For our fandom series, Tara Joshi describes the childhood thrills – and dubious tonsorial choices – inspired by Beyoncé and co
Through the 1990s and early 00s, British pop music and its media did not have much space for people who looked like me. As a rare brown kid on the Isle of Wight, this lack of representation had a strange effect on how I was perceived by my peers, as well as how I perceived myself. When we pretended being the Spice Girls in the playground, for example, I was only ever allowed to be Scary Spice since I was the only kid who wasn’t white. I was a timid child, so to be told that because of my skin tone I could only be the Spice Girl no one else wanted to be was something I internalised, making myself quieter and smaller. (Two decades later, Maya Erskine immortalised her own version of this moment in an episode of sitcom Pen15.)
Related: The Streets: how my mum’s ban fuelled my future pop obsessions | Jazz Monroe
