Steffany

Breaking up is hard to do—so I’ve been told. With the next chapter of my life beginning, I had to, kinda, break up with my parents. The thing is, I’m all about my family, we’re really, really tight. So while going off to college is a refreshing new experience, parting ways with them wasn’t easy. Neither is the adjustment to college life. There are rumors that my school’s food contains laxatives and even without that, it is far from appetizing. A a supplement, some of my friends are hoping to have monthly dinner parties, which I’m totally open to. Back home, one of my favorite household traditions is fish Fridays. My Mom fries up whiting, while my Dad blasts Jodeci, and my Brother gets all competitive with strangers on his PS4, playing pickup games in 2K. Usually, his expressions of frustration with losing are broken up by laughter, as his friends flame one another for playing terribly. I’m going to miss stuff like that, but maybe I can make my own versions here?

I watched the MTV Video Music Awards in a stuffy dorm room on a baby TV as opposed to the huge, high-definition flat screen in my living room at home. And instead of incense and oil burners creating a beautiful aroma, the smell of weed wafted in through the dorm windows—that’s going to take some getting used to. Falling prey to peer pressure is real y’all, and I’m not gonna get all DRUGS ARE BAD, but making good decisions is hard. The best decision I made on Sunday was to stick through that horrible award show long enough to see Ye.

Kanye West is my inspiration. Please hold the think pieces and don’t debate me. Something about his quest to die for the art, to be “crucified” by the press, seems noble and genuine to me. Did you know that his album Yeezus was inspired by the designer Le Corbusier? I’ve never been so inspired by a lamp that I recorded an album that’s on another sonic plane, but I hope to be, one day. I stan for Ye (Kanye’s design firm Donda is top of the places I’d love to work one day), but maybe it’s hard to understand why unless you saw his Holy Mountain-inspired show during his tour.

Still, my relationship with the Idea of Kanye West is complicated. He makes a political body of work like Yeezus which stems from being marginalized as a Black man in the fashion industry, but then undermines all of that work by saying racism isn’t a thing. I laughed when, during his VMA acceptance speech, Kanye described himself as a millennial, maybe it’s just his way of demonstrating that he knows it’s young people who push the culture forward. He’s human and so he contradicts himself, it makes me love him all the more.

Another highlight of the VMAs was Onika Tanya Maraj letting Miley Cyrus know WHAT’S GOOD. That moment is like, literally, me. New York girls are not to be fucked with—even in their $15,000 dresses, best believe that! ♦