Being in Nigeria is homecoming for me- Vanessa Williams

Being in Nigeria is homecoming for me-
Vanessa Williams
on december 06, 2013 at 1:23 am in showtime
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Vanessa Williams
Vanessa Williams
BY BENJAMIN NJOKU & JULIET EBIRIM
She’s mostly  mistaken for the first ever Black-
American fashion model, actress and singer to win
Miss America beauty pageant in 1983, because they
both share the same name ‘Vanessa Williams’,but
while  this Vanessa William isn’t the one that sang
the Pochohontas’s ‘Colours of the Wind’ and
appeared  in films such as ‘Shaft’, ‘Eraser,” Our
Vanessa Williams did feature in Wesley Snipes’
‘New Jack City’, ‘Sarafina’,and TV series like
‘Soulfood’ and ‘Melrose Place’.
She was in Nigeria recently where she attended this
year’s edition of the Africa International Film
Festival, AFRIFF, which held in, Calabar, Cross River
State last month. In this engaging interview, she
talks about her career, her vision and why she
cannot go into marriage again.
You have been in Nigeria for the past seven days,
what’s your impression about the country?
My biggest impression has been heartwarming. I
feel so welcomed, loved and I’m at home. I was
talking to someone about how empowering it is to
be a daughter of the diaspora and coming home to
Africa and really feel my deep connection without
any word spoken.
There is this openhearted feeling that I hail from
this great continent and that all this people look like
me. All these different variations of beauty, of
blackness. It is so overwhelming and fills me with a
lot of pride and power.
Have you been to Africa before now?
I had the opportunity of being in South Africa for a
project. I shot a film in South Africa with a South
African Film maker, about sixteen years ago. Prior
to that, my first trip to Africa was to Senegal for
vacation, I had been working in Spain and I was so
close to the continent, I wanted to come home.
I was initially going to go to Morocco, it being the
closest country to Spain, but when we looked into
our travel plans, Senegal just seemed right, so I
was in Senegal and Gambia and it was breathtaking;
the seas, oceans, black people clad in beautiful
colours. I knewthat I was at home. I felt the energy
and souls of my ancestors.
How did you get to know about AFRIFF?
I got to know about it from my brother, Rock
Mendonboa, who I believed had attended all of them.
We played husband and wife in the series ‘
Soulfood’.We stay in touch as colleagues, we
worked together on a project about two years ago.
We are family, all of us in Soulfood remain a family
and so he told me about the film festival and got me
in touch with Chioma and she brought me over here
the way she has brought many of the other folks to
come and be a part of it and I’m just really grateful.
What have you heard and what came to your mind
when you were about to come to Nigeria?
I didn’t really have any reservations or
apprehension. I grew up in New York, Brooklyn. I
knew that in any cosmopolitan city, the rumours are
usually worse than one’s actual experience. I knew
that it was a place, particularly in a city like Lagos
where I would have to be careful, I knew it wasn’t
somewhere I would have to travel alone, but I had
no apprehension that I wouldn’t be safe.
hings can happen anywhere in the world. I knew
that Nigeria is an aggressive city but I knew I would
be safe. Having travelled to other parts of Africa, I
sort of knew what to expect.
Is this your first
time in Nigeria?
Yes
What’s your
impression now
compared to
what you’ve
heard about the
country?
I don’t feel like
I’ve seen
enough. Outside
of Tinapa and
Calabar which
has been really
good in terms of
the festival because we have all been sort of
insulated here, living together, having breakfast and
dinners, going to see films, doing workshops
together. I have been sort of insulated in this bubble
of creativity, so I haven’t really seen much beyond
the festival experience.
This is one of the reasons why I want to come
back. I’m looking forward to twelve hours in Lagos
when we leave here tomorrow. From what i’ve
seen, it’s a beautiful landscape we have here in this
resort. I felt safe and I felt  the beauty and I have
not really gone outside the resort to experience
anything that hasn’t been part of the festival.
If given the opportunity, would you like to be part of
Nollywood?
Absolutely, that’s why I’m here. I see Nollywood as
this evolving industry made up of people like me
with stories that are human experiences with an
African diaspora sensibility.
In America, there is a whole lot of factions of
African- Americans who want to celebrate those
things that make us Africans, that connect us to
Africa. I know how to tie a wrapper, do a headwrap
like any Nigerian sister around here. I also had the
opportunity of working in theatre, to work with Wole
Soyinka, the notable writer here.
Is coming to AFRIFF like a homecoming to you?
Absolutely, I’m excited being a part of it and taking
it to the next level.
You are a singer, actress and a model, and you
happen to be the first Black-American to win Miss
America…..
No, that’s the blue-eyed Vanessa .L. Williams. She
has a light skin with blue eyes, I have a brown skin
with brown eyes, that’s the distinction. She has a
middle initial, I have no middle initial. But
sometimes, I’m mistaken as her, but that’s not me,
that’s another Vanessa Williams, though we are
both from New  York.
Have you both met each other?
We have and I’m friends with her brother. The thing
is I was professionally active in all the unions
before her. But she got famous before I got famous.
Are you still into music?
Yes, I am. Honestly, I must say it did sort of deter
me in some ways from doing my music because I
was like, while she’s doing her thing, I ‘ll just do
this. So, I just sort of have apprehension about what
I have to say musically, I could live it off, but with
any passion that I have, I don’t want to die with my
music in me. I’ve been writing and singing all my
life and I’ll continue. So I’m in the studio now with a
couple of music producers and I’ll be putting out
some music offerings in the near future as well.
Are you married?
I was. I have two sons, aged sixteen and ten. My
younger son was ten while I was here at the
festival. He allowed me to come to the festival and
miss his birthday.
We heard that you are married?
The internet is all wrong, the internet said that I’m
married to a guy that I worked with and I’m not. I’ve
only been married once and never to the actor that
they claimed I was married to. I was married to
Andrea Wise-man, but we’ve been separated for six
years, but on the Wikipedia, it has me married to
another actor, John Marshall Jones, he’s just a
friend and a colleague.
We are supposed to be doing a movie later on this
year or early next year. And they also gave me a
third child, but all of that is a mistake. I only have
two sons. On Wikipedia, they gave me a son and a
marriage that I never had.
If by God’s grace you find a husband in Nigeria,
would you go for it?
(Laughs)First of all, I never want a husband again.
I’m not looking for a husband in Nigeria or
anywhere.
Does it mean that you can never be in love again?
I am in love. I have love in my life but I am not
looking to partner in a traditional kind of way.
Don’t you intend to get serious with the person?
I don’t intend to marry. Love is serious and fun. It
doesn’t have to be legally binding for my happiness