Piss and Cocoa Butter

I travel to Brixton, where I lived for five years, on a deep grey, early spring Sunday. How I’ve missed it: the people, the clothes, the Jamaican takeaways. In a city undergoing expansive renewal, there remains a permanent, historic feel to the Atlantic Road/Railton Road stretch. Its side streets are named after political and literary titans. Its much-contested arches and the market were immortalised in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe instalment Alex Wheatle, and in Topher Campbell’s 1995 film, The Homecoming, a gorgeous portrait of the great Black British queer artist, archive curator and sex activist, Ajamu.

I can’t tell you how it feels when the first person you’ve come into contact with outside your household in six months is Ajamu. The warm chuckle. The serious “How are ?!” before I can even say a word. He is as immaculate as ever in a petrol trademark boiler suit, his silvering beard striking against his dark skin. At 58, he’s the