ISSUE 003: FEELING(S), ALEK WEK

ON THE COVER: Alek Wek photographed by Adrienne Raquel. The South Sudanese-British model and designer has, over her decades-long career, had an everlasting influence on the perception of beauty in the fashion industry. So, it is fitting that she would join forces with a team of Black female creatives to put forward a 21st-century perspective on beauty, sensuality, and softness. Here, the point of view matters. 

COVER ONE: André 3000 photographed by Bolade Banjo. André is only doing what "feels good." And, he is back with a solo album none of us could have anticipated. Over email, on Zoom, and then in a small sun-lit studio near his home, André talks with journalist Donovan X. Ramsey about where he's been, his unexpected artistic evolution, and that night in Hawaii.

COVER TWO: There is a kind of beautiful uncertainty in the work of 29-year-old artist, Kesewa Aboah. Using the body as a paintbrush, she gives a certain amount of control away. It is a personal process, beginning where the body, rather than the mind, leads. This cover features one of Kesewa's works, aptly named "A Lightness."

COVER THREE:  Clifford Joseph Price, known to most by his mononym, Goldie, exists in the rarified space in music culture reserved for someone who is the favorite of your favorite. He is a cult figure–a representative of an era, an idea, a culture. For Issue 003 Goldie is lensed by and in conversation with Fenn O'Malley. He is captured as never before seen, on the other side of the rebellion, giving the next generation all he has to offer.

The FEELING(S) Issue is a departure for Citizen. Conceived as a curation of thoughts and images, this issue attempts to capture what it means to feel in the present world we live in. In a time of so many emotions, so much feeling, so quickly, so deeply, and in such a fleeting manner, the FEELING(S) Issue is an issue of the moment, in a world in which we are negotiating what it means to feel, how we express what we feel, and if we can trust our most intimate emotions. This issue is bathed in feeling, pulsing with emotion, and unbothered by the weight.