On Tuesday Harper Bazaar released its latest digital cover and clinching the cover star title is #Solange
Proudly donning on majority black designers the Grammy-winning singer 34, self styled and photographed by her friend and frequent collaborator Naima Green, also served as creative director for the spread. Needless to say the singer looked every inch a cover star.
Hairstylist was Kendall Dorsey, while make-up artist Miguel Ramos helped put the glam touch.
Penning down a collection of poems and personal essays touching on her childhood, joy, beauty, childhood, friendship, and the “year that changed everything, “the mum of one wrote:
Most of the work I’ve made has been about knowing where you’ve been to know where you’re going.
‘Knowing who you’ve been to know who you are becoming. Going home – deep home, past homes, mother’s home, father’s home – to define home.’
‘I grew up in tour buses watching flashing images out of tiny windows in my bunk, never still enough to memorize names or street signs.
‘Then came the house in Idaho, Houston, back to Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans. Summers in Dakar, Thanksgivings in Jamaica. Movement has been my Holy Ghost.’
While she even reflected on the popular Verzuz battles as she wrote: ‘Showed up to the Brandy and Monica battle. Thinking ’bout what it means to sacrifice and devote so much of your life to your gifts.’
I grew up in tour buses watching flashing images out of tiny windows in my bunk, never still enough to memorize names or street signs. Then came the house in Idaho, Houston, back to Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans. Summers in Dakar, Thanksgivings in Jamaica. Movement has been my Holy Ghost.
For a while there was a Big Bang! I was floating and jumping and coasting and cartwheeling and cruising and gleaming, fingers and toes spread wide, palms facing the light, heart beating in cursive. I was jumping in rivers and dancing on tree trunks. It was the most glorious of all my days.
But again, Ghost catch up. And deep, old memories I had stored in hidden parts of myself for decades wouldn’t just stay in my shoulders, or ribs, or chest breaths, or blood test anymore. They came out, and they came out swinging.
Most of the work I’ve made has been about knowing where you’ve been to know where you’re going. Knowing who you’ve been to know who you are becoming. Going home—deep home, past homes, mother’s home, father’s home—to define home. I had answered these questions for myself and that felt good, but I had omitted truths that I just couldn’t stand to make a part of my home. They didn’t belong in my kitchen, or closets, or even in a shoebox under my bed.
My stillness started with my body. It refused to be, to go. I’d look to moss trees asking for answers as if they could talk back to me.
I heard a voice saying you deserve joy. Applause from my loved ones and heroes wasn’t gonna do.
Another voice, a critical one, said you got a lot of nerve chasing joy and freedom when you already have so much, but I went for it anyway.
I honored, listened, and lived.
Some days were a real pain in the ass. Some were the most beautiful days of my life. This was a different kind of joy. I didn’t need to skip in the sun to feel it. Joy was the sleep I got after releasing secrets from my bones. Joy was telling the truth. Joy was making a song that I didn’t care ever saw the light of day. Joy was taking a trip alone, and just sitting and staring at the water and seeing my reflection and thinking to myself, Damn I’m fine” it reads in part.
