Friday Feature: Rakaya Fetuga

Rakaya Fetuga tells stories through prose, poetry, and performance. From the age of 17, Rakaya landed upon London’s poetry scene, and since then, her words have taken her across the country and the world, performing on stages from Qatar to Cuba. Rakaya’s writing has spearheaded an array of campaigns for the UN, L’Occitane and Cartier amongst others. Receiving writing awards from the New York TV & Film Festival (2024) and Royal Holloway University of London (2015 & 2016), as well as winning poetry competitions such as the Roundhouse Poetry Slam (2018), Rakaya’s words spark joy, challenge, and inspire meaningful reflection in her listeners. With a Master's in Literature & Creative Writing, Rakaya has been published in anthologies by HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, and Penguin Random House. An advocate for self-expression, Rakaya finds joy in creating spaces of inspiration, connection, and community.

Imitation is the Highest Flattery

Iqra wasn’t allowed to go to parties. So, she savoured times like these when her parents were away, and she was left under the lax rulership of her oldest brother. Iqra pulled each outfit choice out from the back of her wardrobe and lay them carefully on the bed: a blue, puff-sleeve mini dress (which she usually wore as a top), bootcut jeans paired with a cherry t-shirt (self-customised as a crop top using scissors from the kitchen drawer), and the choice she already knew she would make in the end, her brand new LBD. Iqra had hidden it in the depths of their overburdened wardrobe straight after buying. Not even Umm Salama had spotted it - her sister would surely have picked a fight with her if she had.   

Umm Salama was the prison guard Iqra needed to get around on most occasions. She was only three years older than Iqra, but was such a naggy agent of sensibleness, adamant that Iqra would have none of the fun she denied herself. 

Iqra got invited to a lot of parties. They were the way for the girls at her private, single-sex boarding school in Kent to construct their own playground of flirtation with the boys from the other schools in the area, and simply to have fun away from the gaze of their housemistresses. 

This Easter holiday, Gaia was hosting. It was perfect timing for Iqra because her parents had already left for Abuja a week earlier, catching the cheaper flights before everyone else bound by the academic calendar clogged the airports. Gaia’s own parents were ‘cool’ and were satisfied to order the kids pizzas and step out for the evening, as long as Gaia promised to clean up at the end of the night. Her mum and step-dad both worked in film production and would sometimes leave Gaia with a childminder, which Iqra envied, supposing one of those would be far less annoying than three older siblings and three younger, perpetually elbowing into Iqra’s personal space and eating the last of the dambu nama straight from the packet.   

Fancy dress was sometimes an element of their play at the house parties, and a welcome excuse to wear something hot. Gaia told Iqra there was no theme this time, and just to come ‘looking spicy’, an assignment she was sure to excel at. Her new, black, spaghetti-strap mini dress was bought in the Boxing Day sales and had been hiding away the whole term. Iqra tried it on with a t-shirt underneath, and then without, unsure whether she should fill her bra out a bit more so the dress wouldn’t look so saggy at the top. 

Puberty tripped up even the most confident of girls. She wasn’t short on self-assurance usually. Iqra believed in a unique middle child theory: being at the centre of the family meant she sucked in all of its beauty with nucleus-intensity. If not that, she had simply been chosen by Allah to be the pretty one. Full lips with an attractive dark outline like a Bratz doll, high-tilting eyes and naturally fair skin, yellow like an Igbo. But she was slow on producing in the chest region. She pushed some hijab undercaps into her bra and went to the bathroom down the corridor from her room to look in its full-length mirror. 

She posed with her new bust, one hand on her hip and one at the meeting of her bare thighs. It could work – but she’d wear the t-shirt as well. Iqra imagined how embarrassing it would be for someone to hook a finger into the cotton and pull the hijab cap out. She would have to laugh it off or call the culprit ‘dirty’ for noticing in the first place. All the girls did it. Last week, Gaia was showing off her bum pads in dorm – proper ones, sewn into her cycle shorts. 

“I need the toilet!” The voice of Iqra’s youngest sister, Hamdalah, interrupted the outfit preparations. Iqra cracked the door open and Hamdalah rushed into the bathroom immediately. With six brothers and sisters, you were never ever alone for long, even in the toilet or the corridor. Umm Salama was there too now, sitting on the stairs, picking shed hair out of her combs and afro pics. 

“You lot are grim! You have to clean these after you use them,” Umm Salama complained. 

Hamdalah started to pee without even closing the door, so Iqra pulled it shut behind her, and was noticed by Umm Salama. Her whiney tone flipped instantly to one of self-important, stern authority. “Where are you wearing that to?” 

Iqra rolled her eyes, “My room.” She marched back into the bedroom, swinging the door, but Umm Salama sped in to catch it before the slam. Unfortunately, the sisters shared a bedroom and there was no way to lock her out.

Iqra continued getting ready, ignoring the judging eyes that followed her from wardrobe to vanity to the shoebox under the bed where her jewellery was kept.

“I knew Mum and Dad shouldn’t have sent you to that school. Are you even Muslim anymore?” 

Iqra scoffed, pulling her braids into a high ponytail, “You’re so 2D. Being Muslim isn’t about clothes.”

“Do all your white friends even know you’re Muslim?” 

“Duh,” Iqra retorted. Although when she thought about it, perhaps not everyone did. She didn’t pray at school, and she doubted anyone at Kent Hill Girls had enough Islamic knowledge to know her name was Arabic, a quote from the first chapter revealed of the Quran. The only reason her faith ever came up was at Ramadan when she’d skip lunches and spend extra time sleeping. But for those who didn’t ask, they could quite easily assume she was another of the several aspiring anorexics at school. There was no need to offer up extra information about her homelife and multitude of embarrassing siblings. People were always going to assume something, so she let them. 

“And why do you assume,” Iqra quipped, accusingly, “that none of my friends are Muslim themselves?” She mentally conjured the image of Amira Khan, a girl two years above her, who had once led a peer support session for the girls in her Dormitory House. Hardly a friend but not a nemesis either.

Unconvinced, Umm Salama kissed her teeth, “Put some tights on. Noone needs to see your arse.” 

Was that it? No more lecturing? Iqra teetered between wondering what was wrong with her sister and seizing this rare occasion of leaving without a big fight. She took the blessing and let the disagreement end there.  

Iqra got to Gaia’s house with the giddiness of the forbidden in her stomach. Even though her parents wouldn’t approve and Umm Salama was cursing her from her bitter little corner of the bedroom, Iqra wasn’t doing anything wrong. When the other girls got hold of neon drinks in glass bottles, she never drank any. She didn’t smoke when they did, and she never let the boys near her. It was just fun, just dancing and just making sure they knew she was in charge of her life as much as they were. 

At the front door, Iqra could hear the voices and laughter inside and waited for someone to come let her in. A boy opened the door and screamed “Dayyum,” at her before spluttering with laughter. It was a strange welcome, but not as strange as his appearance. Iqra eyed the boy in the doorway cautiously, his tacky fake-gold neck chain and clip-on earring, the baggy t-shirt and jeans swamping him, his bony white forearms sticking out of the fabric, and most concerning of all, the dirt smeared across his face. 

“Who is it?” it was Gaia’s voice calling from inside. 

“Your mate,” the boy said, skipping down the tiled corridor, where Gaia passed him with a gradual strut, concentrating on not falling over in her massive stilettos. Iqra stepped inside but left the door open, wanting the light from the afternoon sun to confirm what she was seeing. Gaia too had painted her face – not in the carelessly slathered way of the boy, but she had evenly brushed foundation over her skin that was several shades too dark. She didn’t quite make it to the edges of her eyes, giving her a reverse-panda look. 

“Iqra! Hey babe, you made it! Take off your coat – I wanna see your fit,” Gaia pulled down the shoulders of Iqra’s open jacket as far as she could, stopped mid-way by Iqra’s fist clenching the sides together. 

“What’s on your face?” Iqra asked in a small, shocked voice. 

Gaia giggled, pulling Iqra through the corridor towards the living room, “Oh, we did a theme last minute. Destiny’s Children!” She was smiling wide from her stupid brown face, balancing an expression of innocence and defiance. Music was pumping from the CD player and speaker, which stood beside the TV. No one was dancing, but everyone was standing, and they turned to look at Iqra, along with Gaia, waiting for her to react. 

Iqra thought about slapping Gaia’s cheek, transferring the make-up mess to her own white palm. It suddenly occurred to her that she was the only Black person there, the only true brown face at the party apart from one Asian girl that Iqra had no classes with, who stood at the back of the room sipping her juice through a straw. Iqra felt loneliness push through her throat like a swallowed stone. Everyone was looking, but the loud music covered her words enough to have this moment with her friend before addressing the room. 

Iqra shook free of Gaia’s grip and instead grabbed the girl by both of her arms. “What is on your face?” she demanded. 

“It’s just–” Gaia stammered, going wide-eyed like a guppy. “The shade is Espresso.”

“It’s butters,” Iqra said, scrunching her face. She learned from dealing with her younger siblings that her disapproval was more lethal than her rage. 

“What?”

Iqra scanned the room before she answered. They were still the spectacle. She couldn’t break her front. “You look fucking stupid, Gaia.” 

The girl drooped her lips, reddening behind the makeup, the rumble before a tantrum-cry. She heard someone hiss, “Told you it was a bad idea.” Quickly, Iqra grabbed her friend Rebecca, who, thank God, had kept to her original shade, and gave her an energised hug. 

‘Don’t Cha’ by The Pussycat Dolls was playing, so Iqra started to sing along, nodding for Rebecca to do the same. Iqra shimmied out of her coat and started to dance, jumping up and down so her braids bounced and hoop earrings flipped from neck to cheek. The room was split – half watching her and Rebecca, who obediently followed Iqra’s dancing lead, and half looking towards Gaia, who had probably run back out of the room to cry. 

Iqra wanted to cry. It was she who deserved to cry. The embarrassment was making her nauseous, but she kept bouncing, smiling, singing. Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot, like me? Is this how she looked to them? A Black, espresso-coloured girl. So foreign they could wear her as costume. Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a freak, like me? She was their freak – and not the sexy kind.  

Whatever fog of obscurity she thought may have hidden her religion, there was no mistaking everyone knew she was Black. 

So what? She screamed in her brain. Didn’t they all wish to be her anyway? She was the desirable, unattainable beauty that Gaia could never reach. They were stupidly jealous, Iqra told herself. She was a naturally occurring phenomenon, already perfectly formed for Destiny’s Child. A pearl needing no more refinement than good mascara and a generously filled bra.  

After taking mental note of everyone there, every complicit face, and forming a vengeance list in her cranium, she left the party early, wrapped in her coat and a wry smile. Iqra didn’t want to show them an ounce of sadness, and once she was out in the early evening air, she dropped the façade and cradled her fury. Her fury carried her home. Her fury lit fire under the 314 bus wheels and smoked her to her front door in record time. 

Umm Salama was in the kitchen scraping the burnt oily bottom of the jollof pot, and laughed that her sister had quit the party so early, her mouth open and red as a dragon’s tongue. Iqra, feeling safe enough to spit fire back, released all her fury on her unsuspecting big sister, shooting a tirade of flaming insults, ending with,

“That’s why no one likes you.” 

Umm Salama erupted. Not in the way Iqra thought she would, or hoped she would, matching Iqra’s cathartic burn, turning all her pain to ashes. Umm Salama cried instead. A gasping, snotty, hiccupping cry. And Iqra caught the sadness in her throat. That stone of loneliness rising back up her trachea. 

Iqra didn’t say sorry, willing Umm Salama to turn this around, to find the fury again, to berate and redeem her. But she didn’t. The sisters both stood crying in the kitchen, unable to stop, hardly able to breathe, all their wet pain pooling on the floor.

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