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Cult Classic's Ryan Blackway talks with Kaili, a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist and creator whose work revolves around dreaming up new sonic and visual worlds to break down the binary matrices of everyday life. Having DJ'ed alongside artists such as DJ Lag and Yaeji, their colorful, hybridized approach to dance music is also featured on Bodywork, their monthly residency on NTS. A dear friend and alumni of Cult Classic, Kaili breaks down everything from their Neopia fandom to their favorite rave ever, all while battling it out on Super Smash Bros.

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Multiplayer LVL 1: Kaili

CTRL: An Interview with Helsinki-based Designer Tomi Freeman


Tomi Freeman is the designer behind the brand CTRL(pronounced Control), which is one of the oldest European skateboarding brands. I met him over email, accidentally, after a shot-in-the-dark attempt at reaching out to the brand’s email address to figure out their Finland store location and hours. During my first trip to Helsinki, I would learn that he was a local presence. “This man’s a legend!” someone exclaimed at Putte’s Bar, where he’d introduced me to some of his buddies over cool, bitter beverages. Generous, humble, and downright pleasant to be around, Freeman was as enigmatic and casual as the decades-old skate and streetwear brand that he’s now fostered for years.

Like most culture-makers and disruptors, he hadn’t calculated a formal ideology around the brand. He sort of fell into design haphazardly, after putting together some boards, t-shirts, and hoodies in the mid-90s under the umbrella of the shop Union 5. Their skateboarding film SISU debuted in 1996, and it is still among the most monumental films in the world of Scandinavian skateboarding. "Sisu" translates loosely to a sort of relentless perseverance against all odds—something that defines much of Finnish culture, and subsequently, the brand CTRL. Now, after more than two decades, CTRL has somehow remained decidedly underground—an earnest, long-standing alternative to some of today’s cheapened, default gatekeepers of internet hype. More importantly, though, CTRL seems to embody a real sense of place. It is grounded within the quiet reverie and sturdiness of its Scandinavian underpinnings. I sat down with Freeman over coffee and a Zoom grid recently to discuss the origins of Finnish streetwear, ask about what Helsinki has been like in lockdown, and to try to parse, once and for all, the true meaning of the word sisu. 

Eileen: Can you tell me a little bit about the history of CTRL, like when it started, who was involved in the early days and where it's at now?

Freeman: So it started in '95. Some say it was '94, but I think it was '95. It started as a group of skaters in Helsinki, and there was this store called Union Five. So Union Five was the only store in Helsinki that stocked skate brands, like Girl, Chocolate—all the hottest labels at that time. Back then, the skate scene was already super strong in Finland. So they were sponsoring a lot of kids. But the owners—funnily enough—all the owners were from this small town called Jarvenpaa, which is like 30 kilometers from Helsinki. So Jarvenpaa ends up playing an important role in the history of Helsinki, skateboarding, and fashion. Because it was so expensive to have a skate team, and sponsorships with all the US labels, the crew around Union Five was super strong. It was kind of natural that CTRL evolved. Maybe it was first like a t-shirt, and then “let's do some boards,” and then the owners, they were like, “okay, we could actually make this a proper label.”

Eileen: So that you could sponsor skaters yourselves?

Freeman: Yeah. So we had our main guys, and set up a real team. I owe everything to the skaters, because they were such a strong, super charismatic team. You could say they were some of the coolest guys in Helsinki. When we released the first movie Sisu (1996) it got a lot of exposure, not just in Finland, but around the world—especially in Europe—only because the skateboarding was so good. The level was super good.

Eileen: Everyone was just super talented.

Freeman: So I think it became an important part in the history of European skateboarding, because CTRL was one of the first European skateboard labels. That’s when people started realizing that you could actually have your own teams and skateboard labels in Europe.

Eileen: It was all in the US at that time?

Freeman: It was just California. Even New York hadn't really started. Supreme was super small for a long time. No matter where you were from in the US, if you went pro you kind of had to move to California. But slowly the European scene developed, and the UK was playing a big role on that.

Eileen: So it all got started naturally with skateboards?

Freeman: Yeah. We were doing the hard goods—wheels, boards, and so on. Then we started doing t-shirts, and then people wanted more, and they sold out super fast. So we could introduce other types of clothing, and like actually set up a clothing line, which happened super organically. When I did my first graphics for CTRL, I wasn't the owner. In the beginning Union Five was the store that owned it. So when I did my first designs, I pretty much didn't even know how to use Photoshop or whatever. 

Eileen: Can you tell me why the first skate film was called Sisu?

Freeman: It's really hard to translate, but it kind of means you're going through, like...no matter what, you're fucking going through that shit. It's kind of the word that describes the Finnish stubbornness or in a way like...

Freeman: Yeah. I don’t think there’s an English word. That might be close.

Eileen: So with the growth of the clothing line, you started doing different kinds of t-shirts, button downs, tote bags and things? Maybe venturing into a little bit more women's wear?

Freeman: Yeah, it wasn't really structured at that time though. We noticed that there were a lot of stores asking for our stuff around Europe, pretty much all over the place. Especially the core skateboarding stores. We set up a booth at this trade show called ISPO, and for the booth I just designed some weird graphics. I wasn't really following what was happening in the states, or in skateboarding. So I think that made a huge difference because a lot of people were expecting like, “yeah, okay, they must be copying what's happening in California.” And that was the feedback we always got, was that we were just...different.


Eileen: Could you talk to me about some of the collaborations you’ve done over the years?

Freeman: Yeah, let's say from 2000 to 2015 or something there was a lot of stuff. We did a lot with Japanese labels, because Japan was really good for us. For some reason they really liked CTRL. Our distributors were super cool. They were kind of like our buddies speaking the same language and they really believed in the label. We collaborated with some stores that were selling our stuff, and with Stadium in Tokyo… 

I mean, how did you get to know about CTRL?

Eileen: That's a good question. I feel like I found something on Instagram at some point, and I was just like, “Oh, this is really sick. This is coming out of Helsinki.”

Freeman: Yeah, because I think you were...

Eileen: I was kind of looking at different spaces. Right? And then I found that party that you threw at the Beyond venue.

Kingpin Skateboarding, 2010. History of CTRL


Eileen: How did you get started with graphic design?



Freeman: When I was still studying graphic design, I moved to Barcelona to work for a year. Back then Lodown magazine was like the coolest thing I could think of. It was like super, super cool. It's still ongoing, which is pretty good for a print magazine nowadays. I sent them my portfolio and then they replied like, “Whoa, that looks dope. How about doing a double spread?”

Eileen: Wow. Now, that kind of thing just happens in comments or DMs—that feeling of like, “Oh, this brand noticed what I'm doing,” Back then it was an email exchange.

Freeman: Yeah, exactly. Nowadays I hate email, email kind of used to be fun. Now, it's more like...getting an invoice through your door or something. 

Eileen: What are you guys up to now? Or what's next? I know you sent me some of the sewing work that you've been doing. I know that might be separate from CTRL.

Freeman: Yeah, it's not CTRL. I got this old workhorse called Bernina from my grandmother, like this old sewing machine. And then I have old CTRL fabrics leftovers. So I just thought I'd make some pillows, nothing to do with anything—lockdown hobbies. 

Eileen: How has Helsinki been during lockdown, or over the past year?

Freeman: Well, the spring had some restrictions, and people would not go out that much. Summer was pretty much normal, but now it's getting worse. Like much worse than...I mean way worse than ever. So we'll probably be...well, the bar is closed this Monday. I'm working on a logo for a new bar opening in Helsinki for a friend of mine. And I think that he chose the worst time ever to open a bar.

Freeman: They opened it for one day, and then lockdown came.

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CTRL: Tomi Freeman

A conversation with the Helsiki-based Designer

CLOYINGLY SWEET: Mikayla Brown’s syrupy approach to image distortion and archiving.

Words by Ella Ray
Images by Mikayla Brown and Frances Rich

The URL algorithms programmed to prioritize images deemed profitable and desirable are informed by, and actively informing, our IRL structures. This cycle leaves Black artists creating outside of the framework of representation in fraught, but generative space in the “art world” and online. As social media is further baked into our arts ecologies, the pressure to produce objects and images that are digestible for a broad, white, uninterested audience is at an all time high. As an art historian, and as a Black woman, attempting to evade the canon of my own practice, I am excited by visual artists that decline expectations around creating figural or narrative work-- knowing that this leaves us at an impasse. 

Black artists making abstract art are often marked as illegible by institutions that profit from representation politics. And while the obscurity that comes with an abstract, or even experimental, practice is what leads to Black artists like Howardena Pindell and Ed Clark getting their roses decades late, the characterization of illegibility is an opportunity to define the conditions of production and engagement of and with our art. 

Mikayla Brown is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist exploring interiority through alternative means. Mikayla’s practice is not devoid of identity, but makes distinct connections between materiality and image in ways that reflect an investment in ritual and process. Ironically, I was introduced to their practice via the algorithmically produced “Suggested Follows” feature. Also known as @nectaryear, Mikayla occupies an illusive but notable place on the internet. Their instagram is an assemblage of super-zoomed selfies, dancehall ephemera, and 18 karat herringbone chains. Interspersed throughout are fragments of striking abstract oil paintings and fragile ceramic work. The ebbs and flows of Mikayla’s online-presence, and practice, have left me hungry to know where their work begins and ends. 

Through a handful of emails and a long zoom call, Mikayla and I dove into the theoretical and technical underpinnings of their studio practice. Between the moments where we found common ground in our eBay search history and adoration for Fanon, Mikayla gingerly traced the trajectory of their work. Throughout our conversation they wove a complex web of reference and inspiration-- making apparent Mikayla’s commitment to the deep study of art history, popular culture, and image theory. 

Growing out of an elementary school hobby, Mikayla recognized that their portrait painting skills could be used to gain access to educational and artistic resources that wouldn’t otherwise be available. The exchange of hypernarrative portraiture for life and practice sustaining funds is not uncommon for Black artists. The benefits of producing art objects that align with a neoliberal understanding of “Black art” is not lost on Mikayla and in many ways, informs their departure from figural work. 

“I wasn’t initially drawn to becoming an abstract painter, I actually was really averse to it in the beginning. It was after using painting as a tool to access different resources that I began leaning away from traditional mediums,” explains Mikayla. Experiences with new media technologies, exposure to performance work by artists like Ulysses Jenkins, and a desire to study textures and finishes pointed the artist toward a more abstracted practice. This shift is evident in Mikayla’s cake paintings and “frosting objects.”

These paintings are often rendered on square canvas and, depending on your perspective, can be understood as a slice of the larger form or as the whole cake. In a swirling palette of beiges, powder pink, neon yellow, and cherry red, Mikayla depicts distorted layers of sponge and globs of frosting. Within a singular painting, the artist’s application of oils range from gentle washes to densely concentrated treatments that reinforce the stickiness of the confection. Placed on the upper ledges of the paintings are the stoneware “frosting objects.” Mikayla pipes these segments out of a pastry bag. After firing, they apply a powder coating that adds a jewelry-like chrome finish that doubly acts as a protective layer. Although these ceramic forms are sometimes exhibited separately from the paintings, the combination of these objects illustrate a tension between deterioration and preservation. 

Mikayla notes that they are “usually thinking about how Black people are supposed to present a consumable product, even if it’s an image of something destructive or violent.” While their paintings and ceramic works are hardly violent, these forms serve as material space for the artist to explore the consequences of image commodification over time. These paintings recall desserts at the end of a celebration, where the original object, or cake, is distorted through slicing, plating, and eating. You almost can’t tell if you want another slice or if you’re disgusted by the mess that has been made. In capturing this distortion, Mikayla makes clear the effect of our excessive consumption is an image separated from its origin. 

Mikayla’s interest in materiality and image production is continued through their study of jewelry. Informed by working in a Black-owned jewelry shop on the southside of Chicago, Mikayla began documenting the wearable aspects of Black cultural ephemera through a project called “Gilded Cavity.” The archive consists of 58 close-up images of gold pendants, heavy pinky rings, and flat chains. At first blush the Instagram account feels like you’re flipping through a Black family album that isn’t yours, each photo reading as both universal and highly intimate. I saw myself, my lovers, and my kin in the jewelry choices of these strangers. With time though, Mikayla’s selective omittance of the faces and the bodies of the jewelry-wearers brings the formal mixture of metal and flesh to the foreground. The contours of skin begin to mirror the shapes of jewelry and patterns in size, placement, and cut appear repeatedly, giving the archive a scientific quality. Mikayla's powerful play with image structure maps the mundane but tender relationship between metal and Black bodily adornment. 

Across their practice, Mikayla Brown is experimenting with maintaining and warping images. While Mikayla’s acute understanding of the rapid circulation of Black cultural production grounds their work, it’s through their sharp exploration of material and process that their practice bears fruit. 

Equal parts sweet and sour, decaying and blooming, Mikayla Brown is creating abstract art rooted in the Black tradition of refusal. 

the frosting tv
wax, stoneware, silk print, and super8 on 2003 tv, 2020

(Images in couch photo from left to right)
raspberry cake
oil on canvas, 2020

imprint of a pendant with a broken jump ring 
oil on canvas, 2020

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Cloyingly Sweet

BILLIE OCEAN’S "NESTING" April 01-May 01

BILLIE OCEAN'S "NESTING": NOW EXPIRED
(3) FILMS PRESENTED by CULT CLASSIC

Soft Nest
Co-directed and Co-shot by Laur Geiger 
Music by Boy Harsher, Nailah Hunter, Billie0cean

Do You Think You're Better Off Alone?
Music and Performance by Billie0cean

My Tears Ran Down Your Throat
Music: Mixed and produced by Billie0cean

Billie or Lanéya, in typical Libra fashion, the artist toggles between her enigmatic byname Billie Ocean and full name Lanéya Billingsley. Billie mentions wanting to be a harpist by the time she’s 50, yet another instrument to add to her orchestra of cyber-celestial ever-evolving dreamscapes. Tugging on heartstrings with stirring visuals; her work is cerebral to the core. Beyond aestheticism, the three films on view “Nesting” are portraits of the gut wrenching reality that is living and breathing with the complexity of raw emotion – marked by an irreplicable dissection of introspect. There is comfort in knowing resolve; a catharsis Lanéya shares with the viewer. Painted in reference to very specific sound bites and moments, the pieces exist beyond being simply beautiful or eye catching. Her cinematic oeuvre is proof of self love; exemplifying that the actual act of loving self isn’t always the airy depiction ascribed by pop culture. It can be ugly, confusing, sometimes twisted in unknowingness. That is the process. Billie Ocean wants you to know.

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Billie Ocean's "Nesting"

A Retrospective As Told By Azha Ayanna & Apryl Fuentes

POV San Francisco 2012, A fresh faced 18 year old Apryl Fuentes logs onto her Tumblr account “gringatears” an apt name for the then sardonic blogger. Apryl clicks the autofill password saved in her Firefox browser as if her password wasn't hackable enough. Apryl reenters the Tumblr kingdom she’s built alongside her best friend Azha, adorned with soft pink aesthetics and Shade Zine reblogs, where she has acquired a degree of internet fame (laughable by today’s standards). On this particular day she receives a direct message from none other than photo extraordinaire, “it” girl herself – Vivian Fu.

On a pre-Instagram influencer internet, this platform invented the DM. Back, back deep, back into time. This DM in particular was a pure fan-girl back and forth resulting in “let’s hangout sometime” to which I accepted in elation. At that time any glimmer of friendship from an internet link up gave me something to look forward to outside of my chaotic college life. SF was our playground, making our way across crowded Muni cars and neighborhoods crooked with Victorian style houses; homes to 20 somethings working multiple coffee jobs within walking distance of places that are mere figments of my imagination now. The city was a backdrop for a friendship that ensued, from the digital to IRL, when Azha and I met Vivian Fu.

“I owe like everything to Tumblr right?” She speaks directly into her headphone mic, her words reverberating like an ASMR YouTuber. “This is like something that would upset most of my friends... but I'm like, photography is dead! Let's explore," to which Azha and I laugh at the Zoom screen. It’s 2021 and we are video calling Vivian Fu to talk about photography and the fossilized internet culture we all came up on and all we can do is make meme references and shit talk tech companies. Let’s get into it. “Expand.” There was a Vivian before there was a Tumblr. You might not guess her beginnings with an art degree from UC Santa Cruz, a detail that makes complete sense when she lights up in talking about critical theory, the algorithm, and how our social conditioning shapes our aesthetic “choices” our tastes, if you will. 

“People are using cameras differently now. And I think, yes, they are doing soft documentation, which is what I was doing, but I think they’re also doing soft documentation in this other way that I was also participating in. I think what I was doing as well is...you sort of live your life in this way that is intentionally very photographic. But now, I think with Instagram, it is so next level. So like, you know, if I’m gonna take a picture of my bedroom, like am I going to make sure my bedroom looks nice? Or am I just going to take pictures of my bedroom?” 

My memory of being at Vivian’s apartment in the Mission back then is clear as day. Sitting on a vintage denim couch, I shared my ruminations on creating this platform that Azha and I had so cleverly coined “Shade Zine” to which Vivian beamed in unquestioning support. All three of us came up at a time before our understanding of algorithms, when we were making art and meeting up because we thought shit was “cool”. Critical conversations were starting to happen on the blogosphere and yes, we did graduate from the school of Tumblr. Still the platform was very much follow-for-follow this looks cute and I hit reblog. 

We go back and forth about the skewed systemic matrix upon which digital social media is anchored. You ever notice no one shoots horizontal photos anymore? Instagram calls for vertical imagery, the literal framework for how we view “the world”– a canvas for selfies or what we call “hot flexing”. “If you hit the jackpot of markers of individualism, we’ll say, you become marketable.” Deep into the discourse of identity and the meaning of representation within photography, we approach the conversation around Vivian’s expression of Asianness within her work, at times out of her own control. At what point is representation barely a marker for actual change, less than a step in any direction, simply a ploy for companies to profit off of this brand of diversity. We all agree that many of us don’t have a choice but to accept, sometimes, when saying “no” can be detrimental to a young artist with bills to pay. “I understand why people are doing it, but I think again, it’s because I was doing it. I was saying, 'do you want me to be an Asian schoolgirl? I’ll be an Asian schoolgirl.' But it feels so one dimensional. It’s not because I don’t want people to honor their heritage or their family, or to embrace their cultural rituals. But, I’m also just like, it feels like you’re doing this for white people.”  

Looking back at her own practice, Fu refers to one specific iconic portrait of hers, iconism as described by me and Azha. “I think at the time, the story about Asian girls was very limited, and I think that’s why I wanted it to be like, I’m on top of this truck. I’m holding guns, because up until that point it was literally like, oh Lane from Gilmore Girls or Nelly Yuki on Gossip Girl. It’s this very specific archetype of an Asian girl, and I was like ‘no. I’m bad’,” that last part booming once again in ASMR pitch. 

Even as we traverse through the past, the message remains the same. It’s one of intention and shifting reality. A digital landscape that once was can be no longer, because the ideologies we attempted to mimic as young artists are clouded memories now. We get on the topic of PostSecret – a throwback moment. For those unfamiliar, it was an online project where people could send secrets on postcards or imagery to be posted online in complete anonymity. Parallel to this pop culture moment, Vivian shares stories of working at a photo lab in SF slanted on a main street where Azha would drop off some of her early work, alongside other people’s memories, of which she was the beholder. Her fascination with people’s own aesthetic choices was further informed by her handling of customer’s most private moments, some photos which might never see the light of Instagram day. There’s an intimacy in the secret sharing of images close to the heart, like the scanning of a full tub of archival family photos, or that roll you shot at Coachella in 2010 – Vivian saw all. The recollections end on this note as our conversations snap back into reality. 

A curious person with the same spirit as in her scholarly years, she poses the question – “What is it all? What does it mean?” In her own expression, along with some encouragement from an influential college professor (like some of us were lucky to have), she came to understand that her “photography is like a ballad,” when words fall short. Vivian admits to not being vulnerable outside of her visual art, something I think more than few of us can relate to in one way or another. She’s still an internet punk icon in our eyes. We joke back and forth as we part ways; reaching the threshold of our 2 hour zoom call. And just like that, we break for dinner.

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FLOWERS FOR VIVIAN FU

“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

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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 Citali

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in kitchens, down the block, unos a otros

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

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

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. 

WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU.

MULTIPLAYER
LVL 1: Kaili

Multiplayer toggles between talk show and gameplay as artists open up about their practice. In LVL 1, Kaili breaks down everything from Neopia to their favorite rave ever while battling it out on Super Smash Bros.

A conversation series with Ryan Blackway

WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU.

MULTIPLAYER LVL 1: Kaili

Multiplayer toggles between talk show and gameplay as artists open up about their practice. In LVL 1, Kaili breaks down everything from Neopia to their favorite rave ever while battling it out on Super Smash Bros.

A conversation series with Ryan Blackway

MULTIPLAYER
LVL 1: Kaili