I'VE JUST DISCOVERED ZULU ROSE AND I'M IN LOVE!

This is a departure for me. Usually I'm in self-aggrandizing mode, promoting my own t-shirt creations that are growing probably not as fast as they should along at my store www.sweltermerchandise.com. But I've just been cruising through This Next when I was stopped in my tracks by a t-shirt by Zulu Rose. I'm sure whether or not you have to be African to fully appreciate their wonderful site and creations, but when I stopped over at their place I instantly got that wonderful smell, heat and soul from their web site layout, their t-shirt and other apparel designs and their use of language. I admit to being a little drenched in envy too. Their work is beautiful and everyone involved at Zulu Rose seems to have a really interesting background - from academia to design, shooting for MTV, dance (with SoulIISoul), costume design (for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company amongst other such luminaries), and concept work for Beyonce. Phew! I can't top that but I am inspired by what Zulu Rose has achieved, I'm always proud to be African, and I will be starting my very contemporary African t-shirt brand before the year is out. So, to the team at Zulu Rose, I say thank you and hamba kahle (go well!).

I OWE MY T-SHIRT TO LUCINDA WILLIAMS

I was driving to work the other day, weaving my way between pantechnicons, trucks with trailers, and overloaded African taxis, and Lucinda Williams was wailing and swearing in the car. Well, she wasn't actually in the car but her CD was playing. Loudly. I admit I wasn't in the best of moods and Lucinda was starting to depress me. Nobody was allowed to be more depressed than me at that point, and she was beating me by spades. Then, as I got to the bottom of Field's Hill (named after my great, great grandfather but that's a whole other story), the last track of Lucinda's CD began to play. She kept singing about how "Words fail" and I thought "What a great t-shirt that would make!" Slogan tees usually have something philosophic or provocative or funny on them. They exist to make a stand or get a reaction or both. How ironic, I thought, if there were an anti-slogan t-shirt, one that admitted to the failure, on occasion, of words. I confess to thinking, at the time, that this was positively brilliant! A slogan t-shirt that was subversively against its self. Nihilistic, you could say. Suddenly, I was no longer on the verge of depression, I was inspired! I thanked Lucinda and couldn't wait for the working day to end so that I could get back home and create my Words Fail t-shirt. A few days later, I listened to the song again. I had got it all wrong. Lucinda never said "Words fail", she sang "Words fell". But I reckon I owe her anyway. And should you ever be in the mood for a real bring-me-down song, give "Words fell" by Lucinda Williams a listen.It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.

A LITTLE BIT OF BHANGRA NEVER DID ANYBODY ANY HARM

Right across the river from where I stay people party through the night every Friday and Saturday. The music pounds across the water and the bhangra beat is relentless. Lithe bodies sway, sashay and gyrate to music as I toss and turn, trying to get some sleep. Well, that's the way it used to be. Now I've become so used to it that any lull in celebratory noise may well become disturbing. Maybe even more unsettling is that I now play bhangra music in my car. At full volume. I'm a great respecter of different cultures and the beauty of the new forms that arise from cultural blends. I tried to capture that in a range of t-shirts and badges, variations on a theme really, that mix traditional Indian dance iconography with something visually a little more energetic. A meeting of old India and Anglo-Asian rave. Something clubby that retains the dignity of past rituals and patterns. A new institution, dare I say. So grab one for yourself, go have fun on the dancefloor. Just bear in mind that, on my side of the river, the lights go out just before twelve.