional expectations around footwear. I believed that design could be versatile, expressive, and accessible across gender categories. That’s why unisex design became a core part of the brand rather than a trend we adopted later.

As PerryCo has grown, so has my creative perspective.

Footwear remains an important part of the brand, but my interests extend into sunglasses, accessories, outerwear, and textiles. I’ve become increasingly drawn to vintage materials, tapestry fabrics, patchwork, rich textures, and designs that blend influences from different decades.

Those interests are deeply connected to my personal style.

I don’t want to create something simply because it fits an established idea of what a Black-owned sneaker brand should look like. I want to create products that reflect my imagination and the direction I envision for PerryCo.

For me, breaking barriers isn’t only about entering spaces where people like me have historically been underrepresented. It’s also about having the freedom to evolve once I’m there.

Visibility Is Important. Ownership Is Essential.

Over the past several years, the fashion industry has placed greater emphasis on highlighting Black designers and other underrepresented creatives.

That visibility matters.

Features, awards, collaborations, and invitations to participate in industry conversations can introduce independent designers to audiences they might otherwise struggle to reach.

But visibility alone doesn’t build a sustainable business.

A designer can receive national press coverage and still struggle with production costs, inventory, distribution, and access to capital. A brand can be celebrated for its creativity without receiving the commercial opportunities needed to grow.

I’ve experienced the complexity of building an independent brand firsthand. Securing online retail placements with companies such as Nordstrom, Macy’s, and Kohl’s represents meaningful progress for PerryCo. But those milestones don’t eliminate the everyday realities of running a business.

Recognition is valuable, but it must be accompanied by pathways to economic opportunity.

We need more conversations about ownership, access to manufacturing, wholesale relationships, financing, and the resources that allow independent designers to scale on their own terms.

Because the goal shouldn’t simply be to see more Black designers featured in fashion.

It should be to see more Black designers building businesses they can sustain, control, and pass on.

Representation Should Expand Possibility

One of the most meaningful parts of building PerryCo has been creating opportunities for young people to explore design and entrepreneurship.

Through my work with The Imagination Project, I’ve helped bring two student-designed sneaker concepts into production.

Experiences like that remind me how important it is for the next generation to see creative careers as real possibilities.

But I also think about the messages young designers receive when they look at the industry.

Are we showing them that their creativity can take any form? Or are we unintentionally teaching them that certain designers belong in certain categories?

Representation should do more than show young people someone who looks like them.

It should expand their understanding of what they can become.

A young Black designer should feel equally empowered to create a luxury handbag, a technical running shoe, a tailored suit, an experimental sculpture, or an entirely new product category.

Their imagination shouldn’t need permission to move beyond what the industry already recognizes.

Let the Work Speak Beyond the Label

I am proud to be a Black woman building an independent fashion brand. My identity is part of my story, and I have no interest in separating myself from it.

But I also want my work to be experienced through the same range of creative considerations afforded to other designers: craftsmanship, originality, materials, silhouette, quality, and point of view.

Being a Black designer is part of who I am. It is not a complete description of everything I am capable of creating.

As PerryCo continues to evolve into a broader unisex lifestyle brand, I want to keep exploring ideas that feel authentic to me, even when they don’t fit neatly into an existing category.

That freedom is what makes design exciting in the first place.

The fashion industry doesn’t need to stop celebrating Black creativity. It needs to make more room for its full range.

Because the next generation of Black designers shouldn’t have to choose between embracing their identity and exercising their imagination.

We deserve the freedom to do both.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

For only £6 a month (price of a coffee) you get access to the opportunities, the knowledge and the community that keeps you close to the culture. Whether you are building something or you just care about what is happening - this is where you want to be. And every membership puts money directly into the hands of the writers and creators telling the stories that actually matter.

Subscribe now

We’ve got an exclusive paid opportunity for our members to work with us on a covering an event for us.

We will require a videographer to shoot and edit a 30-60 second video, with a presenter interviewing guests and capturing vibes at an event tomorrow Monday 26th October 2026.

Must have own mics and phone cameras allowed but DJI, DSLR preferred.

To apply click the link below and fill in the form.

Read more

Welcome to GUAP’s weekly newsletter.

We have curated a selection of creative opportunities for you to digest. We know how difficult and overwhelming it can be to find opportunities. So as a way to support your creative journey we have separated this newsletter into different mediums. We hope you find something that resonates with you and helps lighten the load.

Read more

Elephant Room & Aethos London are hosting IN PUBLIC on TUESDAY 27TH OCTOBER - An intimate, high-calibre conversation on building community, brand or a business in public. One of the defining tensions for this generation of founders and creators.

“In Public” is a morning conversation about that exact tension and how to build real community and a real business without losing yourself in the process.

Panelists:

Jermaine Balfourth – Founder, BLACQ Space
Jermaine Balfourth is a Creative Director at OLIVER Agency and the founder of BLACQ Space, a platform that amplifies Black voices and celebrates the community’s achievements.

Jamelia Donaldson – Founder & CEO, TreasureTress
Jamelia is a London-born multi-award-winning entrepreneur founder of TreasureTress two years later. TreasureTress is Europe’s first and largest natural hair product discovery box.

Tolu Farinto – Founder, Limitless
In 2021 he founded the music and events company Limitless Live. It runs the annual Limitless Live festival at London’s Roundhouse, one of the UK’s biggest free live music shows, with the aim of making live music more accessible to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

RSVP HERE

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

For only £6 a month (price of a coffee) you get access to the opportunities, the knowledge and the community that keeps you close to the culture. Whether you are building something or you just care about what is happening - this is where you want to be. And every membership puts money directly into the hands of the writers and creators telling the stories that actually matter.

Subscribe now

Photograph by Sanlé Sory capturing the post-independence zeitgeist in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso in 1960.

There is a peculiar kind of music that only gets made once. Not in the sense of a rare recording or an artist’s best work, but in the sense that the conditions required to make it will never exist again. The exhilaration is unrepeatable.

August 5th, 1960: Upper Volta, a landlocked country in West Africa, stops being a French colony and becomes itself. What do people do on a day like that? They dance. They play music. They feel, perhaps for the first time, like the sound they’re making belongs entirely to them.

Florent Mazzoleni crate digging. Photo via afropop.org

That music very nearly vanished. It was pressed onto fragile 7-inch vinyl, played in the nightclubs and army bars of Bobo-Dioulasso, and then largely forgotten. It took a French producer named Florent Mazzoleni years of patient, door-to-door searching across Burkina Faso to gather these records back from dusty vaults. He called his collection Bobo Yéyé: Belle Époque in Upper Volta, “Yéyé” being French slang for rock and roll energy, borrowed, it is said, from The Beatles’ “yeah, yeah, yeah,” and “Belle Époque” for exactly what it was: a beautiful era.

Frantz Fanon, writing about Algeria around this same time in The Wretched of the Earth, argued that colonialism was never content to merely occupy. It had to go further: to distort, disfigure, and destroy a people’s cultural past, to make them feel that nothing they had made before the coloniser arrived was worth keeping.

Map of Upper Volta and its capital Ouagadougou. Source: CIA World Factbook, 1982 / Public Domain

The name “Upper Volta” is an example of this. It was not a name the people there gave themselves. It was an administrative label the French imposed. Purely geographical. Purely useful. It said: this place is a resource, not a homeland.

Frantz Fanon, right, his influential book ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ left. | People’s World composite

“Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it.”

— Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1961

And so when newly independent people pick up instruments after their coloniser leaves and begin to play, it is not merely a party. It is an argument. It says: we were here before you arrived, and we are still here now that you are gone.

Inventing Youth Culture: Idrissa Koné and Volta Jazz

None of this happens without Idrissa Koné. After saving money from serving in the French colonial army in the 1950s, he built one of the first driving schools in Upper Volta, then a photo studio, and finally a band. His cousin Sory Sanlé shot photographs out of that same studio, capturing the very youth culture Idrissa was busy inventing.

Idrissa Koné with his instruments (Left) and Volta Jazz captured by Sory Sanlé (Right)

He named the band Volta Jazz because “jazz” meant modern, forward-moving, like Black America. Jazz was how you announced that you live with the times. And then, almost defiantly, he kept everything rooted in Bobo-Dioulasso. They sang in Jula, the trader’s lingua franca of West Africa, and wrote songs about their own streets, their own neighbours, their own ordinary life. A song for the local police detective. A song for the municipal gardens.

But that’s just what music does, isn’t it? It tells you what people see, who they love, what their street looks like. The difference now was that nobody was telling them to stop.

The Declaration of the Balafon

Alongside the Afro-Cuban music that was everywhere at the time, they wove in Congolese melodies, rock and roll urgency, and then eventually laid the balafon on top of everything.

The balafon. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

The balafon is a traditional wooden xylophone, its keys sitting over hollowed-out gourds underneath that act as natural amplifiers, giving each note a warm, buzzing resonance, an instrument dating back to the 12th Century and the Mali Empire, where griots carried the memory of entire peoples in their performances. To put it into an electric pop band in 1960 was not a decorative choice. It was a declaration: this thing survived you.

Upper Volta had no recording studios of its own, so the bands of Bobo-Dioulasso had to travel to neighbouring countries like Ghana just to cut a record. The music that came back rarely left the country. It was made for local ears, which is part of why it sounds so unguarded. There is no performance for an outside audience here. There is only the music itself.

I listened to Mama Soukous while writing this, and I kept thinking about that. About how a song can carry a whole political moment inside it without ever announcing itself as political. The togetherness in it, the warmth, it doesn’t feel like defiance. It feels like someone returning home. Despite talking about the nitty-gritties, it feels like a people discovering themselves, through music, now that they finally can.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

For only £6 a month (price of a coffee) you get access to the opportunities, the knowledge and the community that keeps you close to the culture. Whether you are building something or you just care about what is happening - this is where you want to be. And every membership puts money directly into the hands of the writers and creators telling the stories that actually matter.

Subscribe now

We’ve got an exclusive paid opportunity for our members to work with us on a covering an event for us.

We will require the presenter/content creator to be on screen, interviewing guests and capturing vibe and deliver this as a 30-60 second video.

To apply click the link below and fill in the form.

Read more

Have you ever wondered about time? About how things came to be, how things are now, and how things continue to unfold. Life as its culmination of past, present, and future…

As a teenager, I was always inquisitive about the origins of origins. Who was the first native doctor, and how did they discover that certain herbs could heal certain illnesses? How was the first egusi soup recipe formulated? Who tried a random round object that grows from the ground (watermelon), discovered it could be eaten, and its seeds could be dried, peeled, and ground into what would become a traditional delicacy? I was in love with the past, not just as a holder of wisdom, but as a realm of curiosity, exploration, testing, and discovery. The beauty of ancestry is its curiosity of thought, and the discoveries of its exploration.

History is a seeker constantly finding new ways of being, through trial and error. The knowledge we inherit as truth - schools of thought, research, myths, beliefs - are all realisations of someone’s curiosity about something that was once unknown. They stem from the humble phrase - ‘I do not know.’ and journey into uncovering and understanding.

However, I feel, in our modern society, we struggle a lot with the concept of not knowing. Rather than viewing ourselves as students of life, we are surrounded by a wealth of knowledge (others’ knowings) - research, studies, inventions, and experts who have explored before us. Thus, we feel like we need to skip the phase of ‘not knowing’, believing we should simply take up others’ discoveries as a means to ease the discomfort of our own uncertainty.

It almost feels like life has come to a point where nothing is unknown, and as a result we’ve shifted from ‘I do not know.’ to ‘I should know.’ Ironically, this shift hides a deeper truth… ‘Should’ creates a facade of certainty in hopes of masking the shame and distress that not knowing, in a world filled with knowledge, perpetuates. This avoidance prevents us from accessing the very gem that brought every knowing thus far into being - the curiosity about the unknown paired with a willingness and openness to explore, experiment, and discover.

As my dad would say, ‘ To believe (‘should’) and to know something for yourself are two different things.’ To ‘know’ is to experience something for yourself, thus providing you with indisputable evidence of its truth. Meanwhile, to believe is to trust in something’s ability to be true.

History gives us permission to be learners, explorers, inventors, scientists, and philosophers. Curious adventurers able to experience life like a novice - questioning because this is our first life. As an artist and designer, this spaciousness has been the foundation of my creativity, fostering a deep love for pre-colonial art forms and making techniques.

Fashion is one of the portals through which I explore this. In that space of unknowing, my debut collection inspired an experimentation with both past and present, personal and collective curiosities to birth the ‘ABUNDANCE’ capsule collection. I found myself co-writing my personal story in textile through the pre-colonial process of adire. My favorite colours - orange, pink, and purple - bring to life the traditional symbols that were held within my contemporary shapes. Creativity dancing in time…

What is adire?

Adire is an indigo-dyed fabric, made with a variety of resist-dyeing techniques, from raffia tying to block printing, to create patterns and symbols that tell stories through textiles. Although the name refers to the textile practice of women in the Yoruba Kingdom in Nigeria, the resist-dyeing technique has been practiced widely across West Africa. More recently, there has been an evolution of this traditional process utilising wax-resist techniques and a wider range of colours.

After silently launching on the 31st of January 2026, I sat in the darkness of my mind, questioning what I had created. If it was beautiful enough. If it was authentic enough. If it was honest in the curiosity of its exploration of the past, present, personal, and collective. Was it all a sham?

Traditionally, an agbada is a glamorous robe, usually carrying intricate embroidery, that was worn by chiefs, which ‘originated in the Sokoto Caliphate of 19th-century northern Nigeria’ and spread to western Nigeria and beyond, into other West African countries like Cameroon. With the most adorned designs, it is usually worn by chiefs and ogbas; it became a symbol of regality, power, and prestige.

I was reminded of this when I came across a post by Guzangs magazine featuring historical images of people in agbadas. Slowly, after avoiding my own pieces for months, the collection came back to me… Cosmic dance, an ‘awosoke’—the outer robe. Cascadence shirt, ‘awotele’ - the undervest, and finally the suit trousers and Jones jeans, the ‘sokoto’. All three aspects that summate into a traditional agbada ensemble.Definitely not historically accurate, instead a liminal creation, birthed from an exploration of life as a cumulation of past, present and future, both deeply personal and collective.

As such, I leave you with this… What adventure can embracing the curious exploration of ‘I do not know’ unlock for you right now?

About Collection

Our debut collection, ‘ABUNDANCE’, is a love letter to life. An 11-piece capsule collection told through age-old adire and batik techniques - creating textiles that embody the magic in the unfolding cycles of life.

This capsule collection contains two distinct textile expressions. Speckled and vibrant – a yellow, pink, and white colour palette captures the sunlit glimmer of the day, while an inky and artisanal purple, blue, and pink palette alludes to the quiet reflection of the night. Interlaced within the collection is the tailored structure of masculine fashion with the sensual drapery of the feminine - reimagining native Nigerian attire through a whimsical contemporary lens.

Each piece serves as a portal through which wearers can channel the wealth of their lineage and celebrate the beauty of their unfolding life journey.

About Brand

Adanma’s Fashion is a contemporary gender-fluid brand, merging the tailored structure of masculine fashion with the sensual sculpture of the feminine. Grounded in a deep love for pre-colonial Nigerian art forms, we utilise traditional textile-making techniques to reimagine modern Nigerian fashion. We are a liminal brand, creating pieces that serve as portals through which wearers can embody the wealth of their lineage.

About Designer

Adanma Nwankwo (b. 2001) is an interdisciplinary Nigerian artist and founder of Adanma’s Fashion, a contemporary gender-fluid fashion brand. Founded in 2025, the brand is grounded in her deep love for pre-colonial Nigerian art, bending the boundaries between masculine and feminine fashion.

Adanma’s Fashion draws on traditional making techniques to reimagine modern Nigerian fashion. Sitting between art, culture, and fashion, the brand creates pieces that act as portals for wearers to connect with the wealth of their lineage.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

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Boxpark Croydon turned into a dance floor with 2000 people in it when Red Bull Bring The Vim came through for its third edition, non-stop Afrobeats sets from CULTUR FM, showcases from HomeBros and Afro In Heels, dance crew battles, and a live set from Afroswing collective NSG. For the first time in the event’s history, international crews joined the competition, and French team La Révolution walked away with the title over UK crew One Dialect, the first international crew to ever win it.

GUAP caught up with both CULTUR FM and HomeBros after the night to talk through what actually goes into building a night like that, on the decks and on the floor.

CULTUR FM

You held the room down all night at Red Bull Bring The Vim. What is different about DJing for a dance-battle crowd, where the energy is dictated by what is happening on the floor rather than by your own build?

TheFirstLady: The biggest difference is that I am not simply building energy for a crowd; I am responding to the dancers in real time. In a battle, the dance floor becomes another instrument. I watch how the dancers move and react to particular sounds, then use those cues to decide where to take the music next. DJing for CULTUR FM VS beforehand helped me find that rhythm: it put me in the groove of reacting in the moment and trusting my instincts.”

Afrobeats has grown into arenas and festival headline slots in recent years. What role has CULTUR FM played in that story on the ground, before the bigger stages caught up?

Moses Akanmu: “We would never claim credit for Afrobeats reaching arenas; that belongs to the artists. Our work sits in an underlying layer that is rarely written about. Before an Afrobeats artist headlines a festival, a DJ has played their record in a small room somewhere in the world and watched how the crowd responds. DJs are often the first filter through which the culture passes.

Our role is to platform those DJs and extend their reach far beyond the room. We treat them as cultural figures in their own right. Because CULTUR FM operates globally, a set does not remain local; it travels across the diaspora. The bigger stages caught up with something that was already happening in those rooms.

What do you look for when choosing music for a night built around dancing, rather than simply listening?

TheFirstLady: For a night built around dance, I think about movement first: how the music feels in the body, not just how it sounds. Every beat, rhythm, percussion line and break gives the dancers something different to work with.

Bringing that approach to a Red Bull and CULTUR FM stage on such a large scale was special. My priority as a DJ is to create a musical journey that people can interpret in their own way, bridging the gap between sound and movement.”

Red Bull Bring The Vim went international this year, with crews from France and Belgium in the mix. Did that change how you approached the set or read the crowd?

TheFirstLady: Not entirely. Music is universal, and I wanted the set to feel inclusive, fun and rooted in the African diaspora - an approach that felt right for the Red Bull x CULTUR FM collaboration. The dancers came from different countries and brought distinct styles, but the music connected everyone. I focused on reading the room, responding to the dancers and bringing my own FirstLady energy to the set. That is what I love about DJing: the same song can mean something completely different to each person in the room.

What is next for CULTUR FM? Are there any events, partnerships or projects you are building towards?

Moses Akanmu: We are in the middle of a growing global run of experiences: entering new cities, building deeper partnerships and placing more emphasis on the culture around the music, including fashion, sport and community.

CULTUR FM introduced us to the world through music and DJs. The next chapter is CULTUR ALWAYS WINS (CAW), which brings together the other expressions of culture we care about: community events, fashion, food, sport and everything surrounding the sound. Our ambition is to become a trusted voice for the culture.

We recently launched a clothing line under CULTUR ALWAYS WINS, marking our first significant step into that space, with much more still to build. The wider vision is a connected cultural ecosystem rather than a series of one-off parties. Every room we create in one city should feed the next. There is plenty in motion for the rest of the year, so do not miss it.

HOMEBROS

Your showcase stood apart from the crews battling for the title. What does a HomeBros set need to do that a competition round does not?

Kurtis “Kurtyswift” Agyekum: The showcase was deliberately different from the crew battles. We wanted to present the many ways modern African dance styles can be performed and experienced. A platform like this can show the range and adaptability of Afro dance from battles and theatre to social media and classes. Modern African street dance styles are a language of expression.

They can take many forms, each revealing the culture from which the dance comes while allowing audiences to view it through different lenses. HomeBros created this piece with two members of HomeFam, Tilly Indigo and Wahida Sesay. It was an artistic interpretation of Afro dance that explored identity and belonging - a central theme when expressing African culture from the diaspora.

Afro dance has had a major moment in the UK in recent years. From your perspective, what has changed, and what still needs to catch up?

Kurtis “Kurtyswift” Agyekum: From my perspective, Afro dance has had a major platform in the UK for some time. Since 2012, the country has been one of the leaders in the global growth of Afro dance styles. As Afrobeats moved into the mainstream, the UK remained at the forefront of communities outside Africa. The UK has become a second hub for many modern African dance styles because of its diaspora population and the way the music has travelled.

For many artists from Africa, the UK is one of the first stops beyond the continent, supported by a large fan base and a deep appreciation for African culture and dance. London, in particular, brings together diaspora communities from across Africa, including Ghana, Nigeria, Congo and South Africa.

That mix has shaped how younger generations experience and share the culture. The energy has been present for a long time and continues to grow. What has changed is that more people from outside the culture now recognise and engage with it, helping it reach a wider audience.

La Révolution became the first international crew to win Red Bull Bring The Vim. Does that change the standard UK crews are chasing?

Kurtis “Kurtyswift” Agyekum: It is exciting to have the first international Red Bull Bring The Vim champion. La Révolution’s win demonstrates the depth of talent across African dance worldwide, but I do not think it changes the standard UK crews are pursuing. The battle scene is like football: every top-flight team has a chance to win.

The UK and other European countries have strong identities and distinct forms of expression, so the result often comes down to taste, music, preparation and execution. France won this time, but the UK and the rest of Europe will not make it easy next time. That competitive tension will make for a beautiful competition.

What does “Vim” mean to you, both on and off the floor?

Kurtis “Kurtyswift” Agyekum: For me, Vim is feeling, its energy and spirit. The term Vim has been used in Afrobeat music for over a decade and has always been used as a term of encouragement and power to all that use it. I believe that this stays true both on the floor and off the floor. Even in day-to-day life, vim is that cultural way of being tenacious and authentic. More than just a dance term, but a term that relates to life and culture.

What is next for HomeBros? Are there any showcases, collaborations or projects on the way?

Kurtis “Kurtyswift” Agyekum: HomeBros are committed to the growth, education and artistic exploration of modern African street dance styles, from a grass root level, all the way through to professionals. We aim to share and uplift the culture in the UK and internationally. Expect us to continue traveling the world delivering workshops, choreographing for stage and screen. As well as providing events and spaces for dancers to explore and grow. We are very blessed to be in this position and we don’t take it for granted. Africa to the world. #feelingfirst”

Welcome to GUAP’s weekly newsletter.

We have curated a selection of creative opportunities for you to digest. We know how difficult and overwhelming it can be to find opportunities. So as a way to support your creative journey we have separated this newsletter into different mediums. We hope you find something that resonates with you and helps lighten the load.

Read more

We’re hosting a free online event exclusively for GUAP community members with Kandre Aramide Hassan, an artist whose practice draws on a background in social anthropology.

Session Topic

Creating from memory: an interactive workshop for anyone who has ever felt they need a reference image to bring an idea to life. Drawing from their artistic practice and background in social anthropology, Kandre will guide participants through a series of short drawing exercises, exploring how sensory details, memories and personal associations can be transformed into abstract drawings, using memory, lived experience and cultural knowledge as the starting point.

Curated & Hosted by OURPPLS

Date: Monday 19th October 2026

Time: 6:30pm - 7:30pm

To RSVP please sign up below.

Read more

Almost a decade after entering the music industry at 17, Grace Carter is learning how to meet herself where she is. Her debut album, When Saturn Returns, marks a shift away from the childhood experiences that defined much of her earliest music, turning instead towards the complicated reality of becoming an adult : relationships, womanhood, autonomy, self-sabotage and the pressure to have everything figured out.

Named after the astrological phenomenon associated with the transition from your twenties into your thirties, When Saturn Returns embraces the uncertainty of this stage of life rather than trying to resolve it. On “Party Baby”, Carter questions the expectations placed on women to grow up and settle down; elsewhere, she examines escapism, self-destruction and the uncomfortable process of figuring out who you are while still becoming that person.

The album itself arrived after a period when Carter wasn’t sure she would make another record at all. Following years of writer’s block, an impromptu ten-day writing trip to Stockholm became the catalyst for a new creative chapter, with almost all of the album’s songs written during the trip. Freed from the expectation to recreate the artist she had once been, Carter found her way back to the reason she started making music in the first place.

“I’m no longer speaking from my child self,” she says. “I am a woman now.” GUAP caught up with Carter to speak about her debut release going out into the world, how she navigates artistry, and what this new chapter means for her.

Why When Saturn Returns for the name of your debut album?

I’m in my Saturn return, which is hell and borrow, and this album explores all of the challenges and feelings I have been facing in my mid to late twenties. I feel like this stage of life can feel very isolating as there is a lot changing and it’s easy to feel lost. I wanted the title to be something that people feeling similarly to me could recognise and resonate with.

Why is now the right time for a debut album?

To be honest it’s not about it being the right time. I have had a very turbulent career, a lot of the mess has happened in private and I got to the point where I didn’t think I was even capable of making a body of work ever again. Last year when I flew to Stockholm to write and came out 10 days later with an album’s worth of songs it felt like a cop out to call it anything but my debut album. The whole process of making it felt like it was meant to be, especially after years of writer’s block. This is my proudest work yet and is the best representation of me as a human and an artist yet and I couldn’t be happier with the body of work I get to call my debut album.

“Party Baby” speaks about not knowing when the party ends. What have you learnt to celebrate at this stage of your life?

We feel so much pressure at this stage of life to rush and do grown up things. Party Baby is about having children and I think something I have learnt to celebrate as I’ve got older is turning that pressure into power. I have a choice, I don’t have to follow the path someone else set out for me. I have autonomy and that is something to celebrate. Generations of women have fought for us to be able to have a voice and a choice and right now I’m running with that.

You’ve been a part of the music industry for almost a decade. What have you learnt about longevity?

It has been a while and it has been nowhere near straightforward but I think the main thing I’ve learnt is intention. The reason I make music is because I love making music, not because I necessarily want to be the most famous singer in the world (although I’d like my flowers one day haha). I think one of my biggest difficulties in this business is the fact that I have an opinion and although when I was younger I was quite easy to influence as I’ve got older I find it very hard to go against myself. I think it’s a blessing and a curse. Maybe if I said yes to more people I’d be further on than I am but what no one can argue on is my authenticity. I’m still here because I love being creative and I love creating things bigger than me.

You wrote all but two tracks during a creative period in Stockholm. Did the tracklist also present itself during this period, or did that come later?

To be honest it all kind of happened very naturally. A lot of thought went into the early stages before sitting down to write but everything about this album felt like flow state. All but 2 songs we wrote in that 10 days ended up on the album and which is pretty mental!

On “Bittersweet Escape”, a lyric struck me: “You gave me flowers, and all I could do was light it.” It feels like such a strong image for self-sabotage. Why was that the metaphor that felt right for the song?

To be honest that line has multiple meanings. I wrote Bittersweet Escape about my relationship with weed so in the literal sense it’s about that but also the whole song is about self destruction and I see that line as a metaphor for me just ruining everything nice in my life. I’m so proud of the lyrics on this album and hope that with every listen people discover new things.

You’ve described the album as capturing your “adult adolescence”. What do you think adults are most dishonest about?

Being ok. I think we often feel like we have to act like we have it all together when we don’t and that feeling is exhausting. I want the album to be something people can listen to for comfort.

There’s a tension throughout the album between freedom and expectation, particularly around growing older and womanhood. What expectations have you had to unlearn?

That one day I’ll wake up and everything will just make sense. We’re constantly learning and evolving, nothing is straight forward and that is ok. I have grown so much through discomfort and although in the moment it feels horrific I wouldn’t change any of it. Without sounding cliche I would not be who I am today if I hadn’t experienced the things I have. What is meant for me will not pass me by.

Your earlier work was so closely connected to your childhood and the experiences that shaped you. Did making this album feel like an opportunity to introduce people to Grace beyond her past?

When I was making this album I wasn’t thinking about anyone else and I think that’s why it’s so special to me. I had to make this album for myself. My first project was about my childhood and for years I have been defined by those years of my life. I went through a lot, I had a lot of pressure on me to keep creating from that place and it completely stunted me. I didn’t write for years as a result. This album has changed my life in ways I don’t think I’ll ever be able to put into words, it reminded me of my love for making music. I’m no longer speaking from my child self, I am a woman now and have experienced so much more than having a deadbeat dad. Now I’m dealing with wastemen, identity and my relationships with myself and others haha. I am so excited for people to hear me. Not what’s happened to me. I am proud of what I made before but I am even prouder of this.

If your younger self (17-year-old Grace who was just entering the industry) could sit down and listen to When Saturn Returns with you, what do you think she’d say, or what would that conversation sound like?

I think it would be the album me and my friends would play in my Mum’s basement on a Friday night when we were chilling. My goal for years has been to make music me and my friends would genuinely stick on. We grew up listening to solange, frank ocean, sza, erykah badu, Adele, lauryn hill and I think i’d really like listening to this album if it came out then. I think a 17 year old me would be very proud of this body of work.

What’s next for Grace Carter?

So much! I can finally see the future. My ambition is bigger than ever and I can’t wait to give people more! More shows, more music! I guess in a way 2026 has felt like starting again so I’m just excited to really solidify who I am as an artist in the years to come. Exciting times ahead

He was born in Setúbal in 1963, the son of Félix Mourinho, a professional goalkeeper who later became a manager. José tried playing himself, but the career never arrived. He studied sports science, took coaching courses, worked with young players, and eventually found himself beside Bobby Robson at Sporting Lisbon. His official job was translation.

It is one of those details that sounds almost too neat in retrospect. The future José Mourinho, the man who would eventually make press conferences feel like heavyweight contests, started his career listening to somebody else speak.

Robson took him to Porto and then Barcelona. At Barcelona, Louis van Gaal arrived and kept Mourinho close, eventually giving him responsibilities far beyond translation. Mourinho learned how managers spoke to players, how they prepared opponents, how they built authority, how information moved through a dressing room. He was watching football from the inside without being the person everybody was watching.

That position probably mattered more than the word “translator” suggests.

A translator has to listen for things that aren’t literally being said. Tone. Hesitation. What somebody means when they choose one word instead of another. Which part of a sentence matters. Which part should disappear.

Mourinho would eventually turn that into a managerial skill.

He also learned something less technical. Football is full of people trying to control the room.

The chairman. The manager. The captain. The star player. The journalists. The supporters. The referee. The opponent. Everybody is telling a version of the story.

Mourinho simply became unusually interested in who got to tell it.

His first serious managerial job came at União de Leiria. Then, in January 2002, Porto hired him. Eighteen months later he had won the Portuguese league, Portuguese Cup and UEFA Cup. A year after that, Porto were European champions.

The famous image came in between.

Manchester United had just been eliminated in the Champions League. Porto had scored late at Old Trafford. Costinha put the ball in and Mourinho sprinted down the touchline, arms out, black coat flying, looking less like a coach celebrating qualification than somebody who had just escaped from a burning building.

The picture mattered, and Mourinho understood pictures.

When he arrived at Chelsea in 2004, he walked into his first major English press conference and introduced himself with the line that would follow him for the rest of his career: “I think I am a special one.”

It was funny because it was outrageous. It was effective because he said it before anybody else could decide what he was.

The phrase became a nickname. The nickname became a character. The character became part of the job.

That is the strange thing about Mourinho. His personality was never decoration around his football. It was one of his working tools.

At Chelsea, he did not simply tell his players they could win. He created an atmosphere in which winning became socially expected. He talked about being able to “smell success” at the club before Chelsea had actually won the league.

That sounds like theatre until you understand what theatre can do.

A dressing room is a small society. People take cues from one another. Confidence is contagious, but so is doubt. Mourinho was very good at manufacturing the former and giving the latter somewhere else to live.

The 2004/05 Chelsea team conceded just 15 league goals. They won the Premier League with a defence that seemed almost insultingly organised. Mourinho’s football was often described through the language of pragmatism, but there was something more interesting happening. He was trying to reduce randomness.

Training sessions were built around situations. Players were shown video of their own performances. Opponents were dissected. Individual responsibilities could be extraordinarily specific. UEFA described his approach at the time as unusually scientific, including his use of video analysis and specialist preparation.

He did not want football to remain mysterious for his players, he wanted them to know what was coming.

This is probably why Mourinho’s press conferences were never quite separate from his tactics. They were another form of preparation.

He could praise an opponent, irritate a referee, protect a player, provoke a rival manager or create a siege mentality without ever needing to draw a formation on a board.

He understood that a football match begins long before the players walk onto the pitch.

Sometimes it begins with a sentence.

His genius, when it worked, was making other people react to the sentence he had chosen.

There was a slightly old-fashioned quality to this. Mourinho dressed like a man who understood that clothes communicate rank. Dark suits. Coats. Watches. Sunglasses. The carefully controlled touchline silhouette. He never looked accidental.

This was before Instagram turned managers into lifestyle, but unlike a footballer selling a watch or a pair of trainers, Mourinho’s product was authority itself. He was selling the idea that he knew.That distinction became especially useful whenever his teams were under pressure.

At Porto, he could build himself into the leader of an outsider. At Chelsea, he could turn a club desperate for its first league title in half a century into a machine that expected the title. At Inter, he could convince an experienced squad that Europe was something they were capable of taking back. In Madrid, Manchester and later elsewhere, the calculation became harder because Mourinho was no longer arriving as the outsider who had something to prove, he was arriving as Mourinho.

That changes the psychology of the room.

The 2010 Champions League semi-final against Barcelona is probably the clearest example of how far his football could go when the circumstances demanded it.

Inter won the first leg 3-1 in Milan. In the return at Camp Nou, Thiago Motta was sent off in the first half. Inter played for more than an hour with ten men against Barcelona, defending their aggregate lead while Barcelona circulated the ball around them. Mourinho’s players blocked, retreated, covered spaces and absorbed pressure until Gerard Piqué scored late. It wasn’t enough. Inter went through 3-2 on aggregate.

Mourinho sprinted onto the Camp Nou pitch afterwards. Again, the image became part of the football.

But look closer at what actually happened: he had taken the game and made it smaller.

Barcelona wanted space. Mourinho gave them almost none. They wanted rhythm. Inter interrupted it. They wanted the match to become a demonstration of their superiority. Mourinho turned it into a problem to be solved.

That Inter side eventually won the Champions League, Serie A and Coppa Italia treble.

Mourinho had not discovered some secret formula for beautiful football or ugly football.

He had discovered something more useful, how to make a match feel like his kind of match.

This is where the Guardiola rivalry becomes interesting without reducing it to the usual football-manager soap opera. Guardiola’s Barcelona represented a very particular faith in the ball: possession as control, circulation as territory, technique as authority.

Mourinho was interested in everything surrounding the ball.

The referee. The crowd. The emotional temperature. The opponent’s habits. The press. The little grievance that could make eleven players run five percent harder for each other, he treated football as an ecosystem; and, sometimes, he seemed almost fascinated by the people watching it.

His press conferences could become miniature psychological experiments. He would pause. Refuse a question. Give too much information. Give none. Praise someone suspiciously. Say something ridiculous with a completely straight face.

“I prefer not to speak” became one of his most recognisable phrases because it was almost a joke about the machinery itself. Journalists needed him to speak. Mourinho understood that refusing to speak could become another kind of statement.

There is something slightly strange about how much of modern football already resembles Mourinho.

Managers are now photographed arriving at training. Players have personal brands. Every post-match sentence is clipped, reposted and analysed. Touchline behaviour becomes content. Coaches are expected to have an opinion on everything.

Mourinho helped create the environment in which this became normal.

He understood earlier than most that the manager could become a cultural figure independent of the players.

Not just the man drawing arrows on a tactics board, but the man whose coat people noticed, whose facial expression became a meme, whose argument with a referee could become tomorrow’s front page.

And yet there was always a danger in being that person.

The character requires maintenance and the room eventually knows your tricks.

The siege mentality that can make a team feel invincible can also exhaust it. The constant confrontations, public battles and emotional pressure that once made Mourinho’s teams feel bonded could eventually become part of the burden. His career contains several cycles in which extraordinary success is followed by tension and collapse. That pattern is real, although it is too simple to turn it into a universal law about his teams.

The fascinating part is that Mourinho never really abandoned the method.

Even when the football changed, the instinct remained.

Control the environment, control the information, control the emotional temperature, control the story.

Maybe that is why the word “theatre” belongs here. Not because Mourinho’s football was fake. Quite the opposite. The football was often brutally concrete. The theatre was everything around it.

The entrance. The clothes. The timing. The press conference. The enemy. The quote. The celebration. The silence afterwards.

He understood that winning does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in front of people, inside institutions, under cameras, with egos involved.

And Mourinho has always been fascinated by the human machinery of it. That may be the most revealing thing about the man who began as somebody else’s voice, he eventually became one of football’s loudest.

But his real education happened before anyone was listening to him, he spent years standing beside the manager, translating the words. Then he started studying the room and after he started controlling it.

And eventually, almost without anyone noticing exactly when it happened, the room became part of José Mourinho’s football.

If you are interested in becoming a GUAP contributor and telling stories that matter to the culture we want to hear from you. We commission emerging writers, journalists and video creators every month to cover the people, communities and moments our audience needs to discover. Your subject. Your voice. No brief.

For more information/submit a story - click here.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber and gain access to:

• The full GUAP Daily: five deep-dive articles/video essays written by and for the culture, a week straight to your inbox, Monday to Friday.

• The Sunday opportunities newsletter - jobs, freelance roles, commissions, casting calls and industry openings every week

• Monthly online events - masterclasses, workshops, live interviews and community gatherings ran by OURPPLS.

• Discounts/Perks from our community partners including Tunecore,

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From a $5 banquet in 1929 to an invitation-only event watched by millions around the world, the Academy Awards have undergone nearly a century of evolution. But while the ceremony has expanded its reach and categories, questions about whose stories receive recognition remain.

The Best International Feature Film category, formerly known as Best Foreign Language Film, was introduced at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957, recognising films produced outside the United States in languages other than English. Although the category opened the door to international cinema, it also placed films from vastly different cultural, linguistic and filmmaking traditions into the same competition.

For African filmmakers, this raises a difficult question: Are African films not worthy of an Oscar, or are the Oscars too white to understand African cinema?

A history of recognition and exclusion

The category’s history offers some context. Three films representing African countries have won the award: Algeria’s Z (1969), an Algerian-French production; Black and White in Colour (1976), a French-Ivorian co-production; and South Africa’s Tsotsi (2005), which won at the 2006 ceremony. Since Tsotsi, no film representing an African country has won the category.

Two decades later, African countries continue to submit films to the Academy, including entries from Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania. Yet the journey from submission to international recognition remains a difficult one.

Nigeria’s Lionheart and the language question

Nigeria’s relationship with the Academy offers a particularly revealing case study.

In 2019, Nigeria made its debut submission with Lionheart, directed by Genevieve Nnaji. The film was subsequently disqualified because most of its dialogue was in English, despite English being Nigeria’s official language. The decision sparked widespread criticism, with many questioning whether the Academy’s eligibility rules adequately understood the linguistic realities of postcolonial countries.

Nigeria’s official language is English, but its cultural and linguistic landscape extends far beyond it. English is spoken alongside hundreds of indigenous languages, and it is deeply embedded in the country’s institutions, education system and everyday interactions. For a film to be disqualified on linguistic grounds when it reflects a genuine part of Nigerian life raises a larger question: who gets to determine what an authentically Nigerian story should sound like?

Subsequent submissions, including Desmond Ovbiagele’s The Milkmaid (2020), C.J. Obasi’s Mami Wata (2023) and Prince Daniel Aboki’s Mai Martaba (2024), have continued Nigeria’s attempts to gain recognition from the Academy. These films also demonstrate the breadth of Nigerian storytelling, from conflict and tradition to mythology and contemporary social realities.

When Nigerian stories travel under another flag

Then came My Father’s Shadow, directed by Akinola Davies Jr. and submitted by the United Kingdom for the 2026 Oscars. Although the film tells a Nigerian story through the experiences of a father and his two sons during the 1993 Nigerian presidential election crisis, its British submission brought renewed attention to the complicated relationship between African stories, diasporic filmmakers and the institutions that recognise them.

Who gets to represent a story? Does a film’s relationship with Nigeria change depending on where it is produced, who submits it or which audiences it reaches? And why can a Nigerian story gain international recognition through another country’s submission when Nigeria itself has yet to secure a nomination in the category?

These questions are not an argument against diasporic filmmaking. Rather, they reveal how national borders, funding structures and international distribution can shape the journey of stories that are not easily confined to one country.

How do you prove your worth to an institution when its criteria may not fully account for the realities of your experience?

Nigeria has one of Africa’s largest film industries, yet it has never received a nomination in the Best International Feature Film category. That absence does not mean Nigerian cinema lacks quality, ambition or cultural significance. It does, however, invite scrutiny of the systems through which international recognition is distributed.

And Nigeria is not alone in this pursuit.

Africa’s next Oscar hopefuls

For the 2027 Academy Awards, African countries have once again put forward films that reflect the continent’s varied histories, identities and filmmaking traditions.

• Rwanda submitted Ben’Imana, a film set in 2012, eighteen years after the genocide against the Tutsi. Through a village grappling with reconciliation between survivors and perpetrators, the film explores the emotional complexity of forgiveness. Its central character, Vénéranda, has spent years helping others confront the words left unspoken between them. When her own daughter’s future becomes entangled with the past, she must confront a history that is no longer someone else’s to resolve.

• The Democratic Republic of the Congo submitted Rumba Royale, set in 1959 Léopoldville, now Kinshasa, during the final months of Belgian colonial rule. Following photographer Daniel, played by Congolese music star Fally Ipupa, the film explores a society on the brink of political change, where personal ambition and tragedy intersect with a changing national identity.

• Nigeria’s entry, Damilola Orimogunje’s Dear Ajayi, turns its attention to family, faith and women’s independence. Set in 1990s southwestern Nigeria, it follows estranged sisters Ade and Titi, who reunite to care for their paralysed mother after their father’s death. Their contrasting lives - Ade as a devout Christian and family breadwinner, Titi as an aspiring singer pursuing independence bring long-standing tensions to the surface.

• South Africa’s submission, Variations on a Theme (Variasies op ‘n Tema), directed by Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs, adds another perspective to the country’s continuing engagement with the category.

These submissions are not simply competing entries in an awards race. They represent distinct cinematic traditions, languages, histories and approaches to storytelling. From the aftermath of genocide to the end of colonial rule, from complicated family relationships to individual struggles for independence, African filmmakers continue to explore experiences that resist being reduced to a single continental narrative.

But submitting a film is only the beginning. The Academy’s selection process, the international visibility of a film, its distribution and the attention it receives from industry decision-makers can all influence how far it travels.

This is where the conversation must move beyond the question of whether African films are good enough.

Beyond the Oscar: who defines cinematic excellence?

The Oscars are not the sole measure of cinematic excellence, and an Oscar nomination cannot independently validate the worth of an entire film industry. African cinema has its own audiences, festivals, critics, award platforms and histories of innovation. Nevertheless, the Academy remains one of the most visible institutions in global cinema, and recognition there can open doors to wider audiences and new opportunities.

The issue, then, is not whether African cinema deserves to be at the Oscars. It is whether the structures through which the Academy recognises international filmmaking can meaningfully accommodate the continent’s diversity.

The shortlist of 15 films for the 2027 Best International Feature Film category is scheduled to be announced on 15 December 2026, followed by the announcement of the five official nominees on 21 January 2027.

As African filmmakers await the results, perhaps the more important question is not whether one of their films will finally make the cut.

It is this: What does it mean to be recognised by an institution that does not always understand the realities from which your stories emerge, and how much power should that institution have over the stories the world considers worthy of being told?

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