I Am Because We Are (Featuring Denali Joël)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, BFFs, Jojo here and excited to share with you
all that we are nominated for Outstanding Podcast the Full
Figured Industry Awards or the f FIAS, which honors the
work and commitment to plus size, big and Tall and
full figure communities through fashion blogging, podcast artistry, and more.
We are so honored to be nominated and looking us

(00:21):
open from now to Maine fourteenth on the FFIs dot
com or the linkin our Instagram bio. Think you've listened
to us, rock with us, loving us, and thank you
for voting for us.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Bye.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
The Black Fat Film Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio
and Doctor John Paul LLC. All right, hey everyone, welcome
to another episode of the Blackfatfilm Podcast where all the
intersections that were unity are celebrated. I'm one of your hosts,
John also known as dot dot John Paul. And while
you are out spending all the money that you don't
have on Trader Joel's bags, I've been here trying to

(00:56):
figure out what it is about those damn bags. Got
y'all niggas going nuts?

Speaker 4 (01:02):
No, I don't get it, Like, like can we can
we can we talk about it?

Speaker 5 (01:07):
So?

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Am I am? I a mixed company because I'm not
a huge trader Joe fan. I feel like everything about
that place is off, Like the people are a little off,
the food is a little off. Like something just doesn't
sit well with me about that place. I'm not trying
to yet, nobody's young, but y'all are really out here
spending thousands of dollars on different color trader Joe back, Like,

(01:32):
I isn't that the point of having the bag supposed
to be? So y'all didn't spend a lot of money
or bags, and now y'all are spending.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
Thousands of dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
I don't get it. I don't.

Speaker 6 (01:45):
Let's also be clear the bags themselves are selled for
three dollars, like they're not that expensive, but people are
selling them on eBay and such a thousands thollands.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Do not under Okay, So.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
I'm a tack of your one at a time because
it's says of the things that I had not love
and things I did love. So the first thing you know,
so I too, I don't understand. So the bad drop
was a guy for me, I had no idea as
a thing. Like one of my best tides here text
me and was like, girl, do you want to come
with me to get these bags? I was like, and

(02:22):
they were like the trade Joe's bags. My first I
was like, this shop, they're like paper bags.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Like, what's that deep? What I do about it? We go?
There's a line out the door, like a line around
the corner.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
I said, that's wild. I was just there for some
moral support. I wasn't there to buy no bags. I
happened to get four backs because they were seldom. I
was like, girl, buy I'll buy four backs for three bucks.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
You are part of the problem.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
More bus girl. I don't give a fuck. I'm fine
with it.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
I listen.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I mean, I love it to trade Joe's. I love
a keylowte bag. So I said, girl, get it. What
sounds good? And then I find out And then mind you,
the male person was on line behind me and the
male person, so the person I looked after her, I.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Said, wait what I said? I said, just to be clear,
if my male is late, I'm going to find I'm
going to find you. She was like, I'm on lunch.
And I was like, okay, I pray.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
That's true because if she like like, and she she
like she uh. Because I had went once I got
two bags my frink im two more later, so I
was I was gonna get two bags, but she was like,
can you please give me two more bags and I'll
pay you. And I was like and in my in
my head, I was like, I was like a thousand buzzbeach,

(03:33):
go ahead.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
But I have been like like like I bought batim
gave to her.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
She was like, most girl, run me my mail, though,
do not forget my mail.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
Ridiculous but like.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
So so just just ridiculous as fuck. But like they
have good ship there, they have delicious you have the
ship's bomb. Mostly some stuff is not good. Some stuff
is good. You haven't had the right stuff and that's fine,
you know. Or the girls who get to get the
girl who don't know't and that's okay. I'm okay with
being a girl that don't. I just don't.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
I mean, I'm a little jealous of the girls who
get to eat all the chocolate, you know how they
have that chocolate through that little out eat all the chocolate.
I can't beat that girl. But I'm a little jealous
of that. But other than that, I'm not a trader
Joe's girl.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
But anyway, how are you Joho.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
My god, girl, I've been through.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
I've been through, but fam it is you're an aka
your girl Joho the other girl and this co host
and do one?

Speaker 4 (04:23):
How was it today?

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Today? My my, my littenils are giving.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
I'm I'm I'm here.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
For I would they're they're definitely sisters, not twins. I
wish this one is giving more giving, more twins vibes.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Someone actually like really one on? Yes, I like that
one too. You're right, she's giving Carl curl the house
down boo.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
I prefer the more a long. I prefer the more along.
Gad girl, I mean for this.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
But she came then, but knowing the mind of its own,
so I said, that's it's okay, and I'm you know,
but you know, and I'm I I live a girlless today.
This week has been like I finally, this is how
you know that you found like a product that you love,
because that's product that I haven't I like lost a
month ago and haven't used it for a month, and
I find by it again. I said, oh go, I
miss this. My curls have miss this products. Now I

(05:10):
feel like I am back in my curly bag. She's
giving everything, House down Boots.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
Time what it is because they're not sponsoring the shows.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
I got you, got you. I'm also and I heard
you sponsors.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
I have this, this beautiful fabletics fit on me right now.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
I have a I have a two piece set Greensmont
color girl. I am given today, I am giving. I'm
feeling it.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
I'm feeling as you should blast and they're here nor
there because today we are here with the special guests, y'all,
and I'm so excited to introduce them today. John, I
both have both met this person at different times in life.
I met them recently at a reception I photographed for
at to be a Butler exhibit here in sidego that
they were a fellow for you. Now John has met
them the GOT Awards. I know that they I know

(05:50):
they met them in other spaces as well too. They
are an incredible artist, a storyteller, a cultural bearer, fashionables,
how house down boots and looks amazing.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
The face is always right, the hair is always laid.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Please welcome our our girl today, Danali, Joe El how are.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
You when I tell you so?

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Let me let me say this before we we fully
get into the show. If you were to open the
dictionary and you looked up the word ethereal, your face
is right next to it. I have said ever since.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
Agree.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
I literally literally went out of my way to walk
up to you when I first met like, who is
this one?

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Who is this girl?

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Who is this beautiful being that I'm just walking back
like you are? You're just like I literally have I
said that to you. I said, if God was to
snatch me up and say, do you want to go
back down to that shithole, I would definitely say yes,
and I would want it to be as like a
carbon copy of you.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
You are everything to me.

Speaker 5 (06:50):
Literally, can I just get a clip of this just
to you know, have on to repeat.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
I got you. Well, we'll have Chris that over to you.

Speaker 5 (07:01):
Equally excited to just know you and be in your
life and your presence. And honestly, I think about you
so many times when when I think about the ways
in which you moved through the world in her an
apologic way, I'm just like, yeah, I want to tap
into that energy sometimes p in my own way. And

(07:21):
when I see you just moving just spight, energetic, effen,
those are things that come to mind, I'm like, Yeah,
when I grow up, I want to be like them.

Speaker 4 (07:32):
Oh god, it is dead too.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
You could grow up and be just like me. Yes,
somebody is dead.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
We can leave that people around.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Yes, I know.

Speaker 5 (07:48):
When we met, like we were, you know, chatting it
up and it was an an interesting space. We were
talking about the beauty of the space but also just
the politics of it, like, yeah, this is somebody who
I just want to I was really happy to be here.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Joho is Joho. Let me tell you, I can literally
have the worst day and I'll see Joho and my
whole day is better, Like just immediately you. Yeah, there
is not enough words in the English dictionary to express
how much I'm I too, am blessed for knowing Joho.
So this is this is gonna be a really good time.
We're gonna have a really good show for our for

(08:27):
for not only just the listeners, but even for me.
This week has also been a week and so I'm
definitely really excited for us to be together. So with
that being said, we are going to kick off our
show like we typically do. We're gonna honor our girl,
Miss Tisha Campbell, because we're what I'm I'm here, yes, yes, yes,

(08:49):
And in this segment, I know that we're all artists,
and we all kind of do our own things and
our own rights. And so with that being said, considering
that this conversation is going to lean very heavily into
the idea of art and how art can be very healing,
I wanted to talk about black art, and I wanted
to ask, while we all love to consume black art,

(09:10):
I wanted to know, as we consumer, as we think
about it, as we created, whatever the case may be,
what are some of your favorite parts of black art.
And it can be anything, it can be the process,
it can be the way it shows up in the world.
But I would love to know that. So I know
for me, I had made a note here where I
had said the thing I love about black art, I'll
go and then I'll go ahead, throw to you Danali,

(09:31):
and then will throw to you Joho. I was gonna say,
I love black art because art really, I find that
black art doesn't need to be defined, like it doesn't
need to be explained, like it's like when you see it, right.
I know for me, like I didn't put this in
the show flow, but I know for me, like so recently,
I stayed in a hotel in Las Vegas, and there

(09:53):
is this black there's this big piece of black art
in one of the hotels I stand regularly. Again not
go say they name because they're not sponsored on the show,
but with that being said, when you walk through the
when you walk through the area, there's a whole bunch
of different black arts that are on display, and it's
just for me. I was like, I stared at it

(10:15):
and I just was like I get it, like I
get it, like I get every piece of it. There's
no need for someone to come over and detail it
to me. It was like I totally got it. And
so I think about our music, I think about our clothes,
I think about paintings, I think about just everything. And
then I also think about that black telepathy conversation. We
had a couple of episodes too, Like black just isn't

(10:37):
an identity. It's a shared experience and even though it's
not a monolith, we are all still connected in some way.
And so every time I see any element of black art,
it's like I just I get it, and it just
it feels good to be kind of a part and
not have to be that white person or another person
from another race trying to figure it out or comprehend
it or need someone to bring it down. It's like,

(10:58):
I don't need all that I got, So what about y'all,
what about using aale?

Speaker 5 (11:02):
I think what comes to mind first in terms of
black art, the thing that I love the most is
that it's an embedded experience, right. It doesn't exist separate
from the person. Yeah, it's constantly in conversation with who
you are, with the community and with the self, you know,
your own personal evolution. I think it's ubiquitous. It cannot

(11:26):
be placed in just or contained rather in like a
gallery space. It exists in our everyday experience. The ways
in which we cook that's art to me, you know,
the way we style our hair, that's art. And I
think it's one of those just experiences that doesn't need

(11:48):
and moves beyond definition.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, And can I say this real quick before. It's
the fact that everybody wants to be us like hard
We literally like there're nothing in this world. And I've
seen this in so many different variations, but I say
it all the time. Nothing in this world moves without
black people and black belt. Yeah, nothing like everything started

(12:13):
with us, and it just it's such a beautiful thing.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
What about you? What's on your mind?

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Joh I just I love this question so much because
black art is really like it's just so like I
just it's so central to wham. I feel like black
art explores so many themes in some ways, like we
like microcosmic of the world around us, right like, like
we explore themes our freedom, but also like a bondage.
We explore themes of like love of self and love

(12:38):
of others. We explore themes of like just existence and
existence being resistance but also resistance in a very like
capital are actionable way. I think the art I love
considering the most. I just love, I really love like
like black photography and like like like like like pot
photos of black art or black photographers I'm really thinking of.

(13:01):
I saw this exhibit at the Museum of Back from
Gaspar and s Francisco a few years ago. I believe
their name was Quill Lemons, and they do work based
off of like interrogeting masculinity through photography, and it was
just like so powerul right, like to explore like black
black about blacknesslinity through a queer lens because obviously, right,
like like blackness is so synonymous with masculine a way,

(13:23):
and it's not amos. People will equate it to like
toxic masculine or like ore balance, which is mean that
I'm always constantly themout interrogating. But it's special to see
like softness, and that's something that I just you know,
don't like. It's not an experience that many of many
of us get growing up, especially like specially with like
black parents and so and so it's it's I think

(13:44):
I really love consuming like art that explores that, and
and generally I really agree with you, Like black art
is everything everywhere, like anything that we do.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Sometimes I'm like, this is actually.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Art, like like like the like I or like I
went to it's called the Black Flea Market in l
A last year, and it was it was amazing because
it was I went to see dough cheap Reform. It
was so dope because like it live love and like
and like it was.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
It was right.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
It was right when Alia by safar Hill came never
came came out, and I was like, this is the
last time she will be in a space like this,
Like I know from here on out she's going to
be booked only on like Arena sages of not More.
But it was so dope, right, like seeing so many
black folks in like black style, like black fashion, like
somebody some reforms of black hair, so so they did

(14:33):
like we were all different colors.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Like it was just so dope.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
I was like, this is what black Heart looks like, right,
And that's when that album bringing San Diego because it
was like, we don't get to have this here, and
so I think, yeah, I think you know Blackhart, like
it's everything we do. John As just said, we wear
the blueprint. People try about us all the time, and
I just never and they could. They can never be
they can never be us.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Sometimes I just went my face because I can see it.
I can see people trying to be us, and I'm
just like, it's not work.

Speaker 5 (15:03):
It won't because it comes from a level, right, so
codified in our being that it's it's just something that
emits from the body plane. It's not something that you
can like they love to capture and colonize and collect.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Amen, I don't.

Speaker 5 (15:24):
I don't like those words within the art face.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
So you know, it's so for that it's so true,
like like like like you like people who try to
be us, right, like they they they have to like
consciously try and like we don't have to try, like
like the second we open our open our mouths, like
that's what comes out of us.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
We don't have to try to be something different and.

Speaker 5 (15:45):
So particularly we're very artful.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, oh.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
A word the everything, Like I sent a clip to
you Joe a couple of was it last yesterday or
day before yesterday? But it was like, you know, folks
saying what are the what are their favorite que words?
And immediately went to my mind of like these are
queer black words like this started and that it.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Was so.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Y'all got to know this, right, y'all gotta know.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
That was somebody.

Speaker 7 (16:10):
It's giving clock the clock you have liked and did
and the boots and the boot does that mean he's
I have no, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeahs like our lingo is everything. I love the way
we talked to one another.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Okay, family, Well, while we try and find can did
wildly to see if he'll drive slight the Obamas, we
gotta take a quick break.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Well we'll be real quick. Also real quick.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
We'll be back with more, with more than Joel in
just a bit. Okay, family, we are back and I
am excited for us to get into the journey of
Joel and for audience to really know who you are
ginally to be. I would love for us, I would

(17:01):
love for you to tell us about how you've been
shaped by the migrant black and trans experience is going
to be how those experiences influence your art and work.

Speaker 5 (17:10):
Yeah, so by the accent, I am not born and
raised in the US, born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica.
I fled Jamaica in twenty fourteen as a pilum seaker
because of just the political persecution regarding my corediness. I
knew as I was evolving in my art practice, I

(17:33):
wanted to allow that art to come from a real
and true place. And it couldn't come from that place
if I was performing a version of myself that was
somebody else's imagination of who I needed. And so in
order to have a safe space to incubate and really

(17:54):
discover that identity, I needed to move. And so when
I talk about migration, I've always talking about in this
dual sense, migration geographically, but also migration in terms of
just transfiguration, changing and giving over to evolution of the cells, right,
and so As I migrated from Jamaica, I also started

(18:16):
my migration away from misogyny or misogynore, you know, the
things that I was conditioned into believing. I mean, thankfully
I was never one of those horrible folks, but still
so much of it is ingrained in us that we
have to do the work to start undoing that. It's
not just a thing of waking up one day and

(18:38):
then deciding, hey, this is who I am, but still
perpetuating a lot of that kind of like male brained
patriarchal way that continues to harm the black fem and
black woman bodies, right, and so that transition has to
happen simultaneously. As I moved from Jamaica. No, there was

(19:01):
also grief our own that because I'm an only child,
so I left behind my mother and we always had
a very strained relationship. And then I also have a
child of my own, and I also left her behind
with the hope of creating a safe space for her
here so that she could transition as well later on.

(19:25):
But that's become kind of like a sticking point for
me personally, because it escalated into our custody battle that
I started because I did I knew I had a
right to be in my child's life, regardless of my
queerness or gender non conform conforming identity, but I was

(19:51):
pushing against a culture that would have continuously supported her
stance morally, because Jamaica is a contributed and fundamental Christmas.
So through grief, I phoned my way into my art
practice and I said to myself, you know, if it

(20:13):
is that I'm to reconnect and reunite with my child
in the future, I want the version of me that
she needs to be, the healed version.

Speaker 4 (20:22):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (20:23):
That way I can hold space for the healing that
we need to have we need to have together. So
that's the journey I've been on as well. It's also
being able to break the generational curves of the women
in my life feeling dejected, feeling unfulfilled. And so I've

(20:50):
kind of taken on this dismantle of looking at my
mother and my two aunts who I was raised with,
and their ambitions, their dreams that weren't fulfilled. And I've
just like taking up on myself to be like, hey,
this is your opportunity to do the work to build
and bring the dream forward. And I think I'm trying

(21:12):
to do that so that my daughter can be a
part of that lineage and legacy work that I'm trying
to do. So that's the migration component. Now, the past
ten years has been stressful just in terms of fees
dealing with immigration. I remember going to the USCIS office

(21:32):
in New York because that's where I landed, and I
took a long journey there. I think I had a
few quarters and some change just to pay for the
train to head out there. By the time I got there,
the office had closed and they stopped seeing anybody, and
I started to plead to the security God, please, you
know I'm coming from Afar. Can I please be seen

(21:55):
by somebody? I just need an update on my face
and said to me, sir, you need to leave now.
I said, okay, I'm going to lead. Just give me
a moment to just collect myself because, as you can imagine,
I'm emotional. And then he proceeded to reach for his holster,
his gun holsters to I guess flix and say to

(22:20):
me because immediately I was now a threat. Right, A
black person in an emotional state, which is valid and warranted,
you know, is a threat. So that was like a
very interesting turning point for me in terms of how
I viewed my blackness and transitioning out of the way

(22:40):
I knew myself in Jamaica, a predominantly black country. Yeah,
you know, understanding myself as a racialized person within this
new environment. And so a lot of the rhetoric around
black folks in Jamaica, you know, oh, they're lazy. In America,
you know, they wear corn rows to work, they're unprofessional

(23:03):
because those are things you just don't do in Jamaica. Right,
It took years before there there was a black woman
on TV with locks reading the news, and this is
a predominantly black society. But it just goes to show
you how the experiment of colonialism it's.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
Yeah, it's everywhere, Yeah, everywhere works.

Speaker 5 (23:26):
And so for me, there was that that transition from
the mentality as well that was taking place because that
was a wake up call for me. And so my
art is always in conversation with all of those three elements.
It's trying to connect across geographies, it's connecting across and
within and outside of binaries, and it's also uplifting the

(23:49):
black fem experience as it is experienced within the American context.

Speaker 4 (23:56):
M that's wow.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Well one, thank you for being so honest and for
sharing that, because I think, I mean, you could have
packed away a lot of that and you could have
just said everything's fine, everything's good, everything's okay, and you didn't,
and so I appreciate you sharing so much of what
that journey is. I always tell people, I think it's
interesting because we talk as a country, we talk a
lot about immigration, and we talk about immigration reform, and

(24:21):
often I find that black immigrants, specifically immigrants from like
you said, Jamaica, immigrants that are from trying to think
of the name of the country, Uh, yeah, Nigeria, even
the one that's more closer to us. Right, there are
a lot of what what country is that I'm thinking Haiti?
Thank you a lot of you know, there are a

(24:43):
lot of states specifically, like when you get into Connecticut
and you start getting, you know, more into the the
upper parts of the US. Right there are a lot
of folks from Haiti that are that are there, and
I find that they are the ones that are left
out of these immigration immigration conversations. Uh, we don't talk
about migrants being black people. We don't talk about migrants
being queer people. We don't talk about the the migrants

(25:05):
who are who have experienced, you know, intersectional oppression, and
so I love that you center that in your work,
and so I did want to ask this question. You know,
I know from what I know about you or from
what I've researched and done about you. Afro Indigenous philosophy
a montu uh it Asa and san Yeah, yeah, hushun Sankofa.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
I I as a college student, I can't ask their
philosophies that you have. You know that that you really
truly bake into a lot of the work that you do,
And I even ask that question. I'm like, is that
the reason why you're so damn ethereal uh? But I
know that those are pieces that really move and spark
your work, and so I guess one of the questions

(25:51):
that I have is, how have you Why is it
so important for you to root those pieces in the
work and in the art that you create, Because it
would be real easy for you to kind of remove
yourself and say, I'm going to do art that is
very Americanized that's easy to sell or easy to get,
you know, notoriety for right, So it would be easy

(26:11):
for you to dismiss that, But why is it so
important for that to be like kind of you know,
put kept in your work.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
That's in part that shit crazy, crazy to think that
I can be, you know, one of those to shift
the ways in which we engage with art as not
just a commercial or commodity. Right. But also you said it,
it's the routing. It's this constant inquiry of mine to

(26:43):
find the place where I can root myself, especially somebody
who has experienced homelessness. Just before I moved to the US,
actually I was on host for two years and was
bouncing between like eleven different places, right, And so I
had to realize that home was a place that started
within and then wherever I was there too, I created home,

(27:09):
I externalized it, right, And so those philosophies create that
kind of grounding and rooting for me, regardless of the
winds of change, regardless of the energy that I'm coming
up against. If I am rooted in this idea of Sankofar,
then it means that I'm always going to be paying

(27:29):
attention to where the story began in the past and
using that as a tool and mechanism to push it forward.
So much of what I've seen within the American context,
especial as the Black American context, is just a reduction
of our histories and our stories. And so my work
is in how is it that we take from the past,

(27:52):
creating these living archives through fashion, art cultures that I
may do through photography, through film, and now housing it
in such a way that I feel is most accessible
to the people who need it the most. So I'm
less concerned about how abstracted is and how commercially viable
it is. I'm more curious about the ways in which

(28:14):
my art it feels easily accessible. So, for instance, when
I look at my resume, it sometimes I feel like
it's lacking, because that's another If you look at another
artist's residate, resume is sorry. You will see a list
of gallery exhibitions, right, That's the thing that I guess

(28:35):
is the benchmark of worth and success for me. You
will see a list of community centers and organizations and
use spaces that I've worked with, because they are who
need it there, who need to learn about who they are.
If my work only exists within gallery or museum spaces,
then it only exists as a spectacle to the white

(28:58):
gays interested in that right, g A z E or
the g A.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Let's be clear, let's be clear, yes, yes, yes, yes,
but I felt both in that moment.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:16):
Yeah. So so there there's where Sankofa comes in and
then Ubuntu, which means I am because we are. It's
a constant reminder for me that I can't be centering individuality.
We live in a very individualistic society where everybody is
trying to make it and become the next big thing,

(29:37):
and we fail often to see how we are playing
into the oppressor's tools because that then isolates us. And
so with Ubuntu, I am because we are. Then it
means that everything I do is collaborative and it's it's
in service to me as it is in service to you.

(29:57):
And the last one I'll share is Asha and what
that is. It's rooted in this Yoruba gun tradition of
creating with design sensibility, with a social consciousness, paying attention
to the times, and ensuring that what you created in
conversation with the time. Yeah. So therefore it's not just
existing just for esthetic purposes. It's existing to move us

(30:20):
into a particular experience, move us into out of ignorance,
into knowledge. It's it's creating with a sense of responsibility,
knowing that this thing that I'm doing is not just
existing for me, but it's existing in service to the community.

Speaker 7 (30:38):
M m hm.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
And I know my thought here, oh you said so much.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
My first thought is I'm like, my god, why aren't
you teaching Africana studies or anything in.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
That regards, because I'm still learning.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah, either way, I still feel like you teaching the
kids so much. Even me, I'm like you you're I'm
sitting here like, yes, yes, I'm like, where is my
notepad so I could take some notes.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
But I was gonna say.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
I think the other thing is I appreciate that you
said that you want to stay on the ground because
I think, folks, there are so so much about art that, like,
even for me as a little black kid, nobody was
taking me to museums. Nobody was explaining to me, what
you know what black artists we're talking about? Three I
mean obviously, like I mean, I didn't learn about Audrey Lawrence.

(31:28):
I got to college right like I didn't learn about
you know, I didn't learn about any really any artists.
And when I mean like creative per se, I should
say I didn't really learn much about black creatives until
I started taking women studies courses, and so I think
I love the idea of what you're saying. I'm being
with the people. I got to be with the people
because a lot of our people are left out of

(31:49):
these larger conversations museums and art and creativity. Like even
thinking about what if I if somebody would have set
me down and said this is how I mean. I
know this is not related, but it's related. If somebody
would have set me down at sixteen or seventeen and said, John,
this is how you use you know, Adobe Premiere, or
this is how you use Photoshop, how much different my

(32:09):
life would have probably looked Because I love design, Like
I'm that is something I always People always ask me,
did you do this on Canva?

Speaker 4 (32:15):
And I'm like, yes, I did.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Like I'm that good at what I do because I've
learned and I've had to teach myself how to do it.
But I'm thinking if I had the initial like gumptionin
if someone would have pushed me to actually do that,
my life would have looked so different because I would
have been able to like lean into the creativity that
I think lives in me. So I love that you're
doing that. I just really wanted to give you kudos

(32:37):
for that.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, it's really beautiful to hear you talk about like
the thing the three. The essence of the three that
I get that I'm hearing from you is intention holy
tran intentionality, community and accessibility. And that's so like so
so dope. You know, uh meture a friend of all
of ours, Kelsey Daniels, thought that she actually they actually

(33:01):
they actually him voked same folks a lot.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
And and I and I've always been like like like
like did they make this play? I think, what what
does this mean? Folk?

Speaker 5 (33:10):
I don't know?

Speaker 1 (33:11):
And so I've been glad that you're here to like
actually share because now what like, oh this actually makes
much sense? Like now actually like and many clicks as
like as all the moments in which Kelsey has has
invoked I'm like, oh, I know exactly what they mean
now by it. So it really is just like so amazing.
And I really appreciate like the through line you gave
for all the three of them of how they move

(33:31):
you in your art, especially especially love the idea of
necessarily so much, because that's that's that's just that's just
something I'm thinking a lot about, especially with like Black Pride,
you know, the work we do here making the successible
and making like like we're looking up a partnership with
a theater company, and I'm because I'm like, I want
figure to be accessible for black folks, like y theater
we think is some like white thing that white folks

(33:53):
can do and go, but like we also can and
like like like like like we we we deserve literacy
around theater and place and storytelling in us in this way.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
And so I really just like I just I love
that so much.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
And you know, you're an artist of so many mediums,
with work being around the country, if not the world.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
I know, I hear you on your.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Resume not looking like a bunch of like residencies and galleries.
But to me, your resume is a global resume that
impacts people in different spaces, and dare I say, might
be I think more more impactful, like right, like like
instead of your work being at instead of your work
being at like a central gallery every as they forced

(34:35):
to come and pay to gather, your work is in
the central place where people actually meet and like community
each other. And that's really really special I'm curious to
ask you what medium of art do you do you
feel most connected to, and how do you feel and
how do you envision that are influencing the the communities
in which you reflect.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
That's so easy. Fashion a day.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
Let me tell you before you give your answer, there's
not a day. Let me tell you right now.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
The day I start making coin you dressing me, I
will be coming to you saying, can't you I'll look together.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Down every time.

Speaker 5 (35:23):
I've lost so much. I've lost so much over the
years that I think I have this breath, I have
this energy, and I just have to honor it by
showing up, to honor myself and celebrate every day. So
I don't wait for permission or somebody to tell me

(35:43):
this is the event, so you dress up. Even when
I was doing the nine to five since moving here,
it was always a fashion show, and it was always
in service to me and also to the folks in
the space, you know, because it was the most humbling thing.
When folks will say, I mean Denally, I put this
on and I thought of you this morning, you know

(36:05):
it means that. And my therapist said to me once,
she said, why do you feel like you need to
do more. Just by showing up, you change his faith.
And so my relationship with fashion, I'll tell you quickly
where it started and where it is at now. So
I grew up with a seamstress, being the only child
of you know, a mother who was trying to find

(36:28):
a way to just take care of me. And I
watched her. She never thought to teach me because to her,
her quote unquote, boy child shouldn't that's just not you know,
the future she sees for me, I needed to become
the doctor, the lawyer, and I guess in some ways,

(36:51):
to her, the sewing felt like a survival. It wasn't
something that she saw that could become more than what
it was. And that was the thing that was the
most exciting to me about my mother, her creativity, her resourcefulness.
She would take scraps of fabric and make these amazing

(37:12):
pillow covers outfits for friends of the TRUP And so
I grew up watching her. And when I decided to
shift out of the corporate world in Jamaica because after graduating,
even before graduating, honestly, I was working in marketing and
PR and then somehow it clicked for me that I'm

(37:33):
into esthetics. I'm into perception management and helping folks to
really be more impactful when they enter certain spaces, and
so I went into styling and image consulting. Did that
for a few years, gained a lot of notoriety. I
tell you a joke about the time I realized that
I was kind of like a big deal in Jamaica.

(37:55):
It was when I was at this event hosting some
wedding expo and these two young men in their school
uniforms were at the event and they're like, oh my god,
you know who that is. And they're standing up and
I'm hearing the name earshot of them, and they start
pushing each other like no, you go say hi, No,

(38:16):
you go say hi. And then I turned to them
I said Hi. I'm like, oh my god, Hi. We
love your show. Because I would show up on the
morning show occasionally to get styleist, et cetera. When I
moved to New York City, I had no job, and
the first job I got, incidentally was a costume designer
because a friend of mine was working as a stage

(38:38):
manager at a black theater in Queens. And so that's
how I started off in costume design. And then it
shifted around twenty nineteen when I decided, let me get
into this fashion thing. Maybe I could, you know, really
create a brand. I did that for a millision. Immediately

(38:59):
I realize, like you said, joho, I approach everything with
such intentionality, and I knew there were stories I wanted
to tell. And I remember having our conversation about these
people who live off the coasts of South Carolina, like
the glic each Nation and everybody else who I talk to,
who you know, were skin folk, a lot of them

(39:20):
more clueless about these people. I'm like, oh, yes, that
you don't know these and so I was like, maybe
I can create a body of work that tells the
story of who these people are. And so it transitioned
out of creating garments to sell into creating garments that
were living archives that you know, are learning through the

(39:42):
esthetic quality. That's the thing that's pulling you into it.
And then once you're there, you're learning about your history
and your lineage within this country. And so that's where
I'm at now, where I have these complex conversations about
my own trans experience as a non binary person, but
also migration across different bodies of water, trying to connect

(40:06):
the threads across the Black American experience, the Afro Caribbean experience,
and the Afro Indigenous experience in parts of West Africa. Yeah,
to really show that it is through recognizing that that
commonality that's how we're going to get forward. It has

(40:26):
nothing to do with these systems that white folks builds
were never built and imagine in mind, never we're constantly
failing as we're trying to move and advance in them
because they were never built for us. In mind, yes,
could we have a larger conversation about free threading and

(40:47):
weaving together a new, radically imagined future. So I used
the threading together of fashion pieces to melt those different
viewpoints and almost show the commonality and that, you know,
there's more that brings us together than separate.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
So my god, hmm, you just your storytelling is amazing.
I just I could listen to you for hours.

Speaker 4 (41:13):
I really could. I really could.

Speaker 5 (41:16):
No, You're not.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
It is like I'm following and I'm thinking to myself,
how cool it would be to, you know, to like
not only see this stuff in an exhibit, but I'm like, God,
the work you could be doing on like a television
show or you know, my thought of like what if
you if you designed, like if you were working on centers,
how that would have looked? Like I know everyone's been

(41:39):
talking about that, but I'm just saying, what black black movies, right,
Like like black cinematography, your knowledge and your experience paired
with like a great director or a great you know, cinematographer,
how beautiful those things would look on screen. I don't know,
I just I see so much for you. I see

(42:01):
so much for your creativity. And I appreciate you saying
this because I think, you know, even for me, right,
Like you know, I have you know, we have the show,
and then I have my book, and I have all
these things that are you know, that feel good. And
then sometimes I'm like, why am I left out of
the conversation? And then it's like, oh, that's why, because
these systems weren't built for me, and they weren't built

(42:22):
for my story, they weren't built for my voice. And
so it's reaffirming the idea that the only way will
ever really be validated is when we are in community
with one another and when we are genuinely giving each
other the flowers like we're doing now right, Like we're
giving you your flowers and continue.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
For me, this is being on your show means more
to me than if I was called to be I
guess on of you maybe, And that's the kind of
reframing that I've had to do mentally to recognize that
my community, my friends see me, they have this platform,
and they've invited me here. This is the benchmark of
success for me. Yeah, because if anything else outside of

(43:01):
that becomes a benchmark of success, then I'm reinforcing the
status qual right. My goal is not to be seen
in Vogue. I could care less about being in Vogue
magazine because the book has historically fumbled up, right, and
we're constantly pandering and asking for representation, And I'm like,

(43:23):
what's the point of representation If everything else behind it
is performative? What's the point of it if it is
that is, there aren't black folks who have the power
to make decisions behind the scenes. So I'm less interested
in that, you know, I love a cute Vowe cover
every now and then I engage with it as like

(43:44):
you know, media, but I'm also aware that there's so
much more that we can imagine, and we have been
imagining and creating, and so I'm always celebrating everybody's wins
before these other people start seeing and paying attention and saying, oh, no,
you're worthy, because I see that we do that unfortunately.

(44:07):
And when I say we, I am talking about skin folk.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
Right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean we talk about.

Speaker 5 (44:12):
We celebrate, you know, when we see, like for instance,
John suddenly New York Times bestseller, everybody is going to
start paying attention. I'm not interested in being a part
of that. I'm interested in, Oh, John authored a book. Yeah,
I'm uplifting them. I'm reading the book. I'm purchasing the
book because that is the success, that's the win.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
Yeah, And I appreciate you saying that because it was
almost like the universe was like you need to hear
that sis because it is.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
I mean, it's hard. It's hard.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
I think I'll even think about, you know, the awards, right,
even with this show. You know, there are moments where
me and Joho will pour ourselves into like awards, or
we'll ask you know, our team to submit us for things,
and then we don't even get you know, we don't
even get mentioned, and it's just kind of like okay,
And so then when you say when you say that,
right like, this is the pinnacle for success for you

(45:08):
to be on this show. That means more to me
than being able to say I mean, because we still
can't say it's an award winning showy. But what I'm
saying is is to know that my peers see this
as you know, right like, they see this as being
the thing for them. It reminds me and Joho, you know,

(45:29):
it reminds well one, it reminds me how grateful I
am that I get to do this with someone who
I truly feel is becoming my my best friend, my sister,
my you know, the cousin that I've always wished I've had,
the family. But it also reminds me too of how
I'm how we're creating a larger space for black queer

(45:49):
people to exist outside of the confounds of media. And
that's the thing I'm I've I've constantly having to like
reset myself to keep thinking about like why we why
we do this show the way that we do it
every every week, because you do get caught up. What
you're saying is it's so easy to get caught up
in the white supremacy of it all, to get caught

(46:12):
up in you know, the the the idea of of
white approval and ratings and awards, you know, and waiting
for white people to clap for you. And it's just,
you know, I think I truly needed to hear that
I needed to hear.

Speaker 5 (46:25):
I'm I was able. I wanted to and rest with
both of you.

Speaker 4 (46:34):
Baby.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
You have no idea how much that really resonated with me,
especially this week. This week is like I said, a week,
but it is like this is the best way to
close out the week is to you know, to be
able to to to do this and again hear your
story and here you share so much. So as we
began to crystallize our friends and like guys of black,

(46:56):
queer and trans art, we got to take another break
to pay the man, though the man is a scam
with a special request for Danali, Joel and just a baby.

(47:17):
All right, y'all, So for today's go love yourself, we
wanted to do something a little differently. I know, Danali,
you have put out on social media that you have
been fundraising to support your want to seek refuge outside
of the US, which is totally fair. I've actually had
quite a few people that I know both personally and
people that I know para socially that have said I'm

(47:39):
chucking the deuce. I gotta get the hell out of it,
and which again I don't fault anybody. And if I
knew my black ass could understand anything outside of the US,
I'd be I'd be on my way out too. But
I did want to say, as a queer, black, non binary,
trans artist and immigrant, we want to uplift that here.
So what we will be doing is putting your link

(47:59):
in our description box for folks to be able to
click on it. And if you can send a dollar,
two dollars, three dollars, if you can forego uh, you know,
we all we all trying to stay away from different places.
So if you can take that money that you've been
using and going to other places and put that towards
the NALI, we can help them. But with that being said,

(48:19):
we want to make sure that we still kind of
keep to this honest conversation and the things that I
was thinking about as I saw this right outside of
you know, your plea for support and us talking very
openly about how we can help, you know, immigrants who
are wanting to seek asylum outside of the US because
it is scary. I guess I would love to know

(48:40):
what are some things folks should be keeping in mind
for folks who are seeking to leave, Like what are
the things that we could be doing to support you?
And then I guess I would love to ask the
real question of how are you staying honest with yourself?
How are we staying honest with ourselves in this moment,
about how we're truly feeling, because I think a lot
of us, even for me, at one point, I feel

(49:02):
like I was just kind of like, if I can
just ignore it, you know, for the next four years,
I'll be okay. But I'm starting to realize that a
lot of it actually is bothering me, and it's bothered
it's showing up in different ways. So I guess I
would love to know, you know, what do we keep
in mind as we support you? But also how do
we stay true to ourselves in these type of moments?

Speaker 5 (49:23):
Okay, so quickly I will share that at the beginning
of the year, I got a call from my doctor
saying confirming that I'm not you, that I had on
my sire or it was cancer US And instantly I
was based with the truth about helped finite life experiences.

(49:46):
Thankfully for listeners. I've taken care of it. I am
free of it. I'm doing my labs, you know, checking
up on things, et cetera. But the thing that moved
me from Jamaica to the US is a thing that
is currently moving me from the US elsewhere. And the

(50:08):
reason for that is that we have a thing in Jamaica.
Jump out of friends on a fire mm hmm. That's
what it feels like. Because I was still the lie
everything about the American dream. Were coming here to make it, uh,
the kind of media conditioning that I got, and then

(50:30):
coming here and experiencing and realizing, yeah, no, this is raged.
The whole thing is raped.

Speaker 4 (50:37):
Say that again. I feel shadow scam.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
I'm watching people kill themselves to make it. Martyrdom is
not a part of my personal ethos. Life and more
life is what I'm inviting for myself. Right. And so
we see where we're taught about the lights of Martin
Luther King, and we hear all these wonderful people and

(51:12):
then I'm just like, but where are they? They deserve
to be alive and to be living full life.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
Yeah, real, and.

Speaker 5 (51:22):
For me, living a full life has always been the goal,
and when I stepped through my my apartment door, I'm
confronted with so many of the ills of the world
that I live in. Recently, I went it's it's so
funny you started with with with Trader Joe's not too

(51:43):
hard on them, because Jojo, I do agree with you.
I love the food there, Beau, Yeah, I love the
beefat is, even though other Jamaicans would would would say
it's not that good, but I think it's decent enough
to give me access to home or my birth country,

(52:05):
because Jamaica really doesn't feel like home. But the point is,
I went to Tider Joe's and I have these two
security guards, black men who were lurking watching me the
entire time and making threatening gestures as though they wanted
to beat me simply because of how I looked as

(52:28):
a gender queer, non binary person. And I realized that
not even my favorite grocery store I can go to
and feel safe because folks here feel so entitled to
your body because they are conditioned into the white supremacist
delusion that you are property. And so for black men,

(52:50):
if you are a femme or woman, you are also property. Too,
because that's all they know. And I need to get
out of this matrix. I need to get away from
the lie and the conditioning that this country is the
greatest when when literally we are seeing people dying and

(53:10):
nothing is being done about it. We're also seeing where
the food is poisoning our systems. Like I said, I
was confronted with, just you know how fine ife is.
I want to be somewhere where I'm eating food that
feels like it's nourishing to the body. I want to
be somewhere where culture is at the epicenter of community

(53:32):
and not religion. I want to be in a space
where life is valued, because this country is a very likeating,
negating space. I talk a lot about the language of
violence and life negation in terms of capture in photography
versus composing an image of shooting like things like that.

(53:53):
It's so coded in the American psyching to kill, and
that's not something I subscribe to. And it's so hard
to be in community when we're all busy surviving.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Yep, yep. That's it.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
That is the impetus for me wanting to shift away
from this. I want to give myself a true chance
to experience the fullness of life in a space where
I don't have to worry about I mean, even if
there are biases, right because they hate black folks across
the world, they hate queer folks across the world, But

(54:32):
there are many places in the world where they're not
allowed to just kill you. Here, it seems like it
gets a pass. In Jamaica, I certainly gets a pass.
I was almost killed by a man who thought I
was in a lover's quarrel with a friend and help
me by nighte. I was also assaulted as a way

(54:53):
to correct me, you know. So essentially, the thing I've
been saying to myself late is I want to leave
this place before somebody has the nerve to call me
this hard er. I want to lead this place before
someone feels so impolant to come crashing through my door,
making the mistake by knocking on the wrong door and

(55:14):
still ending my life and not facing any kind of justice.
Because we see it happen off all too often, for
the for the black body, the ways in which they
enter our homes with their guns trying to just control

(55:35):
and eliminate. I'm tired of bearing witness to it. I'm
tired of the healthlessness. I'm tired of the fleeting and
the protesting that seems to fall on deaf ears because
there are more people here who want to uphold the
system than to shift it. So who my, why.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Wake that shit up.

Speaker 5 (55:55):
Up?

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Oh my guad, wow wow, thank you for sharing all
that like you, like, I mean, everything you shared with
us today, Like one want to thank you for you
said earlier about like this being a pinnacle of success
for you, because truly, if truly it feels like like

(56:17):
this episode, I'm like, this is literally what the show
is about.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
This is what like like, this episode is this to
me to say the day, I'm like, this isactly.

Speaker 5 (56:24):
What we do.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
What we do, So thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you.

Speaker 5 (56:28):
Fam.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Now that we have officially fouled for visa to out
this hell'scape of a country, we got to take a
quick break, one last one and we and we get back.
When we come back, we'll get we'll get jigging with
y'all for your favorite segment more in just a second.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
We are back. We are back, my god, and uh
we are jumping into our yes ma'am and our nomn
pam segment. This is the segment where we either talk
about the things that we love or we talk about
the things that we hate, including people. So with that
being said, I this week wanted to shout out for
my guest, ma'am people who move out the damn way

(57:10):
when they see a car come in. I was driving
today and there was this black lady who saw me
and she just started hustling.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
She was moving like she was a little small.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
Lady, but she was her legs And I said, yes, mama,
you got the memo, move out the way.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
I got places to go. I'm on a time frame.
Thank you. I appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
So, black lady who ran past me earlier today, thank you.
I appreciate you. I had places to go, you had
places to go, and you got the fuck asap.

Speaker 4 (57:43):
And I appreciate it. I really do.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
I'm gonna tell you right now, I really do. Now
for my no man Pam. This week, I'm kind of
coming off of a wave of what we talked about
a couple of weeks ago. We talked we had a
full If you did not catch our episode I Believe
in Me Miracles. I think that was episode forty seven.
It was episode forty seven. We talked about religion. I
wanted to kind of talk about this thing, like basically,

(58:09):
I wanted to say, my know man, Pamer Jesus people.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
And what I mean by that is I love God.
I understand who the Lord is.

Speaker 5 (58:18):
You know.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
I appreciate what the universe and what the Lord has
done for me to get me here and keep me here.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
But honey, this idea of want to study the Bible
with you at a coffee shop is not my that's
not my journey, that's not for me. I don't want
nothing to do with that. I don't need you proselytizing
to me about anything related to your religion. And I
say this because my religion is Beyonce, and I truly

(58:44):
believe that Mother can't do anything wrong, even though I
know people critique her quite often. But you don't see
me outside with standing outside with a cowboy Carter sign right,
or a cowboy Carter Vinyl telling people this album here
is the album you need to be listening to you
And if you are not listening to this, you are
a terrible person. That is not my job, that is

(59:04):
not my ministry. That is not what I'm gonna do.
So I'm gonna need you not to do that to me.
Don't come up like leave people out of like if
they're not If no one is interested in your religion,
stop talking about it.

Speaker 4 (59:16):
Don't unless someone explicitly comes to you.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
And says, hey, Joh, I'm thinking about becoming Jude, like
I'm switching over to Jewish faith. I want to switch over.
I want to convert to Jewish Jewish faith, So can
you help me do that. That's a different conversation then
you being like, hey, John, you interested in becoming jew No, like,
no shade, but that's not that's not.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
What I'm here for.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Like please, We've got to stop doing this to people.
So you know, I don't want to study the Bible
with you. I don't want to talk about Jesus and
the Disciples with you.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
No shade. Just I don't want to go to your church.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
I don't care about how I don't care how good
your chicken is after the sermon.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
I don't want it go away.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
That's literally my nomn pad for this week. What about you, Danali?
What are your yes man's and your nomn PAMs?

Speaker 5 (01:00:05):
Oh gosh, I am trying to think of this mm
yes ma'am two oh, I would say yes, ma'am. Two
more opportunities to being in community with wonderful pele like you.

Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
Amen, Amen, Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:00:29):
I truly am grateful. I can't stress that.

Speaker 7 (01:00:32):
I know.

Speaker 5 (01:00:32):
I'm just like, oh my god, here, look my I
made it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
Thank you baby, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
And no man, Pam would be no cultural appropriation as.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Oh I'm working on a project for that right now,
and oh my god, yes please yeah, and I know,
oh yeah, I was gonna say, how do how do
I crash?

Speaker 5 (01:00:57):
That?

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
Would I get in trouble if I just showed up?

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
You shouldn't all that, Okay, it should be accessible?

Speaker 5 (01:01:04):
Yes, there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
I have no I don't know what I'm like.

Speaker 5 (01:01:10):
Do you even pay the table? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Interesting?

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Okay, so it's like I say, only and so I
wasn't sure how it works either, but yeah, interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Well one day, one day we'll be in by for free.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
Joe will be there yet sharing a table.

Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
My probably one of my pieces will be will.

Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
Be yes, yes we will.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Maybe you just want to see you slap anam one tour.
I hope, I hope I live long enough to see
you run up on her.

Speaker 5 (01:01:44):
No, I'd be like, who's that?

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
Yeah, I don't know the lady. I know that's right. Yes,
what about you, Joe?

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
He is crazy and danger.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Oh sorry, I should should I got beef. I'm always
have beef with her. How she did, I'm just always have.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Beef with her. Her and her wack ass bomb. It's
kind of hate. Yeah, I'm always okay. Maya's Van Pam
is at the end of the singers I saw this week.
It really was.

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
Is really giving what everyone says it's giving.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Depends how you look at it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
So I'll talk with a friend who was like, you
were atin as a wild as wild, and I was like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
These are the reasons why I think it's I think
it's ten like and so like like to me.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Right, like I like the get in the grocery don't
don't is how I feel about it. I think I
think it's it's a fantastic film artistically. The subtematography is gorgeous.
The way like like this film to me is like
the Cowboy Carter of like films like like that. That's
why I feel like like it's like like like black

(01:02:59):
like country black on, like a scene like this has
been done this way, and I think.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Not everyone will get it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
And that's okay, right, Like you know, it's not made
for every single person, but if if you watch it
and like think about these things, it's like, oh, it's
truly amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
I wouldn't call it horror. It will people call it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
I wouldn't call it horror film because the horror takes
a while to get it is horror themes and influence
when it gets to the horror parts.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
But it's an hour and commands of like build up, exposition.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
But to me, I think it's absolutely gorgeous and study
unless like I think it's amazing. The scene is amazing,
the music is amazing, like having blues influence a whole
film like this is amazing. Like I really do think
it was a fantastic film. Like like I I would
watch it again, right, like I.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Watched it again.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
I don't I a friend that a friend a friend
that watched it. They they write movies like would they
buy the film and watch times? I don't buy movies
that that anyways, It's like not my reading. But but
like I like I would happily watch again and sit
through again because I thought it was really fantastic. Soapend
of Sinners, Ryan Coogler stopped on that one, No man, Pam,

(01:04:06):
I'll quickly political. But to the city city goes to
our city budget that was put forward by our mayor.
I so interesting thing like, so our mayor recently fired
the city manager, or let me let me rephrase, our
city manager was terminated from the role, which means that
that's person who manages our city budget.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
So the mayor manages the budget instead.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
And the proposation of proposed budget for twenty six is
a thirty million dollar increase of policing, yet a hundreds
of million dollar dollars decreasing from public services like parks,
o creation as our libraries. Funny because I'm like, you
talk about public safety, but you're limiting the things that
keep us safe, like public parks and access to public spaces,

(01:04:51):
and our libraries often provide resources like Wi Fi people
for free who maybe maybe Wi Fi deficient in their housing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
So I just want as a question, Mayor, like why
what what what?

Speaker 5 (01:05:02):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
What's public safety then for you? Because it isn't. Isn't
public safetying for me?

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
So nod that I this is there's a draft one
there are I think there are a thousand public comments
about how bad it was so I think they're going
to do revisions. I'll have another one in May, and
then they'll right in June. So I hope my goal
is I can attend all those sessions to give public
comment and also hopefully by June we have a different
budget that looks different and better for all of us.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Actually, yeah, that's okay. So back to my my original thoughts.
So I just want to ask a question that I
really hope everybody is asking. I would like to know
of a time when police really kept somebody safe, Like
I never. I just every time you hear anything about police,

(01:05:53):
they escalate things to make things worse. And I just
really want to know all these places that are spending
all this money and putting all of this this just
dollars or massive dollars behind policing, when have police ever
really kept anybody safe, especially black people?

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):
I just want to know, wake up.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
I just it really, it really burns me deep in
my spirit every time I hear it, because I'm like,
y'all niggas never make nothing better. Y'all coming, y'all make
things worse, and then you act and then you go, oh,
well we and it's like, but you didn't even have
to come here. You didn't even need to be here,
and now this situation is three times worse because you

(01:06:37):
pulled your Yeah, I just want to.

Speaker 4 (01:06:41):
Know, go ahead, you may no go ahead.

Speaker 5 (01:06:46):
It brings me back to my original thought, which is
that these systems weren't built with us in mind. Right.
If you think about the origins of how the police
were created, they were meant to target folks like you
and yeah, And so we have to continue to interrogate
whose imagination we're living in. I'm very curious about what

(01:07:11):
we could imagine in terms of how do we keep
everyone safe and in short security that doesn't look like
this model of policing and surveillance that we've all known
and accepted as just part of the status quo. And
I really want to put this call out to my
black community, black queer, trans community that we re engage

(01:07:38):
with our imagination. Yeah. I posted something recently on my
Instagram about something along the lines of oppression works well
when it you know, it hits the imagination. And so
we've lost so much of our imagination that it's hard
to imagine a world a community where police are into

(01:08:00):
a part of it. And I really think once we
start imagining other ways of being in community with each other.
We can start creating just just this new outlook on
what that could look like for us in community. And again,
it's so hard to do that, right, So I say that,

(01:08:20):
but I also am bearing in mind the fact that
every time black folks in this country have created some
semblance of community, you know and existing in survival but
also thrival, it's it's denigrated. It's completely demolished. Yeah, yep,
you know, and it's exhausting, yep. It feels like there's

(01:08:41):
no way out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
And it's I don't know. If someone asked me that
this week, someone was like, do you think it'll ever change?
And I honestly just had to say, like I said
that I live with that.

Speaker 4 (01:08:51):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:08:52):
I don't as it should.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
Yeah, I don't. I don't know if we'll ever get
out of this. And I'll even say this, like, I
think my partner was googed because when we went to
New York a couple of weeks ago and we were walking,
we were doing a tour, you know, through Central Park,
and I had to tell them, I was like, you
do know that Central Park was an area where there
were a ton of black people, and they ultimately, yeah,
they cut up the they literally cut cut chopped down

(01:09:17):
and you know, burn people's house black people out of
their homes in this area to be able to create
this park. And he was like, I never knew that,
And I'm like, yeah, of course you don't, because they're
not going to tell you that. But it's just yeah,
I to that point, like, I mean, we can go
on for hours talking about the injustice, but I just
I genuinely want us I will say this. I know
a lot of people. This is this is my call

(01:09:38):
to action for our listeners. I know a lot of
people who genuinely believe, like you said, yoh oh, if
I go to a you know, a meeting and I
say something about what's happening in my community, they're not
going to listen to me anyway. Or if I vote,
they're not going to listen to me anyway. Or if
I go out to the streets, they're not going to
listen to me anyway. I want people to get out
of this idea that it has to be the people

(01:09:59):
in power that has to live listen to you, and
this idea that when you uplift your voice and you
say something and you do something in the thought of community,
how many other people you're inspiring to keep doing what
they're doing. That's where my energy is now, Like, how
do I how do I take my voice? How do
I take my work and uplift people? And instead of
being so focused on you know again we want these

(01:10:20):
people in power to do what's right. Yes, we want that,
but I encourage people please use your voice in every
means possible to get what you want or to have
systems change. Because this idea of oh if I say
something about it is not going.

Speaker 4 (01:10:37):
To change anything. Actually it will, it will, and I
want people to know that.

Speaker 5 (01:10:41):
So why their nature are very complex. I just want
to throw that in and like we need to approach
everything in a multiple state of ways. It can of
bee one way, right, we need everybody, every advocate and
everybody in between.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
Uplift your voices and sing honey. So with that being said,
and we want you to use your voice and send
us your thoughts feedback to our email blackfatflmpod at gmail
dot com.

Speaker 5 (01:11:07):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):
You can also send us your thoughts via social media.
I know some of you interact with some of our
videos and leave us messages there. Love that journey for us,
love that for everybody, And so please head over down
to the Instagram and down to the blue sky and
to you. You can find us on you, well, you
can find me on spill out a little bother us,
but spill anyway, LinkedIn wherever you like to get your information,

(01:11:31):
head on down and leave us a good old comment,
a good old comment, Denali, Where can the babies find you?

Speaker 5 (01:11:40):
Instagram? LinkedIn have a few YouTube videos a TikTok with
a few hundred followers, not that many, but yees, Instagram
is really the place to find me and my website.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
Amen, Amen, we will plug the website Joho, Where can
the dolls find you? For us?

Speaker 5 (01:12:00):
Y'all?

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
You can find me at Jeho Danel's across all the
socials on my website Joan Dale's dot com. If not there,
you'll find me on the streets. Try and find my
entery yeeha as a prepared for the cowboy carter or rodeo.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Baby girl.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
This has been hard.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
I I feel like I have an outfit, but I'm
not one hundred percent sure if I'm gonna love my outfit.
So I'm I'm praying that it comes together the way
that I wanted to have yet to try all of
the pieces on yet, but here we are, and I
just I still I still have a beef with the
people who were like, oh, ain't don't link this album,
and I don't think when Cunor is a green album.

(01:12:36):
But yet most of all the tickets are gone, so
is it? Uchi Wally in one mic because some of
y'all was lying talking about oh I.

Speaker 4 (01:12:46):
Don't LinkedIn album. Me, I'm damn ya ya ya yamyel.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
And yet you're you're gonna be down to Inglewood taking
up all the space where I could be seeing you know,
Beyonce doing the two step in the Yee Hall because
I actually liked the right I love Actually, she says,
it's not one of my it's not my top three,
but I love it right, I do enjoy listening to it.
Two Hands to Heaven is my favorite song on the album.

(01:13:11):
So I just I just I need folks to make
it make sense for me. But anyway, you can visit
my website at ww dot doctor John Paul dot com
and keep buying.

Speaker 4 (01:13:20):
The book Run it Up.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Shout out to everyone who has tapped me or has
sent me a photo letting me know where they have
seen the book.

Speaker 4 (01:13:30):
Folks who are reading the book.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
I have a friend who said that as she's been
putting her kids to sleep at night because she has babies,
so she's been reading the book. Then she sends me
little videos and clips and stuff of her reading it.
It just it means a lot the support that I've
gotten around the book, So continue to keep doing that.
The more you support black folks who are writing shit,
the more they'll keep giving us publishing deals because there's

(01:13:52):
there's so much more where that has come from.

Speaker 4 (01:13:56):
But also review the book too. I've been telling people.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
If you have not reviewed the book, even if you
just want to say this book was great period, that's
fine with me, but please review the book.

Speaker 4 (01:14:05):
It means a lot to us. It means a lot
to me. All right, y'all, well, we're about to get
up out of here.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
We want to thank our producer Bay Wang for handling
all of the logistics, and everyone over at iHeartMedia for
keeping the show up and running. We would also love
to shout out our wonderful editor, Chris Rogers, because without him,
there would be no visuals down to.

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
The tubes of you this has been another show.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
Stay black, fat, femine, fabulous, and remember we may not
be your cup of tea and that's all right, but
get some water because I know you're thirsty, and check
your sugar levels like me.

Speaker 4 (01:14:40):
I know you might have dive beat us.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
If you're thirsty, you might got the sugars and that's
all right, but you got to make sure that you're
checking your vitals.

Speaker 4 (01:14:50):
I love us for real. Y'all have a good one
until next week.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
Fine, I can do about it.

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