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[Image description: Text ‘Considering My Crushes No. 02’ on a lilac background]

Earlier on in this season of ‘She Dares To Say’ I wrote a mailout on who I was crushing on in the mid to late 90s, when I was a young girl (link to mailout here). So I thought I’d just continue chronologically and pick up things up around the year 2000 when I was 11…

Around this time I’d been reading the Harry Potter series and, like lots of people, would often project my mental image of characters from descriptions in books onto the good-looking people I’d seen in all the visual media around me. So, I imagined the “carelessly handsome” Sirius Black as looking like the heart-throbs Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You or Adrian Grenier in You Drive Me Crazy, both from teen romcoms I’d seen a couple of times at sleepovers with girlfriends.

[Image description: Left: Heath Ledger in ‘10 Things I Hate About You’; right: Adrian Grenier in ‘You Drive Me Crazy’. Both are very attractive young men with dark shaggy hair]

Some years later, when the fifth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was released, I imagined the character of Kingsley Shacklebolt looking like Simon Webbe on the cover of his solo album, Sanctuary.

[Image description: British pop singer Simon Webbe’s Sanctuary album cover showing a side profile. His deep brown skin is dripping wet and he’s wearing a shiny stud earring]

Once all of the Harry Potter films started coming out I was disappointed that the casting choices of Sirius Black (played by Gary Oldman) and Kingsley Shacklebolt (played by George Harris) didn’t quite match up to the drop-dead gorgeous versions I had of them in my head.

[Image description: Left: Gary Oldman with long shaggy dark hair and mustache in his role of Sirius Black; right: George Harris in blue agbada robes and matching kufi hat playing Kingsley Shacklebolt]

Although visibly Black, my family weren’t really part of the Black British community that was shown in mainstream culture. Back then, Black Britishness was synonymous with ‘Urban’ culture. But we were a middle-class suburban family who sang Weslyan hymns in church every Sunday among the otherwise all-white congregation. I didn’t have any Black friends or acquaintances outside my parent’s small circle of Ghanaian ex-pats who’d all known each other from their boarding school days.

And so, I engaged with Black culture via TV shows like Kenan & Kel (did anyone else also hear the urban myth that went around in the mid-00s that ‘Kel’ died in a car crash?!?!?) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which both had banging hip-hop theme tunes rapped by Coolio (who did the Kenan & Kel theme) and Will Smith (who did the eponymous Fresh Prince theme). Hip-hop had become a mainstay of popular culture and rap artists were constantly on the TV and radio.

I was into that kind of music, but I didn’t start crushing on rappers until the video for smash-hit single ‘21 seconds’ from UK garage rap collective So Solid Crew dropped in the Summer of 2001 (music video on YouTube here). I was enraptured.

[Image description: screenshot of Harvey from So Solid Crew in the music video for ‘21 Seconds’. He wears an unbuttoned leather waistcoat and a gold cruxifix chain]

[Image description: screenshot of Asher D from So Solid Crew in the music video for ‘21 Seconds’. He wears an ensemble of layered black clothing including a hat pulled down to his eyebrows]

[Image description: screenshot of Romeofrom So Solid Crew in the music video for ‘21 Seconds’. He wears an unbuttoned long black leather coat with his ripped abs on show]

Harvey, Asher D (AKA Ashley Walters) and Romeo were all lean bare chests and ferocious scowls. I found the aggressive gesticulating they did as they rapped their bars both hot and antagonistic. Where the other Black male stars in the pop charts, like Bradley from S Club Seven and Simon Webbe from Blue, were marketed as non-threatening heartthrobs, the members of So Solid Crew and their palpable combative energy were ~far~ more interesting to me. I fantasised about being older and going clubbing, and meeting lads who looked like them. I’d imagine myself watching them look me up and down and smirking back at them, while saying “Yeah, okay”, as they asked to buy me a drink.

Almaz note: Some years ago, I was at the same media party as Ashley Walters, but didn’t dare speak to him in case I turned back into the embarrassing pre-teen who had a serious crush.

Around this time I was also catching a lot of TV spots featuring footage of rapper Eminem on tour in his blue denim dungarees, white T-shirt, bleached blond buzzcut, all accessorised with a chainsaw (!!!) Here’s a video on YouTube of one of those gigs).

[Image description: Left: Eminem in almost silhouette wearing blue denim dungarees, white mask and holds a chainsaw; right: Eminem holds a mic in one hand and gesticulates with the other while rapping]

The anarchic and somewhat violent masculine energy of his rap music was so compelling to me. I’d never seen anyone express their grievances with such physical and emotional visceralilty. I found it thrilling to watch him rev the chainsaw. A chainsaw!!!

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And… next time in ‘Considering my Crushes’ I describe my adolescence and young womanhood where I crushed on anything and everything that had a pulse. I’ll be quoting from my journals, where there are lists and lists of this stuff. TV presenters (Reggie Yates, Richard Hammond). Actors from American dramas (basically most of the multi-ethnic casts of ‘E.R.’, ‘Lost’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’). Real-life infatuations (that married barber who’d shamelessly flirt with me, all those Sheffield music scene folk I gigged with). And a special shout out to the creative team behind the original Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue ads from 2007 starring David Gandy. Lives in my head rent free.

[Image description: promo banner for Almaz’s Developing Sexual Expression and understanding intimacy workshops]

I run a fun workshop series – Developing sexual expression and understanding intimacy – if you’d like to book me for an in-person event like a hen party or baby shower, or as a little interlude at a sex ed/sensuality event, do get in touch via email. Here’s a link to a previous mailout where I described the raucous fun we had at a hen party where I ran the Improving Intimacy workshop for a group of women:

#32: Hen party with a twist Almaz Ohene · July 5, 2023 Read full story

More workshops info here

[Image description: Text ‘PRODUCED BY’]

I’m Almaz Ohene, a Creative Copywriter, Freelance Journalist and Accidental Sexpert.