Whether she’s performing as leading lady of her electropop band Namazonia, or strutting down the streets of London clad in a deliciously tacky neon costume of her own creation, Namalee Bolle elevates brashness to an art form. And the people love her for it.

Co-founder/ fashion editor of the innovative culture magazine SuperSuper, and key player in Britain’s iconoclastic nu rave scene, Namalee understands what it means to be an artist for the new century. Part stylist, part journalist, part performer, part visual artist, part futuristic punk rocker, Namalee brings her unique sense of color, humor, and positive energy to each of the creative projects she’s involved with. With an attitude as bold as her wardrobe, Namalee’s greatest work of art is herself.

“I like to use clothes as a sort of a weapon. It’s very much a countercultural thing,” said Bolle in a 2006 interview alongside her equally kickass sister and partner in crime, Shirani.

As someone thoroughly fed-up with today’s vapid youth culture obsessed with sarcasm, suffocated by pretention, and driven toward a false sense of authenticity prescribed by “hip” consumer culture, I find it wonderfully refreshing that an artist like Namalee can achieve success by being as honest, silly, trashy, and loud as she possibly can. In the words of the artist, herself, “I think people love us cause it’s not pretentious. We’re just laughing at ourselves and you’re welcome to join in if you’d like.”

SuperSuper Magazine

Casually traversing the boundaries between high and low brow art, Namalee serves as unofficial muse for British fashion designers Basso & Brooke, injecting their art with a sense of good old fun that has been missing from the austere minimalist landscape of modern fashion and culture for some time. In the words of Namalee herself, “It’s a new century, and there’s gotta be a new way to be rock n’ roll.”

Namalee Performing with Namazonia

With a formal training in journalism and an aesthetic nothing short of revolutionary, Namalee works with her partner “Super” Steve and their delightfully eccentric creative team to produce SuperSuper, a publication that transcends the confines of the magazine genre and conveys Namalee’s vision for a much funkier tomorrow.  SuperSuper’s explosive color and whimsical collage format doses readers with a media high sure to induce instant optimism, rapid heart rate, and a sensation of all around grooviness that can be obtained no where else. With editorial pieces like “Senior Style” exploring the beauty of old age, Namalee and Steve are not afraid to take SuperSuper to those spaces traditionally ignored by the established media world.

Namalee’s goal? To employ her many avenues of self-expression as tools for subverting the consumer cultural status quo, offering a new way to see the world that isn’t distorted by corporate interest. She sees the embracing of one’s true nature as the ultimate act of rebellion. “Know yourself,” she warns, “ I think consumer culture just makes us feel sad on purpose so that we’ll go out and buy things, when in reality you can make yourself happy just by laughing. You don’t need to buy anything at all.” And from her wacky clothes to her effervescent demeanor, it seems that Namalee can’t help but make people smile.

With high hopes for SuperSuper and the cultural movement it represents, Namalee remains committed to her cause. “We can have a massive cultural effect. Definitely. It’s more than just people wearing clothes. It’s a spirit, and it will change culture… It’s loud, proud, and dangerous.”

By: Rachael Roof

Listen to Namazonia at www.myspace.com/namalee

Check Out SuperSuper at www.thesupersuper.com

 

 

 

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