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What are you looking for in a blog? Smarts? Humour? Warmth? A combination of all three? Yoruba Girl Dancing delivers, in huge doses! Yoruba Girl, Bim Adewunmi, is a freelance journalist and writer whose work has been published in The Guardian, Grazia, Comment Is Free, ARISE magazine, Blackhair Magazine, Now Online, Bournemouth Daily Echo, Bexley Extra, Bromley Extra, and Nerve magazine among others. She specialises in writing about women, feminism, the arts, race, and popular culture, and on Yoruba Girl Dancing she writes about things like race, pop culture, and feminism, but also “silly, lovely-but-fleeting things like handsome men and cheesecake.” Passionate about reading, Bim blogs about the books she reads with such effusive fervour, you want to grab them immediately and read for yourself. Which, of course, is the goal, as she herself expresses in this excerpt from “Unsolicited Book Report: Lowell and Jones”: “Anyway, I read E&P and wept like a baby throughout, and then ate huge amounts of cheesecake after, and then pressed it into the e-hands of everyone I could on Twitter by live-tweeting the exquisite torture of reading about a pure, burning love; the equivalent of pouncing on people in the street, with wild, darting eyes and saying: “THIS WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!” She also coordinates the Yoruba Girl Dancing Book Club, which she introduced in 2011 with such flourish you’d be forgiven for salivating: “Do you like books? Do you enjoy licking your finger to turn the pages and smelling the paper and breaking the spine? Do you skip to the end or do you like to savour every word, perhaps a little notebook by your side so you can take notes? Do you like to talk and write about the books you’ve read? If the answer’s yes, then I have news: I’M STARTING A BOOK CLUB FOR ALL YOU YGD READERS!” She treats her readers to more than just books, though. For instance, the “Why I Love” series is where she shares her reasons for loving the things she does; mascara, ice-cream, red shoes, glasses, nail polish and internet comment boards, amongst others. In “Why I Love…Dresses”, she proclaims, “Dresses are the ultimate wardrobe item. I wear them when I’m feeling good, when I’m feeling bad, when I’m *delicate cough* ’between commissions’ and when I’m raking it in. I wear them when I’m angry, sad, celebrating, on nights out and on the quiet ones in. For the most part, they hide a multitude of sins when I’m bloated/PMSing/well-fed after lunch, but crucially show off my best assets when I’m not. Look, I’ll be frank, a large part of my love for dresses stems from vanity. With no false modesty, I declare that I have fabulous legs. I like to show them off (where appropriate, of course), ergo, I wear dresses. There is an appropriate dress for any occasion – just ask your mama.” The truly special thing about Yoruba Girl Dancing is that it’s a celebration of life. You know that the blogger’s life cannot be perfect- no one’s life is. And yet, whatever else she may long for, whatever pains she may have had to bear, whatever dreams she’s yet to see come true, she exudes joie de vivre; a sheer enjoyment of life that is exciting, uplifting and contagious. Yes, she is dancing, and she invites you to join her. Check it out! www.yorubagirldancing.com ConnectNigeria.com…Need it? Search it, Find it!

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This article was first published on 2nd November 2013

jehonwa

Joy Ehonwa is an editor and a writer who is passionate about relationships and personal development. She runs Pinpoint Creatives, a proofreading, editing, transcription and ghostwriting service. Email: pinpointcreatives [at] yahoo.com