C A N N O P Y

Climate conversation is everywhere, and its pressing present-tension can be overwhelming. The United Nation’s recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we are facing “code red” levels of environmental destruction, and everywhere we turn, doom-laden statistics pursue us in a relentless, deafening stampede. The seriousness of what we are facing can leave us feeling isolated and helpless. However, actor, activist and playwright Fehinti Balogun (he/him) is working to switch up the narrative, with an uplifting, educational digital performance that “toured” UK venues. Can I Live? addresses the physical manifestations of global warming through Balogun’s lens as a British-Nigerian activist, and deftly highlights the intersectionality between climate crisis and social justice.

With poetry, graphics, music, scientific fact, and narration, Balogun intertwines anecdotal snapshots of his own life with wider atrocities, mining the issues with a personal specificity rarely seen before in this conversation. Shortly after professing his love for plantains, Balogun reveals that Cameroon has experienced a 43% decrease in plantain yield due to heat and dryness. Amongst giant, translucent projected photographs of family members, our protagonist dances and raps in a joyful tribute to his Nigerian heritage—but in an instant, the light wanes, and we learn that Nigeria is losing 350,000 hectares of land a year to drought and desertification. With his head resting in his mother’s lap, Balogun faces hard truths as to why he hasn’t seen many members of his community in climate space. She argues that in a corrupt and racist system, basic survival takes precedence: “Some people are jobless. Some people are homeless. Some people are hopeless.” In this moment, Balogun’s excess of emotion and exhaustion breaks like a wave. His song “Kiss me, Hold me, Watch me Weep” explores a sentiment shared by many who lack the support they need to stay in this fight, that we may “just need to be held” to move through the storm.

In conversation with smART Magazine, Balogun discusses his influences, the role of music in truth-telling, and how Can I Live? aims to encourage safe, communal spaces for people of color who refuse to sit back and watch the world burn.