Words by Apryl Fuentes
Images by Michael Tyrone Delaney

Curatorial duo Natalia Luna and Josh Terris, dreamt up a space for play, from a shared passion for special design finds and the stories that follow each piece. On a classically sunny LA day we met up for lunch; our conversation meandered through a range of design and art-related vignettes. In a world of mass production, overpriced resell culture, and quantity over quality – formas is a one of one. 

There is a storytelling nature to curating a space, combining new with old, little accents from the past here and there. On the nightstand alongside the photo booth picture strip, is some random nostalgic junk from a yard sale or your parent’s garage. What about the heirloom your mother used to make her mother’s recipe, amongst bright ceramic dishes handcrafted by someone you admire. Tell me the story behind your favorite chair; the one you sit in while you write that email you’ve been meaning to get to. Every object has its function and sentimental value. Obsessed with archival design, I was drawn to this project by Natalia and Josh.

Los Angeles-based design hub formas came to fruition in the fall of 2019, when the duo came together to curate a feel-good experience with “home goods from the future.” A visit to their by-appointment space will leave you sparked with wonderment. You can sit on a larger-than-life chair shaped like a baseball catcher’s mitt or peruse the various conversational trinkets – make sure to ask Josh about the infamous golden glove. Not everything is what it appears to be. 

I’d never interacted with a Gaetano Pesce piece before, let alone two – in person. The Italian architect and designer is best known for his use of unconventional materials to create functional forms with an eccentricity ahead of his time. This particular vessel, for Fish by Gaetano Pesce, is made from flexible resin and is essentially flubber for adults. I was surprised by its texture and resilience, considering how cautious I’d been to interact with the piece thinking it was fabricated from glass. It’s like when you go shopping with an adult and they tell you to watch out because anything you touch and break, they have to buy. I maneuvered through the studio with this same "break it, buy it" sentiment reverberating through my mind; except this time I could interact with objects uninhibited by my elementary fear.

“I remember being at my grandma and grandpa's house and they had a modular sofa. It wasn't cool or anything but we'd be watching TV moving it around, like little kids just playing with it. You're a kid thinking, 'why does this move so much' and like, 'why can we have it in different places?' Now knowing the design, it’s so cool.” - Josh Terris 

Delving into the recesses of our minds, we exchanged our earliest design-related memories. I often think about how much art surrounded me while I was growing up. My child brain didn’t make that connection between the different mediums I was engaging with, at least not until I found myself taking a deep interest in what I do now. Similarly, Natalia shared those moments when her dad would take her to Ikea to peruse the showroom for vibrant, modernized home decor at an accessible price point, which the company is most notably celebrated for. Those earlier Ikea pieces are now collectibles, with most of their worth attached to the rarity of designs in their simplistic yet funky glory. 

The duo muse about their particular interest in design that is built to last. When I asked if they would ever design a chair, both immediately rejected the thought. “I'm more so just interested in the history of how long a chair has been here and the fact that it's still in perfect condition or it's not. I would want to design a chair if I felt like we weren't prepared to do it. I wanna do it the right way. I want a chair that's gonna last forever.”

Her interest and desire for research, is the major driving force behind this labor of love. Natalia created a chair obsessed Instagram account @situ.ation “for those who love to sit”– an unintended prelude to form.as. We related on being part of zine culture circa 2012, surprised we never crossed paths during any given independent book fair that took place from the bay to NYC. Natalia and Josh are collectively inspired by an environment familiar to many of us who grew up in Southern California, a place rich with subcultures. These were the motivations and inspirations behind creative mediums the two participated in, predating their collective endeavor. There's skate culture, the desert and its ample space, punk culture, music, landscapes, and road trips among many escapes that influence discovery.

If Natalia can’t envision a piece of furniture or decor in her home, then she can’t fathom collecting it for the studio. Her creative pursuit is less about the money and has everything to do with the adrenaline that comes from each find. Sourcing is the reward. I can feel the excitement shared between her and Josh, while they retell wayward Craigslist encounters, driving long distances for a gem. Or the time Natalia manifested a Pierre Cardin mirror after endless hours of searching. There ended up being the exact one she wanted, right up the street at a neighbor’s house. If you look hard enough you might even recognize a piece or two from their collection in the background of some A-list celebrity’s Instagram photo moment. That’s beside the point. As it ever evolves, formas shapeshifts into new functions and invites you to pull up a chair.

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Formas

A Conversation With This LA Based Design Studio

Words By Ryan Blackway
Images by Cult Matheson, Photo Assist: Kemi Adejumo 
Styling: Kelly Benjamin 

TikTok figured me out, quick. I still feel conflicted about how fine-tuned the content is for me here over any other place on the internet. I find myself inundated with videos that speak to my interests; an abundance of content speaking to art, history, architecture, food, design, philosophy, science-fiction, film, and sonics. To the point where I am learning something in each video that feels valuable and educational in ways that I still do not find on the internet.… I mean the app even tells me to get off and I listen. We’ve reached a moment where we’re all aware of what’s happening but still subscribe to it, and in this era, I’m so happy to have met people like @cyberexboyfriend, aka Laura Lisbon. 

I found myself tapping through the gauntlet of social fandom, from feed to profile, and consuming an hour of content there before hitting the follow. Big day. And it was one of those early follows that really flourishes right before your eyes. You know the type. Your freshly downloaded platform and the early creators that get some of your first follows. I bet you can recall some now from an era past. 

To me Laura is a perfect indication of the times, sharing the content that speaks to us as a generation... sure, there are many tech rabbit-hole conversations this article could go down, but we’re not here for that, we’re here for this modern-day content Picasso who has a knack for mixing punchline humor with education covering high fashion, design, music and beyond.

The thing about Laura's content is his takes aren't just hot ones — they're honest ones too. When something's intriguing, or under-appreciated, he explains how he got there while in the same breath admitting it also looks like a hotdog at first glance. Laura is holding the door open for those who want to learn, to comfortably enter and experience curated taste without the pretentiousness. Accessible art education.

What I was curious to talk about with Laura was this newfound sense of authority. What’s it like to now have people be interested in how you feel about something. There’s so much content, that we rely on people to catch it all and set the table nicely for us to eat. I’m always interested in the tastemaker, and what references and influences are shaping the landscape for the next generation…

What the cultural zeitgeist searches for in celebrity, who we choose to give our attention to, what standards we hold them to and what our preferred aesthetics are, have been questioned, broken down, and rebuilt in just a couple of years.

Often times we consume content from people who research, report, and divulge their opinion without ever getting to know them. This interview serves as an anthropological waypoint to mark the storytellers who disseminate information and celebrate the work they’re doing as they inspire and educate a new generation. After speaking with and fostering a friendship with Laura over the course of this article coming to fruition, it was made abundantly clear just how self-aware he is of the algorithm, and the confined parameters he must operate within, while simultaneously strategizing ways to break it down and extend his reach beyond.

Ryan Blackway: Your TikTok channel is one of my absolute favorites. It removes the pretentiousness that can come with art and culture education. Was this a void, you felt compelled to fill? How did this come to be?

Laura Lisbon: Yes and no. Partially, yeah, ‘cause like my girlfriend got tired of me just talking about random stuff, and so did other people in my life. It's just like one of those things when you're online and you watch content and you, look at content, you can look for validation or wonder if people feel the same way as you do about certain things and certain aspects. I want it to be my own soapbox, but be the soapbox for people who are looking for a soapbox, I guess the voice for the voiceless, so to speak. Just the fact that I'm a visual learner and there's not a ton of content online about more hoity-toity stuff like that. You can find content about Marvel very easily, but, you can't really find a ton of content on like Krzysztof Kieślowski films.

RB: When it comes to understanding trends, movies, and albums, you make it feel so effortless. How much of this is done from research versus like an opinion or intuition that you have from within?

LL: It's all an amalgamation. You see somebody talking about something and you're like, okay, I'll check it out. And then, it reminds you of this, this, and this. I'm very fortunate I grew up on the internet, whereas a lot of people only had that locality. People from the internet have more access, a greater repertoire and they've been in conversation and interacting with this kind of content for a longer time. So they have a baseline understanding, the base floor of understanding has rows, but the ceiling has gotten much higher.

RB: There seems to have been an influencer monopoly that's been broken and it’s been deeply needed. Can you expand on what this new era entails and why we all want it so badly?

LL: People are just kind of tired of “influencers,” so to speak. It's been what, 3, 4, 5 years of that. It's very clean cut, but it's not a lot of influencing, you know what I mean? It's more so people showing you the same things that you've seen before. Whereas influencing is you pulling from the depths, putting people onto the small and you didn’t really see that until recently. You've watched a shift in a more honest portrayal where prior to that, outside of TikTok, it felt like everything was becoming like television traditional media once again.

RB: It's worth noting at the date of this interview you've amassed nearly 200,000 humans that want to hear what you're talking about, and you’ve become an authoritative figure in the process. This algorithm seems to be flipping who that authoritative figure is on its head. What's it been like to earn that trust and, what kind of community have you formed or have you been able to find within this space?

LL: I definitely have people that I talk to, it's crazy to me to think that, yeah, I could be the reason something sells out, you know what I mean? Cause I've watched that happen to other people. I haven't really seen it for myself, but it's crazy to think that, you know, you talk about something and then somebody's Spotify plays go up. It's not even so much that it's pure blind trust, but it's the fact that you end up being a tastemaker now, and back in the day, if Rolling Stone Magazine said an album was wack, the album was then considered wack. Right? And to think that I am potentially part of that now…

RB: Hmm. I'm sitting with that for a minute. I would be remiss to not talk about how the new era of tastemakers aren’t trying to reinforce something as “cool” due to group approval. You're letting things be unapologetically what they are and celebrating that versus pushing this forced narrative. How much of that is fueled by what you're nostalgic for versus where your taste has evolved to today?

LL: I'm into breaking down authority and cultural authority. So it's a double-edged sword where I'm like, let me watch this movie from back in the day. It's cool. It's great. And then I can also be like, yeah, this movie's wack. You can skip this. This is not it. And part of it is me doing that for the sake of breaking down the walls and breaking down the perception – to change the perception that people have and switch it up.

RB: You’re not the type that strikes anything down just for the sake of it either. Your content is shaped by unfolding or unpacking this forgotten piece or this other connection to something else that connects all the dots to emphasize just how special it is. Always illuminating.

LL: I try my best to find something that I like in everything. I can be in my head and one on one, I am a very harsh critic, but I also understand that online, harsh criticism gets views, but at the end of the day, if you're known for harsh criticism, it becomes really hard. Being such a harsh critic of any and everything you have a tendency not to enjoy doing it. I hate that kind of attitude where people focus on that and people's whole platform is built off of putting stuff down.

RB: If you look back in history, pop culture history, anything that ever got a one-star review, the people that led with, “it’s the death of,” marked the renaissance or birth of a new direction. The criticism of Lil B, the criticism of Lil’ Wayne, or Jay Z's, “Death of Autotune,” all serve as these catalyst moments.

LL: That's really interesting cause TikTok traditionally has broken that ceiling. The ceiling has to do with age. For the first time you’re really seeing people under 24 years old, the youth, actually curating while being the youth. Rather than having an A&R, doing focus testing and lobbying a radio station. For a single to hit then, you’d have 30 singles to choose from, so single 27 is the one that hits it big, but today you have kids digging and pulling from everywhere and I think that's very important, especially with the globalization and the democratization of taste.

RB: What do you feel like is the current zeitgeist and where do you feel like we're headed and are we better for it?

LL: We're in post-postmodernism, which is hard to describe it's like post-post irony, irony comes from a point of sincerity, post irony is being sincerely ironic about something, but post-post irony is, “I like it. I hate it.” Shrek is a good example where everybody saw like Pacino with the Shrek phone case. Supreme did the Shrek logo shirt and like Balenciaga does like the DHL logo or they do the bags that look like cat food, where it's like it's camp everything's camp, everything's fun. It's abstraction. I'm sure Pacino didn't know, but he did know because his phone case was upside down. So like that was a moment to show like I'm weird, I'm different because it's showing that you don't care by not caring while also caring at the same time. It's weird. 

RB: What do you feel like your content is building towards or what else is happening in your brain?

LL: I wanna do something with TV, movies and maybe make more music, curate music. Right now I'm just kind of taking it one day at a time, there's stuff in my head, those ideas that you hold somewhere in your brain? I have a ton of those and I'll pull 'em down when I need 'em when the opportunity arises, you can't just walk into HBO with a script and be like, “Hey, produce this.” It'll be fun to see what happens next.

RB: I know TikTok is such a powerful platform, but it doesn't necessarily always take kindly to self-promotion, but we don't have that rule here so let’s get this out into the universe, let’s get some HBO energy going, you know?

RB: What was one film that made you see the world a little differently after you watched it?

LL: I wish I talked about this more in my YouTube video, but House. The 1977 film by Nobuhiko Obayashi broke the way I thought about movies and what could be done and like how to have fun. It's why I very much view everything the way I do, because House is such a well-made intelligent film from a cinematic standpoint. The consequences of World War II from a Japanese man with the dichotomy of very tonally unserious, but like super, super dark. It makes you think about how you watch Spy Kids, Shrek or Scooby Doo and you approach them very differently. You learn to genuinely have fun without that fear of being like, I'm too good for this. It taught me you can be sincere and smart and still have fun in your own way.

"I'm into breaking down authority and cultural authority."

RB: I love that. Is there a film to you that has just incredible replay value that you would watch time and time again?

LL: Perfect Blue. I can watch it for hours. I've seen it a million times. The Virgin Suicides a lot, it's a sleepy movie. It's cozy. It's very warm. It's very blue. You can fall asleep to that movie. It's not very loud. It's not like Sailor Moon. Midsummer. I like slightly morbid films, but not incredibly morbid. I like to be visually challenged and stimulated, but I do like cozy films. I love a good RomCom. Um, now I have to think of a RomCom. But I'm a Cheerleader — a classic. What’s the one with Jennifer Connelly in Target? Career Opportunities. Cozy simple movies, Love And Basketball, I don't know. There are so many movies.

RB: Which video game has the best soundtrack?

LL: Jet Set Radio Future for sure, perfect. Cibo Matto was on there, fantastic soundtrack, it was in my head before I rediscovered the game. An earworm that had been stuck in my head from childhood. Even as I'm talking to you now the track, The Concept of Love is already stuck in my head.

RB: Who are a handful of people you'd love to have dinner with that are alive.

LL: Ooh, okay. Spike Lee. Rick Owens. Rei Kawakubo. Sophia Coppola., Francis Ford Coppola. And Dennis Rodman. Can't forget Dennis Rodman.

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cyberexboyfriend

STUDIO94: 
A Space for New Sounds in Stockholm

Words by Esra Canoğulları, Images by Felicia Granath

Drawing inspiration from their creative friendships across design and music, STUDIO94 was born out of a need to support and highlight under-represented musicians in the Stockholm music scene. Not bound by any genre or specific sound, STUDIO94 strives to be a trusted name in their community, moving away from a niche sound in electronic music and carving out a multi-genre path of their own. 

Charles Elf co-founded STUDIO94 with Nahom Zerai in 2021, both excited by the idea of starting a record label. Nahom took to the design side of the label, designing logo and graphics, Alex Alazar supported on merch and putting together their first compilation; STUDIO94 Vol.1. Grace Chang and Sara Vahdani joined the team shortly after to support the business side of the label and contribute their perspectives. 

When listening to STUDIO94’s catalog it’s clear they are committed to creating an expansive idea of what electronic music can sound like within their scene. Their first release as a label, STUDIO94 Vol. 1 is a 14-track compilation released via their Bandcamp, featuring 12 artists, all exploring their own approaches to house music. A standout is Clafrica’s track Aquarian SZN, with a bubbling bassline that sonically embodies that cold chill of Aquarius season. Pushing through the cold air while still feeling immersed in the depths. Giving electro undertones Aquarian SZN references back to Drexyia’s deep sea universe. 

Following STUDIO94 Vol. 1 is their second compilation, 'A Better Place', to be released at the end of August. This collection of 29 tracks takes on a more ambient approach, including tracks from 29 different producers, including Kareem Lofty, Laraaji, J.Albert, and more. A distinct shift from the upbeat and house-oriented sounds of the first compilation, this release moves into a more immersive listening experience. An exploration of experimental, downtempo, 80s, ambient, and new wave sounds and elements merged into one full-length project. 

Contributing to the vast landscape of electronic music in Europe, STUDIO94 embraces fluidity within electronic genres of the past, present and future while highlighting artists whose work is in line with this ethos. “No genre or sound, we strive to showcase the future and the unheard”.

Tell us a bit about the music scene you are a part of in Stockholm:

Given that Sweden is a huge exporter of music, the music scene in Stockholm isn’t that big internationally. There are a few labels in the electronic scene that are releasing great music. Our experience is that the music scene, culturally, is blooming but there are gaps in certain genres, and it's a good thing. It allows for a lot of creative freedom and fair competition for music-interested people to actually do their own things. Another thing about the music scene in Stockholm is that there are two main club venues that focus on music. These clubs allow different labels, artists, collectives etc to host and curate club nights, us included.

 Given that Sweden is a huge exporter of music, the music scene in Stockholm isn’t that big internationally. There are a few labels in the electronic scene that are releasing great music. Our experience is that the music scene, culturally, is blooming but there are gaps in certain genres, and it's a good thing. It allows for a lot of creative freedom and fair competition for music interested people to actually do their own things. Another thing about the music scene in Stockholm is that there are two main club venues that focus on music. These clubs allow different labels, artists, collective etc to host and curate club nights, us included.

What kind of a platform/space are you hoping to create?

STUDIO94 originated from the need for a creative outlet to explore and develop our own generative potential. Having felt excluded from such pre-existing spaces, we decided to create our own platform where we would be able to make all our ideas come to life. Today, we strive to extend that same platform to others through music and build a community around creatives who've once felt the same. Highlighting underrepresented musicians, producers and artists that we think deserve the spotlight  is one of the ways we do this.

What we hope to create with STUDIO94 is to become a trusted name that inspires and brings people together through music. This notion is regardless of what genre you usually listen to. We want everybody to feel welcomed to our community and be introduced to music you normally wouldn't go for through us.

The first compilation STUDIO94 Vol. 1 focused on a range of approaches to house music, this upcoming compilation is ambient. Why is it important to you all to highlight a wide range of genres within electronic music?

No specific reason; we are a record label bound by no genre or sound. We just want to put out good music that we like. This notion is important and goes back to the intention of wanting to create a space where everybody feels welcome and come together for the love of music. 

It came about quite organically and evolved from being a fun project with friends that turned into an actual business. Charles, who is an artist himself (Prof. Stranger), always wanted to cross “starting a record label” off his bucket list. Nahom started working with the logo and graphics and Alex showed up a day or two later with some ideas for the merch/compilation. Grace and Sara joined the family not long after to help out with the business side of things. So here we are.

What are some of the collectives and labels that have inspired you to start a label?

Locally, we are also very lucky to have been surrounded by a lot of talented and creative friends. Port Au Mansa, which is a perfume oil brand and Geza, a newly founded clothing brand are two examples. Having that creative spirit around us has really inspired us to build something of our own. Music-wise, we’ve been inspired by Tukio which is a Stockholm-based independent radio station. Also, the setting and ambiance of Hosoi, the first listening bar in Stockholm.

What's on the horizon for STUDIO94? Any artists you are excited about or projects you’d like to highlight?

Our biggest upcoming project is our second compilation album, A Better Place, which features 29 artists from all around the world. We’re really excited about this project because it’s something we’ve been working on for a long time! It’s set to be released at the end of August this year. We’re also launching a website around the same time where you will be able to order double-cassettes of A Better Place. Also, we have plans on dropping digital releases from some amazing artists and producers in the near future, so a lot of exciting things to come. 

Keep up with future projects from STUDIO94.

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Studio94

RIAN PHIN :
EXPLORING THE HISTORY OF Y2K FASHION 

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Like and Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/RianPhin

Through Tiktok, YouTube, and Instagram Rian Phin is creatively engaging with the ever-evolving practice & language of sustainability that ebbs and flows in the fashion world. This video archives one of our favorite Twitter topics revering the Black community’s impact on this era, while connecting its evolving nature and present-day continuance.

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Rian Phin

In Conversation with Cy X, Josephine Shetty, Meenakshi Parashar, + Pauli Cakes


Gatebreaking is the opposite of gatekeeping. This can look like teaching people your skills and cheat codes, sharing as many material and informational resources as possible, or unraveling barriers and hierarchies within spaces you inhabit. Some examples are below: 

Download this template to explore your own gatebreaking fantasies.

Self-publishing, sharing unfinished and unedited work 

Sharing research and theory on free platforms that are accessible outside of academic institutions, like Tiktok and Twitter 

Creating transparency around pay rate, and sharing what you charge for specific services

Crowd-sourcing data and research on disparities within your field or community

Teaching people new softwares, hardwares, instruments, tools, and mediums

Being someone’s guarantor or job reference

Creating seed libraries and art equipment libraries

Holding the subway station exit door open for entry or sharing a swipe

Sharing communal studio spaces for free or low-cost 

Sharing streaming and Adobe logins, workspace memberships, software licenses

Hiring without a portfolio or resume and training on the job instead

Archiving digital resources for your community – perhaps sample artist contracts, mental health and legal services, translation services, guides on organizing an event, or tutorials for new skills

Constructing spaces to make them more comfortable for disabled and chronically ill people 

Artists drafting contracts with their own desired payment times, stipulations, etc.,  instead of solely signing and accommodating client contracts 

Gatebreaking has also historically looked like prison abolition, strikes and uprisings, whistleblowing, oral history and knowledge-sharing in all its forms, accessible healthcare, education, and social services, translation and ASL (american sign language) interpretation, centering survivors, and disability justice measures

"Comfort is about expanding into the edges of yourself and your surroundings, slowing down, and honoring the abundance of knowledge within and around you. What comes to mind when you envision maximum comfort?" 

If you’ve ever received bodywork (perhaps a massage, cupping, or acupuncture) you may have experienced a heightened awareness post-session of muscle tension creeping back in. Maybe you realized some of your daily movements and interactions were in fact sources of tension. Bodywork, like any healing modality or shift in pace, allows us to better measure our somatic states across familiar surroundings.

Over the last few years, as lockdown induced global deceleration and covid-capitalism charged on, I witnessed myself and my friends developing a similar sense of friction as we moved between stillness, grief, and survival. Specifically, I noticed a more acute awareness of isolation and burnout within ourselves, and structural barriers within our industries and communities. Every time we slowed down, the speed of life around us felt more dissonant.

People within and outside of creative industries increasingly speak of being stuck in “survival mode”, of being unable to prioritize rest and deprioritize production, unless our bodies bring us to a grinding halt. Burnout erodes our sense of self, and we become prone to comparison and jealousy. Burnout is also deeply isolating and has compounded the physical isolation we’ve experienced throughout the pandemic. Prolonged isolation, in turn, has restructured all the ways we relate and commune. 

Even now, living in a dense city with a near-infinite possibility for connection, I am obviously not immune to isolation. I notice that all intimacies and kinships must be tended very actively and intentionally in order to last, across digital and offline spaces. It doesn’t come easy – early on I’d go to clubs chasing my fantasies to feel calm, to feel euphoric, to feel desire. Some nights would be so beautiful and surreal they’d entirely shift how I approach organizing, pleasure, and safety. Other nights I’d instead find the ground turning into quicksand underfoot, feeling the ache of alienation. For me, the club is less a space of deep presence and more often one of disassociation – which can be a balm in its own way.

For the past two years as our surroundings warped around us, we all quietly watched many of our fantasies wither, coping with heartbreak in private. I imagine us all as sea sponges absorbing everything our environments offer us, from data to nutrients to emotions to resources. When we are severed from our environments we become saturated with capitalist messaging, with each isolating influence causing us to contract further. 

Examining these crises of pace, selfhood, and relation reveals Darwin’s “survival of the fittest'' theory as one of several precursors to modern capitalism. In the 1850s Darwin’s theory positioning competition as the crux of life was translated to sociology, politics, and economics as Social Darwinism, from which modern capitalism emerged in the 19th century. Social Darwinism was also employed to justify eugenics, facism, and authoritarian regimes around the world. Survival of the fittest ideology rears its head in so many of our social relations, from CDC messaging surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, to education access, to food distribution, to (yes) music and creative fields.

Searching for antidotes to isolation, competition, and burnout guided me to the natural world – specifically mycology – for answers. In Merlin Sheldrake’s mycology book “Engangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures”, he summarizes a study offering the term “‘involution… [i.e.] rolling, curling, turning inward’”, as an alternative to “evolution”. Involution dislodges Darwin's theory as the dominant understanding of life over time, instead suggesting that life on earth has solely persisted through all lifeforms becoming more enmeshed and symbiotic. 

If gatekeeping is survival of the fittest ideology internalized and imbued into our social relations, then socialism, mutual aid, and abolition might emerge on the flip side as political equivalents of involution. Gatebreaking then, could be a more accessible umbrella term for interpersonal involution and enmeshing, or simply the opposite of gatekeeping. So teaching people all your skills and cheat codes, sharing as many material and informational resources as possible, and unraveling barriers and hierarchies within a space you inhabit. 

Sharing this idea of gatebreaking online, I half-jokingly made a style mood board for gatebreakers that featured comfortable, durable garments, including hiking clogs, a puffer skirt, and a fuzzy multicolored scarf-hat. Ultimately, what anyone chooses to wear when they’re gatebreaking is unimportant, but I do believe that individual and communal comfort lies at the heart of gatebreaking. I want nightlife and gathering spaces to have more seating and snacks, bodywork stations, safe ride funds, and harm reduction measures (including earplugs, condoms, and safer substance supplies like narcan, fentanyl testing strips, and cup condoms to prevent drink spiking). All of this has been done before for free or with minimal fundraising, and can be prioritized at any moment. Comfort is about expanding into the edges of yourself and your surroundings, slowing down, and honoring the abundance of knowledge within and around you. What comes to mind when you envision maximum comfort? 

On a personal level, one specific event foreshadowed and shaped my thoughts surrounding gatebreaking. Last year I was on my way to a DJ set while managing seasonal chronic pain and needed urgent relief. I ducked into a CVS and iced my hands with a few foil-wrapped ice cream sandwiches for 40 minutes, stressed enough that I entirely disregarded what other shoppers were thinking, and lost sight of the fact that I was late to my set. I realized then how chronic pain encourages improvisation and innovation beyond the prescriptions of traditional Western medicine, creates fissures within capitalism, and can encourage slowness. When I look back on that brief moment of prioritizing my own comfort, I think of all I have yet to learn from disability justice and chronic pain communities on gatebreaking and access. I dream of ways we – particularly visual artists, graphic designers, and coders – can better circulate non traditional knowledge and healing tools hidden in plain sight. 

As the new year provides space to parse collective isolation, grief, burnout, and internalized capitalism, and clears the ground for new collective fantasies, I hope we can resource each other towards maximum comfort. Whether we label it gatebreaking or not, you’ll always fall closer in orbit to those reaching towards you, guiding you to a more easeful, interconnected, comfortable world where knowledge and resources flow just as emotions do. Online and offline, interpersonally and intergenerationally, not staying confined within one body. 

Over the past few years I have witnessed and been rescued by gatebreaking time and time again, and am lucky to be surrounded by people who embody gatebreaking through their work. I got the chance to speak with four organizer and artist friends, Cy X, Pauli Cakes, Josephine Shetty, and Meenakshi Parashar about their gatebreaking hurdles, blueprints, and fantasies:

"What’s been moving for me, is seeing just how actually easy gatebreaking can be once you wholeheartedly commit and check any ego or capitalist-bred teachings surrounding competition and hoarding."



Synth Library NYC was started by me and musician Heidi Sabertooth. It was born from the ethos of gatebreaking and from the radical act to move beyond the limits of private property where only a select few are able to afford and own synthesizers and other electronic music equipment. With the library, we have collected an assortment of different equipment that others can check out and bring within their homespace or studio space for personal use. The library is free with option to donate to assist with any costs around website maintenance, equipment repairs, cables, chords, etc. We wanted to imagine something different - a new model where people could feel nourished, excited, and easily able to explore their relationship to sound. The library has felt like one way to do that and we also curate educational resources and host different workshops and community events.

What’s been moving for me, is seeing just how actually easy gatebreaking can be once you wholeheartedly commit and check any ego or capitalist-bred teachings surrounding competition and hoarding. It’s really about sharing the resources around you and moving from a place of trust, curiosity, and care. Although Synth Library NYC is one model of doing that, we all could do our own versions of that with our own gear, books, art supplies, cameras, etc.

Founder of @xcakesnyc, dj, creator, organizer + more

"I dream of a future that can exist without the presence of punitive enforcement, such as prisons and detention centers. I dream of a future rooted in community care, universal income that generates financial stability for all, affordable housing, free schools that teach self-sustaining practices such as farming, permaculture, therapy, holistic medicine and more."

We are taught to normalize and internalize this idea of one-ness, being self made and only caring for ourselves. This sort of “mono-culture”, at its core, only pushes us farther from growth. For example, if we look at the way capitalism and facism effects our soil we see big agricultural industrial companies using monsanto and chemicals which work against natural ecological processes, eradicating bio-diversity and privatizing the land in the name of mass production. We are taught to think like killing machines, opposed to thinking like the water, air and trees which are the very root of our existence. When we see crops, gardens and eco-systems flourish in their natural state, without the impending presence of capitalism we see fruit bearing trees and fungi nourishing the soil. We see binaries being broken, flaura flourishing and a mutual state of symbiosis, the way the earth is intended to be. I believe this ideology can be applied to aspects of every ecosystem. To that end, the roots of our movements can stay present and multiply with strength, and we can pass down knowledge from the source. 

When I think of gate breaking, I envision our current society plummeting and being built up and replenished with a harmonious ecosystem rooted in love, solution, compassion, justice and patience. I dream of a future that can exist without the presence of punitive enforcement, such as prisons and detention centers. I dream of a future rooted in community care, universal income that generates financial stability for all, affordable housing, free schools that teach self-sustaining practices such as farming, permaculture, therapy, holistic medicine and more. On a more attainable scale, by sharing resources, wealth and information we have direct access to without capitalizing off it first, we can create a culture around gatebreaking. This can be as easy as sharing what you learned in school on an open source document or creating a redistribution fund that aids those in need. An example of how I’ve been able to engage in gate breaking culture through collective care is by creating a mutual aid fund for folks affected by the Omicron spike in NYC. While the government was denying the effectiveness of supplements such as Vitamin C and Echinacea, I was able to send out over 150 care packages through raising funds. Where we see absence in care we must go in and take charge to take care of our community, because if not us, then who? We can not learn without being taught, we can’t receive love if we do not give it and vice-versa, at the root of everything is the ecology of care.

"Confronting structural access barriers doesn’t necessarily address larger structural inequities, like who holds most of the institutional power..."

From exclusive and expensive music education to labels, distributors, agents, managers, and so on, there’s access barriers built into every corner of the music industry’s infrastructure. Even the extensive history of labor organizing within music history is fraught with respectability, racism, and xenophobia, as most of America’s earliest music worker-organizers were white male classical musicians who sought to exclude Black American and migrant musicians from their workers’ rights initiatives.

The Internet and digital music technology have provided a sort of democratization of the means of production. Artists can now record and produce from home with DAWs, virtual instruments, and microphones readily available on our laptops. We can distribute our work on a variety of sites for free or at a relatively low cost, and we can promote our work on social platforms. However, I think it’s important to remember that giving people the tools needed to take part in a certain field or practice only empowers us to a limited extent and could play into a neoliberal performance of accessibility and diversity. Confronting structural access barriers doesn’t necessarily address larger structural inequities, like who holds most of the institutional power, which in the music industry is more consolidated than ever in the hands of a few executives, and why those people continue to hold power, despite how much technology is at the masses’ fingertips.

In my anti-capitalist dream world, there wouldn’t be industries of any kind, including ones for music. There would be no products to pump out, musical or otherwise, for a hive consumership to purchase and subsequently stuff the pockets of industry executives. Because everyone’s basic needs are met in this vision, people could make art for pleasure rather than money. Anyone would feel empowered to identify as an artist, and artists would have more freedom to align their practices with their truest desires for expression, creation, distribution, and engagement, completely outside of the industrial imagination. Success and manifestation would look different than we popularly know them to be in this context, but I still think art would be very fun and glamorous in an entirely new and liberated sense of the words! I think achieving this vision would involve many abolitionist efforts, including a mass workers’ movement, not exclusive to the music industry but involving all of the world’s workers bound to and by the global capitalist imperialist system. This movement could start as small or big as anyone has capacity for, including many of the gatebreaking examples listed above.

One example of resource sharing that I am currently working on is building a trade cooperative for vocal lessons where singers can rotate leading lessons for each other, so they can all access free, regular vocal practice, as well as the feedback, camaraderie, and breadth of perspective offered by a group of singer peers! As an audio engineer, I also aspire to share my knowledge and services as abundantly as I have capacity for. My rate is relatively flexible, and I am open to working for trade in many cases. I can also adjust my services to accommodate a client’s need and budget, like consulting and advising on a musician’s mix rather than acting as the lead engineer. I truly just enjoy building mutually nourishing connections with other artists, so a big part of my journey in this industry is to find ways to keep my projects and interactions genuine, fun, sustainable, and aligned with my vision for the world.

Mutual aid is unconditional, it is not charity, and it is not a non-profit. It exists outside of hierarchical systems, systems which oftentimes view help as a form of debt and power as something that’s concentrated at the top.

I am an organizer to my very core and my concept of gatebreaking operates from the foundation of mutual aid. Mutual aid is unconditional, it is not charity, and it is not a non-profit. It exists outside of hierarchical systems, systems which oftentimes view help as a form of debt and power as something that’s concentrated at the top. 

Back in 2020 when COVID-19 was first booming, my friends and I immediately got to thinking: what is something we can do? What are resources we have that we have an excess of and have the ability to share? We narrowed it down to a list of free services we could offer to our neighbors:

1. Babysitting services since our jobs were now remote and we had a lot more time at home. This was especially helpful if our neighbors were essential workers and still going into work and schools/daycares were closed or even if they were busy working from home and didn’t have the bandwidth to look after their kids.

2. Picking up groceries and medicine for neighbors. For us, this was a very low lift task since we were comfortable with going to stores so why not offer to pick up necessary items for neighbors who couldn’t leave their homes? We were already in the stores to begin with.

4. We also offered blank flyers to folks who had different types of resources available that they could offer ex. transportation if someone had a car, legal aid, etc. This way, it wasn’t a strict model of the kind of help that was being offered.

We advertised with flyers, social media, word of mouth, and eventually started making meals through Feed The People - BedStuy. We started cooking meals in our tiny apartment kitchen with the additional support of people in the community who stepped up to redistribute their resources. Over time, we started receiving donations from people who had excess groceries, cutlery, cooking tools, takeout boxes, and eventually got offered a kitchen space, that we still utilize to this day, to cook out of. As the scope grew, so did the amount of people who were willing to offer their time and resources. People signed up to cook, deliver food, clean, provide supplies, all for mutual aid. This has allowed us to provide hot meals to various food serves and jail support efforts with tens of thousands of meals made since 2020. But the work doesn’t stop there. 

Mutual aid and gatebreaking go hand in hand and I take the lessons and experiences I have gained with me wherever I go. For example, my day job is working at a nonprofit that helps previously incarcerated individuals find employment. While it is extremely impactful work, the organization still exists within the framework of nonprofit hierarchical structures. I remain critical of this structure, but have still taken many lessons from this job that I see as examples of gatebreaking: 

1. Transparency in wages and organizational structure. This results in more trust in the organization because people know how the program works from the inside.

2. Resource distribution. Our direct service workers always provide local, community based resources for clients, whether it’s financial assistance, transportation assistance, resume writing workshops, etc.

3. Internal resource sharing. Our organizational background is diverse and I’m often learning from other social workers, direct service workers, and organizers around me. Because of our unique experiences, we share tools and techniques and foster a learning community.

4. Hiring without resumes and cover letters

I constantly ask myself how I can bake gatebreaking into my daily life. Do I have a structure in place for distributing my disposable income? Do I have a day or two during the week (or even a couple hours here and there) where I can get involved in community-centric work? Am I talking to my neighbors and staying tapped into what’s going on locally? Am I taking the time to talk to my unhoused neighbors and getting to know them? Can I make extra portions of my lunch and bring the rest to a food serve or a community fridge? My aide is not a gift, it is a right. I am providing a resource that was always someone’s right to access.

This is all that mutual aid is; it’s an honest analysis of what you already have and how you can make that internal well an external resource. At the end of the day, it’s normal people stepping up to help. We are not saviors, we are not special, and the core of our mentality comes from decentralizing power. You do not have to be an organizer or a social worker or a specialist to be a gatebreaker. It’s about keeping your ear to the ground and as connected to your immediate community as much as possible. People are always speaking. It’s up to us to listen and act.

To summarize, the gatebreaking examples I have observed and ones that I strive for are:

4. Offering time as a resource. For example, helping a local mutual aid group organize their donated materials. Even offering an hour of time to assist.

5. Professional aide if you are an expert in a field

6. Communal spaces (like the kitchen we operate out of)

7. Resource distribution. What do you have already that someone else might be in need of? How can this distribution be baked into your livelihood? It can be tangible resources or financial distribution. Do you have a plan on how you give?

8. Skill-based resource distribution. Providing training on certain skills to create a shared knowledge base.

9. Power sharing. Placing marginalized communities at the center of a practice. Getting feedback. Asking people what their need is instead of assuming what they need.

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Gatebreaking Manifesto

Wide Edit no.03 photos captured in Pakistan

This collection of photos is from my trip to Pakistan, it was my first time back home in 17 years, and each day was more of a blessing than the last.

All of my loved ones are buried in Pakistan, so being back home finally gave me the chance to visit them as often as I liked. It sounds a little silly to say that going to the cemetery and showering my family with roses was the best part of my trip; one would never figure that the place that makes me face loss is where I felt the most peace, but it was.

My cemetery visits were my time to tell my grandparents about how I grew to be a photographer and stylist now and how beautiful the sun shines for me in New York City. I'd pour roses over my older sister's grave and tell her about my life in great detail and assure her that she'll watch me become very successful. When I shine, she shines with me.

I also got to visit my two favorite uncles (Uncle Yousaf and Uncle Jahangir) and thank them for the beautiful memories they left me with. Uncle Yousaf passed away last year, just days before my birthday, and losing him put me face to face with how humbling grief can be; grief is what made me buy that flight ticket from JFK to Pakistan.

I counted being able to sit at the cemetery with these special people and tell them about me as a great privilege, no matter how sad the loss made me. During my visits, I'd always (humbly) request that each person come to visit me in my dreams. I thought the in-person cemetery request would be honored without a doubt; however, to my dismay, there were never any special guest appearances in my dreams.

I laid patiently in bed for so many nights thinking that tonight was the night I'd be visited by Uncle Yousaf and my sister, and then it hit me, they're present in every single one of these photographs. They're my connection to my roots and every person and place I photographed, and although I can't see them, I can feel them in these photos.

It's an honor to share photographs from my trip, and there's no doubt that those I visited at the cemetery with roses are the ones who keep me shining, and I couldn't (humbly) request anything more than that.

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RAMSHAH KANWAL

PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE According to Abdu Ali

In early spring of 2016, I moved from the house I grew up in in Northeast Baltimore to an apartment in the Upton neighborhood, where central becomes west. I was on the fringes of a concrete jungle - a far cry from the landscape I was used to, but it wasn't all that different. A few blocks west of Upton lies Pennsylvania avenue, known by natives simply as “the avenue”. It was once the city’s prime hub for Black culture and a major scene for Black musicians from the 1920s through the ’50s. As my friends and I ran those streets, statues, murals, and plaques on historic corners introduced me to a monumental history. I wondered how I could have lived in Baltimore my entire 18-year life and not known anything about it. On one hand, the newly gained knowledge of local heritage was affirming. But it brought on a new type of pain to see those same blocks now deeply affected by decades of systemic abuse, and further threatened by the erasure of gentrification. The display of negligence was disappointing, but not at all surprising. In one way or another, most Black people in Baltimore have been well acquainted with neglect for a long time. We make the most of it, but the constant trauma inflicted by this relationship leaves us in perpetual need of healing.

Through a friend, I heard Abdu Ali for the first time that summer. ‘Did Dat’, now a classic from their mixtape MONGO, was my first taste of their sound. The beat started as a simplistic drum pattern, then quickly erupted into the signature rhythm of Baltimore club - the score of my summers as a kid. But instead of the voice of Miss Tony or Rod Lee, I heard a mantra best suited for the unabashedly confident, delivered with the ferocity and cadence of a ballroom emcee:

“I DID DAT! .. I KILLED DAT! .. I DID DAT, THREE SHOTS IN THE AIR ‘CAUSE I KILLED DAT!” 

It felt new but familiar at the same time, and so good. I didn’t know Abdu yet, but we had a few mutual friends, all some years older than me. They were artists of some form, and active participants in a radical, artist-led uprooting and reimagining of Baltimore’s creative infrastructure. Through events like Abdu’s legendary Kahlon parties, space was conjured for Black, brown, queer and trans folks, artists, musicians and all their intersections to exist together in unanticipated harmony. Those nights inspired otherwise-unlikely collaborations, and unified the city’s various creative pockets. Venues and art institutions were forced to reconsider their relationships with local artists. A movement of sorts was taking place right under my nose, but school and work kept me occupied and on the outskirts of the experience. ‘DID DAT’ is a special take on our city’s native sound. Simple, but potent. I didn't realize it at the time, but being exposed to it made a lightbulb go on in my head. I saw that we can take all the things we inherit,  transform them, and usher them into the future - and the results could be insanely cool. It pushed me to investigate new approaches and mediums in my own budding practice. Further, I developed an intense fear of missing out on what all these local artists were doing. I dropped out of college at the end of that year. It was admittedly a chaotic decision, but I had grown dissatisfied with being there. I had yet to find a place where I felt completely understood, and academia was certainly not it. I was still in my hometown, but in that space, I felt like an alien. Part of me knew I needed to be making art in community with people who come from where I came from, and had been through the same things. Eventually, I would end up right where I needed to be, initiating the process of some much-needed healing. And interestingly enough, I can thank Abdu Ali and their music for sparking the light that led me there.

The groundwork that many Baltimore legends have put in over the years allowed me the space and inspiration to imagine the kind of artist I want to be. Abdu takes up a huge part of that. From watching and working with them, I’m learning what it really means to be radical - how to embody that energy, and how to pour it into everything you do. In 2019, Along with releasing their sophomore album, Fiyah, they birthed a new initiative, a curatorial platform called as they lay. It serves to facilitate artistic collaboration and critical dialogue by way of digital media, programming, and exhibitions. Through radicalization of public space, physical and digital, they are bringing all types of people together for humanizing experiences (some of my last and fondest pre-pandemic memories were made at their in-person programming). Abdu constantly encourages everyone around them to stay mindfully engaged in resistive praxes, through our work and in our personal lives. Their own commitment to these practices is deeply evidenced by the integrity of their being. Like an elder of the family, their presence commands your respect and puts you at ease, all at once. They always show up with confidence and honesty, no matter who’s watching or what space they’re occupying. Showing up as yourself might sound like a simple task to some people, but it can make a world of difference. It’s the kind of thing you don’t realize you really needed to see in another person until it’s already left its impact on you. That’s what representation is. Queer Black kids in Baltimore have it in today’s age where they didn’t before - in a rare gem, formed by a blend of materials known to coexist only within the sediment of our city’s culture. A boss bitch from west Baltimore doing things on their terms, and affecting change in the process. That’s Abdu Ali.

Recently, I paid Abdu a visit to have a conversation about their journey up to now, and the collective needs that continue to drive their vision. I brought along a bottle of Pinot Noir, and they ordered a pizza with pineapple and broccoli on it… A polarizing choice, but I just thought of it as another testament to their distinctive taste. As we settled into a flow, what was intended as a meditation on their creative path quickly derailed into the world according to Abdu - a series of perspectives on the past, present and future. By the end of our talk, it felt very fitting. To know them is to know that they’re gonna tell it like it is, no cut cards. Their perspective is grounded yet fluid, and uninhibited at all times.

AMIRA GREEN: Between art and social practice, you’ve put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and done a lot of really amazing, transformative work, in Baltimore, but beyond here as well. How does all of that inform what you want to do next?

ABDU ALI: Right now, I’m just in the space to really cement my legacy and my name as an artist, as a writer, and as a performer. It’s really important for me to think about how to create a greater impact, not just in Baltimore or in the DMV, but on a global scale too. I’ve been out here doing my thing for a minute. Being a Baltimore girl and being Black, I have often felt like an underdog. But there’s nothing wrong with that. The story of the underdog is always the most compelling story to me, whether it's a book or a movie, or whatever. And I think it’s because the underdog is us. It doesn’t mean that we’re less worthy. Given the political economy we exist in, it’s really hard for a lot of Black and brown and gender non-conforming people to really be out here doing what we do. I wanna stop moving from that place of victimhood, and start moving from the place of just being like… a ferocious bad bitch. I realized victimhood doesn’t provide us the autonomy we need to survive and thrive. I want to be an example for people like me, who come from a place where shit isn’t fair because of who they are. You can still be legendary despite the hand you’ve been dealt. And it’s really important for us to realize we can do it on our own terms, without having to wait for anyone to validate us or give us permission. Nobody is gonna give it to us anyway. Self-determination has always been the theme of my story, and I want that to be an anchor of my legacy.

AG: You speak a lot about legacy in general.

AA: I think we should all be thinking about it. It’s funny, people think the only people who have to consider legacy are super famous or powerful. We all need to think about our legacy and what kind of impact we wanna have in this world. I want my nieces and nephews, their children, and their children to benefit from what I’m doing. People don’t be thinking about the kids! But we have to. We have to find a balance between being present and being considerate of the future. Maybe don’t reminisce too much about the past. That can get toxic.

AG: Maybe, but I think the past is important to consider too. I think it was you who said to me that knowing your past can help affirm your identity in the present. Right?

AA: Mm-hmm. That’s true. People need to do that research work too, chile. You’ve gotta learn as much as you can about your ancestral path. You gotta know your history to be better informed about where you wanna go. 

AG: What’s a really important way that you’ve been shaped or informed by the wisdom of an elder or someone who came before you?

AA: Well, you know, rest in peace Andre Leon Talley. He’s an ancestor now. Seeing this gay black man who was super unapologetic about how he shows up did a lot for me. He was so regal and classy, and just had this larger-than-life personality. But he was also incredibly smart. He really knew fashion history and could always pull a reference. He spoke so eloquently, but was still kinda banjee in a way, you know? 

AG: Absolutely. I was in 8th grade when he joined the panel on America’s Next Top Model. I didn’t even understand at the time why he was so amazing to me, but I was obsessed. He just had such a commanding presence. I couldn’t wait to watch every week just to hear him talk.

AA: Yes! The performance of his vocality, just everything about him. To see somebody like that just be super unapologetic about who they are was everything. Miss J too. I was like, if these men are going on TV doing this, just being Black and themselves and not giving a fuck, then I’m gonna do it too. But one thing I really loved about Andre was that for him, living a luxurious life meant to be unapologetic in that way, and to hold yourself in the highest regard, no matter what space you show up in. Luxury is not limited to people with money, and he proved it. He’s an example of why representation does matter. But it’s not enough - especially if the person isn’t showing up in their fullness in the way Andre did. There was no policing him or his personality. He wasn’t engaging with respectability politics, but he was still respectable and respected. There is so much power in that. Yeah. He’s definitely somebody who influenced me as a young Black kid.

AG: I see a lot of why he was so respected and great reflected in you. You have that same commanding type of presence. It’s like when you walk into a room and have something to say, everybody’s gonna pay attention. And like him, you don’t cut cards, you say exactly what you think. I can detect that influence on you, for sure.

AG: We lost bell hooks very recently as well, like a month ago now. 

AA: Yeah. That whole generation of Black people that came up in the seventies and eighties, they’re just a different breed. I want to continue that energy of living a hundred percent in your truth at all times, and not caring about respectability politics so much. Nowadays, people are so scared to say what they wanna say because they fear public scrutiny. In a way, it's good that we’ve developed some of the language and space to really hold people accountable for their actions. There are pros and cons. I think it’s making people scared to live their honest truth and just be themselves. bell hooks and Andre Leon Talley are both amazing and intelligent people, but they’ve also done and said some problematic shit. They didn’t have evil intentions, though. We need to read and consider people’s intentions along with their words and actions. If we did that more, I think it would allow more people to move with honesty. bell and Andre were oldheads. They were human. Sometimes they didn’t know what to say out of their mouth. I love that generation of Black people. 

AG: Me too. You can gather a lot of wisdom from that energy. Sometimes the delivery is a little wild, but if you really listen there’s some good stuff in there.

AA: Exactly. The best artists are good listeners and good hustlers. They know how to take good advice and run with it. Being combative or not listening to what people have to say only hurts you, at the end of the day. That’s something I had to learn early on in my journey. A lot of us come from a place of insecurity, trauma, fear, and pride. It can make us stubborn, especially when we’re young. There are a lot of things people told me when I was younger, that I wish I had listened to. I could have figured many things out a lot sooner. Successful people are great observers.

AA: Yup. That’s the type of energy I’m trying to carry, in my career and in my daily life too. To be open-minded and hear what people have to say, be super observant, and practice silence. 

AG: Right. In any space, inside or outside academia or whatever, it feels important to be listening to people around us and taking the time to understand where they are coming from. Everyone deserves the space to feel understood. And everyone should be prompted to self-interrogate. If we can't be critical of each other and ourselves, what are we really doing? 

AG: That’s a big part of what as they lay is about. Your art initiative.

AA: Mm-hmm. Definitely. I’m a student of bell hooks and Paulo Freire. One of the main elements he talks about in Pedagogy of the Oppressed is that your approach to whatever you do, whether it's revolutionary work, art, or educating, should be rooted in dialogue. A combination of action and reflection. If it doesn’t have that, then you’re not doing anything revolutionary. So I wanted as they lay to be imbued by and center dialogue. No shade, but people think that’s what they’re doing on Twitter and Instagram. But that’s not really the space for the type of critical conversations that we need to have in order to make the world a better place. We have to hold space for that in real life too. In our personal lives, with our families, with our homies. The home is where revolutionary work begins. Home is where the heart is. (laughs) I had to make sure that dialogue was a core element of as they lay. It’s a curatorial initiative intended to create space for dialogue. 

AG: Yeah. Freire talks about dialogue being an act of humility and love. And it provokes healing. He was a humanist. You can’t feel fully human without engaging with other people. We start to decolonize our minds when we understand our own oppression and the goal of the oppressor. Dialogue allows us to work through it together and shed the ideas that keep us in that place. Art is good for that too. That’s how we develop self-worth and form resistance against those powers. 

AA: (laughing) You really know what’s up.

AG: (laughing) Not really. I’m figuring it out. 

AA: All that is true. It is really important. A lot of times we dehumanize people simply by not listening to them. Social movements are almost always ignited by people feeling like they’re not being heard.

AG:  Yup. They also usually start with a person or group initiating dialogue with others. 

AG: as they lay is cool because performance plays a role in that exchange of ideas. Then it functions as a platform as well. It makes a lot of sense. Performance is a very big part of your musical practice too.

AA: It is. Performing is like the heart of my artistry. Even when I am recording in a studio, It’s still a performance. I’ve always taken it seriously because my favorite music artists are the ones who are craziest on stage. No shade, you could be a great recording artist, but if you can’t perform, I’m sorry. You’re not that bitch. You’ve gotta give life on stage. That's where music needs to show up a hundred percent. Because that’s where music started. For Black Americans, it started in the church, in the fields. It’s a way to honor that history. If you’re not pouring into that as a Black artist, what are you doing? So I always wanted to make sure my performance was on point. And I’m proud to be known for that.

AG: It’s funny you say that, because some moments in your performances feel like sermons. It’s really an experience watching you. I’ll never forget seeing you open Jpeg’s Boiler Room show a few years ago. You took those white boys to church. They weren’t even your demographic, but you had them in a crowd control vise grip. (laughing) I had a whole new found respect for you after that night.

AA: (laughing) Yess! I loved that show. 

"...YOU'RE NOT THAT BITCH. YOU'VE GOTTA GIVE LIFE ON STAGE."

AG: In November, you performed music for the first time since then I think, since before the pandemic. How did it feel to be on stage again?

AA: It felt good, especially considering all I’d been through in 2021. It felt like a release. It was a spiritual detox. The purge. That was the name of the show. For me, it was all about letting go and making space for the Phoenix to rise… Were you there?

AG: No, I tried to come but I had to miss it. 

AA: Oh yeah. I had such an amazing time. The best part for me was having Kenzo and Blk Vapor and everyone open for me. They really did their thing. I always try to make space to shed light on younger artists, especially ones who I feel are super super talented. They deserve as much success as possible. So that was definitely the highlight of the experience. The Purge, The Phoenix is probably one of my favorite shows I’ve ever done. It was affirming to see my community show up for me. It was a packed house. I haven’t released music in two years so for people to come out for me like that meant a lot. I was like, damn, I really am a legend. I wasn’t calling myself that - other people were. That night showed me it was the real deal. I have a foundation. It’s really inspiring and motivating me to continue to do my thing. During this pandemic, a lot of times I didn’t feel like doing this anymore. I think a lot of independent artists started to feel like their foundation was crumbling. It created a lot of moments where I was like, this is fucked up. I did all this work - I shouldn’t be out here struggling the way I’m struggling. I know part of it is because I’m Black and queer. If I was a light-skinned or cis straight man doing all this stuff, I would have been signed a long time ago or receiving the support I need as an artist. I’ve really been doing the damn thing, all on my own. 

AG: It’s extra crazy now because of the way that those identities are now sort of being bought into and commodified. Blackness and queerness sells because social consciousness is the thing right now, but an artist who is actually talented and lives that experience still has to scratch for the opportunities and resources that they deserve. It’s pretty ass-backwards.

AA: Right! I think about Saucy Santana. He has expressed that same sentiment, if he was straight or a woman, he would have been getting deals and popping off a long time ago. And it’s true. He is so majorly talented. He said he’s been approached by people before, but that they wanted him to tone it down. People love Santana because he is the complete opposite of being toned down! That just goes to show you the severity of homophobia. It’s really crazy. You’ve got a lot of undeniably amazing people who don’t get mainstream support because of it. Between Frank [Ocean], Lil Nas X and people like that, there have been moments. But things should be better. Things get harder when you’re gender non-conforming. Look at Big Freedia. It took people so long to get hip to Freedia. She’s been doing her thing since the late nineties. I’ve been doing what I do consistently for 10 years, and with success. Not even an indie label has approached me.

AG: To me that makes no sense, because aside from anything else, your musical output is so special. I know my taste can be a little out there, but Fiyah to me is like Grammy level work. Why wouldn’t people wanna get behind that? 

AA: Wow. Thank you! It’s all good, because now when I do get approached in the future, the ball is in my court. I get to be selective. That’s something you earn by doing things your way, whatever your art form may be.

AG: Amen. This is random, but when you came over the other week, you showed us this band. I forget where they’re from, but they were African and had this electronic Afrofuturistic vibe. They were crazy. I can see that you gravitate toward Afrofuturism as a philosophy and an aesthetic. Can you speak on why that’s so compelling to you?

AA: I’ve always been into sci-fi, futuristic and post-apocalyptic stories and movies. Also like I said, I’m always trying to maintain a balance between being present, and thinking about the future. Not just my personal future, but the world that I want to live in. I think it’s important for us all to consider and have that on our brains because we’re still gonna be here. And I think that encourages us in real-time to be rooted in our liberation practices and radical movements. When we are considering the future that much, it compels us to make sure that we are doing the work to make sure that we end up in the future we want to be in. That’s why I think Afrofuturism is so dope. When I think about Afrofuturism, I think about Sun Ra, I think about George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Michael Jackson too - especially in the nineties. I think about Octavia Butler. Even Terence Nance’s Random Acts of Flyness. That has a futuristic aspect to it. These people are not just doing stuff that’s cool and edgy or nuanced, they’re also affirming and comforting us with visions of Black people in the future, and the idea that we will be able to, you know, exist and live in abundance in the future. We don’t get those images often in contemporary media or in pop culture. It’s important to do work that is rooted in Afrofuturism or that considers Black people in the future. We go through a lot of shit that makes us wonder sometimes if we even wanna stick around at all. But we need that comfort because, at the end of the day, Black babies are still being born every day. We have the future of other Black people to think about. 

San Farafina for
CULT CLASSIC RADIO

The World According to cyberexboyfriend

Words By Ryan Blackway
Images by Cult Matheson, Photo Assist: Kemi Adejumo
Styling: Kelly Benjamin

San Farafina forCULT CLASSIC RADIO

The World According to cyberexboyfriend

Words By Ryan BlackwayImages by Cult Matheson, Photo Assist: Kemi Adejumo Styling: Kelly Benjamin

San Farafina for
CULT CLASSIC RADIO

Words By Ryan Blackway
Images by Cult Matheson, Photo Assist: Kemi Adejumo
Styling: Kelly Benjamin