I travel to Brixton, where I lived for five years, on a deep grey, early spring Sunday. How I’ve missed it: the people, the clothes, the Jamaican takeaways. In a city undergoing expansive renewal, there remains a permanent, historic feel to the Atlantic Road/Railton Road stretch. Its side streets are named after political and literary titans. Its much-contested arches and the market were immortalised in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe instalment Alex Wheatle, and in Topher Campbell’s 1995 film, The Homecoming, a gorgeous portrait of the great Black British queer artist, archive curator and sex activist, Ajamu.
I can’t tell you how it feels when the first person you’ve come into contact with outside your household in six months is Ajamu. The warm chuckle. The serious “How are you?!” before I can even say a word. He is as immaculate as ever in a petrol trademark boiler suit, his silvering beard striking against his dark skin. At 58, he’s the ultimate elder: a long-established mentor to and celebrator of Black queer creatives, always responding to the changing environment around him; still sexpositive and a wise guardian of pleasure and queer knowledge. His maisonette is in itself a living archive of Black British queer creative culture. I’ve had my portrait taken here, eaten rice ’n’ peas and curry goat here, and I helped paint the bathroom/darkroom – where he develops his images and has sex – black.