Post Your Map :: We will regularly present a featured artist, writer or performer who is exploring questions of identity and personal narrative through their medium of expression.

The map is your representation. No rigid lines, no defined routes. You direct it on your own account.

London Fashion Week wraps up today.
Don’t cry in to your 5 inch pumps…
Catch up on our coverage!

Know the true meaning of Malcolm X, and you cannot help but be moved. You cannot help but stand up taller and aim to live with greater courage, committed to the upliftment of oneself and of all people. The life and death, struggle and change he underwent from 1925 to 1965 still stands as a powerful source of learning and inspiration. The burden now falls upon those of us who know to ensure that new generations aren’t deprived of also truly knowing Malcolm, and living better because of it.

The following resources and selected quotes have been gathered as a brief, introductory primer for those unfamiliar with Malcolm X.

This Is Worldtown had the opportunity to backstage at the Belle Sauvage show for their Autumn/Winter 2010 collection. Check out the slideshow for all the action, from start to finish.

So This Is Worldtown drops by London Fashion Week (LFW)– taking place Feb 19 to Feb 24– sneaking in to a couple of runways shows at LFW’s home at Somerset House, as well as reporting from a range of other events in the city focusing on fresh, diverse and up-and-coming designers to watch.

For this endeavour, we keep in mind the Oscar Wilde quote: “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” Fitting?

Imagine a band, born and raised in Iran, whose upbeat dance-rock brings to mind the Strokes, Joy Division, and Depeche Mode. Throw in some catchy hooks, and the distinctive deep voice of front-man (first names only) Raam, and you’ve got North America’s fast-rising indie-rock outfit Hypernova.
In the climate of the ‘War on Terror’ with Iran being the latest threat, coverage of a story like Hypernova’s might aim to shock. Despite the fact that rock n’roll has pervaded every corner of the earth, it is still seen by some, at its core, as American as apple pie.

Can we talk about poverty in a way that doesn’t exoticise it? Is this possible anymore? When we talk about elitism and about golf courses and convertibles, can we admit that conversations about privilege are also about government housing, about skipped school fieldtrips, and the way roaches will scatter in swarms across tile floors when you flip the kitchen switch at midnight?

For the characters inhabiting Amir Nizar Zuabi’s ‘I am Yusuf and This Is My Brother’, survival is paramount; but there is no redemption to be found in this haunting play.

A Worldtown one to watch: Of Rwandan origin and now living in Vancouver, B.C., Shad’s a hip-hop artist whose style inadvertently draws comparisons to rap from the early 90’s - you know, when it wasn’t a byproduct of autotune and bloghouse effects. With a second album and a Juno nomination under his wing, Shad’s in line as repping the under-the spotlight Canadian Hip-Hop scene thanks to artists like K’Naan and Drake. We ask Shad questions about his influences and future plans and see where the Old Prince stands as sought out hip hop royalty.

We interview Steven Salaita, the author of The Uncultured Wars, Arabs, Muslims and the Poverty of Liberal Thought. Through witty humour and incisive essays, his book critiques the American liberal-left’s complicity in perpetuating anti-Arab, Islamophobic, and imperial modes of thought. In doing so, he raises important questions about the nature of race relations and the manifest Orientalism in American political discourse today. His target is not the neoconservative right who are blatant and easily identified in in their dogmatic doctrine of the war on terror and in their racist caricatures of Arabs and Muslims. Rather, he sounds the alarm on the misrepresentative ideas of the liberal left, passively justifying the sensationalized excesses of the right.