As a Black woman, I constantly feel a disconnect from my history, the world around me, and who I am. Due to the atrocities of enslavement, and the separation of my people, I’m not sure of my true lineage; and when it is constantly being suppressed. It’s almost as if I have to search for the truth.
Imagine being a part of a breakout country music duo whose debut album has a chart-topping hit that is 3rd on the Billboard country music charts. Imagine, at only eighteen years old, going on tour with popular country music singer Brad Paisley and feeling on top of the world as you work on your sophomore album. Then without warning, your record label goes belly-up. If you think that is one of the worst things that could happen to an up and coming artist, you’d be right. But that’s exactly what happened to Madison “Maddie” Marlow Font and Taylor “Tae” Dye of the groupMaddie & Tae.
Since the advent of the World Wide Web in 1990, globalization has changed the way we think about cultural identity and representation -- or so many of us would like to think. Despite increased connectivity around the world and exposure to cultures on every continent, many lesser-developed countries still receive short shrift on the world stage. Last year, 22-year-old student O’Plerou Grebet noticed that the emojis on his Apple iPhone reflected a bent towards Western civilization, portraying few images he saw in his day-to-day life as a citizen of the Ivory Coast in Africa. Determined to provide his friends and family with emojis that represented their culture specifically, he honed his Photoshop skills by watching YouTube tutorials and set to work. He never expected his homemade emojis to take off the way they did.
