Lois, well the french say lois, means "better" and my creole grandma agreed with them. my mother for many social reasons chose to be pregnant nine times: she never had a still born, no such luck, she was favoured to meet, greet, get to know, and name all her offspring before saying good-bye--cause they seemed not long for this world. it's told in clan tales that the least amount of time on earth was my sistah lourdis. she stayed a mere thirteen days. my elder brother whom i have fond reccollections of, lived to within a month and ten days of his eleventh earthstrong. his name was lynford, but, playfully referred to as "lyndy", after the dance our parents oftimes shared in the kitchen. lyndy was loved by all.
I
came along my mother naming I Roxanne a dirivative of her own Rosana, after my fifteenth
day on earth, my grandmere named I LOIS, pronounced as the french say LOYC,
“that's better” she commented, “this ones here to stay”. Upon entering school,
all legal papers termed me Roxanne. I asked all close to “call me Lois, please.”
My time in christian choral groups followed by rasta affiliations found "sistah" necessary as to imply connectedness of groups. Performing in a Reggae groups that had opportunity to open for the world famous Wailers in late 80's,finding sexism, where, traveling. vocalist ”beenie man” for instance, shouted,”mi nah a sing wid she dere, ooman iant fi play instrument, ooman is fi sing”, I was there multitasking as usual. Wishing to not rock the boat too much, i allowed another brother to play keys and I relinquished myself happily to the microphone. the gig went well, the crowd loved the selections and at the end of five weeks of rehearsals, an all day sound check, and on hellishly sweaty performance, the lead vocalist, introduced all the players of instruments, then on to vocalist, then staring blankly at the other young ooman and I, he stammered through “and the sistern, I&I can't forget the sistern, his face showing that for that moment at least he had so obviously forgotten our names. Feeling myself tighten at this, I shouted into the microphone, "I'm an Afrikan Princess, I'll have you know, a Freakin Princess!" well the audience took up the chant, "Afrikan Princess, afrikan princess, she damn right , dem is afrikan princesses fi true." That was it! from that day forward when performing world musics i was afrikan princess. she came with a forward, self preserving vibration that I so needed in this ooman-in-backgroun-only climate i'd chosen to come into.
I was performing as Calypsonian when a Caribbean playwright approached me about acting. I was his Herione: “it had to be me.” well being a no-name brand of community performer, the then Young People's Theatre refused to use Afrikan Princess. they asked for another title and were given Sistah Lois, hence that became my acting soubriquet. Movies, Films, and Television are mostly all under sistah lois. When the original creations were ready to take on the road, the first performance was at CBC radio with Andy Barrie. as he asked the name of group, the truth rolled off my tongue: "well, I'm sistah and this is truly a new vision of an old and always experience." thus was born Sistah NuVizhan on the fly, and every version of original bands I've formed to date have and will always be just another sistah nuvizhan.
Down Under in Australia, I began a series of letters from QLD. Found myself signing off soldinqld. all that grew out of many reasonings with Maori and indeginous peoples about the power of a name and words in general. I grew daily to feel that “oneLove” wasn't sufficient for me, it was to limiting. 1type? 1Way? 1method? No, it was time to broaden my loving quotient and, so I evolved into omnilovediva. my dawta and her friends would say U R so omnilove diva in truth. Sistahsold seemed clumsy on the tongue, so after a few months sistahomnilovingdiva felt...so correct it's stayed. I still create under psuedonyms: wrtiejustice and write2justice, as dynamic spirits are hard to tye down to a name. still they are all me. I&I are oneandomni all the time. everything is art for those with eyes to see, and I intend to share my creative goggles of nu vizhans with all I encounter daily
