Hi! I am Tiki Black and just wanted to let you know about why I started Fussy Tongue and what it is. Fussy Tongue is the home of writings that are as opinionated, passionate and hungry as I am, taking a bite and a taste of all that art (books, movies, music, etc), food, technology and life have to offer, and as fussy requires, reserving the right not to swallow, to paraphrase Ratatouille’s Anton Ego (and so it rhymes).

Granted, humans are omnivorous but that does not mean we should be swallowing anything just because we can. We care about what gets into our bodies, minds, hearts and that is what defines a Fussy Tongue. Fussy Tongue is a médiathèque (a media library if you will). It takes me back to Nancy, France where I use to spend hours in the local mediatheque, listening to new sound, going through new pages, etc. It was among my favourite times. As a mediatheque, Fussy Tongue has literature, movies, music and more. 

i am an author and singer-songwriter (tikiblack.com). I grew up with stories from around the world (books, music, movies) and that decided my fate. Yet, I am also a ‘little’ bit of a control freak so the idea that I have no input into who I want to be is the principal cause of my resistance to making writing and music my profession in the first instance, well that and life getting in the way…  Thankfully, one grows, one learns and when all goes well, passion turns out to be stronger than pride. I wanted to make people feel like they were not alone, acknowledge what they felt and give them a hand out of struggle, write those perfect combination of words, devise that perfect melody, hit that perfect note that strummed their memory. I adore doing that: for me, it encompasses everything that makes us human, the creativity, the emotions, the logic, the art, the expression, the communication, the experience, the people (hearts), the mind, the imagination and more… Although I love writing, composing and performing, I am a fan first and, here, you will find a lot of references to and quotes from literary and musical opuses as well as reviews.

When I don’t write, perform or record my own music, I beta-read, proof-read, edit or even ghost-write content as part of 3E Web Media, play others’ music on radio shows (e.g. I write the songs on Canalside The Thread, thethread.org.uk,), write about it (here as well as on vertikallifemagazine.com, 1inmusic.com, anansi.media and african-counter.com), cover some, dance on others… Ok I also love food especially from across Africa and Asia oh and Europe, literature (I really love the old things, they use to pay more attention to what they do because of the cost, complexities and censorship in publishing), and movies particularly cartoons (especially Japanese anime), period drama (especially British and Chinese), Chinese and Korean martial arts films, most of what is made in Bollywood (especially the old ones), African and non self-righteous European comedy, comics and super-hero themes. In one word, I LOVE the amazingly different ways that HUMANS inspire themselves from life (its good and its bad) to create wonderful extensions of themselves (music, food, literature, movies…) and thereby enrich the world. I love what makes us one and how our differences contribute to evolving us as individuals and humanity. Add to that the potential offered by the digital world to make one world possible (provided courtesy of 3ewebmedia.com), and you get FUSSY TONGUE.

I started this, of course, but it has now been open to any writer willing to share their uplifting views of life, even when it awkwardly poses as satire.