Interview: Michaela Angela Davis and Elenni Davis-Knight

Bridget and Yves sit down with mother-daughter duo Michaela Angela Davis and Elenni Davis-Knight to talk legacy, Black genius, making space in art, music, and beauty, and Black girl fairy dust.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to afro Punk Solution Sessions. I'm your host
Brigittad and I'm your co host Eve Jeff Cooke. Afro
punk is a safe place, a blank space to freak
out in, to construct a new reality, to live our
lives as we see fit while making sense of the
world around us. Here at Afropunk, we have the conversations
that matter to us, conversations that lead to solutions. A

(00:31):
little while back, Bridge and I sat down with image
activists and writer Michaela Angela Davis and her beauty boss
daughter a Lennie Davis Knight, and we had an amazing
conversation that started out, you know, with us just wanted
to talk about identity, but it really turned into a
lot more than that, and we'd love you to hear it.
So here goes since its publicly a lot like I

(00:53):
know I am who I am because I grew up
in DC when I did right and that it was
right after d the Civil Rights movement and right as
there was a big Black power movement, but it was expansive,
meaning like you could be into Pink Floyd and probably
in Funkadelic, like you know, people like DJ Spooky and

(01:16):
Greg Tate. They were like in my neighborhood. So we
were like that whole idea thing like black and cosmic
and you know, the the best hardcore band that America's
ever Right, So my first boyfriend was the drama of
the backbrid well, and you know what, actually, let me

(01:38):
take that back, because I thought he was my first boyfriend,
Like that was my story. I was young. I was
like fourteen or fifteen. And then when I saw him
at Afro Punk a couple of years ago, I went
backstage and I've seen him, you know, from fourteen to
fifty whatever before, but when we were backstage Apropunk, He's like,
oh man, this is the girl I who I always

(02:01):
wanted to be my girlfriend. I know, like you wanted
to me. I thought I want your friends. Yeah, I
mean I was quartin. I didn't know. But so now
my story, I don't know my story, like I don't
know who my first boyfriend is now, because you know,
that's not a bad story, I'll take that. But I

(02:21):
did have a yeah, and and what was interesting about
I guess this is like kind of even like sort
of an Afro Punk three sixty was I was in
the scene, I was in the hardcore scene. Because of
that Brains and and the Brains were so dope, like
they weren't just like loud boys playing fast and live

(02:43):
like they were dope, right, and so but the scene
was so white, so angry and so skinhead that there
there were maybe two black girls in the whole scene
like that, you and as part of being with the
bad Brains, I could like they didn't want us on
the floor because it was really it was violent, like

(03:06):
when they were motion and with their steel toes and
their Doc Martins, they were trying to funk you up.
And imagine that as you know, first of all, being
someone who was interested in like an alternative scene makes
you a marginalized person. And then being like a black
woman's like your marginal You're like a marginalized group within
a marginalized group. I almost imagine that you could be
like targeted, like I'm gonna go after her. You know,

(03:28):
it's interesting. First, I wasn't a woman. I was a
fourteen year old girl, right, so I wasn't even like
I was just like I got music and the fashion
because it was um, you know, it was kind of
a thin line between punk and New Asians. So I
was a fashion girl, but but I remember just never
being in the crowd. We were either sitting on the

(03:49):
speakers looking down or sitting in a balcony, but never
And it was weird because it's like I heard the
blackness into music because the reggae roots and whatever or
and I was like, this meeting is so black, but
the crowd is so white and mad. So it was
a weird experience that I just disconnected from the fans

(04:10):
and I was there for the music. Um. So, the
first time I ever went to Afripunquin, it was super
small and it was in the UM parking lot, and
I said, I saw, actually, wasn't that the parker. It
was in the club and I saw the first black
mosh pit. I literally cried because I've never seen black
kids in that scene and and I was thinking of

(04:34):
any group who needs that kind of release and that
kind of energy, and the best musicians that America produced
were black in this scene, but there weren't any black
fans to see, you know, twenty something years later there
they were, was like like, yo, this is good. And

(04:54):
they weren't trying to hurt each other. They were just
trying to wow out. But they weren't know the scene
and um at the Ninth Dirty Club with up with
um bad brains like they would literally it was like
UM UFC like they were like they were trying, and
after a while you saw them like help you up

(05:15):
and you fell down, or they weren't trying, they weren't
like brawling. So that experience show you a bad identity,
you know, it's interesting. And this is one of the
things I miss about d C was because it was
so black and you saw everybody like your doctor was
black back. The the idea of identity wasn't It was

(05:41):
so reinforced that you didn't think outside of it until
you got outside of it, except for you know, I
was so light and blond, and so that was my thing.
Like I felt so black inside, but I I presented
so light and really blond. And I remember when I
first moved to UM d C, and I think I

(06:06):
was in the second grade or younger, and all these
kids were asking me whether I was albino, and I
didn't even know what an albano was. Oh no, And
so that the idea of being black and light and
black and blonde, um, that was my sort of identity.

(06:28):
Pies but it wasn't. It wasn't the same as like
your blackness being interrogated because it was Chocola City and
so you felt this a comfort. Um. And then I
went to do Gallantine School the Yard, so I was
I was comfortable with black genius, not just being black,
but being black and complicated black and genius. And like

(06:49):
I said, like being able to listen to whatever kind
of music you wanted to and not being questioned, which
was huge in the seventies, right, because it wasn't you're
in like, uh private culture, meaning like if I look
at my daughter's I don't know what she's listening to,
Like it's private what you listen to, what podcasts you're into. Um,

(07:10):
But then it wasn't. It was public, like you played
a record player or radio, so people knew who you liked.
So the fact that if you had to hide, I
don't know if you like I he was thinking about,
or like people were into like led Zeppelin and and um,
Pink Floyd and Joni Mitchell and you know, just dope artists,

(07:33):
but you weren't questioned whether you were black or not.
And until until I got out right, Yeah, I remember
feeling a lot of Um, anxiety about being into music
like bad Brains and um, yeah, And I think that

(07:55):
when I was growing up, we didn't have Afro punk
intol I was like in college and so being able
to find a place where that identity, I like how
you put it, black ingenius. This idea that it's okay
to be black and complex or black in you know,
into punk rock or blacken into art. You know, that
was not something that I grew up having reinforced as

(08:15):
an identity that was okay. You know, there was like
there was only one way to be black when I
was growing up, is how I felt. And it wasn't
until I got older than I realized that that was
something that wasn't was that what was that one way? Um,
that's a good question. I think the message that I
got was that blackness was not complicated, That blackness was

(08:37):
not you know, that blackness was one thing. It was
what you saw on you know, MTV. And if that
was that that was the only way to be black. Um,
when I was growing up, and you know, I went
to I went to schools where that was constantly reinforced. Um,
that to be black meant to be one kind of person,
and that if you didn't fit within that, like being
black was straight, being black was you know, Christian that

(09:01):
and I wasn't any of those things. And I always
felt very swet. I felt I was very aware of
that from a very hung age, Like I remember staying
up at night thinking what does it mean that I'm,
you know, a queer person? And every message I'm getting
says that there's that that doesn't exist. And I felt
like I was some sort of like alien and this

(09:23):
is going away off the rails here, but like things
like um Funkadelic in Parliament, Likesban and Fire, black artists
that really spoke to afro futurism and things like that.
I always get entified with that because I felt so
disconnected from you know, what I understood the black experience
to be really is a function of figuring out my
sexual identity. But that's another story. That is a story

(09:45):
that you have an experience. Um No, Because I grew
up in New York City and it's hard to find
anything that's not complex. Um I think I probably grappled
more with being interested in what else we had in
our lineage. I knew I was black, I was happy

(10:07):
about being black. My Dad's black from Atlanta, Georgia, so
he's like extra black, um, and so all of our
family is there too, And Mom identify so strongly with
black culture, and that is her job and her work.
That's not my story, um. And my interest also lies
in like I sat down with my grandmother maybe a
year or two ago, and she kind of told us

(10:29):
like this crazy story about our lineage, which I think
is one of the coolest parts about our family, um,
is how mixed we actually are and what people sacrifice
to to love each other in the Deep South and
all of that. So I'm also proud that we're Irish
and German and Syrian and black and all those other things. Um,
crazy native blood too. And of course yes I'm black.

(10:51):
That's how identify I don't check like I wish on
the box so that that would be funny. I might
do that just to funk with somebody like Irish actually, um,
but I think for me it's more understanding those complexities
don't necessarily make me feel like I'm not black, but
that we're multifaceted. And there's a reason why my mom's

(11:15):
light skinned, blonde hair and green eyes like that comes
from somewhere and that story is just as interesting to me. Um.
But I wasn't forced to find my blackness because I
was never devoid of it in the environment that I
grew up in. So growing up in New York City
is almost a reverse bubble, like everything is so accepted
and culturally diverse, and there's there is art, and there

(11:38):
is people of mixed cultures and immigrants, and it's very hard.
It's when you leave New York City then you start
to be like, oh, shoot on black, like and I
got to figure out how to be black in this
particular space. But I never had to find it because
it wasn't it wasn't forced on me or taken from
me in any kind of way. Letting so and let

(12:00):
me have se brilliant bestie UM and Elisa, And the
fact that they could be very young and satirically black
to me was like, oh, they're comfortable, like they made fun.
So let me a little context. Her best friend's father
is a renowned scholar and her mother is like this

(12:22):
amazing painter, and there super black, extra black like but
extra like uh, scholarly like black. You know that Corner
West black like Cornell West black and black not not
Lily Black. You know, like my dad that I like

(12:43):
the different the dirt explanations and moms like Angela's black
right right, And I do to so many spectrums and
like a lot of asserting one's blackness. If I think
if I wasn't black and blonde, maybe I'm wouldn't it
wouldn't have called on me in the same way. Because
also I know that my light blondness gets me into

(13:07):
spaces in a way. So I feel this sense of
you know, I feel like that razing commercial like all
the black girls with me because I can get in
this door easier, but um so her, she and her friends,
so they got inundated with like extra blackness all the
time and both that so much blackness. So and like

(13:27):
we will you'll be talking about any snappiece and somehow
Robin would bring it back to like Mississippi and the
Labor Union and black people in Africa, like everything black, black,
black black, any black black girl and like black and
smart black. So they actually would make fun of it
because it was just a given. So like fucking seven,

(13:49):
Like what was the book that Eli said her father
share It's like heaviest ship. Oh god, it's something something Misssippi,
but they would he would read to her about the
Black Labor Union like at night, like that story like
not like a bad story. It was a bad time story.
But they used to play I think you disclose this

(14:11):
maybe when you were eighteen or nineteen. They used to
play this game called Runaway Slane. We did and I
was the target games. It was hilarious. We would so
basically all the adults to be in the house and
we would first of all, I had I handled the
costumes because outfit, So we had outfits and we had
like cloaks and like old boots, and we would basically

(14:37):
would we'd be escaping from slavery, but we would use
the house as different things around the plantation or whatever
the situations, and they were like the masters. Basically we
were trying to dodge so the so the parents would
be in the in the room and we would like
sneak with like like sacks on her back and like

(14:58):
still stream cheese and like to could have masses house
the catches and then we run into her. Yeah, oh yeah,
very like this was lovely. It was full It was
full blable when you're taught, when you're reading that from
like six until my dad's an actors, So it was
like that in Shakespeare and if I got in trouble,
I had to read encyclopedias about slavery. So of course

(15:21):
we were like, well, what's in our brains? Uh, slavery?
And so happy we had We had no idea because
you know, it's interesting, wait till y'all like have like
families and you're sitting around with you and you're still young,
like we're like in our I don't know, thirties or
late thirties, late thirties, So we're sitting around, we're drinking,

(15:44):
we're talking. We might be talking about our culture, but
we're still in our thirties. So we're young. And our
kids are in the house playing, and so we're hanging out.
We don't know they're being runaways, enslaved Africans. At our face.
We're just like, oh, look at the caves. They're fine.
Girls are all right, Like we didn't even notice. Like
they had cloaks and little baby dollars that they were

(16:05):
taking and keep the baby quiet, and it got side
one time the baby died. Oh god, a story. I
just want to say, I'm I'm so grateful, Like several
years of slave at like eight. They were acting out
slave narratives very early in life. But um, but I
was so grateful that she didn't tell me until I

(16:26):
was older. And it was funny because I'm like, you
played what in the and when I remember when she
when Lenny was seven, she wrote a play on her chalkboard,
like or the outline of a play on her talkboard
about how Harriet Tubman spirit came down and talked to
Martin the King and gave him the notion of how

(16:48):
to organize. So her feminist, so she was also unbodgicable,
how you need this? It's like seven because it was
at the house and in lest Chester. Wow, so was like, okay,
that's what you dropt last night. Why were these things
on your mind? It's just young age. I didn't have
a choice. I was inundated in in that and in

(17:11):
fashion and in theater. My parents are best friends, that
they weren't together, so I spent a week with my
mom and a week with my dad and whatever that meant.
I was in that environment and then my best friend
since kindergarten. Her father was a professor, so that I
was around all of that, and the mother was an artist,
So that was a real It was a real combination
of like academia, art, fashion, theater, and being one of

(17:37):
the few children around adults. Adult always adults, so we
heard adult conversation and had adult notions and dreamt weird
ship dude. They were funny. Is there ever anything that
happened to you, like outside of that space where anybody
was surprised they were like, oh, she's really precocious, or

(17:58):
experiences like that, like racial experiences any I guess the
first one that I had was in kindergarten. Some girl
told me that her rabbit couldn't play with me because
I was black, and that was weird. And that was
the only like real thing that I've had. All the
other ones kind of came later in school. Um, what
did you say to her? I never heard that one

(18:20):
the rabbit. I was like, I don't know. I was like,
I don't want to play with your rabbit either, and
Elie was like yeah, And the whole your little fit,
the whole crew, like Max and all of my elementary
school friends like didn't talk to her, and so she
felt real stupid and we're all just like your whack,
like we we know you're whacking We're five like you know, um,

(18:43):
but then yeah, well yeah was outnumbered. Yeah uh. And
then in high school, um, I grappled because I was
very popular, but I wasn't popular with like one group.
I had like my weird artsy friends. I had my
super rich, crazy like gossip girlfriends. And then I had
like two hood girls that I what you always need.

(19:06):
So I had all these different experiences, but I certainly
encountered more often than not passive. They didn't know they
were being racist racist ship from white people who were
like who loved me, but they would just say ship like,
oh my god, you're like so much agrhan and I'm like,
but then with my with Unfortunately, the most aggressive stuff

(19:30):
that I got was from women of color who were
darker and angry and didn't consider me, you know, black enough,
which is a story I'm sure we've all heard in
some way or another. But I didn't speak black enough,
I wasn't dark enough. I liked too much white girl
ship whatever that means. Um. And so unfortunately I ended

(19:51):
up gravitating towards kind of a hodgepodge of people and
ultimately never really felt comfortable in any any one space
all white people, all black people, all anything for me
is a little bit uncomfortable. And I think most of
that is cousin from New York. So even just visually,
all of one thing is like where are we um,

(20:12):
But also just you know, it's it's a weird place
to be in when you are complex both biologically and
intellectually to fit in UM. And that's why spaces like
afro punk and another kind of cool girl spaces that
are are based in the black community but aren't specific
to the black community can be really dope UM or

(20:33):
like Insecure, like was the first show that I was like,
this is yes, like a Molly is that is a
complex black girl who's like, yes, I can be reacted,
but like I'm also super corporate and slutty and I
like to get drunk and like all the things that
you think only white girls can do. UM, which she
was black and fly and I was like, okay, this,
I get I get this, and I got Sex in

(20:54):
the City, but they just weren't black like that. That's
where my brain was more of us X in the
city kind of girl than like girlfriends, Like yeah, I
liked the show, but Sex and the City was like
fab that's how I felt, so kind of like how
you said you felt like there was only one way
to be black. There were certain things that I was
interested in that I thought weren't black because that's what

(21:15):
I was told. Um, but that's bullshit. We're gonna take
a quick break. It sounds like something that's important for
both of you in terms of understanding your identity is
cultural things, art, TV, music, movies. Is that the case
today still? Um? But see my tastes in like movies

(21:36):
and culture and art is pretty white in terms of
who creates it, Like I'm a game throned uh like succession,
sharp opects like dark twisted ship, which I blame on
my father for all the shakespecause. And also why do
you think to see signs of the lands when you're
like eight, Like we don't we don't are dead, Like

(21:57):
that's my homie, he's dope that she's dope, don't dope dead,
He's I love him, he's family and we can have
very few like beefs. But I remember she came home
like vibrating because she was like eight and saw the
silence of the lamps. I'm like, like I almost throughout
the m my dad. My dad's like sip talk was

(22:19):
so letting with front, so like mature that you sometimes
you forget, oh yo, that little girl is eight because
she she liked to be in the spaces, so she
would kind of like fall in really easy. She could
talk about like the story, arc and all this other stuff,

(22:39):
but then she'd come back to me freaked out. So
I think part of it could be that. But I
think our monikers for identity are super different. My mom
and I we definitely we've clashed in some ways, um
privately called each other out. I think in some ways
how she identifies as black and how I do are
very different. How they kind I think hers is a

(23:02):
little bit, for lack of a better word, more of
a classic approach to blackness. Like it's very activism based.
She grew up in d C. Chocolate City, black black black,
like that is her thing. UM, and black women and
and anything that's like like she'll watch a movie that's
awful because it was made by a black woman to
support the cause, and I'm like, it's a whack movie.

(23:23):
I'm not watching it, Like sorry, you know, Um. And
for me, I don't feel the need to overly state
anything I'm just who I am. I don't have to
I'm not. I'm also not leading a black charge. I'm
not in a space where that is my my job
and my my passion. My passion is in the beauty industry,
and I certainly find spaces within that too, have little

(23:45):
moments of revolution and make sure that one image gets
to one country that it might be it wouldn't have,
or make sure that the model featured on the on
the gondola is black drinking a coconut. True story. Um,
but that's kind of where I'm in and I know
that it can seem a lot more frivolous. But I'm
sure there's spaces within my work to show black women

(24:06):
in different in different ways. But it's not it's not
the same My my My blackness is just who I who.
Part of who I am blackness is also Mom's life.
It's also her job, it's her platform, it's her it's
her career. I almost wondered, that's like the legacy that
you've been able to gift to your daughter. You know,
it's interesting because what the dopest thing about being a

(24:30):
mother and one of the thing and I told you
this in Paris, I said, the thing that was most
nervous about and doing this with my daughter. She's the
person that I am the most myself with, Like I
don't say ratchet ship. I'm not shady and public, I
don't you know, but I am with her like one
of one of the most one of the most fun

(24:52):
things about when she was living with me is that
we could watch like love and Hip Hop for Sex
in the City and be shady as fun like just
like it was. It was like it was almost like
a sport, right, and so I kind of shade is
definitely yes, and she's a champion, right and she was

(25:14):
from a very early So it was it's a very
intimate space to um, I find to be in. It
was very intimate for me to um be completely unfiltered
and have because I have. We have fun throwing shade,
but it's not to hurt anybody, it's not to break
anybody down. It's entertainment. It's almost like Twitter. You know

(25:34):
how you watch Twitter. So she was like my she
was my black Twitter. Like everything I couldn't say black
Twitter like I would say with her, or I would
share something like there are times that there's there's something
I want to get into on Twitter, but I can't
because it will make me shady and petty. It's so good.
How do you say about having that kind of monitor

(25:55):
yourself before you know? Because at this I'm gonna want
to ask a woman, right, And so part of being
grown is modeling that you can have boundaries and you
can have intimate parts of your personality, right, And that
because I'm a public figure and I've chosen to say
I'm here for black girls, right, So it it doesn't

(26:18):
unless it benefits other people. I don't call out other
black women. I just don't. And because of who I said,
I am in the public world. But I also get
to have a private self, right, And I have my
most fun and private self with a Letty That said
my whole idea of of wanting to I mean, I've

(26:39):
always said, like, I've really want to know what it's
like to be free black woman, and I don't get
to define what that is. So if for a Lenny
to be free is for her to date white boys
with tattoos, and that's the real story, that's her thing.
Like and you have as a parent, you you watch

(27:00):
your children go the next step, Like my mother is
like what like who I've been in the world is
very different than that's what evolution is. But sometimes it
moves faster than you. UM. You do yes, and it
causes you to grow, and that's to me, that's the
most That's what love is does, right, whether it's love
of family, UM and partnership. It brings things out of

(27:24):
you um and makes things, makes you aware of where
you can grow, and that that's when you're in a
great relationship, not one it is just like, oh, we
get along, we like everything the same. And if you
something's not growing, then I don't. I don't know if
that's really love. And so Lenny challenges me and makes

(27:44):
me grow in a way, and to I mean quite honestly,
saying yes to this is a growth because I know
I can't be in conversation up be unfiltered with her um.
So it means that I'm safe and often myself now
that okay, if Michael and Anthela Davis is a little shady.
So what I've got receipts of all this other work

(28:07):
that I've done, I think it's more than just shade.
I think I would bring up topics or talk about
things that other people probably wouldn't because they don't know
you were not like dirty laundry. But you know what
I mean, Like there are things that we've definitely but
it heads on um And to your point about legacy,
I don't think I think she was going to leave

(28:28):
a legacy for a lot of other young black women.
But our relationship is the legacy that her and I have.
But I'm not ever going to follow in her footsteps
in that way. Right. One of the things I liked
so much about the dynamic that you guys have as
mother and daughters, that you do class you are different.
I was reading the essay that you wrote about her

(28:48):
pledging to us about you should have bought you should
have bought cocktails for that for then you we didn't
talk for a little bit after that was and part
and part of it was and I can't be I
can be shady. Part of it. It was also really
bad editing, Like there were parts of it that I

(29:11):
turned into story and what ended up on the pages
of essence were very different in a way the country
but in a way I said, and they were very
specific people that were called out that got taken out
because they were worried about their readership, which completely changed
the entire stories. So why I chose not to go

(29:34):
to black sororities because they were freaking mean to me?
And she and she was also very clear that it
varies from campus to campus, right, So we're take so
on her campus, the black sororities were not just me,
and they weren't active, and they weren't they weren't a
community in which she fit. And it wasn't just because

(29:55):
they were black. What did she say, It's like they
were in the thirteenth grade, like they were. She chose
a sorority that was um, socially active, she was able
to head the p whatever, and multicultural. There were black girls,
there were Spanish girls, there were immigrants, there were Yes,
it's a historically Jewish sorority, but if you look at
that picture, and if you look at subsequent pictures of

(30:16):
my of my crew, there's tons of girls like me.
There's girls that are darker, there's Asian girls, there's I
didn't join like a white sorority, right, And that's and
that's really how it was trained. But because it was,
it was interesting some of my friends, like I don't
it's interesting that when the landing is like that I'm
you know, centered in my blackness. I am, but I'm
still considered alternative in my generation. Like the fact that

(30:40):
even went to a Bad Brains concert was you know,
I'm other black, or that I worked in fashion and
I wasn't. And I didn't get into UM really targeting
black audiences until I met Susan Taylor. But also there
was an opening there because I was like, all this stuff,
the images that I've been making for mainstream fashion or

(31:02):
white fashion, white using eurocentric lens. Let me just put
it that way, UM, And I was doing a lot
of fashion research and seeing all this work and all
these images and all these references, and and then when
I started getting into UM media, I just not only
did I love black women and black girls in the

(31:23):
black esthetic, it was also opportunity, meaning what we had
created a vibe was it hadn't been created in that
way meeting. We were interested in covering hip hop culture
elevated in an elevated way, and like getting the best photographers,
getting hilt now, like getting the best writers, and so

(31:44):
it wasn't just only because I love this culture. There
was opportunity. There was an opening. There wasn't a lot
of Um, there wasn't the same amount of images of
black women and girls and our this that looked like
what I saw so much in the Conde Nast world

(32:05):
and the rolling stuff. So I also was working with
those alternative artists like CEO and Bloody Crabt and Michelle
and d Cello, and so even though those are all
black artists, they're still like on the edge black artists,
you know what I mean. So, um, these thousands streams
of blackness, like identifying myself for my work and my

(32:29):
life centered in blackness feels very expansive to me because
I feel like there's just so much to explore because
my education. Um, even though I went to a historically
black high school, I then came to a very white
um university at m y U and then it sella Atlanta,

(32:50):
very very white, Like I was the only person of
color in my acting conservatory and they didn't even know
I was because I was punk looking and I had
short on finger waves and more rice powder and read listic,
Like why didn't they know? I was black? Like I
literally I literally but literally, and I wore a mouse saked.
I felt so black inside. I'm light as fun, like

(33:13):
I'm light and I put on rice powder and shaved
my eyebrows and wore red list I was cool and
I'm wore a mouse say tune suit every day for
two weeks, my first two weeks of school, and I
didn't know when they didn't know I was black, Like
that's what happened. So I feel and what happened to

(33:37):
what what became like a creative um challenge, meaning how
can I look at the life and art in the
world not through with your central lens. So at seventeen eighteen,
that that became was I wasn't born Angela Davis, so
Michael Angela Davis because I was in a very straight

(33:59):
fashion and track like I wore out you know, I
listen to any Lennox end Rays Jones, like the whole thing.
But I felt like, and this is this literally happened.
I was going back and looking at UM sort of
back Vogue issues and the work was so expansive and
so beautiful, and the things that Um Diane Vreeland did,

(34:23):
or looking at the work of Bill Cunningham or early
Bill Cunningham Details magazine like there's nothing left to do,
like they did the best, like it's never gonna get better,
like there was a part of me it's like or
even looking at black theater, I mean white like, um,
I wasn't doing check off and I was like, God,
it's not. What else can they do? Like what's gonna

(34:46):
be better than this? And so part of it was
a creative challenge, like look at the world not through
your centric lens. And it was harder than I thought
because everything, even when doing Black Ship, it was asset
come haired to whiteness because we're so programmed to do that.
So so somewhere around eighteen or nineteen, I challenged myself

(35:09):
to try to create out of a space that wasn't
euro center, to try to try to use black culture
as my um inspiration. And then then I was gone.
Then it was like even in doing more avant fashion
um or more high fashion, I started working a lot

(35:30):
with a photographer named Venafanador, and Reuben was from Colombia,
and he also even though he did all the CONTI nests,
his lens wasn't your center either. So we were able
to create these very like the work I did with him,
with Diana Ross and all these people, it was not
your It wasn't what you would have seen in essence,

(35:53):
it was what you would see in Vogue with a
black life. So that yes, not a French right, So
something in my se so my path got clear. And
so when your path gets clear, um, you go, you

(36:13):
follow it. And so my path was paved with black
girls and so um and you know. So it wasn't
like I was born Chocolate City made me. But then
I came to New York to be in fashion and
in theater, and that I didn't necessarily think about black
fashion and black theater. I totally didn't think about it, um,

(36:35):
but I did. I did realize that neither did my school,
like they had no but like we didn't read any
black playwrights. We didn't. I mean, there was nothing like
none in the great American theater um repertoire. There was
not one. Maybe Lorraine hands Ferry was down in there somewhere.

(36:57):
So I felt like it was a creative challenge at first,
and then it became more a calling and while you're here.
So and also I do think the experience of being
my blackness being challenged very young also created this desire

(37:20):
to sent to myself in it because it was questioned
and my my brothers and sister my brother and my
two sisters, although they're very light skin, did like, you know,
my sister and my brother weren't questioned whether they were
black or not. You know, they had a you know,

(37:40):
the helly gary kind of coloring. But so I think
my how I present also really informed who I became
and to you know, honestly with the Lenny. She and
her her friends say that their towny like, it's like
ry was there classic tawny you know, tawny foundation and

(38:03):
raising lipstick. But that was my look, like that fashion fair.
It was such a classic anthing. Um. But this idea
of not being questioned, like there was a part of
me that I felt like when a Lenny entered this world,
like there was a part of me healed up because

(38:26):
that the idea of being questioned about who you are,
there's no question about it, so then you can just
be That's not true for me. But that's why I felt. No,
That's when I said, I felt because I felt you
looked like I always wanted to. I mean I literally
used to dream at night to be that I would

(38:46):
wake up and be darker, like darker than hert Like
I wanted to be dark like an Philip pot um
An philpot was chocolate, and her hair she was chocolate,
and her hair pressed so beautifully that it looked like
pat and leather, and it was just like it was
black and shiny. And then but I realized all the

(39:08):
boys liked her because she had an acid in the
third grade. But I just saw that she was so
pretty and so and no one ever asked her whether
she was black enough. And her hair, her skin in
her hair was just like I just used to dream
like I want that skin, I want that hair um

(39:29):
and not and and I think at that age, I
think it was really purely aesthetic. Like her hair was
so shiny and thick and heavy, and her skin, I
could I see it right now, like it had color,
Like I could see colors in it, Like I could
see like the like the bricky color, and I could
see the gold fly like she was so gorgeous, but

(39:52):
she got teased for being black, Like it was great.
Like that's where we were in and that's where we
still are in a lot of ways. We'll be back
after this short break. So you mentioned that you that
the sort of dream that you had from your daughter
of not having this question wasn't actually what you feel
like ended up happening in your life. Questioned all the time,

(40:14):
I mean people, what are you is usually the first question,
and I obviously know what they mean. UM. A lot
of people think I'm Dominican, Puerto Rican, uh um, Middle Eastern.
Sometimes I'll get um, but they something about I don't
know what it is. Something always prompts people, particularly white men,

(40:38):
UM and sometimes other women of color that are not black,
will ask me what's your background? And I think it's
because maybe it's my coloring. Maybe I don't know what
it is. I feel like I look very black. UM,
But I answer honestly. I don't just say black. I could,
but if you really want to know, they're we do

(41:00):
have a complex lineage. There is a reason why Mom's
whole side of the family is light and fair and
has green blue eyes. And that's a real thing. That's
a genetic thing. That's not something that UM, I think
should be discounted or or not to be explored. I
think all lineages interesting. UM. Both whatever tribe you were

(41:21):
able to track down in Africa, but also where did
that was a little that was just a little light
a little bit. But also she was like my little Leaf,
but ever tribe, Like my nose is from Ebo, and
I'm like, yeah, that's really dope. But like where your
eyes from probably like Belfast, you know what I mean.

(41:44):
Like we can be all types of things. That's that's
the beauty of it. Um. And I had a really
like intense conversation actually with my grandmother about that, and
she was like, you know, sometimes I wish we would
look more at the other stuff because I think it's
really fascinating and and it plays into the story of
our entire family, which is really kind of badass that
all these people of mixed races were in the South

(42:06):
and choosing to love each other. More about that story, Um,
from what I remember, Um, I know that is it
Grandmama's grandparents, which what which story are you getting there?
It's Syrian and Irish and German and and uh Native
American and they it was an Irish woman, Helen Moore.

(42:28):
I'll never forget because I was like, that is super Irish. Um,
I don't remember great grandmother. So yeah, because one of
the most fascinating stories that Grandmama told also she cuts
me off the time, Um, was that and I didn't
know this that one of her, someone in our family
was passing for black so he can marry. He's one

(42:50):
of the things that was which is like, Yo, you're
gonna you're gonna be black in Jim Crow South because
you love this woman. Like that's that's like a dope
love story, right. But also part of um, you know,
my my mother was had to was part of the

(43:12):
whole paper like she wasn't allowed to date brown skimming,
Like that whole paperback thing was real because when you
do survive the terrorism of Jim Crow South, the lighter
you were, the more likely you were to survive. So
her grandparents like um, my grandmother, aunt Colia, all of

(43:33):
them lived in um some to South Carolina and witnessed
Jim Crow and they were terrorists basically, so they allow
of them were refugees that left South Carolina to Philadelphia,
and so part of part part of it was like
we don't have all those stories like oh they were raped,
but like they were. There was actual marriages and family.

(43:56):
But then there was also you you have to stay
light because if you're terroristed, and light means living. Any
animal in the jungle is going to want to protect
their children. And so part of the part of them,
just a diabolical terrorism of Jim Crow creates certain survival things, right,

(44:24):
and so part of my reckon or I got I
found some piece when when my grandmother was about to
make her transition, because she used to flip on like
her dad. Her dad had lots when we first met,
and I used to like make sure I put my
hair back because it would just trigger things. Um I

(44:45):
remember we we we cornrode my brother's hair once and
my grandmother went off like because you would cornrol their
hair so your afro would come out fluffy, like that
was treatment, and she was triggered because she was And
I didn't learn this stood way later, like the certain

(45:06):
children's hair were corn wrote in a particular way. They
were to signify that they were owned by these people
over there, Like no one corn rode their hair in
her mind for fashion or for fun. It was it
triggered um sharecropping or like we got to like it

(45:27):
was it was a big deal and we didn't know,
like what the fuck? But then when I learned, like
the this is PTSD, these this is terrorism, or like
why my grandfather wouldn't stop to pee if we were
driving down south, like after Virginia just like straight and
so that those complicated things I don't find them, not

(45:52):
like I find that really interesting, Like I make sense
to me now, you know when I was little, I
didn't make it didn't make a lot of sense, Like
why do I feel why do I feel like soul
training that I kind of look like American man stand
a little bit, but um, but understanding this is part
of the American story. Like I looked the way that
I look partly because of the American story. And it's

(46:15):
and it's competing truth all the way down, like some
of it's great, some of its terroristms, some of its love,
some of it's just sucked up ship like some and
so embodying all of that, um is all of our challenge,
like embodying our our contradictions, whether how we were raised
or what our history was. Um, I'm just I mean literally,

(46:37):
I trained myself. I'm just not that interested in white people.
And that's what It's not that I'm not interested in
my family. I'm not that interested in whiteness and euro
you're that I'm interested in myself and my family, but
in terms of like culture, and it's just like y'all
had a really good run, Like I'm not that interested
in anymore as much anymore in particular, really now this

(47:04):
whiteness is so brutal and nasty and stupid and destructive.
I've really I'm now made more hyper focused and black
girl just everything like everything like um, because it's also
part of my survival spiritually and mentally and um having

(47:26):
had to have these public conversations in white spaces like CNN.
I guess, um, what's his name? Empire? Who's the main character? No,
liont um cookies husband, Yeah, his character whatever he called

(47:47):
White People's TV, like he called tenn White people TV.
Like to be in those spaces and talk about blackness
while all this horror is going on. Um, I just
like this is this is actually also a survival thing
for me too. It's like I'm just gonna double down
the blackness and black culture because it feeds me this

(48:09):
other thing, um depletes me. And so yeah, but how
have you gotten to that point where you've been able
to set this multitude? It's like be able to parse
all that because I feel like there are a lot
of people who don't necessarily know how to navigate that.
I don't I mean, I don't know part it's just

(48:34):
good getting grown, Like there's a part of it, like
becoming a grown as woman is so there's a part
you get like how you want to live the rest
of this out like when you're in, when you're at
the halfway mark, Like I'm at the halfway mark, Um,
what's the second half going to be? Like? And and
and and what kind of life do you want? And

(48:57):
your life is what you think about all day long?
This let's say who Sundaiata said once? And I believe it.
Your your life is your thoughts, right, Like that's what
is That's your life. This other stuff is what you perform,
what you how you how you navigate. So not to

(49:17):
say that I'm not a piece of everything. There's parts
of me that are still working. Um. But in terms
of identity and particularly and and and I think Lenny
helps me see this. In real life, a lot of
people identified with who loved them right and and so

(49:43):
if like my mother's second husband was as Irish and white,
isn't his name is William Delaney white f a f
he loved me and he loved my mother. But also
part of humors are very black, well, but but it
wasn't black what it was was old school, asked New

(50:06):
York hardcore Irish, which Irish people, black people and Jewish
people get along very well because there's shared oppression and
a bit of grit, especially in New York. You all
the same way and be black as Jimmy who's Irish
and whose phil who's Italian? Like there's there's also to
be really really honest. Is that in South Carolina when

(50:28):
we went to the graves, um indentured servants I mean
indentured workers Irish who were fleeing the you know, um
we're living in the same quarters as the enslaved Africans.
So they so it's the most common mix in America
is because they were both on those plantations together. The

(50:49):
thing is that the white person could put on a
suit and leave eventually eventually. But also we've had some
family that bought bought their uh spouses, and so the
whole Irish black thing is also you know, there was
a time when Irish people couldn't go you know, there's
no Indians, no niggas, no Irish, so they at one

(51:09):
point we were you know, but that's the whole thing.
Anti blackness is interesting because those people who were oppressed
aside from I've never experienced that from first world from natives,
but everybody else was like, when it comes to it,
at least I'm not a nigga, like they can because

(51:30):
they've been oppressed, that they felt like shit, or they've
been treated a certain way. Whether you're Irish or or Jewish,
that option is always there because of how anti blackness
has been structured. Anti blackness was a strategy that is
very clear, and so it's not I don't even really
make it individual's fault anymore because now because I just

(51:51):
learned that that it's literally around anti blackness, not just
white supremacy, because that means then we can't get the Irish,
then we can get the strategy that I mean. Hitler
studied American slavery to understand his strategy, which is how
to dehumanize a group of people. That's when you can
do exactly. I'm pretty surprised to learn about the ways

(52:17):
that particularly the Irish were able to sort of become
white through things like you know, American policies like housing
policies that allowed for Irish people to compete in ways
that black people were just not allowed to. And so
how these very specific policy interventions created a pathway to
whiteness for Irish people while simultaneously lacking black folks out

(52:38):
and how that is a very deliberate, deliberate thing. But
then you can find like individual people who's um, hustle
you get, who humor you get. You know, so there's
a lot of reasons why. But you know, have you
all dated or been have family members that who weren't
black or who weren't you know, yes, because I'm not

(53:01):
and I'm not talking specifically to you, because i know
where you've been educated and how you present, how you talk,
what you're interested in. Probably people who are interested in
you are Cain and I'm just making it. I'll make
it as that. And you know, your teacher, um that

(53:22):
you also are attracted to it, are attracted by a
spectrum of people. And what does that do with your
sense of self and your blackness? And that's such a
big question. Um, I think that for me, you know,
I've always been someone who's been interested in sort of
the other. So what if it's alternative, if it's different,

(53:45):
that's something that I I'm automatically interested in. Has been
the way I've been since I was young and I think, Yeah,
I think I've dated and been with a lot of
different people of all kinds of races. But the thing
that is sort of of the thing that grounds my
interest in them is that they're like if they seem different,

(54:05):
they don't seem like they're part of, you know, the majority.
And what's interesting is that my last the last person
I dated, not very seriously, but he is Irish but
from Ireland and was there for what they call the
trouble you know um and would get very wistful and
sad when talking about it. But when it came to
the United States, he was like, I really only date
women of color, specifically black women, because the idea of

(54:28):
dating someone who embodies what it means to be the
majority is just not how I feel. And so he
was like, I didn't understand that I was white and
what that meant in America until a couple of years,
and even now when I look to people who I date,
I only feel comfortable dating specifically black women, because they
mirror what it what it felt like to be another
in a way that you know, your average white woman

(54:51):
in d C, you know, just will never will never
understand and ever embody. So that what you guys were
talking about, that grit, that hustle, that sort of internal
almost like internal sadness and a kind of way, but
also intern like an internal swag and strength and beauty.
It's like this double edged thing that we all carry

(55:12):
inside of us because of that shared depression that when
you meet someone who has that, whether they are, you know,
a white person or not, that like like something inside
of me responds to that as well. And I think
it's interesting how you can sort of kind of scope
that out on each other in a kind of way.
It's makes sense. Yeah, but why does that even have

(55:32):
to be in any kind of indicator about your own
identity who you're attracted to. If I happen to like
purple lesbian, that doesn't mean that I don't feel black.
It's who I'm attracted to. I don't think it's fair
to say that that being interested in someone that doesn't
look like you means that you're less black. Yeah, I mean.

(55:54):
And also I think that there's a black woman the
side of everybody. So there's that, but um no, there's
they're they're in there, but they're hidden. They don't let
their black girls out like they're buried under so much bullshit. Um,
that's my theory. I think that there's our ancestors are
so they're just everywhere they're they're here to help everybody.

(56:15):
That's the title of our next episode. And everybody they're like,
So I'm my new obsession is my house. Um, I
don't know what took me so long to watch this series.
I'm abost, but that's who I see come out, Like
when I see those kids focus, No, I mean my house. Yes,

(56:39):
So my house is the reality version of post and
it's in real time. It's now, it's not in the
baby and um, you know, and watching that wholeball scene
and to me, I see in particularly way that everybody talks,
like even just saying shade and girl and gage to
me that anyways black Auntie from the seventies and but

(57:04):
like the dash of lots of gay. Yeah, but the
gays amplify Auntie in a way that makes her like
they gave her life. Like I remember listening to my
mother and her black girlfriend's, particularly her young when she
was young, and how they would talk and how they
would dress, and they were like you know, if you

(57:24):
watch oh good Times like Winona, like that kind of sexy, sluggy.
You know, black women in their in their private conversations
that they have in the kitchens or the or in
the um, you know, when they would talk dirty and
like and I feel like the gay kids, particularly gave
men and trans women take that spirit and give her

(57:47):
like like like jazz hands right like So so I
still feel it's like black women's energy, but passing through
different kinds of bodies. So it became ms more like
what's the line of that in appropriation to get pissed off?
I don't know. I don't know, because it's appropriation. It's

(58:08):
not Monona, like you know what, it's monona. And so
like for instance, Tina Marie and any wine house that's Winona,
that's not appropriation. That is. So it's like, you know what,
when you see it right corn Rows on top, Kylie Janner,
that's some appropriationship. So like that that's my you know judge.

(58:34):
Now I us have to say something, which is this
is gonna sound like a little bit out of left field.
But when I was touring around Paris and something that
I saw that just made me feel so happy and
made me remind It was a reminder that like black
women are everywhere? Was that the loose someone lost a
braid and I was I was like, this is like
z It's like it's like we're everywhere. Are are? It's

(58:56):
like it's like fairy dust, but like Black Girls Ferriage Us,
it's like a little piece of a break. That's exactly.
But you know what speaking, I did feel kind of
a way with the tribal painting and Approca White Girls.
I'm just like, I'm over it on Black Girls too.
But I feel like, but that's like, are you like
but that's festival where that's like, so then why are

(59:17):
you mad about it? Because it's our Like I don't
like it, but they do it at Coachella. I don't.
I'm just saying I don't what I mean, you can't
be like I'm mad about it on Black on White
Girls as a festival thing. What you said, what you're
mad about it for Black Girl? I said, I don't
like it on anybody. I'm done. I'm done with that.
I'm not. It's not you're not in a tribe. You're

(59:38):
not actual you are in a tribe, so then everyone
should be able to wear tribe. But you're not in
the appropunk tribe. You're at the Apropunk concert festival, festival.
You're not in the tribe, you're not in the natural
hair whether it's like there, I no, but you can
choose to be if you wanted to. But I'm not.

(59:58):
The white girls can't choose it, but you could choose it.
What do you want? You're making it no sense. Is
being invited as a guest somewhere and like so it's
like I could invite you to my family reunion, but
you would not have a family. So you're saying that
white people aren't invited to participate in Afropa. No, I'm
just saying I feel away when I see them wearing
tribal makeup, Like I don't like it, Like, no, there

(01:00:22):
are white tribes. Have you ever seen Vikings? Yeah? And
I do like the Viking clap that she is amazing
just saying it. Yeah, it's pretty. I love it. No,
I don't like them. No, I think a personal kind
of way that's like slightly bigoted. It's obviously personal. I
don't like it. And as aesthetic, like I don't like
white dreads either. Well that's cleanliness, that's an issue. I

(01:00:48):
love her enough, but it's aesthetic, like why do you
have white dots in your white face? Like I don't
want to see it because she wants to be I'm fine.
I don't say anything to her. See this is what
I'm saying, Like, I don't say that to her at
the I just I'll see her. That's my own personal shape.
And I just have this because because there's also this

(01:01:11):
feeling like see me with my white dots with you, Like, no,
I don't. I think that's how you're proceeding, of course,
but your life is your perception, you know someone, I
have white girlfriends. That sounds like black people. That's why
I said it. I'm not realchic. I vote for Obama again.
I have white friends, white girlfriends. I have like four

(01:01:32):
white girl friends. I do not hate. Actually do have
about four good white girlfriend Mommy, you're still perpetrating my joke.
But I know I don't. You talked about perpetuating your show,
perpetrating joke. So in the way that um you spoke
about sort of wanting to make these spaces in the
fashion and art in the fashion and art communities, do
you feel like you do the same thing in your

(01:01:54):
own kind of way and beauty industry And yeah, a
little bit. I mean me, even being at the table
is the first step because I walk into a boardroom
and it's a bunch of older white men and women.
I will say there's much more femininity in the beauty
space in terms of power, which is great and I
love that. Um. But there's a vested interest now in

(01:02:14):
big corporate corporations like Loureal and Revlon, which is where
I am. Um. They have full blown internal initiatives to
bring on women of color, trans women and men millennials.
They need. They understand that they need to diversify the
space because if you're sitting at a table trying to
understand why you're not getting to a target consumer and

(01:02:35):
that consumer isn't at the table or someone who connects
that consumers and at the table, it's impossible. Um. So
from a corporate standpoint, they know that. So me even
just being there is that. But UM, I've definitely not
necessarily in this particular job because it's fragrance and it's
just ethereal and it's a little bit more fun. Um.

(01:02:56):
But when I was in color at Becca, there were tested,
vested moments where I had to be a little bit
of a hard ass and say no, poland you have
to take this imagery or you're not getting the fixture
in your store, and they would take it. Um. So
those ones were like little ones for me because I'd
be like, you know, there's gonna be a black grown

(01:03:16):
warsaw um. So I think that I can. I love
what I do. I certainly don't have any misconceived notions
about the fervility of it. But I'd like I like
to have fun at my job, and my job is
fun um, and I take it seriously. But I know
that the moments that I can do something are available.

(01:03:37):
Because I'm talking about beauty. I'm in the beauty space
in a in a corporate way. So if there's moments
where I can raise my hand and be like, maybe
we shouldn't pick that tagline or whatever it is, um,
those moments are the ones that are gonna have an impact. Well,
that connects kind of time. I think the I think
you can speak to this as well, but sort of
overarching theme of our show, which is that you don't

(01:04:00):
have to be someone like yourself to be to take
those small activist stances. That you may not consider yourself
an activist, but I think one because of the legacy
that your mom has done created for you. You know
those times where you can say no poland you're going
to take this imagery like that's an activist win, even
if it's small, and you know, you might think that

(01:04:20):
it feels small or frivolous, but it's it's powerful, like
knowing that you have that voice and that you can
that you have that seat at the table where you
can advocate in that way. I don't think I'm more
of an an advocator than an activist. I do not
see my mother's work as my legacy. If I did,

(01:04:41):
it would be the fashion, the fashion part. But but
here's here's here's who I think it. It may not be,
it may not be. Okay, okay, thank you. Um you

(01:05:01):
have to keep that in the podcast. And then we'll
say an example of white girl. So you came in
six minutes earlier. We had to be just like I
looked and I was like, wait, so it's not past
week through. I would never have gone that, never in
a million or four black before obviously, but also and

(01:05:25):
you have on headphones and you're holding something and you
still decide to talk like write a sign. Would never
have done. Here's the thing anyway, where where being advocate
is different than activists. But here's I do think here's
where my legacy I think lives in a Lenny is
the fact that she uses her voice and that feels

(01:05:46):
the confidence to say I recommend you doing this, not
not from because of her blackness, but because of her um,
because she's an expert, like she knows, like I know this.

(01:06:07):
I know this comes from you being an amazing, powerful
mom and woman. Not about what you do but that.
But part of what I do is who I am
someone but I love. But here's but here's what I
want to say because I have seen like, for instance,
Gabby City Bay on the cover of l I'm still
tired about this because I love Gabby, her edges were horrible. Right,

(01:06:35):
there were other black people in that room. Right, in
order for something to go from a you know, a
shot to a cover, there's a lot of yeses, there's
a lot of steps. And I was like, where why
didn't anybody speak up? Why do anybody speak up on
the set? Right, So just because you're a black girl

(01:06:56):
at the table doesn't mean you use your voice. Doesn't
mean oh I'm new at that gap. I'm not going
to challenge. But my point is I I'm proud of it.
I get that legacy from Michael and my mom, not
from michaela Angela Davis. Other women might get that from you.
I don't that happened far beyond you were a public

(01:07:18):
figure or anything. You taught me to speak up for
myself and to be bold and to be strong and
to be very specific with my words, very early, and
so did my father. You guys just raised me to
be a vocal and educated young woman, not because of
what you do, just because your great mom. That is

(01:07:39):
beautiful and I and I grab it. I proud of that,
and I'm proud of you. But my I I struggle
because I'm I love my mom and I'm proud of her,
but I want to be completely separate of her. I
don't always want to be dope daughter, like I have
my own name. I am my own person, and what
I do is fly as ship. It's just in another

(01:08:01):
in another arena that isn't seen um in the kind
of way that my mother is. And ME being proud
of her and supportive comes from me being a supportive
and proud daughter. But I don't I don't want your
life I don't want your your legacy of work, Um,
I have no interest in it. And the same with

(01:08:21):
my dad. He wants me to be an actor so bad.
I'm like, I love what you guys do, it's just
not me and I've never wanted you to be I
didn't even know I wanted to be me. Like I
was a fashion girl, and that's meal when I began,
you know, back to full circle. Like I started off,
I was in fashion in theater and it didn't I
didn't have like a I wasn't going to do the

(01:08:42):
National Black Theater when I love Washington. When I lef
d C, I was going to m y U Stella Adler, Right,
that wasn't my trajectory. I was hanging out at the
Pyramid Lounge and dancing on the bar with Madonnas. The
legacy I relate, but but that's part of my that's
part of me. Like I literally was doing that. So
it got black when like also just I remember Keith

(01:09:07):
Harry and Michael Stewart. We're both dope artists that were
considered street artists at the time. Right, they were tagging
the cots, handcuffs and beat Michael Stewarts too. That Keith
Herring and that it was almost like the party where
all of us are having fun and we're like freedome
or in downtown, and it's like he's really the daughta.

(01:09:32):
It was all of a sudden, I'm ship he's black.
That's what happened. And so there was part of it.
There was a moment in time when I was young
it really wasn't about black it was about freedom. And
we were all in the same space and boscas at
this party and then Michael Stewart got murdered. It's almost
like a Treylon thing in the art scene, and we

(01:09:53):
knew he was murdered because he was black, and he
was he literally had handcuffs on his wrists and his
ankles and Lemon cops beat him to death. And Keith
Herring kept tagging, you know what I mean, like that,
some my innocence broke in that moment too. So there's
a lot of you become who you are as a
result of your experiences. And so when you have certain

(01:10:15):
kinds of experiences, um, they get in your DNA, they
make you a certain way. And that's why certain things
that when things like racists and things like Jim Crow
can deform, Like, I don't know who my grandmother would
have been if she didn't see people hanging from tree,
he said, fourteen and fifteen years old, Like who do
you get to be? You know? Like who do these

(01:10:36):
kids get to be? Who being ripped away from their
children and I mean from their parents at the border
and scattered all over the country, Like who do you
get to be? So a lot of who we are,
that's how we were raised. And her father and I
made very clear decisions about trying to create spaces that
felt safe and um, supported and creative and but with

(01:11:01):
some boundaries, like she won't one of them boundaries, boundaries
because we didn't want to one of the little Brady
crazy no bradies. So um, that's the legacy to right
again full circle. When you say, oh I want I
want black girls to be free, you better be ready

(01:11:24):
for what freedom looks like in different ways, you know.
And sometimes she's like freedom looks like that, Okay, that's
your freedom, and so my you know, and it's challenging,
it's and it's you know, it's challenging. But but what's
great is we do there are places that we really
connect fashion then we don't. Yeah, exactly. Actually true, It's true. No, there,

(01:11:48):
we we connect way more than we don't. They're just
the moments she'll say something I'm like and I call
her out. But how often does she get called out?
It's me, her close girlfriends, no one on like. I
don't know, all those white trolls call me out, but
not much you actually, so I wouldn't call you out
a white troll. I know we have to go see it,

(01:12:09):
but I have a question. Yeah, let see you said
we have to. You know, you get to pick what
your freedom looks like. So what is your freedom look like?
Both of you glitter? So the one glitter that's it.
That's really it. Freedom looks like glitter? This, I mean this,

(01:12:33):
This is what my freedom looks like like. Four different
black girls sitting in a room talking about what their
freedom looks like. That. I hope you enjoyed that interview
as much as we did. Thanks for listening, and we'll
be back next week with another interview. Afro Punk Solution

(01:12:55):
Sessions is a co production between Afro Punk and How
Stuff Works. Your hosts are Bridgett and Eve's Jeff Cope.
Executive co producers are Julie Douglas, Jocelyn Cooper and Kuan
latif Hill. Dylan Fagan is supervising producer and audio engineer.
Many many thanks to Casey Pegram and Annie Reese for
their production and editorial oversight, and many thanks to her

(01:13:16):
on the ground Atlanta crew Ben Bowland, Corey Oliver and
Noel Brown. The Underside of Power is performed by Algiers.
Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Apropo