“Of all the girls of college years,/There's one that I've loved long. /For me she wears a golden heart, /For her, I sing this song.” 
— Wonderful Sigma Phi Epsilon Girl (Sweetheart Song)

Featuring 
Tournament Haus
Jazzelle Dodd (Lady Tournament, Mother)
Ernae Windham (Ernae Tournament, Father)
Lucky Frankie (Lenz Tournament, Prince)
Vanté Franklin (Prezéntt Tournament, Princess)
Viv Hamilton (Trouble 007, Heir Apparent)


My first child, I had before I was ready. I found myself in a ballroom family, part of an urgent underground Black & Brown art scene locally. Ballroom houses serve as a makeshift families for queer artists under-resourced by their family & communities. The ballroom scene has its own rituals & lives as a myth. Its history is misrepresented & under-contextualized despite increased visibility, & no one can decide what to do with spectators. My first child was the baby of my original house & within hours of meeting, I claimed them as mine, not even the House Mother could object. After months of growing tensions, I realized I didn’t fit in my first family. I found my function but my place wasn’t respected, my labor wasn’t valued. I’d grown accustomed to being kind of revered by folks I loved. Leaving my first family scared me & the woman I was becoming. I left my first child behind so she could choose family for herself & I swore to her I wouldn’t ever be starting a house & I’d just always be there for her. For months that was true. I was content supporting just her work, I believed it was enough. Then an itch began in my body.

I was raised to be partial to myth. The myths of Christianity, fables of miraculous birth & martyrdom destined. The theater of my own birth: my mother’s labor hours into a late April 1992 Southern California earthquake, the ashes of a city burning after Rodney King’s injustice covering my drying baby clothes. I was raised in a family of faith, that cultivated purpose from the realities they faced daily. My mother, a sharp-shooting pageant queen & ordained religious scholar made our every day meaningful. I never knew myself other than intentional. Despite my parents’ early divorce, I was fortified by the mutual understanding I was meant to be here. How to survive in this reality never quite made sense to me. I didn’t feel “real” growing up.

Being born in the body I was allotted, I was given a myth of boyhood. He was to be great. The gem in a line of praying women & heir to Los Angeles Black Church royalty. I was born of two ministers under the watchful eye of a devoted village. I began boyhood boisterous, bombastically brimming. I can’t remember when I first began to carefully cultivate charisma but I knew I was unable to hide. Openly queer from childhood, I was alleviated from many lasting, though archaic, limitations on masculine performance. I could be a kind of expressive faggot. Couched in my 6’5 Black body, this prismatic persona was made even more unrenderable. I learned I could masquerade in masculine spaces because my sheer size demanded caution. How lucky then for the young flesh thirsty gay, enjoying naively hallow grounds: boy’s locker rooms, straight guys cars, janitors closets after school. I surrounded myself with men not because I identified with them but I need them to make me feel a type of whole.

By the time I got to college, I decided the mythic manhood I was barreling toward needed to include networking with a matrix of men. Fraternity life was rife with myths, embolden by ritual, & scandalized with secrecy. It’s one of the most flagrant theatrical performances of masculinity. Even now I’m hesitant to reveal anything too sacred. We have our Founder’s tale, a group of twelve seminary students trying to bring a new frat to their school. We have our values, virtue, diligence & brotherly love represented by our colors red, gold & purple. We have handshake & songs: Should harm betide me, /Thou ever will guide me, Sigma, Dear Sigma Phi Epsilon True.  I was primed for this kind of community. I was conditioned with my extensive study of how men are & an unchecked desire to be needed by them. My fluency made me easy to talk to & early in my time as a pledge I saw how special they needed me to be.

My first role after becoming a brother was serving the Vice President of Recruitment as Social Chair. I helped throw the parties, logistically. I was to manage the guys working their stations, watch out for any liabilities & keep the noise within reason. Moreover, this was the beginning of me being tasked with both caring for the house & bringing in new people. By my junior year, I was Vice President of Recruitment & personally responsible for engaging potential pledges. I had no concept of care as I do now. My only language for persuasion was the flirtation that fortified my place among these earnest liberal-arts troglodytes I fancied so fervently. My recruits signaled a change for the fraternity. Our queer brothers increased, our brothers of color increased. We had more than just econ & comp sci majors. I felt like I was casting new men in roles my older brothers left vacant. There isn’t enough space here to map how my body was a site of experimentation for my older brothers but all these men told me I was special explicitly & otherwise. Facing the young men who came up under my tutelage taught me I wasn’t like the other Black or Queer brothers, I was a singular feature of the fraternity.

Before crossing over into the Brotherhood, older guys in the fraternity solicited me for time & attention. For some, I was this genuine curiosity: a tone of Black they didn’t know & a kinda queer that didn’t quite fit. For others, I was the material manifestation of magical negro necessity they’ve only dreamed of. I’m only so retroactively responsible but at the time I convinced myself all violence was self-inflicted cause I wanted them so damn bad. There was more causality than conspiracy in what I catered for the brothers, so I was passed around by all secretly to siphon whatever salacious or sage sensation they sought.

My senior spring, with my Vice President term complete, I was selected to be a pledge trainer (locally we called each other pledge masters) over a prime group of about 15 boys. This was the first time however, I was actually in a role of mentorship. Ever. Even with the parameters & absurdity of the pact, I saw the responsibility as paramount to my manhood at the time. I, along with 3 other Senior Brothers, embarked on the semester-long journey & I don’t think it took a week for those boys to start calling me “Mom”. Many a weeknight I had a counsel of boys passing around bongs & beers in my room. I heard childhood stories never before shared, wishes they can’t tell their girlfriends, the lies they told their mothers & themselves. More than the parties, the social capital, or the cloak of brotherhood, I found the most comfort caring for my pledges. I had been in dance groups, acapella clubs, theater productions, but here among them did I first feel real.

Upon graduation, living only minutes from my alma mater, I had to actively take time away from visiting the campus, keeping tabs on my boys. For the Fall after I graduated I visited my boys about twice a month before finally committing to my new life. Postgraduate life was a blur of flailing past the point I planned to live & deciding art was my calling. I tried activism. I tried mentoring youth poets. I was a drunk who didn’t believe I was living for much now years away from the last world I felt useful. The years following college were a trek into a wilderness, I was eulogizing the boyhood I barely survived. I began untangling the definitions of self in proximity to men. I saw how even queer expressions of masculinity failed to bring me security. Beginning life as a trans woman I returned to my home state of California & admit to my own alcoholism. 

In the first year of my sobriety, I moved to Portland & began collaborating with local Black artists, curators, & spaces. I found sociality & new kinds of community that affirmed me as real. I had tamed my insatiable taste for being surrounded by “men”, with their mythic promise of security. It took months to re-center myself & invest in the Ballroom scene at large, but still, I ached for a place to fit. I had my creative & professional accomplishments from my time across the country but here in my home, I wanted to be known within a family.

My hormone therapy, about 6 months in at that point, had severely shifted my mood & my wellness baseline was raised. I found a new softness in everything. It was then I first imagined motherhood. I had jokingly begun claiming some young Black artists in town but wondered what if I did so with intention? I didn’t want my house to look like a team though, nor a fraternity. After asking my closest guy friend to be the Father, I felt poised to gestate a collective under my care. We had the myth of ballroom families readily available to us. I have two more children now & it’s not lost on me the vaguely nuclear quality to our structure.I jokingly call my first child (from my previous relationship) when telling my friends about my family.

I find myself mythologizing my history to my children often. I try to not over-romanticize how I got over & the never-ending nature of getting through this life. What’s left of my childhood faith I pass on in cautionary tales & demand for higher pay rates. I worry my narcissism fuels my motherhood, each of my children’s faces remind me of a favorite self. But they each tell me how specifically they fit into our unit & how I impact their worlds. I can’t always believe I was the best influence over my pledges but I believe I gave them another way to be in the world. They practiced me to be patient & possible for the earnest & every day. The realness I sought since childhood, I now know is the womanhood I am living in now. The mother/girlfriend/sister placeholder I served for those boys recognized a self I was yet to fully embody. Now, as a woman, I actively seek ways to be the best mother. It’s a realness I fashion from a boyhood that pledged to be more than the myth of a man.

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Lady Tournament

Travis Miller, aka Lil Ugly Mane, has donned numerous aliases. They're all names that reflect a specific space and time he's occupied during his 20 years of making music. The Richmond, VA native discusses the influence travel has on his ever-evolving sound, the currency of hip hop music, his journey with mental health, the acceptance of fans and his natural DIY approach to life. Photography by Jessica Lehrman.

LUM: I'm doing alright, man. I'm just over at the studio right now in New York, going back out west on Friday. I'm just chilling right now, though. Kinda hanging out.

CC: How does living in one place while being from another, doing all this travel influence your work?

LUM: I like to keep it moving. I can't be in the same place for too long. You know, I'm from Richmond, and then I was in Philly for two years. I was in Baltimore for a year, but then before I moved out to LA, like two years ago, I'd been living out in the mountains in North Carolina just like on top of a fucking mountain on a dirt road.

When I was in the mountains, there was nothing there. I was completely by myself up there, and I didn't have cell service. Personally, I think you have more opportunities to do a lot more things in cities and shit like that, but I don't know if that's necessarily beneficial to what I do because I feel like I'm less productive. I feel like I do more things, but I'm still less productive because I don't have the time to just brew over something.

CC: Is that why your style and approach varies so much? You blur a lot of lines in your sound. 

LUM: No, I think that all my shit is just me. I'm intersectional. I grew up punk. I got into jazz and through that I got into hip hop. Through hip hop I got into all sorts of shit because I was obsessed with the idea of sampling. I love sampling. I think it's fundamental to what hip hop is. I think I'm just an amalgamation or culmination of a bunch of different shit. I don't really like to put a word on it. That kinda comes from the noise scene really. When I was involved in all of that, it was just a bunch of people that liked music. It wasn't necessarily people that loved noise, or loved experimental music. It was just people that like sounds, so it was just a community of people that were interested in sounds. And that felt the most like home to me, you know? So that's all anything is, just a cluster of sounds. 

CC: So when you make something and people interpret it a certain way, do you ever think, “No, that's not it. It's this way.” 

LUM: I think that if we're all being honest, most art is whatever it is. I've had enough friends go through art school, I've had enough people go through critiques and learn how to write artist statements. All of that shit is just a tool to sell your art to somebody else. Ultimately, what you do when you walk into a gallery is you look at a painting and it is what it is.

As far as the artist is concerned, they made that painting because they liked the way it looked. Any deeper, if you're talking about "Oh this is about, post-industrial America or blah, blah, blah,” that's just a tool to make the viewer or the consumer believe that you should have a job, that you shouldn't be a homeless person. That's all that is - you're trying to convince someone that you know something that they don't. Ultimately you like the way that it looks or you like the way it sounds. I don't think there's really any deeper meaning in most things. 

I put out noise tapes for years that literally had no information. There were no words on the entire tape. Unless you remember that you bought it from me and what my project's name was, you probably wouldn't even know what it was. That's always just been okay with me. And so the idea that hip hop has to be this certain thing where unless I'm posing against some wall with graffiti behind it or I'm wearing a certain outfit, I’m labelled as mysterious — I think is weird. I think our art is art. 

CC: You are mysterious to a lot of people, though. Even your listeners. You have a lot of aliases — too many to list.

The aliases for me are just, you know, “This sounds or doesn't sound like Ugly Mane to me, so I'm gonna name it something else. This doesn't sound like Bedwetter to me. So, I'm going to name it something else.”

LUM: I mean, it's all just me. If I was in any other genre, this wouldn't be a weird thing; but I think because hip hop is what it is and it's so personalized, I've always been classified as some sort of mysterious person or whatever. But I came from punk and hardcore and, you know, in the nineties we couldn't really get any information about something. You'd get a 7-inch, you'd get a tape or CD and the information held within the booklet is all that you're going to get. That's it. If you write to the band, maybe you can learn more about it, but ultimately what you're given is what you get, and that was always enough for me. If I got a seven inch and there was just a band photo in there, they didn't say who was in the band. I'd be like, “Well, I guess I don't know who's in the band,” and that's kind of the way that I've always approached it. 

I was Shawn Kemp before all of this. I was producing under that name, and I just kind of fucking hated working with people because they weren't really doing what I wanted them to do with what I was doing. 

LUM: I just started doing it myself. I mean, I would make a beat and I would hear exactly in my head what that song was, and instead of listening to my own intuition I'd be like, “Well I'll give it to another artist to achieve that,” but whatever I would get back wouldn't really be exactly what I wanted, so I just started rapping myself on it. And that's how Ugly Mane came about. The first Ugly Mane shit was all produced by Shawn Kemp. That was just because my beats were under Shawn Kemp, but I just made up this rapper to rap on it. It was out of desperation. 

I mean, the only reason I put it online was so I could have a link to give to my friends. I don't know, but that's the story. Then people started passing it around and I was like, “Oh, I guess this was cool or something.”

CC: You upload an entire album as one track, like a cassette, you press play and just take it all in. It seems as though that’s been the method to your entire career: release and get back to it. No promo. 

LUM: Exactly. I mean, that's why I don't tend to split up tracks and stuff like that, and that's why my identity isn’t important. Do you like the song? Okay, cool. Well, then why the fuck do you give a shit who I am? That's my identity as far as music is concerned, you know? I don't understand it. I've never been like, “I wonder what the singer of this band's like in person.” My brain doesn't work that way, and I think that's something that I've had to come to grips with — that my brain probably works differently, that everybody's brain works differently. I've had to accept the fact that people don't look at things the same way that I do.

Ultimately, if you don't give somebody anything, they're going to find something. That's why there was, like, years where I wasn't really doing much; where all the information about me is fucking wrong. It was just horribly wrong.

LUM: People who were writing biographies and stuff.

CC: Are you saying the Wikipedia page is wrong?

LUM: All sorts of shit is wrong. I can't think of anything specifically. 

I'm also super critical because I don't like the idea of a biography. I'm really into the idea of an autobiography, I'm really into the idea of a memoir. The idea of a biography where you're proposing how a person was feeling at the time that a person did something — I think it gets into a disingenuous territory.

It's not correct, you don't know what that guy was feeling. I don't really like to pontificate how somebody was feeling or like “Oh during this time…” I'm not really into the idea of a biography. That's part of the reason why I agree to interviews every now and again, just so at least there's some record of what I'm saying; not a bunch of people positing over it.

CC: You have this cult-like following online, and you do these intimate live shows. What’s it like to interact with fans at that level?

LUM: I definitely dealt with it differently in the past. I had contempt for a long time towards my fans. Like, I hated them, but it was just that the idea of fandom on a promotional level, it just didn't make sense to me. I didn't understand it. I think coming from punk rock, coming from what I learned at a early age, it’s that the band that's on the stage is going to be hanging out with you in the crowd for the next band. 

You know, if you want to go talk to them you could just be like, "Hey man, that was a good set," shake their hand and go away. The idea of any more interaction with that was completely based on the idea of like, “Do you think that we could get along?” I just end up always thinking of it like a peer group - we're all the same, we're all interested, we're all here because we all like the same thing and so therefore we have something in common and we're all friends. 

So, I've learned that I have to appreciate the fact that I haven't had a job in fucking seven years. I appreciate that these people are literally supporting me, and I think that's fucking awesome. I think it's fucking great. The other things that I've been involved in, the idea of supporting yourself with it was the most absurd idea. Like, my fucking shitty-ass performative noise project is just a bunch of bullshit, it doesn't make any sense. Like, nobody's going to support that. It's fucking stupid, you know?

CC: For sure, people can feel how real your music is. You’re always changing the way you release music, which makes it feel like the music is more for you than anyone who may be trying to capitalize off a certain sound.

LUM: Oh yeah, it's just me. It's very narcissistic. 

LUM: I don't know if I would call it therapy ‘cause it hasn't really helped a lot of shit. Well, it could be therapy, but really bad therapy. [Laughs] Like court appointed therapy where the therapist doesn't really give a shit. Like I said, I feel like it's almost the opposite of therapy, because it's a compulsion. It's a compulsion I'm not dealing with properly. Anybody else with any other type of compulsion would probably get on medication, but my compulsion is making music so everybody's like, “Oh that's totally cool.” But, I guess this doesn't hurt anybody so people are alright.

CC: You posted on Facebook about America’s mental healthcare system incentivizing violence and self-harm. Aside from your music, it’s probably the most you've opened up. Are you feeling better today? 

LUM: Yeah, I am. I had to get a grip with that, but, I mean, it's all anxiety. I have a horrible fucking anxiety issue; it's terrible for me, everything is terrible to me. So, even this [interview] was like, I felt like my stomach was in knots since this morning just getting on the fucking phone with you guys.

LUM: It's fine, I do it every now and again. I haven't done it in a while, but speaking to the idea that we mentioned before, if you don't give somebody anything they're going to make something up. They're going to find something and it's not necessarily going to be what you want. The way that I started dealing with all of that was I guess oversharing. Just like, I'm going to overshare, like if you want to know who I am, here I am. You’re probably not going to fucking like it. It's going to be horrible for everyone involved, it was just going to be a nightmare. So I've dealt with dark themes in my music since the beginning, and speaking to the fans I knew I had. I've gotten so many emails from kids that were going through horrible shit. I can't 100% say that some of them weren't larpers and shit that just want to connect with me on some like dark level, but the last thing I want to do is feel like I'm in any way responsible for furthering something.

LUM: I mean, like when I was going through what I was going through, I felt really lost and I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I'm an adult. I have money. I can afford anything that I need to do, like, "What therapy do I need to go to? Should I go to a hospital?" It's not some issue, so when I felt like I was kicked out on my ass after that, I thought about kids that were hitting me up saying that they were all this and it's like they're kids, they're at their parents’ whim and they don't have the autonomy that I have to just figure out their own type of rehabilitation, you know? Like, they're kind of at the whim of whatever their parents believe or whatever the parents want to do so...

LUM: I think ultimately you just have to figure out what works for you and push through it. Make it better. It's always gonna suck. Everything's gonna be stupid. Nothing's ever gonna be exactly the way you want it. You have to figure out what's important and prioritize that stuff. And once you start prioritizing shit, nothing else really matters.

CC: Is there anything that you want to say to the people?

LUM: I don’t know… I think we… here's something: I get emails all the time that are like, "Come to this state, come play here." Just, if you want me to come somewhere, figure out how to book a show. Do it yourself. It's really not that hard. 

CC: Are kids not doing that as much anymore?

LUM: I think people should be more proactive. If you want something to happen, you should just make it happen. Like, if you want me to come play fucking Idaho, fucking go walk around and find out where a show's happening in your town. What's going on over there? Oh, is there a guy that usually does it? Talk to him, see what's up. You know what I mean? Send him an email.

I think that everything is kind of diluted in the rap world. Everything's so official, but that's not what I do. I think that more people should be doing shit. I did that a couple of years ago with a compilation of people's first beats. I asked people to, like, if you've never made a beat before, try to make a beat and send it to me.

I got a lot of shit that was obviously producers trying to give me a beat, but I definitely got a lot of actual first beats and people trying to do stuff. The whole time that's been the way that I've tried to connect with fans. I'm just you, basically. I was a fan of music. I loved music. I wanted to be a part of it. And so I just started fucking doing it. 

I don't think it's that crazy of a concept. I don't think I'm any more talented or less talented or more competent at doing anything than anybody else; and I think that if you just decide to do something and put your mind to it, you fucking... it's easy.

I think that's the trick. I think that's the trick of modern society. I think that's the trick of the music industry. It's all a trick.

It's really easy to just do shit, you know?

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Lil Ugly Mane

Oscar Chavez is an artist currently working in Chicago with absolutely no affiliation to SAIC. He makes paintings and performances and has never lived in a world without the Internet. His work exists in a historical canon of camp, glamour and public intervention. Calling inspiration from artists such as Adrian Piper & Vito Acconci, and designers such as Jeremy Scott & Martin Margiela, Chavez uses clothing to infiltrate public spaces and expand ideas of conceptual writing. The inherent subversive power of a body in space comes to light through his wearables and their appropriation of fashion tropes through the lens of a millennial. Tube tops, opera length gloves, and couture wedding gowns can all be used as tools in performance and protest.

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Oscar Chavez

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posted
in kitchens, down the block, unos a otros


Mar Citlali holds specific and detailed relationships to different mediums of expression, his approach to sharing food has varied sources of inspiration, fluidities, transparencies and pronounced philosophies. His pace and rhythm in the kitchen felt familiar in its confidence, comfort, but it isn’t lackadaisical. Watching him prep, cook, plate, the way Mar moves made us long dancing again. 

Periodically he points out his mom’s voice, muffled in his mixes, he says she’s never had his recontextualization of her Pozole, 

“mostly because she likes to make the food when I’m around, not me.” 

She makes Mexican food when she feels proud, Mar tells us, and he feels joy in filling his home with the same aromas – semblances of his childhood. He loves his mom’s particularity in taste, a decision in time effective brand use, enlatada enchilada sauce basing her Pozole. It’s not a flavor that thickens, it finds a way to be light once out the can but immediately sets, rich. Traditions shift realizing we culturally pivot creatively out of necessity. 

An expansive palette, or good taste, or personable charm or innovative methods or whatever words are given when work is given its due praise. With new piquancies, the basis of his menus is that “homestyle mexican-american multigenerational convenience capitalist shit.“ 

With most of his family from South Central, Mar came back to Los Angeles at 19 and grew up in Victorville most of his young life. Living in Los Angeles again is special to him. Mar has always cooked but first stepped into the industry in the back of the house at a Vietnamese restaurant, with a few places in between and at Rose Bakery at Dover Street Market, until recently. Mar knows he’s an artist, an art maker.

“Emerging”, “up and rising”, “discovered”, it feels wrong to give these misnomers to an artist immersed in a legacy of practice. Who qualifies emerging? It is in that language, Pozole may not be considered cuisine until “validated” by exotified flavors, so it too might be discovered or made relevant (however many centuries later). The presence of the pineapple vinegar curtido and pipicha only amplifies this food as an extension of a pallet shared through generations. 

Mar’s capsule and menu’d dinners show an interconnectedness with central american, sichuan and vietnamese aspects that happen sincerely, maybe because he’s magnetized to pungencies he finds in the food from the kitchens he’s worked in, Macarthur Park on a weekend or Mexicali where his grandmother now lives. Mar describes a threshold he’s allowed to push depending on the space, but his ideology doesn’t change. He’s excited to be challenged with co-creating ecosystems of exchange, adaptively.

Mar uses participatory language when he speaks,  in his words and interactions; there doesn’t seem to be a finite line between the two. There’s an intentional and living conversation between Mar’s approach to the flavors, abundance of his dishes and the people eating them. In his friends’ kitchens, hopefully one day his own, in the back of his Yukon, open trunk, fold out table with housed and unhoused neighbors. It quiets the nostalgia we hold for a functioning industry, at times briefly allowing us to forget it ever existed. 

A produce packing warehouse once lived where DSM now stands, Mar mentioned. It feels like an important fact when considering proximity and its reality. 

“LA is crazy” a neighbor agrees as we pack Pozole, the different extremities of money and wealth existing visibly within blocks of each other.

He’s vocal in the way people are conditioned to maneuver through and around small, private, public, and commercial statuses, for upward mobility but he is not negligent of himself as a resource to those around him. In the many trials of resource sharing popping up there is an innate feeling to donate or work, but effectively redistributing is being acute to cracks. Pull from them. Identifying as a skill. As some deepen into realities of what it takes for efforts to last, note that redistribution as a trending curation is inadequate. Mar feeds people, on and off the clock. There is no anticipation of sharing food or knowing how to. Not anyone will pull up with food to their block on a Sunday and not everyone should. Part of Mar’s approach to sharing food is asking for help by meeting people where they’re at when he knows people want to participate. 

It was hot all day. A layer of smoke, Mar’s broth was light and warm, coating throats, complemented by the freshness of the Agua de Melon. 

In an exchange, mouthfulled, someone said “the glory is the sky!”

Does the public yearn for healthy industries at the expense of communities curb your appetite? Does it parallel the gustoral experience of cumin in crema, a protrusive sharpness on blank background? Flirting more with the identity of dessert than side, Mar would describe cumin as it appears, that 

Food maintains its own position as an influence and informant. We wish to explore the nuances of chefs in the context of their own worlds, flavors, styles and communities while also navigating the world of cuisine during a time of world crisis’. Mar, in many ways, speaks to and often revolves around amor, identity and modulating honest transactions. 

Back in January [2020] we partook in indulging sequences of eating and ideation, meals that had us thinking about friends and artists, their approach to cooking without an official title, allure to distinct ingredients, presentation of dishes, and real curiosity of knowing who’s in front and behind them. Initially it was a specific mimicry of opulence in eating that we first reacted to. The curiosity of how the eater, the cook and the plate lived in our projections of luxury; a mulling of labor and artistry in cooking, outside and inbetween industries (sometimes in spite of them). Where artist constructs environment and honors the relationship to them in order to reimagine ways we eat. It’s now October and we are navigating the world of cuisine during a time of world crisis, ie: pandemic, disasters, fracasos. This all tastes different now, well intentioned visceralities of plated dishes and artists' stakes carried realities more than being precepts of old attachments, we’re excited they’re more than that, they are actually just new. 

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Mar Citlali

posted 
in kitchens, down the block, unos a otros

STREAM HAS ENDED July 01—31, 2020


Curatorially, My Time In Space eludes a finite moment, instead exists on a meditative plane which Alima Lee has stitched together with the utmost care. The three films: On Matter(ing), Garden, and Meditation on Madness honor the use of ritual as a means of traversing through different parts of one’s self. Created at different times in Lee’s life, each piece is a testament to the importance of documenting experiences, through the lens of those closest to her. We’re invited into gentle musings, where dialogue is sensory, masterfully scored by musicians and friends of Lee. Handle this precious affirmation with care as you explore these works.

Alima Lee is a video artist/curator/director, currently based in Los Angeles. In support of the Black LGBTQIA+ community, the artist has requested that any donations, from viewership, be directed to G.L.I.T.S. and The Okra Project.

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Alima Lee's My Time in Space

Photography by Sam Trotter, Set Design Renko Floral, Hair Malcolm Marquez, Makeup Nimai Mardsen, Styling by Autumn Randolph, Featuring Pierre Davis, Arin Hayes, Autumn Randolph, Malcolm Marquez, Tyler Lazzari, Austyn Rich, Paris Jennings, Zoe Jennings, and Jerrod La Rue

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No Sesso

 I met Alex Russell in the summer of 2015, one of the many reasons it's my favorite year so far. Atlanta was comically ratchet, unabashedly toxic, brimming with cutting edge swagger, and perpetually high. Guys like Young Thug and Future weren't missing a single shot, and it felt like the ground was gonna crack open and swallow the city every time another hit appeared out of the blue. 

There was no shortage of drama. The early days of our friendship were spent sleeping tandem on other people's couches around the east side and riffing bad ideas on long walks to shitty bars. Alex had just moved to town from New York because New York is objectively bad, and I was an unemployed visual artist mostly just drunk all the time. We were both very hungry, literally and figuratively, so every day was bookended by these long nebulous dialogues about financial freedom and how we would attain it as two virtually homeless artists, if ever. It wasn't long at all before we decided to form a creative partnership and try to develop something out of the constant brainstorm we shared. That wasn't verbalized, but one night during a dwindling kickback we hijacked the aux and traded Soulja Boy deep cuts to an unamused audience of Cabbagetown hipsters. After an hour of preaching lyrics to each other I thought to myself, "I'm gonna be friends with this nigga forever, we might as well be productive." 

Alex was the friend I didn't mind stepping away from the party to talk to because I knew he'd have something better to say than everyone else. We would DJ together, write sketches, video treatments, even absurd social experiments, whatever, all while pin-balling around the city trying to feign stability. Almost five years later, we still operate in the same fashion, the two grown men in the corner giggling like hoes. But now we get to do it in our dream setting. We've both written for TV and film, developed a pilot, and a cartoon together. We aren't literally hungry anymore, but If I've learned anything in the past few years its to maintain that same curiosity and stay close to anyone who inspires you to wander. My back is beyond fucked up from all the couches I slept on, but that's the price of friendship. Who else are you gonna sit and talk to about the future of everything? - Zack Fox

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Laughing Off the End of the World

Zack Fox + Alex Russell Discuss the Future

"Spread love, it's the Brooklyn way" isn't just a popular Biggie reference. It's a maxim that is embedded in every native Brooklynite, a truth we live by and share with anyone who comes into contact with us. Which is why I wasn't at all surprised when I arrived on the set of Junglepussy's shoot and heard things like "she's super happy" and "so conversational" or "the energy has been really great." Her East New York upbringing and West Indian heritage account for that. What does surprise me is how she greets me the first time we meet, with a soft-spoken "nice to see you." 

Prior to this introduction I had listened to JP3 for hours on end (Get Down feat. Rico Love was on heavy repeat), revisited my favorites from her social media profiles (you won't regret following her Twitter), and watched JPtv videos that amplified her bravada (BrownSugar Sunshine Tarot is the astrologist we all deserve). So I was expecting her to be as animated in real life as she is in her videos, this gentle exchange throws me off. It also didn't help that she looked like a modern-day Wonder Woman, outfitted in a sparkling bodysuit and patent red knee-highs that gave her already towering height a few additional inches. If it wasn't for the warmth in her tone and the ease with which she says it, nice to see you, as though she was addressing an old friend, I'd be nervous. 

"I used to be like 'there is no difference between Junglepussy and Shayna' but my friends told me there is," she briefly pauses before collecting her thoughts again. "But they don't know shit!" she exclaims with an energetic handclap, revealing the Junglepussy I was accustomed to seeing. We're in her trailer now, and she's facing a mirror, seemingly directing this dialogue to her reflection. "Only time when I'm really like, 'Okay, this is Junglepussy,' is when I have to show up and when I'm doing a shoot or when I'm doing a show. Other than that, when I'm just in between, living life, I don't feel like there's a difference." She turns to me, eyes locked, and lets out a deep sigh. "Imagine being funny, being a good writer, being all these things, being stylish, then also being a good person or somebody who tries to better themselves all the time. Imagine fitting all of that into a person," she explains. "Sometimes, I get overwhelmed by my own existence."

We wrap our shoot at Irving Square Park in Bushwick, with just enough time to capture the Summer's radiant evening sky; an effervescent sapphire that contrasts perfectly with Junglepussy's neon green wig. Nearby tweens who were outside playing, and occasionally running across the photographer's frame, take the first opportunity to approach her: "Can we take a picture with you too?" "What do you do?" "Add me on Snapchat!" "Book me, I'm a rapper too!" "What's your rap name?" Junglepussy speaks to them with the same quiet warmth I had witnessed earlier, indulging their curiosity, squatting for leveled selfies, and even initiating a cypher. She does everything but answer, "what's your rap name?"

"I knew from jump, having a name like Junglepussy, it wasn't going to be easy," she admits. "But then seeing that it's actually helpful, it's opening people's minds. It's a tool, it's a whole other movement in itself. I'm just the vessel to move it around. Of course, I could change it, but I would only be changing it because people are uncomfortable and I don't care about anybody else's comfort. So I'm like, 'No, I need to move forward with this name. I need to rise above, and I need to stop thinking it's a problem' because then people will think it's a problem." If you're looking for the answer to "why Junglepussy?" look no further than her video "ME" where she lists well-known men named "Dick," ending with the Mary Poppins star Dick Van Dyke.

Junglepussy is just one part of a bigger movement that resonates far beyond its original context. In 2011, Toronto held its first Slutwalk in protest against social attitudes that blame and stigmatize victims of sexual assault by referring to their appearance. In 2014, Amber Rose hosted her first Slutwalk in Los Angeles, giving it a national platform in the U.S. That same year, Kelly Sue Deconnick released a feminist comic book titled Bitch Planet. Needless to say, people had questions. During an interview with NPR, Deconnick explains: "You know, bitch is a terrible thing for a woman to be called, right? That's the thing that we're all sort of afraid of. We so wanna be liked! And I'm a pleaser as much as anybody else is, and I don't want to be considered unpleasant, but, you know, sometimes, I'm also the boss. And if I am unable to continue for fear of being called a name, I'm not a very effective leader. And so, there's an attempt there to just sort of own it, put it out there." In 2017, Rep. Maxine Waters would repeatedly declare "reclaiming my time" during a House Financial Services Committee meeting signaling a moment for her and, thanks to the online viral camaraderie, all of us to take our power back.

"Growth is not victimizing myself," Junglepussy asserts. "Yes, the odds are against me as a Black woman, as someone who chooses to use a name that reminds you of a Black woman. It's like no hiding my Blackness, and that was a choice that I made, and that was intentional because I feel like it's so easy to just be an artist and stray away from important things. And I'm like, no, I'm going to keep this name because I feel like it's my universe given name." Boldly claiming a provocative moniker – especially one that goes against conventional notions of feminine propriety – not only becomes a radical expression of self-love but also pays homage to old age feminists, where seduction and female empowerment are not decoupled. Cultural historian Betsy Prioleau explores this in her book Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love: "Though long misunderstood and ignored, the seductress is the paradigmatic liberated woman, empowered with men and empowered in life. She's a threshold role model who can reinstate feminine sexual sovereignty and holistic happiness and remap the future." Junglepussy comes out completely in charge of her identity, belonging deeply to herself and in the process adding dimension to both womanhood and Blackness. "It wasn't until recent years, because we have the internet, we're able to see there is no way to be Black. It's not like, oh you're just Black that's it. It's literally such a smorgasbord of awesomeness," Junglepussy expresses with infectious enthusiasm. It feels like a verbal embrace, a nod to the shared trait that would make up hers, and my appearance. Even though we differ in many important ways, we can align in the experience of Blackness. "After I did my first song, Cream Team," she continues "I felt like it was a song where I'm coming out as Junglepussy, rapping about my pussy, pouring milk on my titties, people were just going to expect that from me. I was just like this is not all of me. Yes, it's a part of me, but this is not all of me."

So what does it mean exactly? To show spectrum in Blackness? To be a part of a community that isn't monolithic but still shares a deep sense of connection? Think Kanye West, an artist who raps about dropping out of college and later interns at Fendi. Or Pharrell, a Hip Hop producer who skateboards. Think Missy Elliott and her genre-bending sound paired with mind-bending visuals. Or Issa Rae, the self-proclaimed awkward black girl. Donald Glover the nerdy comedian by day and prolific rapper by night. FKA Twigs' ethereal and avant-garde aestheticism. And ultimately Junglepussy, a polymath of creative expression. "There are 40 million black people in this country," Henry Louis Gates, Jr. opens in Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness, "and there are 40 million ways to be black." I ask Junglepussy if she thinks the entertainment industry has caught on. "Not until they look at me just like Cher or Celine Dion," she chuckles. "It just needs to be regular. It just needs to be normalized. Until they see that then no work is being done."

To be fair, there is nothing regular about Junglepussy. Up until her sophomore album, her artistry felt like a focused catalog of self-care advice, man-checking rhymes, and libertine boasting. "When I first started doing music, I had just gotten out of a relationship, and I haven't been in a relationship since," she explains. "So all that music I was doing — I'm trying to liberate myself, distance myself from men." Take her single "Bling Bling" which Bjork includes in one of her DJ sets: "Don't let me catch you knocked up having that nigga's kids / You are the not the wifey for swallowing nigga's kids / These niggas be doing bids / These niggas be in my fridge / These niggas be smoking mids and thinking that they the shit / Walk up in ya crib asking if they could live / Not about that." 

But after career coups that include an acting debut in the Obama-approved movie Support The Girls, invites to speak at Ivy League schools, features in major national publications, or nods from your favorites like Erykah Badu, no one can deny the mainstream appeal of Junglepussy. Especially not Junglepussy. It's shifted her perspective, not only on why she creates but also on who she creates for. "Being Indie, it's like there's nobody giving you a true temperature of what you're doing because you don't have all these industry people around you with a gauge on everything. I'm just being myself, and that's all I ever try to focus on because the other shit, it just gets too muddy. I have way too many resources today to let somebody erase me in 10, 20 years. So, I'm just like I just need to continue. That's why when Cult Classic hit me up I was like, 'Oh, it's going to be in print? Okay, so it could last through the Apocalypse'. I feel like I'm literally here for those people with those journeys: true authenticity, true growth, actually being you and figuring out the best way to share it with the world." 

Her latest album JP3 is the first time she offers listeners a glimpse into that growth. So intimate is the project that it even features a duet with her then three-year-old nephew, Zachary. It would also be the first time we get to actually see THE Junglepussy, who made her visual debut at the same time as Junglepussy's new character Ginger in the Trader Joe's video. 

"I knew I wanted it to be a story about a hard-working farmer girl. I knew that for sure. And I also wanted to play on the concept of Black Sheep, like Babe in Charlotte's Web. Everybody was so mean to the pig on the farm, all the other animals were like, 'What are you? You a pig. They don't do nothing with you. They milk me, and I related because I'm like, well just because niggas don't milk me don't mean I don't got a purpose. And I so related to the pig. And I was like, 'Well, I ain't no pig bitch' so I need to come up with a different character. And I animorphed into Junglepussy." That's right. The black cat-like, sheep-like hybrid with the fat ass? That's Junglepussy. So who is Ginger? It's Shayna in the future. Asked where she sees herself in 20 years, she replies: "I'm living on a farm with no WiFi. I don't even really need to go to the supermarket anymore. Everything I need grows around me, and I no longer feel that hustle and bustle of New York City. You're at peace, and you worked hard, and you deserve it, and I'm glad you stuck to your guns, and you didn't let anybody try to define you. And you didn't change your name. You kept Junglepussy because everybody wanted you to change it, for whatever reasons, they thought you should change it, and I'm glad that you held onto it because now you have this beautiful legacy," she gushes.

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Junglepussy

Five New York-based Luminaries Explore the Unknown

Science Fair

It started with a birthday—a birthday in Trinidad. Adam Cooper gathered some friends and family and threw himself a party. He played a bunch of his favorite tracks, on a borrowed controller, for his first unofficial set. 

Adam, a.k.a. foreigner, is a Swiss knife of innovation, single-handedly teaching himself how to DJ and go on to produce some of LA’s most memorable Afrodiasporic events. As I sat with him on the eve of Roadblock™, his latest underground Afro/Caribbean operation, Adam shared some memories with me of growth between cities and the impact this had on his identity. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, raised in Caracas, Venezuela then NYC, the moniker, foreigner, speaks to the multiplicity of his experiences traversing the map. 

It is important to note that I write this as a non-black person, invited into Adam’s remembrance of his own black experience dispelling the notion that blackness is monolithic. Sharing reflections of his childhood in Caracas, followed by Brooklyn and NYC, Cooper uninhibitedly recalled the anti-blackness surrounding him and his family in Venezuela specifically. He grappled with questions of identity early on in boyhood, struggling to make sense of this racist mistreatment by his peers and those around him. New York City provided a safe haven of cultural connection where he could finally relate to the many diasporic identities within the city itself. In the early 2000s, Cooper studied International Business and Marketing at Howard University, where he noticed how fragmented black identity was, amongst the student body, different from his formative years in NYC. This would later influence what would become foreigner—an all-encompassing creative avenue for the multidisciplinary Adam Cooper.

Fast forward to 2012 in a downtown LA apartment, where foreigner came to be. It was at these studio parties that Samantha Blake Goodman a.k.a. Muñeka and DJ Kelman Duran asked him to be a part of their project Rail Up—a now well-known Afro-Caribbean/Latinx dance party. Yet, foreigner didn’t stop there and began to orchestrate his own events centering the essential Trini fête. foreigner approaches parties with pure artistry and intentionality, utilizing spaces like blank canvases for experience. Los Angeles’ Caribbean scene is divided across the city, from Leimert Park to South Central, never truly entering the realm of foreigner’s visions for a party. Meanwhile, the contemporary art scene, which he is also a part of, doesn’t stray far from electronic music into the black immigrant experience. Events like Play™, Junkyard Jouvert, and his most recent Roadblock™, are his way of bringing people together in one space with the common goal of cultural ownership and pride.

“The way my philosophy is evolving, I really want to center people from the diaspora, specifically people behind the scenes and behind the decks. Oftentimes in the underground scene, you hear Afrodiasporic music, but you’ll seldom see black people playing it. It just hit me at a certain point that there are so many talented black people in LA that create and play the music that inspire me, that are only limited to mainstream platforms, which are very scarce in LA. In other words, the club scene is very network driven.” 

Rhythm is the root of all music. The African diaspora is the root of rhythm. 

Red haze emitted from the headlights of a white ‘79 BMW 3 Series, bouncing up and down with each whine from a dancer atop. Crowded yellow and white coupes filled the warehouse, juxtaposed with ceiling high scissor cranes, as attendees mounted car hoods, dancing on seats and trunks. Roadblock™ turned out the night with dancehall, soca, and Afrobeat favorites from local DJs Shacia Päyne, Lady X, Tomi Tribe, and foreigner himself. Eleven seemed rather early for the night ahead, with the warehouse filling up as 1am approached. People were pulling motorsport looks and neon fishnet ‘fits at this indoor block party. 

High energy never faltered once amongst the crowd, as sounds flowed into each other, starting with Belizean filmmaker and DJ extraordinaire, Lady X’s dancehall and soca heavy set. This set was followed by producer Tomi Tribe’s Afrobeat edits and numerous hits. In that moment, the party was beyond a late night, accessible warehouse gig. Under a freeway underpass, this could have been Lagos or Kingston, or somewhere in the Islands. foreigner’s sonic curation resulted in an atmosphere of togetherness through shared freedoms and comfortability that a-cultural events do not create. 

 “There’s a different energy or a vibe when you look to the booth and see a black femme up there, and not necessarily opening up the night.” 

Shacia Päyne kept it going, headlining with ‘90s dancehall and the deepest Jamaican cuts, for which she is best known. Mysta Crooks, acting MC, gassed the crowd up as Päyne delivered. Passion, release, and excitement carried us deep into the night, with nobody weary that dawn approached. It was nearly 4am when foreigner played to a loving crowd of his eclectic supporters, as all members of the diaspora and underground communities met in movement. After that night, I can’t say that any party I will go to can surpass what I experienced there, thanks to the talent and extreme joy surrounding me.

Adam Cooper is humble in admitting intentions to evolve his craft and contributions to his community. For foreigner, his visions exist beyond one party, it is his desire to provide space for carefree, black joy, and re-contextualize diasporic unity, that make all his ideas boundless. This is an effort that won’t end and he wants you to see what he’s coming up with this year. Chances are you might not know what to expect.

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Foreigner

CC03 Launch

Miami, home to Art Basel, Lower East Coast, and Stray Rats, is full of cultural highlights and creativity that has yet to garner national attention the way South Beach does. Downtown is practically the party capital of the East and West Coasts, with at least one event happening every single night of the week. Picturesque palms line the streets of a city that doesn’t seem to get much sleep with all it has to offer. A layer of humidity fills the night air and won’t dissipate upon entering the dewy glow of a bar party downtown. Gio Mourin is no stranger to this atmosphere. As a Miami native having grown up in the scene, sneaking into venues at 17, his everyday version of the 305 unearths an aspiring underground experience he is proud to share with any new comer.

Known as Latenite, Mourin has been DJing since the age of 20, starting off in the typical bar setting as part of a regular Sunday party. For someone with such an extensive music taste and knowledge, routinely playing the same Top 40 music that everyone wanted to hear, quickly became unfulfilling.

“My history and roots with Miami are in dance music. We have Miami bass music, we had an era of Miami juke. It’s all high energy. For me, that’s what I predicted myself getting into as DJing going forward. Once I started noticing I was compromising what I wanted to do, to please a crowd, I started having ideas.”

No Boys Allowed (NBA) is true to its name. No man is granted entry, unless a woman invites him into the space and walks with him into the event. It is the one guaranteed night you can say, “No you can’t come with me tonight, I’m going with friends.” A literal “no boys allowed” rule and no tolerance for harassment is enforced to ensure women attending can shine, without having to worry about a guy approaching mid-dance for an ounce of attention on the dancefloor. NBA is Mourin’s direct response to toxic masculinity in the mainstream Miami party scene. During his debut DJ stint, he took note of the aggressive nature of bar cultures where women would never dance and instead stand in all corners of a room while groups of men occupied the dancefloor. Mourin wishes to remain behind the scenes (and the decks), while watching the energy of this monthly party flourish, as part of his goal to provide a space for women to feel safe in nightlife. With the resources available to him, party operations are led by his team of talented friends: Kamari (resident DJ), Richard (photographer/design), Alex (management and party hostess), and Kassy (social media manager).

So why is it called No Boys Allowed if a guy started it? Mourin anticipates this confusion, well aware of the reality that people will have feedback and opinions about his work. He wants nothing more than to be receptive and make a difference. Miami is chock-full of macho ideals, making a party like NBA contextually significant to the culture of this city. I find it important that within a historical time like this, when we can participate in dialogues about male toxicity and respecting women’s humanity and boundaries, that a young person’s response (let alone a guy’s response) was to create literal space centered around women. This should be happening everywhere. To my amazement, Mourin shared that in nearly two years of throwing NBA, there has not been a single instance of harassment or rule violation in the event’s space. I say amazement because this truly shows how the culture that Mourin and his team have created is self-aware and self-healing—a nightlife anomaly. 

“We try to make No Boys Allowed feel like a homegirl to you. We want that energy to be part of the experience. You want to party with other women, you want someone to look up and say, ‘That’s a person I feel comfortable with.’ There is a whole entire identity to it.”

With an avid love for pop culture kitsch, Mourin creates thematic party visuals and interactive experiences, like Barbie and Bratz themed night with a giant Barbie box photo opp and Halloween’s “Get a Clue” theme—just a couple of ‘90s favorites. As the event grows, his wish is to expand opportunities through community activation, partnering with brands who can invest in various creative workshops and event production, that all live under the No Boys Allowed umbrella. 

Under the warmth of this Miami night, we head out to the venue, a spot named Aftermarket, to meet Kassy, Alex, Gio and Richard while Kamari is playing his opening set, around 11pm. Up a flight of stairs is this elaborate lounge with a den-like area where you could see a row of seats and a faux library giving the place a speakeasy vibe. Unlike typical crowd settings, where the first to arrive are shy, women in the room are already dancing amongst each other. Kamari plays 2000s hip-hop/R&B throwbacks, sending the crowd into excitement when their favorite song comes on. I couldn’t help but say the words to “Flashing Lights” when my favorite line came on, midst conversation.

People trickle into the lounge, in groups of homegirls, some with their boyfriends, others with best friends, all ready to show out. Miami girls really know how to style club wear—many adorned in sexy, fun ‘fits, suitable for sticky weather. What really made an impression, was the lack of flashiness, as the energy was fueled by people dancing and not reliant on atmospheric club devices. There was no smoke and mirrors to this, simply bodies in movement. Mourin heated things up by playing an anticipated selection of his own Jersey Club edits—a Destiny’s Child Bachata flip (screaming internally). I can’t forget the bounce that had people twerking all over the stage, and Miami classics that the crowd scream-sang in unison to, closing off the night. The lights go on and everyone applauds another successful NBA, thanking the DJs and hosts, before dispersing.

Women need more opportunity to create, engage, and express themselves comfortably without fear of repercussion. We should call the shots, play the sets, move our bodies, and build trust in spaces such as this. With hope for the future, this slice of Miami nightlife makes the possibility of change within male-dominated arenas, a palpable reality.

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No Boys Allowed

“Bri entered the studio already halfway through a sentence, “Is it cool if I take my shoes off? I hate wearing shoes.”

She had come prepared. She had in tow a large purse and a red suitcase, which she began unpacking immediately. It was full of scarves, candles, a crystal ball, a tarot deck, makeup, several outfit changes.

“This is not your first rodeo!” I said.

This was, however, my first rodeo. I was a little apprehensive about talking to Bri, a practicing witch who has carved out a niche little corner of the internet under the name The Hoodwitch. My points of reference on witchcraft are pretty much Sabrina and the most boring Game of Thrones subplot. I wasn’t sure I’d have much to bring to the table. 

But in this political climate, spending an hour learning about ancient, women-led practices of connecting with one another and the universe through literal magic sounds like a breath of fresh fucking air. So I said, “Yes, I’d love to talk to The Hoodwitch.”

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The Hoodwitch

Deka works at a sushi restaurant. They want me to know that and they tell me they want to come off as vulnerable as possible.

Deka sits on the edge of their roommate’s bed, clutching an oversized stuffed koala they have lovingly named Burp Chanel West Coast Rodriguez. they’re still situating themself, surrounded by pillows and looking for the perfect mix. Deka has finally created the optimal space to share some of the things it would’ve taken me a while to otherwise learn about them, they deliver the first few statements about themself in just above a whisper.

“My name is Deka, I am a first generation Somali-American fashion designer creating one-off custom pieces under the name Provocant Yute.”

The mix playing in the background switches from bombastic to relaxed, each track backing up Deka’s narration of life lessons; their affinity for Sega Bodega and not taking themself too seriously. 

Coming from a strict Muslim household they describe growing up feeling alienated by American culture. Despite being a very curious kid, their rigid upbringing allowed them very little opportunity for experimentation. What influences them now is just the freedom to create. 

Deka describes a moment of self-discovery while visiting the area of Nairobi their mother lived, after being displaced by the civil war in Somalia. They had taken a special interest in the alterations district where a cluster of twenty shops stood offering similar services. After some finessing by their aunt, they found their way into an apprenticeship with a fairly conservative tailor. 

“He only spoke Swahili and French and I only spoke Somali and English, so we just communicated through body motions.” 

Deka describes sketching two bell sleeves connected purely by a high turtleneck and presenting it to him. After grunting at the garment’s impracticality, he helped them construct their first piece of clothing. Deka stresses that this is the only formal training they have ever received and is otherwise self-taught. Over time, they have grown more and more confident bringing to life their concepts that are deemed irrational by industry standards. Deka tells me about working with a local Minneapolis cobbler to create the transparent wedge heels for our shoot. The left foot filled with chain links, the right filled with fingernail clippings from their closest friends. I didn’t need to hear much more, I already understood the headache that went into this collaboration.

Deka never introduces themself as a DJ but it seems to be implied. Since stepping into the River Lofts—a deceivingly large art and gallery space inhabited by a cross section of the Minneapolis arts scene—there has been an eclectic club mix consistently blasting from the speakers. The sonics are accompanied by muted visuals of Bad Girls Club and Gothic King Cobra YouTube videos. 

Deka’s foray into DJing sounds more like a necessity than a fun hobby. 

“Specifically in Minneapolis, there weren’t really a lot of femme DJs who were playing music that interested me. I wanted to hear music that was a lot more experimental when I went out; I needed to be a DJ.” 

I notice by the end of our conversation Deka had ditched Burp Chanel West Coast Rodriguez and when I ask them if they have anything else to share, they verbally respond the loudest they have been the entire time, “You know what? I hate the phrase, ‘there is no new idea under the sun.’ I’ve made things that I don’t think anyone else has made before and I will continue to do that.” 

Fast forward through a full day of shooting, a Light Asylum show at Loring Bar and a 5am afterparty situation, Deka texts me a song they found time to make. they’re excited, the first vocals they’ve laid down since “escapist.” The work in progress track features Deka’s breathy vocals seamlessly switching from Somali to English, laced over a spooky production by their studio mate, Frankie. It’s new to me and it’s a banger.

Deka

One bar into this phone call and we are already lost inside a Deem Spencer lyric. A good writer, a more seasoned writer, or just any writer at all, would have been able to use Deem’s admission of a 9pm trip to the International House of Pancakes to situate our protagonist within the larger state of rap in 2019. I am not a writer by any definition of the word, so I do nothing besides drop the ball and appreciate a mission of stoned excellence while slipping further down the Deem Spencer slope.

"I saw you open for Nasty Nigel at the Knockdown Center in Queens. How many shows had you done at that point?"

I will take this opportunity to note that I had absolutely no idea who Deem Spencer was when I first witnessed him bob and weave his way around a microphone wire in 2016. I was minding my own business in the back of a performance art space, supporting a friend, when a pencil sketch of a rapper with a wide toothed grin made the most of twenty-five minutes and millennial attention spans.

"I started throwing my own shows in March 2016. I had done one show each month up until that point. So it was probably my fifth show."

The person standing on stage is more J.J. than Jay-Z.  He looks like he stole the mic. It was my feeling at the time that he had better start doing something good with it before an adult took it back. Speakers crack. A decaying arrangement of strings and keys begin to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon themselves across a pile of kick drums. Before someone who files their taxes on time could cut the sound, the kid who otherwise looks like he should be duct taped to the corner seat of an F train starts rapping:

“If I cared about some money I’d be in college wasting it."

Smirks from the audience. "Fuck yeahs!" from first semester dropouts and degree holders alike. The great white flash of a knowing smirk, sneaks out from underneath the edge of a bucket hat. He is not nervous. He is rapping south, directly at his own shoelaces. Looking up every single time a lyric stabs someone squarely in their fragile sense of self.

"Ya’ll niggas told me I’m a king / Then you told me I’m a slave / Then you told me Imma win / Then you told me I’m afraid."

To say that I was utterly unprepared to be verbally assaulted by a high schooler would be an understatement. There are very few breaths being taken between bars or within the audience. Lyrics are spilling and bouncing like jelly beans across the cement floor and no one can turn off the faucet. The once responsible adult is in rapture and has taken a seat.

"I’m the hearty harper, the Pied Piper of the party starter / Shorty, I could turn the water to a flame / I’m a martyr marker, the art of ark / I’m a water walker / I could lead the unholy on a wave."

Nothing has changed in his demeanor or delivery but he is now showing off. There is a pocket, and he is within it. Everyone standing in the crowd has silently agreed to lay down and take turns volunteering as the doormat upon which Deem Spencer will wipe his feet before stepping into our living room.

"We are not friends / I do not love you / We are locked in / I will not dive in when the shop struggle / I will not play save a hoe / The greatest soap does nothing for a popped bubble."

The song ends and we, the entire audience, have joined Deem Spencer’s PR team. It has taken approximately two minutes to become a disciple. I will spend the next day emailing and texting friends in places of various altitudes—the firmest of co-signs, the strongest of suggestions. Crowdsourcing support for a cult leader who can’t legally buy a drink, has never been approached with more certainty. Kool-Aid served. Kool-Aid consumed. We have been fruit punched in the solar plexus.

Deem Spencer walks off stage. Disappears into a cloud of daps and sincere nods. I lose him in the crowd. He is unrecognizable without a microphone.

Four years later, everything and nothing has changed. Deem still presents himself as the least likely hero. Deadpan, blank stare, slow to smile, even slower to speak. For a man who articulates for a living he has a shocking capacity for silence. At this moment he stands at the precipice of some version of greatness. Spencer has been profiled, co-signed, Pitchforked, and Faded in ways that other rising artists would auction off appendages to duplicate. His initial offering *sunflower* (2016) is fifteen brilliant minutes of back row, high school observations from your friend who could have gone Ivy League if he had done his homework. His 2017 follow up EP, *we think we alone*, is a twenty-two minute low frequency sound bath that handles deep loss with glowing hopefulness. Both projects are jaw-dropping appetizers. We await the main course.

Deem has spent the better part of the past six months in his childhood bedroom going through a breakup. 

"Small. Two big windows. With a view, you feel me?" 

Waking up between 5 and 6am, he proceeds to write, record, and mix by himself nearly every morning. He finishes his upcoming project, *Pretty Face*, at the same time as the relationship.

"I feel like my story is for me to tell. It fascinates me to be able to talk about it. I realized listening back to the tape I just finished, it’s really just me talking about my relationship. It’s as simple as that. Just me talking about it and making fun of it."

Emotions are no laughing matter. That makes things difficult because Deem Spencer has jokes. "I used to make music with no intent, so I was just like rapping my ass off but not talking about anything and when I started actually talking about myself, it came out in these very personal but reckless raps."

Watching Deem tap dance on the razor’s edge between heartlessness and sincerity on *Pretty Face* is not a lighthearted endeavor. The album is a free fall into heartbreak. The production twinkles and shines but only underscores the fact that no one else is in the amusement park. 

It’s nearly impossible to make out what Deem is singing on the opening track "Really, I" but the pain is palpable. His voice gives out on him, dropping on and off the track, broken laughs haunt the background before an ominous beat drops and Deem’s now crystal clear voice rips across ear drums: *"I asked the girl’s guy why we all can’t love her."*  Before you have time to think of an answer, the production has short circuited, strummed chords from some kind of digital harp float behind a short, smirking lullaby about cocaine. Conversations are happening with parents and you are standing in the corner of Deem’s bedroom, watching him process his emotions in real time. Rain is on the windows. Nine minutes into the album and the familiar chime of a FaceTime call rips you out of this alternative reality, forces you to check your phone to determine your place in this universe and suddenly it’s all very clear that you, or Deem, or both of you need to pick up the call.

"It sort of became a go-to for me to just talk about myself and not care how I talk about (the breakup) or not care how I reference the people around me. Just telling the stories." 

That storytelling has reached new peaks on *Pretty Face*. Deem’s break up and the inevitable emotional fall out that trails behind it, are territories that rap doesn’t often explore. Growing up listening to Kid Cudi and Kanye supersize their emotions into massive, cinematic Broadway plays surely had an influence but Deem’s approach to songwriting is not only arrestingly honest but shockingly original within the genre. I ask what he listened to while recording, songs that may have helped him process his emotions. "Get money music," he answers. Everyone copes differently. If you were raised in the South Side of Jamaica Queens when Curtis Jackson ran rap you might feel the same way.

"I’ve known the words to ‘Many Men’ since I was seven years old. My mom had the album." The cracks in Deem’s wool knit armor reveal a Teflon vest of confidence underneath. "50 Cent really just influenced how I move around here and that reflects in my music. 50, at least for the kids I grew up with, influenced the way we move. 50 is like the soundtrack for..." Deem’s voice goes quiet with admiration. "It was really like some superhero shit." The confidence with which Spencer practices his craft defies many aspects of his character. The youngest brother carrying the wisdom of the eldest. Engaged but utterly unimpressed, Deem is running a one man race.

"I see myself dropping whatever projects I feel like making, at my own pace, for as long as I live and that’s all I want to do." If the fact that Deem’s vocals are often mixed to a level one could generously describe as "out of reception" wasn’t enough of a hint, Deem is making this music for himself.

"I want to be better than everyone but that’s not the point. I want people to feel good while they’re listening and be able to relate. But I want something to listen to that relates specifically to me. That’s really the point."

But what about the pressure point? There are passionate statements of artistic intent and then there are cold realities. If the artist serves only themselves, where does that leave the listener? Rappers have always been transparent in their service to their fanbase. We fully expect albums to be interrupted by two to three sparkly gifts specially wrapped for radio. But there are no compromises on *Pretty Face*. Deem Spencer made the album *he* needed to hear and nothing else. The decisions he makes alone in his bedroom will dictate the arc of his career. The game is fickle and the spotlight moves quickly. How much does he pay attention?

"It’s whatever. It feels the same as all the other tapes ‘cause like all the other tapes I made it on my own time for myself pretty much. I know the only difference is a lot more people are going to hear it this time because, I don’t know, it all came together in the last few years."

There has to be more. He’s too aware not to realize what’s at stake. Scoring the soundtrack to your own story is a worthy endeavor, but Deem Spencer has a few thousand people waiting to borrow his headphones. Hans Zimmer doesn’t compose for himself. Is there space for Deem Spencer to continue practicing an alchemy entirely his own? At what point will he grow out of the bedroom that afforded him this freedom?

"Is it failing if you did it exactly the way you wanted to do? I don’t know. You can fail by choosing the wrong methods, I guess. But as far as what I really want to do personally, which is put out great work..." Deem pauses.

For the first time in the conversation I can hear his brain collecting itself. How many sacrifices are acceptable? How many compromises are unavoidable? How important is it to reach the finish line if someone else drew it?

"I guess I’m not really comfortable at failing, even if I did it exactly how I wanted to do it."

The multitudes contained inside that short burst of indecision is what greatness sounds like. Scores of artists before Deem Spencer and legions of those to come after will tiptoe through the very same minefield. Their genius rests within the decisions they make. The slight of hand they employ to push the wheel in both directions when they arrive at impossible forks.

"I’ve recently become more open. I’m learning how certain things work. I’m learning the best ways to make sure that everybody can hear my work versus just being a loose cannon and throwing everything online. I feel like I’ve grown to appreciate working with others more in the last year, so in a way I’ve grown out of doing everything my own way. So, it lowers the percentage of failure. If I can express my goal with my collaborators and include multiple insights in my decisions..." Deem’s voice trails off again.

He is listening to the implications of what he’s saying. The compromises he could be speaking into existence.

MAR CITLALI

posted
in kitchens,
down the block,
unos a otros

An expansive palette, or good taste, or personable charm or innovative methods or whatever words are given when work is given its due praise. With new piquancies, the basis of his menus is that “homestyle mexican-american multigenerational convenience capitalist shit.“

film by an + ev

MAR CITLALI

posted in kitchens, down the block, unos a otros

An expansive palette, or good taste, or personable charm or innovative methods or whatever words are given when work is given its due praise. With new piquancies, the basis of his menus is that “homestyle mexican-american multigenerational convenience capitalist shit.“

film by an + ev

posted
in kitchens,
down the block,
unos a otros