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Nicki Minaj’s MTV song Anaconda has very little to do with the snake. The 2014 release is a promo for women with curves and big behinds. And so is the April release by Janelle Monae, Yoga, whose YouTube view is just shy of the 23 million-view mark. It’s about showcasing the “bum bum as they do the yoga” as Jidenna put it in the lyrics.
Nicki Minaj and Janelle may not be plus-size women. In fact, they are not. Nicki Minaj underwent plastic surgery to accentuate her boobs and butt, Vera style, and it is these two features she uses as the main selling point in the Anaconda video.
And now, her song is the signature tune at the Miss Bum Bum East Africa competition, a regional plus-size beauty contest that has been the talk of Kisumu City for quite a while now. It comes hot on the heels of The Nairobian’s Miss Bumpy Bum pageant, which drew large crowds in it’s first phase.
The finals of the Miss Bum Bum East Africa contest take place at Club Da Place tomorrow night where celebrated Kenyan thespian and judge Ian Mbugua, and a panel of respected personalities, will be picking the winner.
The event is an affair to celebrate fabulous plus-size women - the tall, skinny models that are popular on fashion runways are not wanted.
“The Miss Bum Bum competition is crafted to appreciate the African woman. Many plus-size girls have registered and participated, and now the finals will bring out the best as the winners get crowned and awarded lucrative cash rewards,” said Ken, the club director who is the brains behind the idea.
“Beauty does not mean that one should just be a Size 6. What if you can’t attain that look? What if your body structure has nothing to do with that? Does that mean you are not beautiful,” he posed, adding that due to the success of the event, the club will turn it into an annual affair.
The Miss Bum Bum winner will take home Sh60,000 while the first and second runners up will be awarded Sh30,000 and Sh10,000 respectively.
“I think people have been living with this super-skinny ideal, which I think is more or less a Western idea. We want to challenge the fashion industry by giving a chance to normal curvy models to display their beauty. Looking at the success of this event, we can say that women are starting to change and are seeing beauty differently but we also need the entire industry to help bring this change by supporting us,” Ken noted.
In April this year, during an event that took place in Nakuru town, socialite Vera Sidika led hundreds in participating in the Miss Bumpy Bum contest, sponsored by The Nairobian, as plus-size fashion shows started becoming popular in the country. A similar event dubbed Miss Fabulous has been taking place in Nairobi since 2012.
The Miss Bum Bum competition is not particularly fixed on weight, height and other traditional catwalk modelling requirements.
The pageant seeks to crown a young woman who appreciates African culture and beauty and who can be a role model in the society.
