Article relating to an individual, 1999
Published by: Dazed & Confused
Year published: 1999
Number of pages: 6

One of several features involving Chris Ofili, that appeared in Dazed & Confused magazine. The issue was No. 58, September 1999, pp. 80 - 86. The feature was in fact a dialogue between Ofili and Mary J Blige, the American singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. The text was lavishly illustrated with a number of portraits of Blige, taken by Nick Haymes.

The feature was introduced as follows: She helped turn a marginalised macho genre into a worldwide phenomenon and she still turns heads. He turns the ephemera of black culture into a bigger picture. Meet the icon and the iconographer and say “hello”, Mary J Blige and Chris Ofili.

From the text: “Chris Ofili: It’s a very curious thing for me that you sing about heartfelt things in public.

Mary J Blige: The things I don’t want to tell you, you don’t know. But the things that I want to speak upon are things that have happened to me and probably other people. I’m not ashamed to say I didn’t finish high school. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve been in abusive relatinships. Things like this happen every single day and in order to heal myself I have to speak on it and without even knowing it I’m healing others. They come to me and say ‘You saved my life’ and I’m like ‘Whoa, you know I was trying to save my life.’ “