I grew up on the Spice Girls. Wearing awkward crop tops, jelly shoes and glitter lip gloss, while my sister played Pac from the bedroom. Cassette tapes rolling as I dance to “sweet like chocolate boy” with a Gameboy Colour on charge, waiting for my hips to stop swaying. I lived for Nirvana, looking back on yesteryears and ‘real’ music. I was skateboarding before it was cool and I would ride my bike for hours with the boyz in the hood, watching old films when we got back, tired, suntanned. Sunny D on deck.

Oi! I was practically a member of More Fire Crew, you know my brother knows them right? Freestyling comes easy on the field at school, I can roll with the best of the boys, with beats playing through a Nokia built for war. My Mum came from Disco and my Father loves Luther Vandross, they’re the soundtracks to Sundays cleaning. I would roll out of bed to watch My Wife and Kids, That’s So Raven and Kenan & Kel – because you know I love that orange soda, “I do, I do, I do-oooh!”. American shows had the best bedrooms, always cooler than mine. Then I’d run to school, forever keeping those edges slick, shimmering in the bleak of London.

I am one generation — many voices.

This is an extract from Issue 8, The Nomad Issue of Viper Magazine. Read more from the magazine here. Buy physical and digital copies here.

Words by Cherée for 94Five
Photos by Thursday