The Don Cornelius-Fred Astaire Love Child

I paraphrase loosely B.B. King’s reaction to the lyrics of When Love Comes to Town, the 1987 U2 song written for him by Bono. King said something like…“You mighty young to write such heavy lyrics.” I can’t remember what I had for dinner three nights ago but I’ve always remembered that line.

I feel the same way about Barima. When I drink Barima’s visual treats and read his commentary I have a B.B. King moment. This kid hasn’t lived enough life yet to have that much aplomb. I guess that blows my already flawed theory that time and tenure are influencers of style. Is it nature or nurture? Hell I don’t know. What I do know is that this kid has the stuff. And Barima, trust me young sport, there will be a time when you’ll consider it a compliment to be called a kid.

I look at his contrivances and think…”damn, this kid ain’t old enough to posses his legitimate swagger.” When I did the Merkin tribute story I included Alan Flusser’s observation of Merkin’s sartorial mélange…“Coming upon Merkin in the street is like walking into a bazaar in Marrakesh-you don’t know what to look at first.” In my inelegant Southern way let me just say that Barima delivers the same damn thang. And Barima’s Savile Row-esque aplomb is washed cleverly in his ethnicity…ever present without looking like a revisionist devotee of 1970’s blaxploitation films.

Here’s an example above. Barima manifests a theatrical production with tweedy, fair isled motivations while finishing this rig with colour and accessories that knock it clean out of the ballpark. If I tried to replicate this verbatim, I’d end up looking like the victim of a Tommy Hilfiger-Old Navy-Rugby fraternity hazing event.

So what about his style? Theatrical? Yes, of course. An inextricably ethnic thread therein? Well it would worry the shit out of me if there wasn’t. Ghana is rich in colour, movement, texture and sounds. A Ghanaian antecedent surely does nothing but buoy his style deliverables but country of origin isn’t enough. Barima is a thinking man’s dandy. He’s the je ne sais quoi poster child. Literally…“I don’t know that” or as we would say in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina…“I be damn if I know.”…in this case, where Barima’s stuff comes from. I now and forever Knight Sir Barima as…the Chocolate Merkin. And most of you know how I revere Merkin so this is nothing but 100% praise for Barima.

And another thing about Barima’s or anyone else’s style. It’s his. Don’t attempt it. Find your own. His colour-style-amalgamation makes my middle age-Belgian shoe-fuzzy diceyness appear cowardly. Dramatic he is. A poseur he is not. I’m reminded of that scene in the movie K2 where the two guys are braving winds and snow in a small tent on the side of a mountain. One guy asks the other if he has his strategy yet. ...his strategy for making the K2 summit. The other guy says something like “I don’t know…what’s your strategy.” To which his buddy replied… “Mine is mine, it won’t work for you.” Same with climbing Mount Style.

I missed Barima by about a week when I was last in London. I think he was home in Ghana for holidays but I do remember trading a few emails to see if we could meet up for a drink. I think he’s old enough to drink cocktails. London is a tough city for young people to survive financially…unless you are propped up by family or living in a house with fifteen other people in Peckham. Peckham hell; probably two hours farther out of London. I believe I’m correct in saying that for now, Barima has decamped back to Ghana to regroup.

Tintin…you know…the guy who has a blog that I ghostwrite, was talking about who has a voice in the blogosphere and who doesn’t. He made solid arguments regarding who has something to say versus those who simply paste pictures and captions into a blog and purports it as commentary. I like Barima’s voice. It’s tinted with British Colonial aftertastes and it’s crisp. So when he’s writing at length, you get all the evidence necessary to realize that this young man not only has opinions but has the gifts to voice them well. Here are some examples for you.

On Bunny Roger…

“As noted in the opening photograph of Roger, Neo-Edwardianism in dress, as well as deportment, was a nostalgic exhumation and customisation of an old style. It was the ideal postwar reaction; emerging from half a decade of atrocity, loss and devastation and seeking reinvigoration in the aftermath, Row tailors advocated this fashion to entice customers back to suiting."

And from Barima's Relaxed Suiting post..."It's been well documented that I achieve a more informal look the same way other like minds do; my shirt and tie combinations could only really be seen at parties or in a creative office. Anyone who really thinks bold ensembles are de rigueur in a conservative professional environment is an idiot or has befriended one too many wide boys. But going the other way and playing the colour field down doesn't harm a suit's out-of-the-office cachet.”

And on Astaire in Easter Parade...

 “Just look at his exit - total and intuitive awareness of his environment in full display, he performs a variety of cane tricks, finishing with his trademark spinning catch and exits with a wave and a smile in bounding, mercurial twirls. Cheating a child out of an Easter Bunny never looked so admirable…”

And this, about a suit he borrowed to attend a wedding…“Ghanaian weddings favour a conservative mode in principle, but they are nevertheless as rife with egregious errors such as evening dress in the daytime as anywhere else on the planet. Still, the simplicity is the thing and bow ties are always welcome. The suit was kindly lent to me as I had none of my own when I initially relocated. I've more than made up for that now.”

Ok, so he borrows the suit above. Does a couple of Barimanastics and BAM…he’s rigged better than ninety percent of the world.'

The sartorial master, Ahmet Ertegun received this Barimanal observation…

“…..one cannot dismiss the twinkle in Ertegun's eyes that implies a capacity to be as indelicate as his companions, at least once upon a time. Nutini was a great admirer of Ertegun's sartorial sense, liking it to that of his own grandfather, but also reminisced that when it came to retaining a finger on the pulse, he was more like a 25-year old. Indeed, one would expect nothing less than precise attunement to the zeitgeist from Ertegun, the man who wrote 'Mess Around' for Ray Charles, signed Led Zeppelin and fell asleep in a nightclub whilst finalizing negotiations with The Rolling Stones…”

So he’s a visualist and a darn good writer. If there’s a flaw somewhere it’s one that I posses as well. One post will be well written with catchy commentary and then the next three may be comparatively lean on all fronts. I’ll defend both of us. I write this drivel in my spare time and it by no means is it my job. And Barima…well let me just say that more of his stuff is fun to read than not. I’d like to see more comments on his posts. Maybe you’ll become a follower.

This link will take you straight-away to Barima posts that almost exclusively depict him and his sartorial contrivances. It would be a cool way to orient yourself to why I deem him visually worthy of this tribute post.

Onward. With about one tenth the stuff that our Barima has.

ADG


Ps...Barima read every word of this post and approved one hundred percent of its tone and content before I published it. So spare me any interpretation that you might have about ethnic edginess and political correctness. This man rocks every bit of what God gave him.