Two Christmases ago, my boyfriend gifted me a grey T-shirt with Dr. Maya Angelou’s words emblazoned across the front, “I rise, I rise, I rise.” Unfortunately, the shirt was a size too small, so I only felt comfortable wearing it around the apartment. Still, I wore it often — I am a firm believer that the walls you own or rent are not allowed to judge your appearance. It was soft and meaningful. I was wearing this shirt when Twitter told me, was officially available to download.
For the better part of the last five years, I’ve been writing a book about girlhood, and my numerous attempts to break away from the world’s narratives about who I could be, and where I could belong, if anywhere. It is no wonder then, that since I have been aware of her music, I have been enamored of Solange Knowles. From, I have been a distant appreciative fan, loving how deeply she could not, and would not, allow her art to be confined by the context of someone else’s life.
Her emotional evolution, in some ways mirroring my own, felt like a home of sorts, not unlike my favorite novels, photographs, and films. She has never shied away from her love of Blackness, never called it divisive, and never apologized for it. By being all of herself, she moved me over and over again.