If I had to explain it, I’d say it feels like I've just left the school disco in grade six. I’m in a cold sweat but the air is mild and endorphins are rushing through me at breakneck speed. It seems almost criminal, I think. I might have been roofied with something illicit earlier today. My barista could be dropping hallucinogens into my soy latte. Did someone embellish my danish with methamphetamines instead of blueberries? I can’t be sure. This feeling is foreign but welcomed and all-consuming. It courses through my body and filters through my lungs. It’s like someone’s rinsed out my brain and cleared the harddrive from all the corrupt files I’ve been storing in there. I feel light. I feel happy.

I’m Siposetu Duncan, a South African born creative, stylist and model. Auckland’s currently my home while I figure myself out, ya know? It was a pleasure to round-up just a few of my treasured black-owned local businesses.

When I was nine years old, my friend who is Indian, like me, went to Fiji for a holiday. When she came back, she said to me “you’re so lucky you have fair skin”. I was shook.

Our society has become one of an instantly gratifying, short-cut, fast-paced, power-walk, rush. A successful day is determined by how busy and productive you’ve been, by how many goals you’ve achieved, how hard you’ve hustled, and by how many tasks you’ve ticked off your to-do list. But recently, due to circumstances out of our control, we have had to pause, reflect and re-adjust.

An espresso martini at whim from a hot bartender. An interstate flight booked for tomorrow. Flipping the table and storming out of a shitty job to find a frilly new one. We want it all now.

Natalya talks about her journey and what it’s like for a child of the apartheid to learn to love her natural hair