thepackworld

Kavon Martez is Cultivating a Community Through the Game of Basketball

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 01:51:28 GMT

Basketball has a close relationship with the inner cities across the world. Sports such as tennis, golf, hockey, gymnastics, and so on, are not accessible for many black kids to participate in at an early age. A lot of this can be traced to a lack of access to resources within communities. With basketball, the game is simple. There’s not much equipment that needs to be purchased; all you need is some sneakers, a ball, and a hoop.

In DC culture, basketball’s unique relationship with the city cannot be ignored. To understand it you must look past the mainstream of the NBA, where the Washington Wizards, formerly known as the Bullets, have struggled to maintain success since their last championship in 1978. Basketball is one of the true subcultures of DC. The Goodman League in SE DC, is a great example of that. NBA pros, amateurs and fanatics alike gather to participate or watch games throughout the summer.

While those groups definitely hold impact, the biggest example of DC’s relationship to basketball is on full display with the game of 33. The goal of the game is to be the first to score 33 points, and there is no cap on the amount of people who can participate. What makes this unique to DC is the fact that many across the country play this same game, but they only play it to 21.

33 is a game that has been played on DC basketball courts for decades. No one knows the true origin of the game, but many trace it back to Patrick Ewings tenure at Georgetown University, and how Jon Thompson’s historic teams put DC basketball on the map in the 1980’s. Ewing famously sported the number 33 as a Georgetwon Hoya, and later on in his hall of fame NBA career with the New York Knicks.

Kavon Martez explored this very relationship between basketball and Washington DC, with the debut of his documentary ‘33|DC’s Game’ alongside co directors Llyod Foster and David Ross. The short film explores the rules of the game, its possible origins, its ties to Georgetown, and DC’s love for basketball.

For Kavon, the release of the documentary was a turning point within his life. Kavon is a native Washingtonian who previously dabbled with storytelling through making streetwear clothes. One day he decided to make a hoodie dedicated to the game of 33, and got a response that would propel his outlook on things moving forward.

“So I used to make clothes a lot…that was like my first creative outlet. So the way it started was one of the most organic things in my life…I made like this dope hoodie explaining the rules of 33 and what it meant and then I put it up on my social media, just joking around and I never got a reception like that [before].I never had an organic response like that. I had no expectation that people would like the sweater. l was just like, this is cool, this is just DC, just a game we played. So I put it on my social media and I had like 150 comments of people like, "bro, I need this, this fire”.

He soon connected with a friend of his, Lloyd Foster,a photographer attending NYU who introduced him to fellow filmmaker David Ross. Impressed with Ross’s previous work, a vision soon came to Kavon about what to do next.

“I was just like, people really loving this idea of 33. You think we can make a documentary about 33? And I never went into a magical brainstorm like that before. That one night that I thought about it, I visioned everything that was going to come. And then we created the film and now I have a basketball organization named 33 Hoyas with over 80 kids.”

33 Hoyas is a youth basketball team founded by Kavon in 2020. In the aftermath of the 33 documentary, Kavon developed 33 Community DC, feeling a responsibility to continue what he started. I visited Kavon at Shepard Park Recreation Center in May to talk about this journey, and the outlook of the organization. From the very moment I met him, you could feel his focus and attention to detail in everything he said. You could also feel how much the culture of DC shaped him.

In our conversation, Kavon discussed the pathway from the documentary release to developing a successful youth basketball program; connecting and receiving a donation from Chicago designer JoeFreshGoods; what he works to instill in the kids he mentors, and much more.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

How would you describe yourself?

Oh man, I got so many layers in myself, but I'm definitely a founder of a basketball organization. I'm a Washingtonian my whole life. I'm definitely a philanthropist, but I don't really like you know, it's like that word is all action instead of just the title. I think I do pretty good work in the community and I’m a basketball fanatic, to be honest.

So what do you think DC or this area in general's relationship to basketball is? How would you describe DC's love for basketball?

DC,'s love for basketball is amazing.I definitely feel like we're a basketball city. But the one thing is, the fandom of the bigger teams, it's starting to fade a little. People are very into high school basketball, youth basketball, which is okay. They got their fan base of guys that just love everything DC. Georgetown has faded tremendously in the public's eye of DC, but overall just playing a game, a lot of DC dudes play every weekend or every day. It's a big on trash talking, you know, you got [instagram] lives going on. I'm not sure if you watched the Quinn Cook [instagram] lives during the pandemic? It was some of the craziest debates and history of basketball in Washington DC. So it's definitely a basketball city.

You just mentioned how fandom has kind of gone into communities specifically. People aren't as much of a fan of bigger teams, but like Georgetown back in the eighties through the nineties, from the Ewing's to AI's [Allen Iverson]. That was a huge thing. And your basketball team uses imagery, kind of paying homage to that. Talk to me about how important revisiting that history was to you.

It's important. I come from a Hoya family. All my friends on my dad's side, we all are Georgetown fans, like fanatics. I used to go to a lot of the games before the pandemic hit. So I was a season ticket holder in a way unofficially for Georgetown basketball. I always thought it was so cool. And it was such a privilege to wake up on Saturday morning, get breakfast, and go to a Georgetown game in the afternoon. What's more DC than that?

I love Patrick Ewing, what he's done for our city. He made us a legit basketball city as far as the college landscape. Me being a young African American coach, John Thompson has played a major role in the development of young black kids, coaches, everything! He affected so many.

So it was kind of a no brainer. My team name was 33 community and I didn't have an official mascot [yet]. And I was just like, it feels right to be a Hoya. It feels right to play with those colorways. It feels right to have uniforms inspired by that and travel. I got a new uniform called the John Thompson set. We paying homage to John Thompson so it just makes sense. And it's teaching the next generation about where they come from because they have no clue what Georgetown is. Kids on my team!? They don't. They just like, "oh, this look fire," but whole time they dont know.

So talk to me a little bit about 33 Community DC. How did that come about in the aftermath of the documentary? What went into founding this group

Man, you know what went into the founding of 33 Community? The importance of using the momentum of the documentary.

So when I made 33 the documentary, the film. I don't think in that time, it was anything bigger in DC, as far as impact. Everybody was just standing back watching like wow, this is his moment. This is the moment right here, he's done something. We as the team, we've put together something that will last a lifetime and it was just a moment. I can tell people were just sitting back ike, I want to see this. I want to see where he's going to go with this. So I had my screening. I had three screenings in one day and I had a screening going on in New York at the same time to play off the Patrick Ewing aspect. So for us to do that, and then how the people showed up, like people brought their kids out, people sat back and watched the film, I cried at the screening.

It was just like, I couldn't believe the love and how people received the film. And in that moment I felt it was my responsibility to make this a lifetime thing instead of a moment thing. And there was so many kids I was coaching before that, but I didn't have my own organization. So people kept asking me, "Hey, what are you planning to do after?" "Are you gonna start this, and that?" And I fell in love with the responsibility to provide for DC. And the way I was gonna provide my service was through community, was [through] basketball. That's the best I have to offer and it just happened organically like that. So the night of my screening was the first day that I knew I was going to start a basketball organization on my own. That was the moment, the screening solidified everything.

You mentioned a couple things. One, being a native Washingtonian. You also talked about your kids not even knowing Georgetown's impact. So you have that context of history within this city. What does it mean to you to be a coach and to be able to engage with the future generation of Washingtonians?

It's great but I also feel sorry for the new generation because they missed out on everything that made us who we are. So the new era of kids in Washington DC is not the old kids of Washington, DC. They're much more...I believe that they're better skillfully than us in basketball, but as far as street smarts and stuff like that, they don't have a clue. Not to shade my parents or anything, but I never really got like a ride to practice. Everything was just meet up with your friends, walk to practice, leave practice, go get something to eat. It was just the grind and us being self sufficient. It's not like that, these kids man, they got their own social media.

You got young stars that's like 12 years old that has 30,000 followers, so he's not trying to hear nothing, you know what I mean? Like it's a new kid. We were definitely coached harder. I done got cussed out. I done got yoked up before. I done got smacked upside the head by coaches. We were much tougher kids so with this new generation of kids, I'm learning them. But I'm also kind of just very hesitant on the stuff that I would do and show them because we're not the same. It's a whole new day and age and they don't really have the grit that we had. But you know, that' what God had planned for us. It's a whole new city, it's just not the same I can tell you that.

Absolutely. And I even saw like on the 33 Community DC's IG page, you had kind of like a rules or outlook going into the season in what you wanted kids' mindsets to be. I think it was like, when you leave the court, make sure you dap everyone up. Having a defensive state of mind. Pushing constant hustle and effort. You kind of just spoke to how this generation of kids are different. So are these things you're trying to instill in them?

Yeah. You know the old saying though, you can lead a horse to the river, but you can't make 'em drink. So it's definitely some of my kids have taken on the personality of me and that vintage old DC, like just that gritty. You know, we played basketball outside in 30 degree weather. They not doing that, I don't care. They don't love basketball enough to play in 30 degree weather. But I can only instill the values that I grew up [with] in them and teach 'em. And you know I got a real gritty organization. I feel like we play good defense. I feel like we communicate, but it's still a journey. I can only give them the outline. That's why I gave all of them a player sheet to start the season before they ever practiced with me, like hey, this is what we going for.

This is how we're gonna do it. And I'm big on togetherness. I'm big on you guys FaceTiming each other, you guys playing a game together, you guys spend the night over each other's house. What they don't understand is you will never get this feeling again. You'll never be a 12 year old kid again, you'll never be 13 again. Me as an adult, when you look back on that, you miss it. Like, man, we had sleepovers, we had a game in the morning. You know, waking up in the morning, knocking on your friend's door. Eating toast before games and talking like, "yeah, what you gonna do today, man? "We gonna do it to em". After the game, asking your parents, "You gotta ask her. She going to say yeah, if you say it" you know how it go. So I always just keep them conscious to be in the moment of a kid. They know I want them on kid time.

How important do you think sports is to community building and community engagement and kids feeling connected to their area and their peers?

So sports building is major. This is the deep part of the interview. Washington DC inner city kids are last in division one scholarships. We are last. We don't have the nutrition as suburban kids or caucasian kids or asian kids that's more well off. We don't have the resources for training. We don't have the double income households where you can pay for the training. So a program like 33, it's targeted for inner city youth athletes.The elite and beginners. The elite kids that we have, I have to build them a profile. So I have to market this kid the same way a kid from Virginia who lives in a five, six, $700,000 mansion you know, his family makes 300k or better a year, I have to market my kid the same way that that kid is marketed. So if you can imagine, sports is huge because these kids' parents, some of them are struggling to make ends meet. So their kid getting a free education is everything that they're banking on. That would be such a blessing for the inner city kid and the inner city parent to get a scholarship and to go on to play division one basketball, division two basketball, HBCU basketball.

You know, God willing, somebody makes the league out of this organization and they are able to come back and build this up so now we got all these coaches, we got a system, we got nutrition facts for parents. They're playing across the world. That's my vision. That's the biggest thing. If you are going to write anything down, write down the discrepancy of the inner city DC kid compared to suburban Maryland, suburban DC, and suburban Virginia. It's a totally different game and I hope I can soften that journey. There's other guys in the city, good guys that's, welcome to come join me and us to build a powerhouse that serves our community. Until then, it's going to be hard for our kids to make it.

You kind of elaborated on it just now a little bit, but you talked about how, when you released the documentary, you felt a responsibility to continue this, be engaged. What's been the most rewarding part of having this role within the community coaching. Have you just had moments where it's like okay, this has been worth it so far.

Yeah, man. I met my idol, JoeFreshGoods. He donated a lot of money to 33 Community. He gave us our start...

And that was from the New Balance release he did in DC for the Outside Clothes collection?

Yeah. So, he gave us our start. For me to be like a fan of his and just, I was super into street wear, maybe like in 2014, 2015. So when he started out, that's when I was young, like the only dude in DC maybe, buying his clothes, getting everybody hip. One day I was driving down the street and a Chicago number popped up and I was like, man, who the hell is? And I was like, hello? He like, yeah, this Joe man, this JoeFreshGoods, man, what's going on? I was like, whoa, like I had almost crashed. Not to be like I'm geeked up, but I was just like this a full circle moment. And you don't even know I've been fucking with you for a long time. I got old emails when I'm asking to be his intern and stuff like that. So for us to become friends and for him to be helping me with one day possibly joining new balance basketball in the future, my organization being sponsored and stuff like that, that's a full circle moment.

But the day to day stuff I've been featured on the news, I had newspaper write-ups and stuff like that. To be in a Starbucks and an older lady be like, "Hey baby, I seen you on the news yesterday". And then I may be in like the mall or something getting some shoes or I might be out getting some food and a kid might see me and follow me on social media as far as the 33 page and be like, oh you the 33 dude. Oh, I want to play with y'all. Can you, can you call my mother?

They be like, I wanna play with your team. All these kids from DC are starting to identify my organization as the next face of DC, and they wanna be a part of it. And I always, when people catch me out, I always show love. I'm very talkative. I will sit down and have a full conversation with a stranger that has nothing and I will give them that respect and love cause it's power in people, you know what I mean? So the day to day love in the city is the most important, that's the full circleness, like damn.

But when Joe reached out, and him donating and stuff, that was dope. Cause now that's like my friend. Like, we really be chopping it up, checking on each other. That's a homie and we, God willing, can get something done with us coming over.

So you alluded to 33 building up its brand, its culture, its imprint within the city. Kids are able to recognize and identify and grow up with it. Older people within the community recognize you. But being someone who's been in this city, grew up here, it's a very different place even 10 years ago, 20 years ago with gentrification, and a lot of people being displaced. How do you navigate how the city changes and maintain that imprint? How important is it to continue this when those kinds of circumstances are happening?

It's just adapting. It's the honest to God truth man. Just adapting. You gotta adapt. Social media has made it easier to adapt because I'm able to market the program and our vision to parents all over Washington DC. And you know, it's hearsay. You win a couple championships and stuff like that. I'm always getting new jerseys and new merchandise. I always want my program to look like the new it thing cause I know that's one of the first rules in marketing, what you look like. So it's kind of easier to navigate in DC.

It's just more hardship, more people getting pushed out and stuff like that, but it's kind of easier because social media's so fast now. I don't have to ride through neighborhoods like "hey, how old are y'all wanna play basketball."

It's more so, they'll find me. So you know, it's cool. I love it. I adapted though. I'm not one of those dinosaur dudes. I bring the authenticity into this new age DC. It's two DC’s. It's the new DC and it's the old DC and I feel like I'm in the middle. Like I got so many cool hipster friends and good professional homies. One of my homies work for the Washington Post. We play ball every Sunday. I got those types of friends that's in higher places and good people that's making stuff happen in DC. But I still got that side man, that dark side that's still trying to figure it out and I'm able to decipher and walk that line between both of them. So it's kind of cool. I love the position I'm in.

Let's say five, not even five, like 10 years from now. What would you like to see from this vision you put together so far?

It's not even where I would like to see. It's what I'm going to see because I'm a determined guy and doer. I'd love to see 33 Hoyas be the biggest program on the east coast. We coming for the top spot. It's going to take manpower. It's going to take dedication. It's going to take losses. It's gonna take failures. It's going to take a lot, but I know in 10 years we'll be the number one program in the east coast, we'll have a big sneaker deal. We'll have a great scholarship program for kids that's not just basketball. We'll have a lot of scholarship athletes. In the next year we're launching our high school division. So everything is planted and calculated in the right way.

Maybe I'll even have some more award winning films, you know. Ten years from now I'd be 40 years old. My locs would be down to my ankle. I'd still be in shape. I probably wouldn't be as hands-on with coaching day to day. I'd more so be like the founder and the behind the scenes and just making sure this engine and this machine that I'm building still has a foundation.

Have you been surprised at all about being able to get people to help? With believing in some of the projects you've done. You mentioned having a team with your documentary, obviously with coaching you need good support. What have you thought of the feedback and support you've gotten so far?

I love it. Not to sound cocky, man, but people want to follow a great leader. Great leaders don't have hard times getting people to follow them. When you're honest, you do stuff the right way, you're transparent, you have a way with words, you're good with people, you're good with adults, you're good with kids, you're a people person, you lead by example, it's not hard for people to follow you. Some people are just born with that it-factor with people. Like maybe when you started your publication, some people didn't have to think twice about being on your team. They just likeI know he gets busy, I know what he is about. And that's the same thing I get for basketball and for community work or film, anything really.

I put my heart into it. I take time. I'm a good planner. I'm organized. And then I'm a no BS type of guy. I don't got a lot of BS on my name or around me. So it's like, when I do pop out to do something, people are just expecting great things. They like man, his track record is flawless, he's just a winner. I'm a winner, you know what I mean? And I don't feel sorry for being a winner. I don't. I am a winner. I don't like losing and I won't accept losing. So it's like, I'll be cocky on winning. I wake up in the morning, I'm waking up to win the day. People can feel that and they wanna be around it, you know? And after a while you get some of those qualities and those traits and you build new winners, and the next winner, and the next winner,like why can't we all be winners if we put it in our mind?

What do you think is the future of sports and specifically basketball culture within DC? Some would say this area has produced good talent and people might not always recognize that or this area's impact in general. But what do you think is the future of that culture here?

The future is what we make it far as the adults, the parents, the coaches and the organizations. We got to close this gap between us and our surrounding areas, New Jersey, New York. We have to get our athletes prepared to be high top tier players. Our kids have to start getting in shape at eight, nine years old.

What do you think have been some of the obstacles there?

The obstacle is ignorance. And when I say ignorance, I don't mean it as putting you down. I mean, the actual definition; a lack of knowledge. Parents, they don't have any clue on their own nutrition. One thing I notice when I see the NBA draft, I always see the son of an NBA player. His father played in the NFL. The mother was a D-1 track star. They understand the body. I don't care what your skill level is. If you do not work on your body, you will not make it in this new world as far as youth sports and sports past that. You will not get a D-1 scholarship if you're not in tip top shape. If you don't have an engine where you can run miles and you're preparing your body for that moment, that will fail. So my job is to bring the knowledge to DC.

Right now we have about 40 kids playing elite basketball and in the whole program we have about 90 kids. My plan in the next couple years is to quadruple that number and have 150 elite kids and 500 kids for recreation. And if we're giving these parents the knowledge to put your kid on this type of diet, your kid needs to wake up on Sundays and run Hills with us. He needs to start lifting weights at 13 years old. He needs to get in shape, he needs to fix his core. We can only provide that information and stress that we follow it. So we got a tall task man.

I can tell a lot just from this conversation, you have a mindset of, 'we're going to get this done'. Like I'm going to plug away at it. Have you seen that rub off on the kids?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, my whole 12u team is honor roll students. So they're starting to get that mentality of just getting it done. No excuse, just get it done. It's just like in life, you know, once you pull back the layers of everything, it's BS people and it's straight up people. When all the layers of you get stripped down. Who are you going to be when you grow up? Are you going to be a BS'er or you going to get stuff done? And most of 'em on that trajectory right now to get stuff done, but there's still some laziness and stuff like that. They not fully as locked in as they could be, but they grow into it.

You mentioned you're looking to get a high school program going. But talk to me about the age group that you work with now and what it's like working with kids that young.

So right now I work with five years old to 13 years old. I got beginners, I got intermediate, I got elite. To be honest, it's like a blank canvas and they don't know anything about this canvas and I'm showing them step by step how to paint, how to do this, this goes first. I'm teaching you this because of that. I'm teaching confidence. I've been training kids for the last two years and they are so much better than they were the first time I got 'em. And it's teaching them patience. Like when you first couldn't make a layup, then two months later you're making 10 layups in a row. Then the parents start to believe in what you're teaching your kid, their kid. Then it's just a lot of family atmosphere. We make it fun. We cracking jokes. We learn and we get better. But it's rewarding, man. I go to sleep happy.

Talk to me about the parents' reception of the program. Cause I'm sure, just trying to remember back to when I played sports, some parents might be apprehensive or not as engaged at first with certain stuff. Have you seen any change in their attitude?

Yeah they're really good people as far as believing in the program a lot. So the 12u team that I have, I had them since they were eight years old. So I had them for the last four years. So we have become family. And they've seen their kid go from being an okay player to a great player. And mostly all of those (Kavon motions above to a huge row of basketball trophies in his office) are their trophies. So it's just like, we became family during the process. It's great, man. I love them. I love the parents, man, we became friends. They call me just off the regular you know what I mean? It's great.

If someone asked you what 33 DC is, what would you tell them? How would you describe the program?

33 Community basketball is a branch of 33 Community. Basketball is a big part, but it's just a part. This is a life enhancement program when it comes down to it. If someone asks me, it's life enhancement, because you're learning about your diet, you're learning about how to be a teammate. You're learning people skills. I think just putting basketball on us will be selling us short. We are doing so much in the midst of teaching basketball that I just came to grips that this is a life enhancement program. They learning style, they learning so much from 33 because I introduced them to so much. Like history on why we wear black socks from Michigan Fab Five and stuff like that, so it's a life enhancement. We out of sight, we out of mind. We ain't in the streets. We not out robbing people, throwing eggs, throwing rocks, we are doing something positive. We in the gymnasium five days a week. We travel. Basketball tournaments. So it's life enhancement.

Ty Hobson-Powell doesn't believe in respectability politics

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 01:51:17 GMT

The Washington Native discusses the politics of DC Statehood, activism, and more

Ty Hobson Powell is one of the dynamic voices in DC advocacy. It’s hard not to be impressed with his resume. Ty finished high school at age 13, graduated college with his bachelor’s degree at age 15, and received his masters at age 17. It would be easy for Ty to be defined by these academic achievements, but his reach and influence go far beyond them. He is an activist that has been critically engaged with all issues relating to the well being of Black people in DC, especially within the last few years.

In 2020, after seeing the frustration of his peers during the many racial justice demonstrations of 2020, Ty co founded Concerned Citizens to help organize the thoughts and voices of DC. Concerned Citizens started with marches, and soon moved into a place of advocacy through mutual aid drives and providing communal resources for residents of DC from turkey drives all the way to feminine care products.

Ty’s advocacy has also crossed over into making sure DC Statehood has a future. He has been a partner with 51 for 51, a group that mobilizes to ensure legislation making DC a state has a future to be passed.

Though Ty Hobson Powell wears many hats, he is one of the most approachable individuals you will ever meet. I met him on the corner of 14th and Crittenden St in Uptown DC, right across the street from Highlands. A random bystander probably wouldn’t guess that this 6’1 black dude posted on the corner arguing about how good Luka Doncic has been in the playoffs so far, is one of the leading advocacy voices in DC.

But that’s the point. Civil engagement should not be gatekept, or have a certain look. That premise is what's kept the average person from feeling like they have a voice that can participate in the larger discussions. The politicians that represent us are not seen as real people who live the same lives as us, or people that we can just walk up to on a random street corner and talk to.

Ty and I talked outside for about an hour. Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

One thing I would say about your advocacy, and your approach to your advocacy is you're not very politically correct about how you approach things, you kind of cut through all of that,

That's it. You gotta meet people where they at man.

Where does that come from?

That shit was always corny to me growing up. I had an interest in politics. I had an interest in engaging in all these different forms, but I never felt like it was for me because the terms of art, they were using the default language, the dress code. I was like, I don't really subscribe to that, but I knew that I had the mental wherewithal to be in those spaces and compete. And so I really just sort of challenged the world to redefine how we let people show up, you know? So part of that is doing things like, I had a lecture at Boston University here in Washington, DC where I wore a ski mask. Little things like that. Really just shaking up the idea that leadership doesn't look like a certain thing or a certain background, a certain education history. You can literally be whoever you want to be and still be a leader.

Do you think that hinders people from wanting to participate in discourse?

Absolutely. I think people feel like there are these invisible rules, these sort of parameters that would have to frame them in, or frame them out of a conversation. And it's like yo, just be yourself. Just show up. Because at the end of the day, I think that directly impacted people are the people that are best situated to affect change because they know what they wanna see move. They have the lived realities that's tethered to the talking points. You know Joe Biden's gonna sit there and wax poetic, but at the end of the day, he's in the ivory tower, he's in the white house. He's not really dealing with gun violence. I mean, granted, life is life. So he did get touched by the opioid crisis with the loss of his son. But for the most part, these politicians that are enacting the legislation that governs these social issues are so deeply removed from even filling the impact of them, that it's like, why would you ever be the driving force for this social change? How could you ever feel like it's truly informed?

What would you say to people who do believe in abolition of certain systems but not the practicality of it. They believe in the principles of it but think you know, white people aren't gonna let go of certain things.

I think that at the end of the day, there is that thought to have, right? Yeah. Like okay, if they've been holding on power generationally, what the fuck makes you think that they would just disinherit themselves from wealth, the power and all these things that literally keep shit moving on earth. I mean, there's a hopefulness, right? And we cannot let finite disappointments undermine infinite hope that exists if we all choose to try to be aligned. So there is the prospect that things could change. Really just staying encouraged because at the end of the day, things can change, things have changed. Maybe not at the rate that we want, but things have changed.

We chip away.

We see that it's possible. It's like chip away at it, but don't chip away at it as though it's the end all be all. Chip away at it, but as a side project grow your own garden. Chip away at it, but as a side project become gun literate.

Because little Bobby out in Kentucky and shit, he's been knowing how to shoot since he was four or five you know what I'm saying? He has been going hunting with his dad, learning how to live in the elements, how to fish, how to make a fire with a flint, simple shit, boy scout shit since his youth. And that's what I think that we need to tap into. And you know, I think that we live in two sorts of universes, one that is sort of tethered to the systems that exist, that we live within. But one that is totally imaginative of what this shit would be without it. So when I meet abolitionists and they have this prospect that it's not realistic, I say look, it's realistic, but you can't just be an abolitionist. You have to be an abolitionist plus. And what I mean by that is, if you're just an abolitionist, you're only solely focused on the destruction. You're not focused on the creation of the system that comes behind this one you just destroyed. And the thing about that is, without intentionality around how you choose to approach abolition you're just destroying one system and if you're not intentional about what comes next, another system that doesn't serve you replaces it.

And that's usually always the counterpoint, especially with police, they're like, well what would we do instead?

I mean we've seen what we could do instead. We've seen that the majority of the police deployments are actually for nonviolence. They're actually for mental health crises, for check-ins, for things like that. We can have certified officials doing that kind of shit. We don't need people with guns trying to get my man that's on the boat out the middle of the street. We don't need that level of escalation for a wellness check for somebody who is experiencing some extremities of their neurodivergence or whatever the case may be. We don't need somebody with a gun or a taser or an aggressive voice or energy showing up to them and trying to be the person that's gonna be that intervening factor.

So we know what we could do as an alternative. Abolition has a prospect of being enacted, because there are things that we can very clearly see needs change. I don't want you to think that our founding document that carried us over from 1776 till now is gonna be valid forever, or even that it's valid now. That it doesn't need improvement. What we really have to do is just challenge ourselves to think about the plus. Like, okay cool, fuck the police. We want to abolish the police, they've disproportionately jailed, killed a certain portion of the population, the numbers bare it out. That's not an opinion, that's an objective fact. Okay, cool, we've established that, but now what?

Let's talk thoroughly about what comes next. Because if somebody snatched my granny purse, she gotta have some follow up. I'm not really gonna like that idea if we can't secure things. And again black people are people who live through a lot of the exacted violence, so it's not like we don't like governance to some end. It's not like we don't like peace and order. It's just that the police don't represent governance, peace or order to black communities. They just have never done that for us.

And so it's like, it's challenging us to really figure out what is the thing, realistically. Again, being realistic. Let's get some real concrete things on paper. What is this plan? Do we have a special force that is deployed for mental health crises? Cause like I said, that makes up a large number of dispatches. And there are other locales that have done pilots similar to that.

And they can't even focus on actual hard crime because they're stretched so thin.

They don't stop crime.

Exactly.

They respond to crime.

But they don't stop crime and the stats show that. So again, if we're gonna inject hundreds of millions of dollars into something that is not preventative in nature, maybe we should stop and think about reinvestment into public schools or reinvestment into rec centers because we've already seen that conventional wisdom says that these are preventative measures. These are the outcomes that keep you from even making it to the block to even be able to shoot the gun or be shot by it. So let's get the money there before we decide that we wanna have these cops coming out here acting like they're playing war zone cause they got AR-15s and they got vests and they got tanks. I mean literally, I've seen some of the craziest shit. It was almost like we were a foreign occupation the way that I seen regular men and women deployed against us just for using our first amendment rights and saying, hey y'all, shit is fucked up, we want to change it. This is during 2020. And this is at the capital. It's supposed to be the bastion of democracy. We're supposed to be that shining city on the hill. So shining that we're a city and not a state, so exemplary that we just had to be classified like that. You would think some exceptional shit was happening here.

Well that's a going segway into DC statehood. So you you've done a lot of advocacy and strategy with 51 for 51. [The initiative for DC to obtain statehood]. A lot of people describe statehood as a civil rights issue. Do you agree with that notion? If so, elaborate on that.

Statehood is a civil rights issue. It's a civil rights issue because it inherently is linked to our civil rights. Right now we are taxed without representation, which quite literally is the founding principle of America, is the reason why we decided we wanted to depart from England, taxation without representation. So the idea of flipping it and using that same political ideology as the blueprint for your capital locale is fucking crazy. We are the only advanced nation in the world that has the capital of the country not tapped into the overall democracy that governs it. The only advanced nation in the world. So I mean, whether you're doing your comparisons or whatever the case, it doesn't check out. There's 712 plus thousand residents here, mainly black and brown, that have all of the obligations as Americans serving on juries, serving in the military, with none of the same rights. And so it's like, how can that be right? How is that something that makes sense?

For me, I don't understand the pushback against DC statehood and the way that it happens. I think that a lot of the pushback against it is a scourge of misinformation around what DC is. Because again, the heart of this question is how DC's lack of statehood is a civil rights issue. If DC is a state, we're the only majority black state in the entire United States. That's 51 fucking states and we would be the only majority black one. The only majority black state in the entire union.

So getting into some of the counterpoints... Fun fact, I didn't even know we had shadow senators, till a few years ago. But our representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton can suggest legislation, craft it, but ultimately she doesn't have a vote or a final say in what takes place. And as you just alluded to, we would be the only majority black state within the US. A lot of the arguments on the national level I've seen against it, automatically fall into politics. They say Democrats just want this much more representation within the House and Senate. Talk to me about why that shouldn't be a reason statehood is blocked.

It's a tired ass argument. I'm sick and tired of hearing that shit. First of all, with the way gentrification is whipping DC, we can't even definitively speak to the political identity of Washington DC for the next 10 years at all. Like, yes, we have decidedly been liberal, but who's to say that that's gonna be a forever thing. But secondly, political parties and where they'll fall in line should never be the reason for why or why not we choose to enfranchise Americans who deserve to be a part of a thing that we said is a thing. If democracy is democracy and it's by the people for the people, let that shit be universal. You don't get to pick and choose, you know what I'm saying? Literally there are some people that try to make it a Democrat issue or Republican, it's like you said, it's a human rights issue. It's a civil rights issue. It's to the point where, why are we paying the highest federal taxes, but being left out of access to federal institutions that would allow us to enact the changes or influence changes in the way that we want to. How many brilliant and profound minds do you think could be in the Senate?

We got AOCs here. We got Obama's here. We have the whole spectrum of leadership. And if America thinks it has seen profound politics, I challenge them to come here to the city and really see what I've seen growing up, who I've seen. We were right here on the corner of 14th and Crittenden, watching people articulately politic about sports.

In depth with points, stats to back it. Like the formula, the way that you would bring together any formal debate, it's like bro, we have that talent. Why don't we have that access?

I think we've probably seen the biggest push the last two years for statehood and have gotten as close to getting it enacted as ever, even though we're still kind of far away. There are a lot of people, particularly on the native side, that aren't really sure how they feel about statehood. And I think a lot of that ties into the fact that because DC is a city and it's not a state, we get certain perks....

DC Tag ain't going nowhere. The museums can still be free. First of all, DC Tag gets more money. It's already a thing, we would generate more revenue.

And it's there because we're not a state.

DC Tag is literally there as a congressional allowance. It is a small percentage of the revenues that we leave off the table because we aren't able to tax because we're a federal locale. There are so many people that come in and out of Washington, DC, every single day, we don't have any tolls. We don't have anything going on to monitor that traffic, to govern that traffic. But if we did, if we could, if we taxed the way that other states could, what would that look like? Already though, just by the numbers and how we already have economic output, we are sustainable on our own. One of the few overall locales that would be able to boast such a talking point. We do our own shit and we can do it without federal assistance. So the whole idea that oh, DC's a federal place they need.... no. The federal government likes to use us as a chess piece on either side of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans. They're all complicit with that shit. But now is the time to really stop playing with DC.

With where we are with statehood currently, 10 years from now, do you see DC being a state?

Man. You know, I sit here and I wrestle with this question all the time. Cause people ask me, they're like yo, realistically, like I know you do this work, do you see it? And it's like, at the heart of the Republican Primary back in 2016, I did not see Donald Trump advancing legitimately through a field of seasoned veterans through the primary.

I didn't. I said maybe he has a wild shot, sure. But I never saw that. So when we talk about predictive analysis in the world where every year seems to have been a different lesson in transformative politics, I cannot definitively say yes or no. Maybe Puerto Rico gets looped in with it and it's a bargaining chip for both sides of the aisle and they decide to do it in 2024 to open up the vote for the general election because they want more votes for their candidate for president. They think that they stand better chances with that. Who knows? There is no telling man. I think that for me, my sense of urgency is that DC statehood needs to happen years ago, decades ago.

So I'm working to make it happen in the next year And the year after that. And the year after that and the year after that, and there's that same level of intensity stacked. So it's like every year for these next 10 years, however that scales out, I'll be going hard as though this is gonna be the year to get it done. Because no idea is more powerful than one whose time is coming. I feel like DC statehood's time has come a long time ago and all the writing is on the wall. You know when people talk to me about what the forefathers intended and all that shit, it's like yo, please stop talking to me about what a bunch of racist old white people in powdered wigs who had slaves intended for my future bro. Because if they intended anything, it was for you and I to be second class citizens. If they intended anything, it was for women to be relegated to a life of second class citizenship.

If Thomas Jefferson tasted a Dorito, he would lose his mind.

You know what I'm saying? Like stop talking to me about what they were doing in 1776. They're gonna pass out eating a Nerds Rope bruh. They would never understand anything from today. So stop telling me that. Like yesterday's sauce is today's flavor, it's cool. It delivered us to this point where we can now have a dialogue about it and realize there are things that need to be cut up. Now let's stop back acting like this is that, because it ain't.

We've talked about this from a rights standpoint. But talk to me about it from a perk standpoint in terms of how we can control our money, how we can control laws within our state. Because I'm always reading about how Republicans are threatening to take away some of our rights.

They just keep playing with us, bro. Like we legalized weed.

We legalized weed. We knew we wanted to hit gas. There's enough backwoods and sheets and funnel and all kinds of shit going on in this city where we decided as a social priority, hey look, people should not be arrested for smoking weed. We decided that with over 70% of the vote in 2014.

A dickhead from Maryland attached a provision to the bill, making it virtually impossible to sell. And that's why we're in the place that we are now where we have this sort of gifting market. So again man, it's like, whether it's something that folks might consider trivial like weed, whether it's something more on a deeper level like the HIV needle exchange program, how the transmission of HIV happened because our needle exchange program wasn't allowed to thrive. Let's talk about, gun violence. DC has some of the most progressive gun violence laws on the books all across the nation. But due to our lack of a seat at the table to have an influenced dialogue around red flag laws and background checks, we got guns from West Virginia coming in and wreaking havoc. Guns from Virginia coming in and wreaking havoc. Guns from these states with lack of regulations coming in and killing our young who? Black men and women. So to parret back to the question you asked me earlier about how this is a civil rights issue…

Again, we are Black as hell. The most affected by everything due to DC's lack of statehood. We missed out on something to the tune of 700 million worth of relief from the CARES Act. Do you think COVID just pulled up to DC and was like, oh yeah, no they're not a state, fuck it we gonna go light on em. No, they came and spanked shit. And where did they spank shit at? Disproportionately black and brown communities. Although black people are only like 46% of the population, we made up more than that in the COVID death percentages. So again, everything inherently becomes a racial justice issue about DC statehood. Because when you think about all the pitfalls from our lack of it. When you think about the fact that DC not being able to fully legalize weed put in this like semi criminal status; who the fuck do you think is getting jammed up for the weed? People that look like me and you, it's not them. It's nothing new canna entrepreneurs or whatever the fuck are the names that they come up with. It's us.

So I really just employ people to understand that when you see these social issues that play out, seeing them from a 30,000 foot lens of being a larger issue, but also zoom into that bitch. Cause when you zoom in, especially in DC, it's very black. But that's not even just the case here in DC. Like I said it's in most places. And as a vignette, when I went to Columbia, I was there in Meriden. I was trying to find people that had skin that was like mine. I didn't ask them where the black people were, I just asked them where the poorest place was. That's where I found them. And that as a norm is true here, and in Newark, and in Philly, and in Camden, and in Boston, and in Miami, and in Houston, and everywhere around this entire world. So, you know, DC statehood is just one of the same, it's all tied to this global fight against white supremacy.

So we talked about how our population is about 46% black. We all know gentrification the past 20 years has been rapid. Honest opinion here: With the growth of the white population here, the transplant population in general. Do you think that's why statehood has garnered so much momentum recently? The most momentum it's probably ever had.

Absolutely. These white folks want they rights and they gonna get 'em

***laughter***

White folks want they rights and they gonna get 'em bro. They're coming from pockets of the world where they had agency, where their opinions mattered. There's a Congressman that lives in my district that has to be answerable to me and the social change that I want to see and if they're not, this next midterm, I'm cooking they ass.

We don't have that level of accountability here. We have political back and forth on either side of the aisle, people just jerking DC around playing with us. So yeah, absolutely.

So do you think as the population continues to change that the momentum for it will grow?

Absolutely.

How does that make you feel as someone who's been advocating for this? Being a native of this city as well.

That makes me feel like the writings already been on the wall. And what I want us to do is try to insulate ourselves from the harm as much as possible. Churches have been collecting black money for years and years, weekend and weekend. I like the idea of community trust, where they start buying back land, selling it to their members at a reasonable price. It's enough money swirling through them got damn collection plates. Let's start doing God's work for real, you know what I'm saying? I want us to start having some honest conversations about the fact that while we are not the Jeff Bezos of the world, we have built in institutions that we can use to insulate ourselves if we choose to stick together.

If we choose to really be unified. That's really what I want. That's how I see our way out of it. Ultimately this is a tide that is turning. There's gonna be no way to change the overall effects of gentrification, we can lessen the effects. We can lessen the effects by insulating our community by teaching 'em about the programs that exist about HPAP (Home Owners Assistance Program) about EAP (Employee Assistance Program), about inclusionary zoning, about having them do the work of sitting through these hour sessions so you can get you a free house real quick. And you can get you $50,000 down or $80,000 down or some income determinant support. Let's tap in because what I will say about DC is, all flaws considered, this is one of the places that has the most opportunity I've ever seen. Compared to the United States, I would say it's the best place to grow up and be black.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about the city?

That we are those white people that you see on Capitol Hill. That we are the national monument. It's a whole thriving culture that looks nothing like that. In fact, it's such a small segment of what DC is, but that's always what people from far states associate us with. There's a lot of people, especially during the work that I did with 51 for 51, where I was able to travel and go to the Iowas and New Hampshires, they don't even know DC is a fucking place. They're like really? Outside of the white house there's actually stuff there? Yeah, carry outs, mumbo sauce, go-go music; you could never understand. Sheets and funnel, just themes. There's the Metro, whether bus or train both are unique experiences. We have this whole thing that people don't even know about at all.

Do you think people learning about that culture, about the uniqueness of the city, do you think that'll play a role in getting statehood?

It plays a role. It humanizes us but we're still black. You know what I'm saying? I don't want niggas to ever be lost on that. We're still black. So it's like yeah we see y'all...but we gonna wait till more of our folks get up in there before we really turn the wheels of change. That's really what I feel. This is my prediction. This is my sort of vision. When DC's black population dwindles to below 40, DC's statehood cries will be violent, because at this point in time, these are folks that have come from places where they're used to having agency, they're used to their opinions mattering, and they will then be the majority. They will then be the folks that are in the driver's seat. City Council's composition's gonna start looking different.

We're going to start seeing some interesting mayors in the next decade. In the next 10 to 15, we're gonna start seeing real changes. And so it's just like, I'm all for it, I just want black people to insulate themselves as much as possible. Everybody is getting their little stake, let's get ours. Let's really be intentional about getting ours too, because that's the only way that we'll do it. It's that consolidated power. A community land trust is the only way to compete against Douglas Development Corporations or Clark, or these larger entities. And even then you're not really competing. You just getting what you can get. You stealing what you can get. We don't got that money, but we're gonna get our little snack and go home and it'll be good and take that as a consolation, as opposed to going home hungry entirely.

As an activist and issue advocate, you've seen a lot of progress but you might have seen a lot of things stall. What keeps you optimistic?

If you are optimistic.

***Laughs***

Right. You said, what keeps me optimistic and I just went into this dark place.

But what keeps you going? What keeps you continuing the fight?

What keeps me going is I'm black and I'm in this, I ain't got a choice. I got a daughter. She's caught in the intersection of being a woman in a patriarchal society and being black in a white supremacist society. It's layers, and I'm her protector. So if for nothing else, that, just in service to my daughter. But when I just think about it, bro I exist. I wake up every day and I'm decidedly black and 6'1. I scare people just by existing. I'm a nice person bro, I'm much more inclined to give you a dollar than take it but that's not how I'm perceived. I know that. I live in that world.

We can laugh about it here, but it's the same world where there's a reason why Trayvon would get killed. It's the same reason why Ahmaud Arbery can't jog in peace. It's the same reason why so many black men, women, non-binary folks have been victimized. So what keeps me going is, I don't have a fucking choice. I am either active in changing this shit, or I'm passive and letting it happen to my people. And it's like, I would rather take uncomfortable freedom than peaceful slavery.

In Conversation with Yaddiya: Three years of Moechella, D.C. vs. GoGo, and the future of the Genre moving forward

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 01:51:15 GMT

“If you have a black-tie event, you don’t have any problem. But if you bring go-go in, you’re going to have problems.”

This quote from 2005 was stated by retired DC Police Commander Larry McCoy. It captures the sentiment that many police officers and some government officials had toward DC’s native genre. In the early 2010’s gogo stood on its last leg as a cultural giant within the city, as many venues were shut down or reported, citing either violence or loud noise complaints from new neighbors.

Many bands were often surveilled by police, and in 2010, MPD’s GoGo report was discovered, where officers passed around a list of weekly shows and performances, in the hopes of “intervening in violence”

In 2010 Former Prince George's County Police chief referenced TCB gogo shows as , “violence masqueraded as entertainment”.

Ten years later, on February 19th 2020, DC Mayor Muriel Bower signed a bill into law that designated GoGo Music as the official music of DC.

This hillturn of the city's acceptance of gogo has a lot to do with the work of Justin “Yaddiya'' Johnson, and the mobile gogo movement he founded with Moechella. If you have been in DC the past 3 years, it would be very hard for you to not be familiar with the gogo event that often doubles as a form of protest. In 2019 Yaddiya put together years of experience in the gogo circuit and organizing protest against actions of the federal government during the Trump administration, to respond to a local incident involving gogo.

The moment is pretty well known and infamous by now. A white newcomer to DC made a complaint about the gogo music being played out of the Metro PCS store on the corner of 7th and Florida Ave, a tradition that is beloved my DC residents. When the store stopped playing the music, this hit the nerve of Natives across the city, who were already dealing with the circumatsnces of gentrification in many other ways, now it was extending to the music!? The DOnt Mute DC Movement began and the gogo event of all gogo events was created, Moechella.

Yaddiya and Moechella celebrated their three year anniversary on May 21st, 2022 with a concert at the Howard Theater featuring special guests, TCB, New Impressionz, Comedian and DC mayoral candidate Red Grant, DJ and EAT Founder AllHomage, DJ NahFr, and many more.

I caught up with Yaddiya a few weeks before the event, in the midst of his promotion run. We sat on Wisconsin Ave near the National Zoo, and our conversation went as follows:

So you talked about entering the Gogo circuit, and live music at a certain time. How is the market of Gogo different now versus when you first started getting into it?

The market of Gogo is different now because I think when I was coming up and starting to move around in Gogo, it seemed to be way more popular and way more prevalent in the area. I started when I was 18, 19 years old. At that time, that's where a lot of people went to parties every weekend, they went to Gogo spots. Gogo was just super popular. Like I always tell people, I came up in the time in Gogo where you could have Backyard Band next to Jay-Z and people would prefer to go see the Backyard Band. And that's the Gogo I know. Endless shows being organized, everyone wanting to start their own Gogo band. There was an abundance of Gogo bands. You had shows like the CFE 20 for 20 things like that.

People didn't want to be rappers. They wanted to be in a Gogo band.

Exactly. That's why I say rap is the new Gogo, because back then Gogo was the thing. Just like how everyone want's rap now, that's how Gogo was.

So it's definitely different in that way, and that was of course before the emergence of social media, which I think changed a lot of the way people look at their indigenous culture. Back then, when I got into Gogo, people was still wearing urban wear. Certain people were still wearing staples of the culture heavily way more than I see now. So I just think the appreciation behind the culture was just more amplified you know? The culture was more appreciated. And not only was it appreciated, we were actually in the middle of it. We were actually in the center of the culture, actually a part of it, not just appreciating it, we were a part of it. We were creating it. That was the difference.

You just talked about how important Gogo was to culture years back, but now, I feel like the city as far as government reps and police, they’re a lot more accepting of Gogo now versus back then. What do you think about that?

I mean, I wouldn't be able to say that I was involved in certain city politics or had the knowledge of the sentiments of the people in this city as much as I do now. So I wouldn't be able to say that oh they didn't appreciate it or they did. I do know that when I was coming up throwing Gogos, they were starting to push Gogo out of the city. So there weren't many clubs where you could even go to the Gogo in the city anymore. You had to go out to Maryland. Like they wouldn't even allow certain bands like TCB to play. TCB, would've never been at the Howard Theater. Like we got them now in a couple weeks, but back then?

Now they appreciate it more with the creation of Moechella, with the formation of the movement Don't Mute DC, the organization of the movement Long Live Gogo, things like that. They've also seen the way Gogo has sort of been politicized and used to shed light on a lot of the policies that are being passed and a lot of the commentary that's being talked about in the community. So it's been utilized as a tool as of late. I feel that it has not just gotten the attention of natives and the newcomers, but from the people in city politics as well.

So you just talked about the intersection of politics and Gogo. How it's kind of used to shed light on these different issues. When did you first see that connection? Was it just with putting together Moechella and the Don't Mute DC movement or did you always see it?

My first protest was in 2018 where I used Gogo against the amplified noise amendment and that kind of gave me the inspiration behind using music to draw attention, to garner an audience and mobilize people essentially. Not even mobilize people, but just more so create that energy. I always knew Gogo creates a certain energy, especially when people are together in one place and really celebrating it. Shortly after that protest against the amplified noise amendment, I led a protest in front of the white house against the not the current regime, but against the corruption and policies at the time (Donald Trump Administration). And I led the protest for a hundred and eighty five nights and I used musicians every night to basically activate the protest. That was the program.

I'm essentially the front man and I do the commentary et cetera, and the engagement and all those things with the crowd. So that is where I saw how music brought people together and how Gogo music was encouraging people to protest and how people were using these methods to be able to uplift their voice. And I saw how music brought people together. So that gave me even more of an inspiration to use entertainment, to raise political awareness and promote political engagement and voting and all these things. All the things that our community has stopped doing that people and politicians take advantage of.

We don't participate in the political process. We don't have faith in it, and we don't feel like the government works for us so we have lost faith in the system. So we don't even participate, all the while it's still policy being pushed. It's still people that are moving the needle, and moving the country [forward] and we not even paying attention. So I felt we got to use entertainment, something that people love to get them motivated. We are the culture. So we got more of the knowledge of how to garner our audience, who to include, what to make things look like and all that type of stuff. So that really gave me inspiration. When EZ Street told me about the situation with the store on seventh and Florida, I knew a lot of people from the city knew me from my activism, so I was like there's no way I could speak out against what's going on in federal politics and not speak out against something that's an attack on the culture, specifically Gogo, which is the community I come from.

So That was a No-brainer.

It was a no-brainer and then just using Gogo music and my knowledge of the city and just me knowing U street’s a popular intersection and all these types of things, people knowing me, etc. It just created that moment, that's just how it all came about for real.

That was like a huge moment in the city. Like so many people outside of the city covered those initial protests. And you could see aerial shots of a whole block of U street literally listening to Gogo. How surreal was that moment? Did you see it reaching out like that to the masses when you first organized it?

Well, the first one I organized with TOB was pretty big. It was kind of going viral as far as the promotion, when people like Wale, people from the area that got influence were showing their support for it. So it kind of created a spark. And from there, I knew how it is with things in the community, whether it be a food drive, a giveaway or whatever , it's always like one day out of the year or one day once every half of the year. I'm like how we going to create momentum or do it for the city if we just do it once and that's it. We gotta keep it going. So every other week I would do it on Tuesdays. They were always on Tuesdays every other week.

And every other week it would just get bigger and bigger. And after each one, I would definitely feel that adrenaline rush and just that energy, just like you know when you inside of a moment, it's so intense you don't notice what's going on and then afterwards when you see all the footage and all the clips and all the stuff on social media, it's a little bit overwhelming. So the second one, I was starting to get that vibe, like damn, like couldn't sleep reall the same night cause I'm just still thinking about it. Cause I'm literally in the middle of it all, and I'm like damn this is crazy.

Yeah. And since then you talked about being creative and having these outlets. Since then you've done a book, you've done clothes. I've seen artwork and posters on the streets...

Endless.

It seems like you're always figuring out a new creative way, like a new outlet. What inspires you?

Creating………

**Yaddiya’s phone rings**

Hold on one second. Hold on one second. Cause I forgot to do something.

I gotcha.

**Yaddiya pauses the interview to finish placing a poster order for the upcoming Moechella 3 Year Anniversary show at the Howard Theater on May 21st 2022.**

My bad

All good, we can pick up.

I was saying, since then you've done a book. Clothes. There's so many creative outlets. What inspires you to venture into those fields like poster artwork? You literally just ordered some posters when we were talking?

I'm overall a creative person, so I always think of different ideas. I always watch what's going on. I also have a lot of different interests, so I always look at how I can create certain partnerships and create certain products that embody how I feel or will represent some of my interests. I feel like that's only natural. So everything I do, I want to at least have a passion for it. I never just want to sell something just because I feel like it'll make me money. Whatever I do. I wanna make sure that it's a part of me and that I enjoy doing it. You got to diversify the brand, diversify the revenue streams and all those things. That's what's going to ensure that I can continue to do what I'm doing.

So we're coming up on the three year anniversary of Moechella. And by the time this is out, you would have already had your event at the Howard theater. You’re collaborating with a bunch of people from the city, like, AllHomage of EAT, DJ NahFR, Red Grant, TOB, and on and on. How do you feel about all of this support so far? You're three years in and still going

See the thing is bro, when people do this, I don't look at it like it's for me, I look at it like it's for the city. So it's like, I'm just the person that God is working through. I'm just the person that's like, I don't know if it's the purveyor, but I'm just the catalyst, you know what I mean? So I feel like when people say they want to be a part of it, that's dope as shit. At the end of the day, I'm always just thinking about how I could make it bigger. Because at the end of the day, that's all that matters. Going to a new level. That's only gonna happen through bigger partnerships, more support and involving people. That's always been the vision, to involve people.

What is it like doing something at Howard Theater? Like you said earlier in this interview, the city took away gogo venues to a point where they almost pushed gogo out of the city. So to be able to have gogo performed in the city, especially in a historic place like Howard Theater, what is that like?

Man, it's great to be able to have that support. At the same time, it's also kind of a fruit of my labor, to create that openness, like the Kennedy Center partnership, Howard Theater, all these different venues that allow gogo. At the same time, gogo has been iconic for the city. I just think that I was able to help give it a new spark and continue a new wave. Now I got people like yourself, younger people interested in coming back to Moechella. High school kids. We need that to be able to keep it going. I feel like I'm representing the new era.

Speaking of High School, you were just at Duke Ellington with a couple bands and there's videos of the kids interacting with it. Talk to me about that.

It shows that it's really in the spirit. It's really in the DNA of the kids in the area. It's never going to leave. It's truly cultural. These moments truly show you that. So it's not the fact that people don't love it. It's just that the people in gogo got to do what they need to do to continue to help it evolve. Like we said before, it was a time everybody wanted to be in a band. You had bands of 14 year old, 15 year old kids. Now it's not like that. We need more of that. How do we do that? Make it cool again.

Was it initially difficult to find spaces that wanted to host Gogo? And has it been easier since you started?

I mean the way I utilize Gogo is not too much like, oh, I need to book this venue and do this, that and the other. At the same time, I definitely see more of an openness. Like I said, TCB would've never been able to play in the Howard Theater in my mind.

**We both laugh**

Nah, I agree with you.

You know what I'm saying? So I see it.

Five years from now, where do you see Moechella and this movement at?

Man, five years from now I definitely see it worldwide. Like I see myself being able to garner and create an audience and fanbase independently and I see us being able to tour with Moechella. Just us being the core essentially, kind of what we've been building and just surrounding that with other artists, and I feel like we'll be able to take it worldwide. Partner with other festivals, have a stage at other festivals. Like it's all about the exposure and the consistency. So we keep doing things like going to LA, doing it, bigger, better partnerships, getting people to come to this. Make some good records. Start really being able to push the records. We need to stop trying to make Gogo mainstream and just make the mainstream love Gogo. And that's what I feel like people be missing. They be trying to make Gogo be like rap records. That don't make sense.

You're taking Gogo to the west coast with some events. What do you think of the reception of Gogo in LA? Cause I know some DC people end up traveling there and the ones that are on that side love to see it come over there.

I think the ones on that side, they just love that DC coming to LA, they don't give a fuck. It could be fucking who the fuck knows, you know what I'm saying? As long as it's Gogo, I feel like they're going to give it a shot.Thankfully Moechella just got that name with it. It just got that recognition to where they like, oh Moechella coming? Bet.

Moechella’s name is way bigger than mine. So it's like, that's tight. That's saying something. I feel like people just got that pride for the city, man. We was out Utah, whoever in Utah from DC, they coming!

I don't ever have an expectation as far as the audience. I always like to position that shit to get in front of a new audience. That's what it's more about for me. The people that's out of town from the city. I look at them like promoters. Cause I'm like, man, y'all need to promote y'all culture and bring y'all men from there, here. It's lit you feel me? So I'm always wondering how we could expose it to more people. I feel like the live experience is definitely going to sell Gogo to people. And if we could find a way to pitch that live experience. I feel like that shit is definitely going to get more people interested in coming to the Gogo. I feel like Gogo could be one of the best and biggest hard ticket selling fucking draws. Cause ain't nothing like a live Gogo, right? Am I lying? Right or wrong?

Nah. And that was the only thing growing up, like the girls would actually be dancing to Gogo and that was what you would actually dance with girls to.

But think about this. Niggas go every week and pay to get in. It's just the way niggas doing the industry. It's no real organization. Then it's not enough fans for it to be unorganized on a national level. We gotta make more fans.That's what that shit really about. And I feel a lot of people feel possessive over that shit. Like, nah, you can't like this, you know what I mean? They see a white person in there or something and they like, man that's our shit and its like damn, how the fuck ya'll think y'all about to get the money if y'all don't let everybody love it.

Big white folk love Tupac. That nigga didnt say nah, this black people music like. We got to be more open.

You're introducing Gogo to a new generation of Washingtonians. And some of that includes people who are new to this city. What do you think about their relationship with Gogo?

The new people that I see love it. It's crazy cause I even got a friend, one day we did something at Union Market. Even she was complaining like, man, it was so loud. But it’s like, white people really do love it. This is not even just about white people. People [in general] love live music.

I feel like everyone loves live music. When I see people in the street, like when we are on the truck and shit man, they love it. They root for it. I hear people say, “that’s the Gogo truck!”

What do you love most about DC?

No matter where you go around the world, you always can notice somebody from DC. It’s just different. You can see the best of the best to the pits of the pit in DC. The culture is definitely unique. It's definitely got that spiritual vibe to it, especially the black people here. You've never met anything like the black people in DC, I'm telling you, You've never met anything like that. So it's just that special little thing that all people from the area got with them, and you always can notice it. It's not really something you can explain you know? Even just like the accents, all the slang.The mentality. The give no fucks mentality. That shit is crazy bruh. Like you don't even notice how people perceive us till you leave from here.

Keyonna Jones knows the Soufside has something to say in the Arts

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 01:51:13 GMT

The D.C. Native has worked on Murals such as Black Lives Matter Plaza, but her true goal is to reshape the art community in the forgotten part of D.C.

The Southside of DC, affectionately referred to by many as Soufside, is often misunderstood. Many think of the violence that takes place in Wards 7 and 8, and the discrepancies in the amount of grocery stores and hospitals this area has in comparison to other parts of the city. While many attribute negative connotations to the Soufside, many see it as home to some of the most personable and resilient people you will ever meet. They see a place where the talent is unlimited in terms of sports, art, music, food and much more.

Keyonna Jones has long been one of the people who has seen the potential for the Soufside. Jones is a creative in all facets of the term. She is the executive director of the Congress Height Arts and Culture Center, and touts herself as a one woman band who will get whatever needs to be done to advance the space of art within her part of the city. Keyonna has pushed initiatives forward such as SoufsideCreates, and since 2015, the CHACC has been a creative hub that artists can have exhibitions at, small businesses can vend, and people of all ages are exposed to new ways of interacting with their artistry.

In 2020, during the heart of the pandemic and racial justice protests within DC, Keyonna was approached with a tall task. She and other artists in the city were approached by the Mayor to paint the yellow Black Lives Matter mural, located now at what is known as Black Lives Matter plaza in downtown DC. When Keyonna was recognized as one of the lead artists, and pulled from anonymity, she used the press she was receiving as an opportunity to continue her mission, push forward the creative arts space in southeast DC.

I visited Keyonna at the Congress Heights Arts and Culture Center on MLK Ave in SE, to pick her brain on the past few years, and her mission of making art accessible in Southeast DC. Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

Who are you, how would you describe yourself and what you do?

I am Keyonna Jones. I'm the founder and executive director of Congress Heights Arts and Culture Center. I'm a full-time artist as well, and a mother of two, born and raised Southside.

Tell me about what the center offers to people and your role here.

So the center is a safe hub. Like literally we have been named under Mayor Bowser as a safe place here east of the river, but we're a multitude of things. We're an art gallery first and foremost that supports black and brown artists. We offer programs and workshops of all kinds, health and wellness, art included. We collaborate with other nonprofits that have great programming but need space. Then we triple as rental space for small businesses, artist studios, and for the community.

As a nonprofit do you face many challenges or issues with funding or going from month to month? Can you speak to that a little bit?

Absolutely. So one, just being an art gallery and a nonprofit in Southeast is hard, right? Being in Southeast as people know, we have been historically left behind, historically forgotten about, historically underserved and underprivileged. So everything over here is a struggle. Getting funding is very hard, being a one woman band and having to manage all the things that is here and adding grant writing to my hat is hard, but thankfully we have a Mayor that understands the value and power of art and has a lot of different support and resources that can help artists and art spaces like ourselves. We have the DC Commission of Art and Humanities that is our bread and butter of how we are able to program and move. We just do our best. The work that we are here for is more about healing through art. Not just the whole art expression, but also teaching economic stability through art, demystifying that whole thought process of a starving artist. So I think with that passion and that mission in mind, we just keep doing the best that we can, with what we have.

Seems like you're very passionate about this place and art in DC. How important is it to you to be cultivating an art space in Southeast?

It means everything to me honestly, and I think, just now we opened our doors in 2015, but I think I'm just now really understanding the gratitude of how much we've done and how much we've changed the neighborhood and the appreciation of art. For me it's real personal. Like I said, I was born and raised in Southeast. I was raised in this area and I tell people all the time, I kind of grew up as a weirdo because there was nothing over here that nurtured the spirit of a creative, like nothing when I was young. So I was fortunate enough to leave east of the river and be able to go to the other side of the city, and went to private schools where they had art classes and art resources and saw it there, and grew up as an art kid.

But as I went through life, kind of just got removed from it. So until 2015, it was never a thought for me to create an art gallery ever. I was going to be a journalist and mind my business, but when I came back home...I tell people this all the time as well, the center self manifested itself, it was what I needed and what the community needed, period. One, for the creatives and the other weirdos that were growing up with no creative spirit to be nurtured. And then two, just for what we deal with in the hood, we need a way to express and to release, right? For the things that we see in the hood, we needed art to beautify our neighborhoods and to make us feel better about what's going on here.

And then finally, we needed a space for makers and small businesses to be able to push who they are and what they are. So now being able to do all of that and then some, as development comes and we're fighting against gentrification, we've gotten big partnerships with the people that are coming in our neighborhood and able to safely keep our narrative going and it be from us. So honestly, I'm really proud of myself. It's really an honor to be a tangible example and reflection of what can be and what can come out of Southeast because people just don't believe it's possible and I'm sitting right in front of you.

You just talked a lot about how you can see that this area needed a space for people to have a creative outlet to be expressive, to give them different options or expose people to different things. You talked about your experience of how you had to go across town to get certain things regarding art. With your work so far, how has the connections you've made with artists changed your outlook on the art scene here? Has that inspired you anymore?

It definitely inspired me, because like I said before, I had completely got away from art and I was just doing journalism, and then after I left the radio station I was working part-time with my dad doing property management, and that's kind of how this space came about. My father actually used to live in this house. My siblings grew up in this house. My father changed it into a business space for himself, and then let me transform it in 2015.

So this is a personal space.

Yeah this is very personal and I think again, it speaks to, we're also a reflection of legacy, and what it means to keep property, own property, and be able to transform it over and over again and evolve with the times and be able to reap the benefits. Like I said before, kind of fight against the negative spaces of what gentrification can bring. But when I opened the doors, it was literally about all the things that I said and supporting black and brown artists. And at that point, I had completely forgot about the fact that I was an artist, because I was so deeply removed from it. I mean decades of not doing anything with art, but helping all the other artists and teaching them things, it brought me back to my art.

It brought me back to full time artistry. Now I'm doing tattoos and I'm doing my own murals and graphic designing and connecting with the same artists that I supported before. Now I'm in the streets with them. So definitely an inspiration in that way, just getting back to my personal artistry. Definitely inspired by other artists and collaborating with them. I guess I'm inspired by creating inspiration for other people too. When I see somebody come to the space and they're blown away by the fields or somebody leaves one of our events or our programming, or people have their first solo exhibition; it's just like the feels that they have, it inspires me to keep doing what I'm doing, even though we're fighting all these unfair things or the things that are really hard being a one woman band. I definitely get inspired and motivated to keep doing what I'm doing because clearly I'm doing something right.

Speaking of gentrification, you being a native of the city then having an art space on this side, how have you seen things change within Southeast in the last 10 years?

I'm fortunate to have all these perspectives. Being a native, being an artist, being east of the river. But I also have the perspective of being the daughter of a man whose been very influential in the city, my father, Mr. Phinas Jones. My parents met in the council and I was born in 88, so basically I'm a council baby. I grew up around Marion Barry being my uncle. Mrs. Barry is my godmother, and just around big city legends that are no longer here. So one, seeing all the things that they were fighting for growing up and hearing my dad's meetings and hearing what Marion was fighting for and now kind of seeing it be reality. But the other thing that you also see is the things that were being missed in those speeches about telling people that all this development would come at some point, and to start owning some things, starting to get ownership.

So it's unfortunate to see a lot of people that have been here for years and can't afford to be here or have been displaced for whatever reasons. But it's also on the other side, there's duality and everything, good and bad, light and dark. There's good things that have come from gentrification, which is the new development that comes here. And the people that did listen to all that advice or did have ownership, we get to sit here and reap those benefits or partner with those benefits. An example of that is right down in St. Eve's a couple blocks away from the entertainment sports arena where the Mystics practice. And we got Washington Go-Go games down here. Now they're building housing and parcel 15 and food and hospitals and all types of stuff. It takes time. So we have to be patient, but now it's finally coming around and it's cool to see. We got restaurants, we got Busboys Anacostia, we got different eateries. We're known to be a food desert so it's important for these developments to happen, but it's up to us to be able to be here to reap the benefits. So it's just been interesting to watch things move.

Talking about growing up being around council members and influential people from DC, do you feel an obligation to continue to serve the community?

Do I feel an obligation? I think it's just really in me, I was having this conversation with somebody else the other day because I have siblings. I have a brother that literally has my father's name and they're older. So they were around the same things, if not longer. But it's just about drive. Everybody has a different drive. Everybody has a different mission. Everybody has a different intention. I don't think I ever felt I had an obligation to do what I'm doing, it was just in me. I cannot help it. Sometimes I wish I could. I say all the time I wish I was just a regular old person that had 9 to 5, mind my business ,go to happy hour afterwards, got a weekend and I do my thing, but that's just not how I'm set up.

I've gotten a little bit better in terms of balance and boundaries with myself, because it can be very stressful. It can be very emotionally painful. I'm an empath, so I'm very energy sensitive.

Talk about your artistry a little bit. What mediums do you like to use for your art?

I'm a tattoo artist. I do large scale murals in the city now. I get on canvas a little bit. If I'm on canvas, I prefer acrylic markers. If I'm gonna use acrylic paint, then I need to be going wide scale. Digital art, definitely. I am a published fashion stylist, so I definitely love working with fashion. I also do photography. I sew a little bit. Literally wherever spirit leads me, I'm going to try it.

That is usually how it is for creatives.

Yeah, and most of 'em are hobbies. And if I put it to the public and it's they’re like, oh, I need that, I want that...I work out the expenses and get a price. That's how all my services have come around.

But art has really been my saving grace. Just in transparency, probably about two or three years ago, I fell into one of the darkest spaces of my life. It was literally just my kids, my art and my therapist, is what saved me. And so I see art as a complete healing tool. It's like a universal language. You can look at art anywhere, everywhere and it's something that you can understand in your own right. Also it's just a catalyst for stronger conversations. Two people can look at a piece and see all sorts of things. So it's just my life. That's what I do.

You talked about how art can be a catalyst for conversation, can invoke and inspire thought. I would say DC has a very unique art landscape across the city in terms of the murals you'll see on certain walls, the sculptures, and how they kind of reach out to different artists within communities to work on these different types of projects. How do you think art ties into DC's identity?

It's really important. Some of the art that you see, especially if it's in a historic place, is telling you about the history of that place. Especially the sculptures and the parks that have murals...the figures that they're putting in, it's telling you about the history of DC. That's why I think it's really important, especially for black artists and black natives to be a part of that process, to be able to control the narrative and make it real. But then also there's this space, especially because I'm in that space with doing murals... there's politics tied to everything in the city. So sometimes it's really hard to get around those things or the things that they want you to do. But also DC is a hype beast city too, which is really annoying if you are not popular, right?

Explain that a little bit more.

Hype beast for me is like... people get hyped behind you, and then there's just a beast that pushes it, and pushes you and pushes your brand. And if you are popular it's no problem. All you gotta do is say one thing and then people are going to show up right? But if you're not in that lane, or you're not popular, it is really hard to get some traction here. Then you keep seeing the same artists, you keep seeing the same thing. I think I struggled for a long time because I wasn't part of the hype beast. My name wasn't popular. The only reason why now my name is getting popular is because I help paint the Black Lives Matter Mural down at the white house.

With that, I was able to get a lot of traction and really leverage it. If you talking about me, you're going to talk about the center. So now it's like, "oh, you got an art gallery in Southeast?' And then all you gotta do is walk in this space and you're gonna feel it. So it's just like, it's unfortunate because we have vast talent here, like crazy talent. But again, with the politics, you know the right people, you know the right names, they going to push you up. And then those people, if you're not connected, you struggle a little bit or never get seen. So I think if anything, when you was asking me about an obligation, that's my obligation, to push the black and brown artists of DC, specifically Southeast.

To push them and let them be seen. That's where I am. There's a lot of gigs that I could take, but I'm not doing that. Because I know there's a lot of other things that's for me. I tell people all the time,what's for me won't miss me and what's not for me won't catch me. The more that I give, I got to be ready to receive because my hands are open because I'm steady giving. So that means something's going to come back to me. So now I'm putting other artists on. Other artists that I know are professional and they can show up and do their thing. Now I'm giving them gigs so that they can be seen and they can start getting on the map of this stuff because it's just not fair for the same people to just get the opportunities over and over again. That's weak. That sucks.

So it seems like that perspective ties into here and opening your space to different artists.

Yeah because I can give you opportunities. And we do things where I can give several people opportunities. Like Art All Night here is wild. I have probably over 200 artists that we support just out of here only. Then it's thousands of artists on the corridor that we bring. And if you look at our mission, that's it, to expose, inspire, educate, and heal all through art.

You mentioned the Black Lives Matter mural and how you got a lot of press surrounding that. Talk to me about art’s connection to activism within the city. It seems like that's something eventually artists can't really avoid. I mean, I'm sure they can choose to, but I see a connection between artwork and political messaging or statements.

So that was a crazy experience and I actually really couldn't help it because I was out there in my own brand and my gear, and somebody saw me on TV and that was the only reason why I got pulled out of anonymity. Everybody else decided to remain anonymous. I was still deciding whether I was going to be anonymous or not. But once I went out there, I was wearing my brand and people saw me and were like, "yeah, we just seen you on TV." So that's kind of how that popped out, I couldn't really go back once that happened.

But it was also really important because... when you talk about activism, it was really important for black people all over the world to see that there was another black woman out there doing that, for queer people to know that there was a black woman out there doing that. Representation is just important, period. And for that to be such a big thing at the time during protest, when Trump was acting crazy, when the mayor was fighting with Trump, that was something serious. People ask me all the time, do you consider yourself an activist? I would never put that on myself, ever. Now does my art do activism? Absolutely. I think all art does activism. Like we said before, it starts a bigger conversation. Art just does that by itself, especially if you going to be public with it. If you're going to be outside painting, you are doing activism work, period. And I don't know if you want to call yourself an activist or not, but that is the work of activism. That day really affirmed and confirmed for me the power of art. Literally 24 hours later, you saw that thing being replicated around the world

And so it was just like that it is a domino effect and I think it just speaks for itself. It became replicated around the world and it started conversations around the world that everybody was dealing with this one thing, which is the fact that black lives matter and people need to respect them, especially the police. It was just amazing to be a part of that.

Talk about that a little bit. During that time everyone was in the house. It seemed like everything was so magnified and as you say, that piece of artwork traveled throughout the country, people were doing replicas of it. There was a lot of support, but with that comes drawback and criticism as well. What did you see on that end, and what was your perspective on it?

So I'm not a politics girl, even though I'm a council baby and I understand politics and I grew up around council members. Politics is not my thing. I just understand politics and I know how to leverage politics. But I always show up as myself, which is an artist, and I call myself a healing teacher in the sense that I'm healing to teach, and I'm teaching a heal. All of that is through art, so I showed up for the art part, you know what I'm saying? That was my job. I feel like everybody has a role in this world. Some people got to make phone calls. Some people got to make sandwiches. Some people got to make art, and that's me. And it was conversations afterwards where people was just like, this is performative. Just because you painted black lives matter on the street, that doesn't mean anything, what else? We need you to defund the police...

What did you think of the Defund the Police addition people added to the mural?

That same night...and I know a whole bunch of people that did that.They came out there and added the defund police part, and people were calling me and sending me pics saying you see what they did to your stuff? And I was just like they didn't do nothing to my stuff. They left it there, and then they put up their sign beside it, and I thought it was very creative. And if we're allowed to do that, why can't they do that? Again, it sparks another conversation right? It creates more conversations and its public art, that is exactly the point of public art. So I absolutely loved it. And like I said, it started more conversations that needed to be had, so I love it.

So what would you say is the most fulfilling aspect of your work here at the center?

Just seeing people feeling good off of being black, feeling good off their own culture. Raising southside, showing people that there's a high caliber in southside. I think that's just really my favorite part, how we represent Southeast. We just lit as hell. And I think just representing Southeast, that's an honor for me, because I've been to a lot of places. And I can hold my own and represent Southeast the right way, I can be in those rooms and those conversations. I can hold my anger, I can check somebody when they are saying stuff. I'm just capable to represent here, so I love it. It's basically like I'm a council member, but not, because I would never do that!

Ten years from now, where do you see the center and how do you see art developing in Southeast?

By 10 years the center will definitely have its own artist housing. Like we will have our own building. I'm thinking of probably six units that will house artists to live and make their art in, and then we'll funnel them back in here so they can do their exhibitions and their programming workshops. We'll have more space. Ten years we should have two buildings with artist housing honestly and everything filtering and into here.

As far as art on the south side, it's going to be everywhere. It's going to be murals. It's going to be sculptures. I'm talking about metal sculptures, bronze sculptures...We're planning on putting a wooden sculpture out here from a tree bark. You're going to see all types of art. You're going to see stuff hanging off people's gates. You're going to see some of our biggest figures on corners as statues and so on. The schools are going to be covered with murals inside and out.

There's going to be public art. There's going to be art back in schools, probably full time.There's going to be retail spaces where you're going to see local makers and local brands popping. We're going to have more professional artists, more artists that know what a W-9 is. It's going to look real pretty. It's going to be bright. It's going to feel good. It's going to be good.

Throughout this you've spoken on facing certain hurdles or obstacles. When you face that adversity, what keeps you going?

It just ain't no damn way I'm going to stop. I started 2015, I've been doing this thing by myself since then and made it through a pandemic. And I mean, we made it through a pandemic without opening our doors, but we were able to renovate, we came out of the pandemic better than we went into the pandemic. And just what I know we've been able to do in this time so far. The things that people have said to me, people have gotten emotional with me as well talking about how much they love this space. The other nonprofits that we work with and the programming that we bring in here. The mothers that we touch, the kids that we touch, the elders that we touch. I say we work with people from ages 5 to 105 just because that's how universal art is. It's for everybody. Just the fact that I was a kid and didn't have something like the center here. It's imperative now that we're here, there's no way that we cannot be here.

What do you love most about DC? And it could be Southeast specific.

It is definitely Southeast. T Cloud from Mystics, I was on her live and she kept on saying she loves being an underdog. She loves the fact that people count her out. And I think that's a part of it. I love soufside, that's why I created the brand Soufside Creative. Our tagline is, we are a different kind of creative. I think that's why people feel the way they feel about us. That's why they have the fear, because we're just so different, we're unknown. And when you go anywhere, any soufside, it could be soufside Detroit, soufside Chicago, any soufside, you going to know you in soufside and you got people repping it.

I have immense pride about being from soufside. I know how special it is over here. We got the best views of the city. I mean you can't see the rest of DC the way you can see it from coming over here. And it's a reason why there's a bridge that separates us. It's a reason why you gotta crawl some waters to get to us. It's also the reason why we were the last spot to be gentrified. We just super special. So my favorite part about DC is definitely soufside.

Nia Keturah Calhoun is Navigating the World of Art Without Compromise

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 01:51:11 GMT

The Artist Talks Ketanji Brown Jackson Mural, the D.C. Art Scene and More

DC is one of the most unique cities in the country in terms of its arts scene. You will see everything from street graffiti, and political art to fine art exhibitions and installations. Throughout each street, you will likely see a mural or sculpture of some kind, paying homage to history or just celebrating the rich culture of the city.

Nia Keturah Calhoun, is one of the constant contributors to this very scene. Nia is a multidisciplinary hailing from Maryland, who is constantly creating art that celebrates Black culture in America. If you have been in DC within the past few years, it's possible you have passed by her art without even knowing. She has recently created a cherry blossom sculpture that was acquired by the Mayor’s office, and sits within SE DC. She created visual artwork for Rare Essence’s Overnight Scenario detailing the famous scene the song plays out, and also painted some street dividers with a nice question on them, “What do they call math in DC? AD+MO.”

Recently, Nia was tasked with her first full mural. The subject? Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. By the time Nia finished the mural, the Senate officially voted to confirm Jackson and send her to join the court.

I caught up with Nia at the corner of 14th and S Street NW, in front of the mural to pick her brain about the mural making process, and how she approaches her art:

Introduce yourself to the people.

My name is Nia Calhoun. I am an artist. I grew up in Maryland. I'm now based in DC. I do a lot of things.I paint paintings, I paint murals, I'm a sculptor; but really I just come up with ideas that I think relate to the black experience and I try to figure out the best way to talk about them.

Okay, we are literally right here in front of your mural of Ketanji Brown Jackson, soon to be the newly appointed Supreme Court Justice. Her appointment was historical for obvious reasons, first black woman to the court. How did this mural come about?

There is this really really incredibly dope and important group of black women for black women who formed this organization called Sister SCOTUS, [Sister on the Supreme Court of the United States]. And for years they've been advocating, lobbying to get a black woman on the court because of a lot of reasons, one, Clarence Thomas has been on the court forever. And then before that we had Thurgood Marshall. But if you think about people who are deeply empathetic, who are really relatable, who will look at things from a lot of different sides, to me that almost embodies a black woman. So they've been advocating for a long time to get a black woman on the court and two years ago they did a mural to lobby and advocate to get a black Supreme Court Justice. When Kentanji Brown Jackson was nominated, they really started being like, okay, we have to do a mural to celebrate this, we've been going so hard for this for such a long time and they linked up with No Kings Collective, which is a great artist collective, they do a lot of things. They do like events in the city, it’s almost hard to tell you what they do. But they linked up with them like we need an artist; and I had been painting with them for about a year on their mural team and before that they had just been mentors for me for a long time. So they suggested me as a black woman who does murals in DC, that felt aligned, so I was very blessed to just be connected to the right folks to be able to do this and then celebrate the nomination and her and what it took for her to get there really.

When looking at the piece, what elements factored into what you included into it. Was watching the actual hearing a big part of it or was it just her nomination in general?

I think it's a little bit of both, right? Because I thought a lot about the history of who she was literally and figuratively. And so the whole style is like my attempt at AfriCOBRA art, which was a black arts movement that came out of Chicago in the sixties and seventies, and that was when she was born. So I thought it was really cool to look at the landscape that she would've stepped into as an American and what would've been black art when she was born. So I thought about her historically in that sense, but even on the mural, there's this little sketch of her and her dad at a kitchen table when he was studying for the bar, she would sit there and be in her coloring books when he would be studying his law journals.

So I just thought that that was really dope. I wanted it to be like her personal narrative, but also a larger narrative of black women in this country, which is why right below her is Constance Baker Motley, who was the first black woman to be a federal judge; and they share a birthday, which I think is crazy.

Oh, wow.

Super cool. And I'm almost embarrassed to say, but I didn't really know a lot about Constance Baker Motley before she mentioned her in her speeches and her confirmation hearing, but she was a baddie. She was the person who filed Brown vs. Board [of Education]. She was a clerk for Thurgood Marshall. She was a civil rights attorney who worked with MLK and just really put a lot on the line. She was the Manhattan Borough President, she was that girl, you know what I mean?

And I was like, wow, she's almost become lost in popular history and narrative which is really messed up. So I wanted to highlight both of those. But also watching the hearing, one of the things that stood out was just how ridiculous they were being and vile to this black woman, because of sexism and racism they felt like they were able to do that; and I realized when I was watching them that it hurts to break a glass ceiling to be the first of anything, like your head will get bloodied. So there's a lot of jagged shapes on here, a lot of sharp angles that represents her breaking through that. And lastly, I wanted to put in my thoughts about it. I think that it's really naive and disingenuous to think that just because we have the first of something that everything has changed because it hasn't. Racism still exists. Sexism still exists. All the systemic oppression that's going on in this country still exists right? Her nomination doesn't change that but it could be a sign for better things to come. Which is why there's a sun rising on this side and it's rising on her. I was like, oh yeah, like the Negro National Anthem, facing the rising sun, a new day's begun, let us march on.... so it's like yeah, it's a new day. Are we going to keep moving and grooving and doing what we can to make where we live and the communities that we live in better?

You mentioned a lot of the elements you pulled from and the symbolism you used within the piece. Was it emotional at all for you as a black woman to be tasked with this? Did you feel apprehensive about taking this on?

Wow, that's a great question. The answer is yes to those questions because you realize how many people have fought for this. How many women, like Constance Baker Motley, but also a whole lot of unnamed women who wish that they could have ascended to those heights and fought to ascend to those heights. For every law school, there is the first black woman who had to attend that law school, you know what I mean? I felt all that history when I was doing it and I wanted to do something that would specifically make black women proud. I wanted them to stop and take pictures of it. She's a justice for everybody but this mural is for black women and black girls.

It was also the first mural that I got to design by myself. I've worked on collaborative things before, but this is a hundred percent me. I had a great team of people who helped me put it up on the wall, but as far as it being my first mural, it's really my first solo mural. And so that also felt pressure cause I wanted it to be good because it was my first, I wanted black women to be proud of it and sometimes I would be freaking out on the wall. There was this one day, I think it was like the last day I was painting. I was up on the lift 30 feet in the sky and I looked out and there's this really cute black dad walking down the street holding the hand of this little girl who must have been like four and they just stopped. You could see that he was telling her who it was and she was smiling at this black girl who I'm sure looks like a lot of members of her family, myself on this lift, you know what I mean? And I was like, wow, that's who I'm doing it for. I shed a little thug tear but that was really special to me.

You talked about how you had a team of people helping you with this. I imagine you had an idea going into it but did any of your plans change once you started? Did you have to adapt once you started?

No. Making is just like problem solving

So just talk to me about that process of making a mural, working on such a big physical space.

Well, we're at an active construction site, so this awning wasn't here when we started, but it was here when we finished. So you're always trying to figure out safety for one, because you're on these big machines and then you have this sketch that's maybe a foot long in your hand and you're like, okay, I have to make this fit this 80 foot wall. And you're always trying to figure out the best way to make a round shape, or we couldn't physically get over there because there was this structure here. So how do we get 30 feet in the air when there's something right in our way? So there's always these little compromises and team huddles of okay, I think this is the best thing to do. Like, oh, okay, I see that for this, let's try this. But it really feels like one big project which is cool.

Speaking on murals in general, DC I would say, is a very visual city. If you drive through the city you'll see a lot of artwork, a lot of murals, a lot of physical art pieces. It really seems like the city tries to cater to that. What do you think of the overall art space here and how does it feel to be a contributor to that?

There was a huge barrier of entry that I was very blessed to have my hand held coming through it, which was really nice. But I remember being a younger artist and being one, confused, but two, frustrated and thinking I want to paint on walls. I want to put black people on walls around the city. How do I do that? Do I knock on the front door and be like, Hey, can I paint your wall?

I think it's beautiful because I do think public art is good for everybody. So I think the function of all these murals in the city are really, really cool. I'm very blessed to now be in community with a lot of people who are doing it, shout out to of course, No Kings Collectives, my big brothers and sisters. But besides them like Anikon oh my gosh, that man is like, to me, that man is like walking DC legend, black history. Like the fact that he had just put black people, but specifically black women all over this city is like crazy to me. I love his work. I think there's always this tension though, between kids who just have spray cans and muralists who are getting paid to do these walls.

Especially young kids like teenagers, like this kid I was talking to would probably really like to paint a mural as well, but the access points aren't there. So one of the things I really want to do as I grow and climb... I have a lot of young homies and I want to make sure that if they wanna paint a mural, they could figure out ,one, how to do it, but two, get paid for doing it. And then three, have there be a space for them to learn how to do it. Shout outs to Words, Beats and Life, because they have been doing that work for a long time.

Piggybacking on what you just said, can you speak to what it's like to be a young artist trying to navigate their way within this space in the area as well as general advice you would give to someone who's trying to navigate being an artist, getting into murals and things like that.

I think the thing that changed it for me was finding mentors and being like, I'm very serious. I am willing to run spray cans for you. Really kind of apprenticing with folks, but you have to come correct to do that, which is hard. And you have to be willing to put yourself out there, which is also hard. As an introvert, I didn't want do that for a long time, but the other avenues to do it, which is one, you know somebody who owns a building, and in a city that's rapidly gentrifying, and costs are rapidly increasing, the people who own buildings are usually not people who live in the community. So it's hard to just be a kid and know somebody who owns a building and has a wall. Or the other thing you do is you go through the city, but that also has barriers of access because you have to have experience most of the time to get those grants from the DC commission to do them.

So it's like when you apply for a job and they say you need work experience. You're like, how am I going to get work experience unless someone hires me. That's what it feels like trying to do your first mural in the city. But I think it's really figuring out who you like in the city and then sending them an email, or sending them a DM and being like hey, can I assist you on a mural one time, I would really love to learn how to do this. I'm really interested in getting into murals. What I've learned is people like Anikon, people like Keyonna from Congress Heights Art Center, they're so giving of themselves and the way that they really want to reach back and pull up, you know a high tide rises all ships, that love is in the city. You just got to work past feeling like everything isn't set up against you because I was definitely there for a long time. It was just like the barrier of entry is too high, I don't know how to do this.

So what is it like being a black artist and making very black culture specific pieces within a space that is as you mentioned, is rapidly gentrifying. Do you find more purpose in what you're doing because of those circumstances? Does it make you feel a certain type of way? How do you feel when you're producing art in a space like that?

It's really interesting because I'll get commission requests to do something where I feel like I would have to compromise on blackness and it's like, wow, like money is nice but I have to make art because I think it's so important. My dad is from East Capitol street and my mom is from Cherry Hill and Baltimore. Very black. Both of those places are very black and they made it a point having very black kids, to surround us in black art. And I'm still unpacking all the ways in which that was amazing for me growing up. But when I was working with young people in the city, I realized a lot of them hadn't had the same exposure to black visual artists that I had growing up. I mean my exposure was really, my parents had all the hood classics just hanging up. But I was just like, that's important. And I was used to seeing black people painted and how beautiful that was.

We've always been into art.

Always, black people have always been making art arguably better than anyone else, but I know that that's still important. So if I can be like how my parents were to me and put black people around this city… you know, 14th street five years ago did not look like us. Do you know what I mean? It didn't feel like this. And so sometimes I think it's an important reminder to just be like, we're here and we've always been here, and a lot of my art is reaching back to those connection points. I paint my former students a lot because I want to remind them always, I want them to be bold and audacious. This is your city and don't let anybody tell you different or make you feel like you don't belong where you belong, period. And that's for my kids who were at Ballou and that's for my kids who went to Duke. Both instances. These are your cities.

Being a multidisciplinary artist, you have different mediums that you work with. You mentioned sculpture work, painting, graphic and digital. How do you cater to all of those mediums? Do you feel a certain way and you'll lean towards one medium? When you're inspired by some art, how do you determine which avenue you'll take to explore or express that?

I think it's like what gets the idea across best? So for a few years I was doing this project when I was trying to make a fake FUBU alternate reality. Like what if FUBU made everything for black people? Like cell phones by FUBU, and products that would like... spray that got rid of Karen's, like FUBU you could really do anything with. And I'm like, what's the best way for me to talk about this; there should be a helpline. So I made a helpline where you could call this 1-877 number and there was an audio recording. And just figuring out different ways to make art that is so fun. So sometimes it's like a painting and I'm like, yeah that shows enough. But a lot of times it's just like no, I have to make this move, so I'll do an animation for it instead. But the best projects are the projects that I can do a little bit of everything with. But it's really just about what I think will best represent the idea.

Is there usually a different approach when you do something bigger versus like this mural, versus doing something that's smaller in size, such as the cherry blossom sculpture or the ADMO painting?

The approaches are really the same. Everything just starts with a sketch. When I started doing this mural it was a real quick turnaround. I had maybe a week to get this design done. Usually you have months when you're just planning a mural to figure it out and you go back and forth with the client. But because I had a week, it was like, okay, I had to do it. So at one point I was just sitting with my big brother, Brandon Hill, one half of the founders of No Kings Collectives in the middle of The Line Hotel. It was just us with sketchbooks, just like okay, think about this, think about that. And that's how everything starts. Animations will start that way. Sculptures will start that way, which I think is really beautiful because you realize that leven the biggest things start with just this little idea and anybody is capable of that first step. With Google, you can figure out the rest of the steps.

When I was teaching, a lot of my kids would get so intimidated because they would have these big ideas in their head. I'm like, it doesn't matter how big the idea is, you just need a little piece of blank paper and that's where every idea is going to start. So the process is really similar for all the projects.

You've mentioned teaching a few times, how much does working with students inspire you?

I miss it. I stopped doing it at the end of 2020 and just started doing art full time. But I was just telling my homegirl the other day I need to find young people again because I think my favorite artists have always been phenomenal because they've surrounded themselves with young people.

I have this great friend, Monie Shade. Genius girl. And she has this book called Things We Found so far, and one of the things she says in the book is sometimes your mentors will be younger than you. And I think teaching, yeah I'm able to put them onto things that I know, but they do the same thing for me. They're like, you need to listen to this or the way they think about the world even, because their generation is different from mine and more progressive. And they've had access to all of the answers since they were kids with Google. I remember learning about Google. These niggas have always known that you could ask the internet questions and it will give you,maybe not the answer, but an answer, which is crazy.

I mean my favorite artists surround themselves with younger people. If you look at 3k (Andre 3,000) and Erykah (Erykah Badu), I think they've had long careers where they've been so relevant for so long because they were always showing love to younger artists and being like, that's dope I'm going to see how that hits and I'm going to try that too. Erykah has a song with SZA you know what I mean? Before SZA was SZA she had a song with Erykah. So I think all that is really fire and I think everyone who's interested in mentorship should figure out a way to get into it.

So are you optimistic about the art scene in DC from your experiences with working with younger people or what you see or witness being in the art community?

I'm cautiously optimistic because DC as a city just has a really great culture and a super crazy history of art, period. Furthermore, to zoom out the District of Columbia, the DMV in general, like the first black art show was at the University of Maryland. So there's this crazy history of black arts in this city and in the surrounding areas and that's not going away no matter who comes in or how high the rent is, the city will have amazing black art in it because Washingtonians are just mad resilient, and they'll figure out a way to make their art.

I'm cautiously optimistic because it is becoming harder to do certain things, right? One of those things is maintaining art spaces. You keep calling me a young artist, but I'm not that young, but that's okay.

**laughs**

But when I first came home from Spelman 10 years ago there would be all these underground hip hop shows. Like Bombay Nas and I mean, before that growing up, there was always a go-go that was Metro accessible that you could get to; and the disappearance of those things are really concerning. It's such a big part of our history, our culture and our joy that I think there has to be a focus on maintaining it and preserving it and celebrating it for sure. Shout out to Yaddiya and Moechella right? But we got to make sure we hold space for young people to come through and do art, and feel free and not have a lot of parameters and those spaces dried up. If I was 20 something and I wanted to do an art show, I don't know where I would go do it.

I don't know where that would be and that's a problem because when I was 20, there were a whole bunch of kids who were like, yeah there's this yoga studio and we're going to go take it over. And I want there to be more spaces like that in the city. And there are certainly people who are doing that work, once again shoutout to Keyonna, Congress Heights Center, Black Swan Academy, the way that they lift up young black artists, young black students, they're definitely doing that work. But even certain institutions like Eaton hotel have really partnered with a lot of orgs. There are definitely people doing the work and we got to put our support behind them and get them more support financially and otherwise so they can keep doing that.

I have this notion or theory that DC as of recently now loves black art, the aesthetic of it. They love to sell that to people without actually putting support into the actual artists or the actual people who create that culture that they then sell to people. Do you agree with that sentiment? I don't think there are alot of physical art spaces that people can go to, yet I still see a lot of art initiatives in the city. What do you think about that contradiction?

Oh man.

**laughs**

I mean it's bullshit, right? The black aesthetic I think is people something that people really like. I was recently told, 'Hey, we really like your mural, it's super black. Could you do that, plus like maybe more white.' And I was like, what? What does that mean?

I mean the rent is too high. I do all my work in the city and I still can't really afford to be here, which is crazy, and I'm doing okay you know? So to think about younger people who are trying to come here and once again, younger people will always drive culture so if there's not a space for them to be, places where they can even hang out and eat for a reasonable price. If we're not cultivating spaces where artists can come to chill and connect with.... like I remember being younger and the Durkle store was just the spot. You would just go in there, meet so many people. Same thing with Commonwealth.

That's a throwback.

Come on for real. Like that's where I first met, like Scooty and Modi, you know what I mean? And people who I really still to this day look up to. But we were able to meet because there were these places... and there are definitely things like SOMEWHERE, shoutout to Dom, and Maketto definitely exists, right? And they definitely do work to make those spaces feel homey. But I definitely used to take my students in certain spaces and they felt like they didn't belong there. I'm like once again, this your city, you belong in these spaces. Don't let people tell you otherwise. So I really would love to see people putting more money into that.

You know what it's giving, do you watch Atlanta?

What's it giving? I do watch Atlanta.

Did you see that episode? It wasn't the most recent, but it was the one before that, with the fashion house?

Yeah, when the white fashion house accidentally made a t-shirt referencing the Central Park Five and had the fake initiatives to give back in order to ‘make up’ for that.

That's what it's giving. I'm like, where is this money going? What are we doing with this?

We got to do some thoughtful planning because what I don't want to happen here is.... what happened to San Francisco when they really became a tech hub... San Francisco has a lot of great culture. The bay area is where the Panthers got started, psychedelic movement, think about Jimmy Hendrx, it just has this crazy rich history. But the normal person can't live in San Francisco anymore. So the reason why people wanted to flock there, this wonderful culture is now like a copy and paste young white millennial city because those are the people who can afford to live there. So I don't want that to happen to DC where it's just like, yeah people want to come here because we have this great culture. We have this great music in Gogo. We have this amazing history and flavors. I mean, we've been here for how many seconds and we've met so many characters just shouting across the street. I want generations to come and to feel like this, and that takes thoughtful planning, that takes a mayoral office that really cares.

Actually cares.

Yeah, actually cares. So yeah man, I definitely don't have the answer, just a lot of questions.

You mentioned people will reach out to you and they'll love the work you do because it's very black. But some people might come to you and want you to do something that's more vanilla or compromises the things you believe in. How do you as an artist navigate that?

I just be ghosting people. I'm still working on the power of no and being like absolutely not.

So you don't compromise.

No. What I will do is, I will collaborate. So if someone has a legitimate thing and the people who I'm about to work with, they're like yeah we want it to reflect the whole community. I'm like you know that's supposed to be black. They're like, hey but maybe a couple other folks? I'm like, all right, maybe, you know what I mean? I love collaboration and I love creative abrasion where we're fighting to make our ideas happen in the best way that they can happen. I'm always down for that. But compromising who I am, what I believe in, like that's the hard no.

So recently, you know Nelly's went through it because they thought it was a good idea to drag a black woman down a set of stairs. Like wow, how dumb are you? To be honest, as a black woman, I just always never really fucked with Nelly's to begin with so it was never really a thing for me. But the artist who has the mural on the side of Nelly's, the ducks, it got defaced and now it's smudgy. She was like, will you redo it with me? I feel like it's just so important. I'm like, you know, I'm gay and sometimes I date girls and you're trying to use me and my blackness right? You want me to redo this mural with you so it can be a getaway pass for you to do it.

Like in Atlanta.

Like in Atlanta. **laughs** I told her absolutely not and I directed her to some organization she needed to talk to about why maybe she shouldn't redo it either. And then the same thing, another white artist came to me recently and said "hey, we should collaborate on this black lives matter project." I'm like what do you have to say about that? Do you have an interesting view? What I love and what I really fuck with No Kings for, this organization collected, founded by a black man and an Asian man is they know when to throw the alley oop to someone else, which I really love. That's very important.

So when they did the night market, they found Asian artists to do the art. I'm like, that makes sense, it's an Asian event, y'all should find Asian artists. And when they needed someone to do the Ketanji Brown mural, they're like, it needs to be a black woman. They’re like it shouldn't be us, but a lot of people don't wanna throw that alley oop. I'm like why would I collaborate with you for black lives matter? That's not making sense. Throw the oop. So a lot of times it's just like no, and you don't really care about black lives mattering, you just care about a bag and the perception of you caring.

You're always on alert to bullshit?

You got to keep your third eye open, they will really play you in these streets and have you looking crazy. I'm very blessed to have very thorough group chats, a lot of real niggas surround me and because a lot of real niggas surround me, I think there's this barometer of no. Because if my friends knew the situation, they would drag me and a lot of times when we see people mess up, it's like damn you don't have any real niggas around you, I can tell because you're out here wildin. Shoutout to Kanye, who I just feel like needs four real niggas around him, shoutout to him somehow.

Generational Equity Movement is changing the conversation around marijuana and black business ownership in Washington, D.C.

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 01:51:09 GMT

On March 31st, 2022, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson called for a vote on emergency legislation that would give the city the ability to close down any marijuana gifting business in DC. The bill would implement these changes as soon as May, and many I-71 gifting shops would have been subject to closure.

For Generational Equity Movement, this breaking news caused shock for a few reasons. Not only were many of the members workers within the gifting community, they were hours away from releasing a documentary at the Angelika Pop-Up Theater at Union Market, that covered the very subject. GEM felt a conflicting feeling of fear of the unknown, but also power in knowing that they would soon have a movie theater sized audience that was ready to hear their input.

Culturally speaking, weed has always played a role within the city. DC has their own customary smoking rituals such as using sheets and funnel. Since 2014, DC has been living in a gray area when it comes to weed. It was now decriminalized to where MPD could now give out tickets for smoking in public instead of jail time, all the while still being federally illegal. You could now walk around with up to an ounce of weed on you, as long as you showed no intent to sell it. Residents are even allowed to grow a limited number of marijauna plants in their homes.

Businesses however, would face the most drastic and complex changes. Selling weed was still illegal, but simply gifting it to someone was now decriminalized.This law created the gifting industry. As a loophole, businesses often sell art, books, pencils, stickers or other items, and accompany that purchase with a selection of weed. Since the weed is in addition to the initial purchase, it is considered a gift, and by law, legal. Most of these dealings are done in cash. For eight years this trend has continued with many black residents starting lucrative businesses within the marijuana space. Many of them couple as creative businesses, often serving as incubator hubs for the arts.

Within the past few years, this gray area had been in constant threat, with various legislation proposals to strike this status down, despite the fact that in 2014, DC residents voted overwhelmingly to have weed legalized in their city. Because DC is not a state, Republican Congressman from Maryland Andy Harris was able to insert a rider that prohibits local lawmakers from moving forward on legalizing marijuana sales.

Generational Equity Movement saw how entrepreneurship in this space gave a new wave of young Black Washingtonians an opportunity to provide for themselves and insulate their communities. They also saw how the uncertainty of the marijuana laws in DC put many black entrepreneurs in danger of no longer being able to provide for themselves in a legal manner. So they decided to put together the documentary titled Young Gifting and Black, which explores DC’s relationship with weed, the positive things business owners have been able to provide for their communities, and how the issue of marijuana also goes into civil rights, and the politics of being denied agency without having DC statehood.

I chatted with members of Generational Equity Movement, including their documentarian, to pick their brains about the state of the marijuana industry in DC, and what went into making their documentary Young Gifting and Black. Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

What is Generational Equity Movement and how would you all describe the group and your goals for it?

Generational Equity Movement is a coalition that we founded in 2019 with the premise of gaining equity for black people in the cannabis market. That's kind of our first feat because what we really want is to gain equity for black people in DC. Especially young black people, making sure that the next generation has something to monetize and pass on for generations to come. So right now our focus is cannabis. It was founded by a few owners of I-71 stores. These owners met with council members when they were first opening, and the council members were receptive to the stores being open.They didn't realize that it was gonna be a real thing.

So now seeing that the laws are about to change, it's kind of a you never know type of thing. If you look at the documentary you'll see how it breaks down how Congress has a large role within us trying to become regulated in DC. Outside of that, we wanna make sure that when the law does get passed, when the rider gets lifted, there is some language in the bill about I-71 stores having a clear pathway to become recreational dispensaries. Right now they're disrespected as whatever business they're filed under. Within us founding it and then trying to get regulation, now it's become more so of us collaborating or attempting to collaborate with council members because the power is in their hands so they don't just ignore us or just try to shut us down, kind of how they tried to do twice already. It's more like we're just waiting to be regulated. Whatever things we can move on, we wanna move on those together. It's not like the I-71 stores are this entity that just wanna stay in this gray or black market, we wanna become dispensaries, whatever that might look like.

Equity is a part of your name and you talked about how one of your main goals is equity within the cannabis industry here. What does equity look like to you all? Is that being able to move freely, being regulated, being an officially a dispensary?

In DC it's projected to be a multimillion dollar industry within a few years once the law gets passed. Black people run the marijuana market, the cannabis market in DC, it's just unregulated right now. So we wanna make sure that when it does become regulated and people begin to profit off of it, we can consume most of those profits. We know that we have made up a large part of the city for a long time until we've been pushed out. And even now, we still have a large black population in comparison to other cities around the country. So we wanna make sure that the market reflects the city and who has been making up the cannabis market up until this point. Who's been the innovators and the creators of these businesses? The entrepreneurs and the people who have been negatively affected by the criminalization of the flower.So make sure that those people get a piece of the leaf.

You mentioned how this is projected to be a multimillion dollar business in the years coming. We obviously know that black people are a huge factor in the influence of marijuana and how it's marketed. We could go on and on about funny designer weed bags and all that stuff. Do you think it's intentional that the laws are what they are because there are a lot of black people that influence this industry?

Yeah. I think it's too soon to speak on that as far as DC goes because our regulated market just isn't popping yet. We have seven dispensaries in the city, medical dispensaries. We have no recreational yet. But in cities where it's already regulated? Yes. I think it's very strategic. I don't think it's necessarily like, oh, let's find a way to keep black people out. I don't think it's like that, but I think it's more so the way that most of the systems work in this country, which is, we wanna make sure that we get the profit as corporations and million dollar capitalist. Whatever's left over is left over, too bad for them. We just don't have the power economically or politically to be able to say and stand up for ourselves sometimes in these other cities.

I think it's all a trickle down effect, one thing leads to another. I think the root cause of all of this is years of oppression all the way back to slavery. But as of right now, I think it's very strategic. It's just sad to see. At the first public hearing on cannabis in DC last year on November 19th, a guy talked about the National Cannabis Festival, this huge cannabis related festival right next to the DC jail. Even with us pulling up on the day of this festival representing GEM, it was a moment of reflection for myself of like, this is crazy. It's something to see all the gentrification around there and all the new apartments that are popping up right next to the DC jail.

And before, it was just a very overlooked part of the city. It was kind of like, you gotta stay away from there, and now it's just, it's crazy. So that, paired with this big cannabis festival where all of these white people are profiting off of this product. That's a way that you don't even have to have your hands in it, you know what I mean? There's so many different ways to profit off of cannabis right now. So many different jobs and opportunities, and they're going to continue to be able to take advantage of these opportunities unless people like us come together and have a strategy, and build community to fight against it.

That's actually a great point. I didn't even think about how close that is.

Yeah, I didn't think about it either until he said it. It's crazy because the whole thing is just smoked out. They can smell it from their cells, like the whole joint is smoked out.

To get into kind of recent news, there was a bill proposed by Phil Mendelson, council chairman in DC, and the general premise of it was to alleviate so-called complaints by medical dispensaries. They were saying things like I-71 businesses don't face the same regulations. Basically initiative 71 businesses were hurting medical marijuana businesses. So initiative 71 businesses were kind of in this gray area where they might not be able to operate. Can you speak to that point, whether you agree with it or disagree with it?

I think it's just two totally different battles. The medicinal market, like I said before, is not popping ,why? It's only seven dispensaries. With the number of cannabis users in DC and the number of people who would like to use it recreationally and not for medical purposes, there's just no way that they can be serviced by just these seven stores. So that's one part of it. Two, I think that the premise that we're stopping the medical market from making money is just a lie. It's a myth because of what I just said, but also because there are a lot of logistics and bureaucratic difficulties that they face

Like a lot of red tape.

Because of all the loops that they make them go through. The hurdles that they make them jump over in order to obtain a license, maintain that license, stay in compliance. It's just a lot of BS because of the federal government. In a lot of new cities where cannabis is becoming legal, it's hard for medical dispensaries to sustain their customer base because of all the taxes, all the regulations, just a lot of politics within that. So I think that the fight that they're fighting is very important and I think that they should fight to be able to make profit, especially because DC does have, I believe, three black business dispensaries. Generational Equity Movement actually had the chance to talk to one of the black business owners and we're on the same page.

So what Phil Mendelson is talking about, I think is a little bit more deeply rooted in what we were talking about, with people being strategic about not wanting to fight to make sure that these processes are equitable. It's a lot easier to say hey, these stories are illegal, shut 'em down, we don't even wanna worry about them. It's a lot more difficult to ask who makes up this market? Who's running this market? Is it black people? Is it people that we care about? What neighborhoods are they servicing? Who are the violent actors within this game? Let's actually sit down and do some research, let's collaborate.

The reason why I say that is because I-71 gift shops were never supposed to exist. Commerce was not written into that law, however black people took advantage, and began to figure out how to make money while staying within the law. So I can understand how that's like damn man, this wasn't meant for that, what are we doing? Then on top of that you got the Harris Rider, so you can't even make a recreational law yet. So I get all of that. But once again, that's the easy way to just leave us out. When actually DC could be the first place that has the most equitable market off jump, because of the special place that we're in.

You mentioned how there needs to be people to really go in and study why things play out the way they do. You also talked about who the violent actors are in this business. I think that's one of the things that people complain about as well. They say these businesses create opportunities for crime or violence because people will try to rob these places. They kind of use these businesses as a scapegoat towards some crimes. Can you speak a little bit on that and whether you agree or disagree with that sentiment?

Sometimes it's black and white, sometimes it's old and young, and sometimes it's both. You got white old people talking about why there's violence in the city when it doesn't even affect them or their families. I think I'm much more aware of violence in the city than a Phil Mendelson is, and where it's coming from. How you grow up can affect whether or not you become a violent person. So that's one thing. Two, it is a scapegoat, it's a cop out. Everybody's trying to figure out a solution right now with how to keep their businesses safe because this is a hot commodity and because most of the time, people do use cash in this business given the regulations of the federal government.

So that's just an overall thing that people have to deal with right now in the city. Yes, I do believe that there are some violent things that happen when a transaction takes place when you're talking about weed. I think a lot of those things happen during deliveries. The stores that represent Generational Equity Movement do not have delivery services for that reason. But I'm not gonna sit here and knock the person who has a business that is based in the delivery service, maybe because they can't afford a storefront or because they're not willing to lose their liberation in that way. They kind of wanna stay a little more under their radar. It's things that people have to do in order to provide for their families.

Sometimes it does lead to violence. What we have done as a Generational Equity Movement is provide consultations to some of these businesses to help them become more safe and help them think through processes so it's not just oh, I got weed, I'm trying to sell it. Try to help them stay within the law as much as they can so they can also become safe. At the end of the day, we are all under the same umbrella when a Phil Mendelson is talking about us. This part of the business in this entity is being run by our people. So we are not just going to look down on them for the things that they have to deal with.

There were a lot of people at the hearing who were business owners, and they said we wanna be able to call the police when people are being violent, but y'all don't respect us as businesses. So I think it's just turning a blind eye to the facts, you heard that at the hearing, he was speaking directly to Phil Mendelson. We gotta figure out a way for my business to be regulated because I wanna be more safe, a guy said that out loud. So it's a lot of people that feel that way, even with GEM and that's with consulting on the inside, they're like yes, please help us figure this out, this is what we're dealing with. So people wanna be safe, people wanna be regulated, and the violence in the city has root causes that would take days to discuss. But it's definitely not the damn gifting shops that are the cause of DC being the wild wild west as he called it.

Once our minds and our bodies can come together as black people, as people who care about our city, we can do anything. We saw that when we shut down the emergency legislation twice. So the first time that fueled us, made us realize that we do have community and we have a base that people support and they love us. They love our stores, but they also just love us and what we represent. So seeing that made us want to open up more people's eyes to who we are and what we do.

So when you do have that emergency legislation come up, what is that like as a person within this business, to have a future that's unknown? Do you look to others and see how you all can get together and fight this? Is there worry? What's your reaction when things like that come up, because I'm sure it's no the first time and it won't be the last time.

I think both times, initially it's a lot of worry and frustration. It's a lot of fear. Staying in that space for less than five minutes and then moving right out of that and just having that motivation to figure out what it's gonna be for my team. I think if this happens, I'll figure it out but I think about all the people that we employ, and just seeing how much life these businesses have breathed into them. It's truly transformational. So knowing what that looks like and how that can be gone is what motivates me. I was a teacher for almost 10 years. So seeing young people being able to associate themselves with something good and hold onto that is a feeling that is irreplaceable.

Think about that and just get into fight mode, we gotta figure this out. Both times it's been three days of us having to work our ass off before that Tuesday meeting. It's all hands on deck. Our staff is fully supportive. Obviously they go hard and the energy is reciprocated. We're still able to laugh and have joy over that weekend because we got each other.

Can you speak to what these businesses are doing for black communities, especially in a time where the city is in a transition, a lot of black people aren't able to keep their businesses in the city or live here. Can you speak to what you've seen these businesses do for black entrepreneurs and people in black communities?

I guess the first thing is giving them money, employing them. An old Councilwoman from Oakland who authored the first social equity license, Destiny Brooks, said once you do that for somebody, you give them dignity and you give them pride. So I think we start there, and then they realize that it's much deeper than that. We don't think that our values are the only values that you can have as a black person, but we do believe in self advocacy, building up their self esteem, and showing them to value one another. You're my brother, you're my sister type of vibe, we're a family. We know that some of the things that lead to violent actions around the city are not respecting the person next to you as a person.

And that somebody who was connected to you, when they win, you win. When I win, they win. So just trying to put those values into our employees at work through various efforts, whether it be team building or we get a little bit beneath the surface. Professional development where we are very critical and have a very high expectation about the service that you're providing and what you're doing. Whether that is us saying hey, you actually can't be gifted weed today because you've been smoking too much weed and we see that it's negatively affecting your pockets and your energy, it's getting out of control. So just really having that hands on approach and being willing to do whatever because I'm looking at these people like they're my family, because they are. A lot of them are eight to 10 years younger than me.

So I do in a sense feel like they're next up and I wanna make sure that they're going to pour that into the next generation, similar to what our ancestors did for us. Just trying to keep that going and be a positive light. We deal with a lot of BS, black people in this city. When I was 21, I was in college but I was also homeless when I came back home. So not knowing where I'm going to sleep at or whose house I'm gonna be at, knowing I can't be with my mom because she's somewhere else due to gentrification. If they're dealing with something like that, then when you come to work it should be a positive environment where you feel like you're being empowered.

A lot of them just from seeing us, seeing that representation in real time have started their own businesses. Getting them even more money, even more dignity, even more pride, even more smarts on how to be an entrepreneur. Because a lot of us never had the opportunity to even see that. So it's deeply rooted. And it comes out in a plethora of ways throughout the way you run our business, but we invest a lot of resources, time and money into our staff. All of our missions are staff based, they're not customer based, and they're damn sure not weed based. It's really just about uplifting our communities.

A shift to the documentary, Young Gifting and Black. What made you all want to come together and create this? What was the end goal of putting this together?

Documentaries are all about characters. I'm a storyteller at heart, no matter what I'm creating. After that first emergency legislation was introduced on November 2nd and I heard the rhetoric that was pushed around about who I-71 gifting shops were and what they did; It was kind of jarring compared to the actual facts when you visited the stores, when you were aware of that community. So at that point it became a desire to shed an inside view of what was really going on in the stores, and how the stores were transforming lives and what they were doing for the communities. Because the people who were pushing the rhetoric out, weren't the people who were visiting the stores, or were in the stores, or as they say, boots on the ground. So the initial desire was to share a story about people, period. Not about weed. Not about cannabis. And not necessarily even about money, but about people. And I hope slash think that's what we did.

And the timing of the release actually closely coincided with the most recent emergency legislation that almost took out initiative 71 businesses again. Can you talk about the coincidence of that? What did you all think about that and did you feel purpose in how that timed up?

What was ironic was that they originally wanted to put it out at the end of February due to some important date that was supposed to be announced then. I think it was the decision on if the Rider would be lifted or not. So as a filmmaker, I was like that's nearly impossible, our first film day was January 8th.

Then after that, the Rider wasn't lifted and because the doc wasn't finished, we just ended up implementing that into the documentary. Then we didn't know that they were gonna release that emergency legislation until the same day as the documentary.

We made the final edit the night before, it was still just a push. And I do remember feeling like, well now we can use the audience here. Now the doc has even more purpose. The timing was God's timing. And now we do have the stories ready and we have a movie theater full of people to say look, this is what you just watched, this is going on and now what and heres what we can do.

It's crazy because Fox 5 reached out to us trying to show the opposition, as far as people feeling like these businesses are violent, and they show this violent clip of... I don't even know what that was honestly. Then they were like, we wanna interview you guys and show the documentary you’re doing. So they came to the premiere and filmed there and went live. And the next day they were like.. and this emergency legislation just came out, let's talk about this.

So it was all kind of crazy. It was perfect timing for the media and press, our documentary was perfect. You would've thought we had it in the stacks and then we just scheduled a screening because that happened, which probably would be some strategy going forward, but it was literally just perfect timing.

Yeah, that was crazy to me, how that lined up like that.

Crazy, and it really helped with the city council. We did end up sending a password protected version of the documentary to some city council members and we do believe they watched it and that influenced their decision on that Tuesday when they voted.

So moving forward, do you have any more goals in terms of getting the documentary out or are you all kind of just pushing this initiative forward in general?

No, the documentary is separate. We put a lot of time, effort, and resources into it. We've gotten great feedback. We wanna take it far, we wanna tell the story far beyond the political fight.

It's always funny because there's two sides of this coin, we're all for the movement and for those goals. And then me as a filmmaker, I'm almost always like, but this is a film! We also have to do film things with it. So, I'm trying to get it to the DC Film Festival. So it's been a constant negotiation of it's a political tool, but it's also a work of art.

Generally speaking, is there anything else that you all have planned moving forward, to bring awareness to the culture of marijuana businesses here, particularly with gifting shops?

I wouldn't necessarily say to bring awareness to cannabis businesses, but just bring awareness to black people's power over their own lives when it comes to policy and politics, and who we have in these offices. So a big push that we're about to do now is voter registration booths. Generational Equity Movement is going to have those at various locations in the city. And just talk about the importance of young people voting.

I never thought that my vote necessarily counted. I always did vote, but I never had a strong belief in it. I never cared about politics that much. I felt like if you're a politician, you don't fuck with me. You gotta be fake, you gotta be phony. So I don't wanna support you or back you as a person, or as a politician. And I think a lot of people have that rhetoric, black people especially who feel like the world and the government is just against them. But there is some power that we have in making these changes and showing up for ourselves and the generations to come in the form of voting. So we wanna have a big push on that. We're gonna continue to show the documentary. We've had three successful showings thus far. So we wanna add to that and we just want to spread the word.

What does the rise of Muriel Bowser to the national stage mean for DC Natives?

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

from our PACK Express project...

Mayor Muriel Bowser seems to be getting a lot of national attention in the past few months.

She has appeared on MSNBC, CNN and ABC to speak on racial justice and the pandemic. She has been offered a Leadership Award by the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Mayor Bowser even had a speaking role at the 2020 DNC. Often alongside other Black woman mayors like Keisha Lance Bottoms, London Breed, and Lori Lightfoote, Muriel has been cast clearly in the national discussion as a local savior, holding the line against the public health and political threats posed by the Trump Administration and its followers.

Most notably, Mayor Bowser has received high praise for her decision to paint “Black Lives Matter” large enough it could be seen from space on the portion of 16th street running up to White House, renaming it “Black Lives Matter Plaza”. A response, of sorts, to the still ongoing nation-wide protests to end racist policing practices and seek accountability for police who commit murder.

Mayor Bowser’s choice to brand herself as a supporter of racial justice begs the question - What does the rise of Muriel Bowser to the national stage mean for DC Natives?

At this point? Not much at all. As Muriel’s star power has gained, DC Natives, most of whom are Black, are fighting to survive.

Take the city’s response to the Covid-19 crisis as an example. On April 12th, when Mayor Bowser sat on CNN’s Inside Politics and said “While the spotlight of Covid-19 is on it, we need national and local strategies to have more equal medical outcomes for African Americans in our country” she had only just set up the first testing site East of the River - even though testing had been available in richer, whiter parts of the city since March. The United Medical Center testing site, until recently, was only open for four hours a day, on weekdays.

The result? There were clear disparities in who was tested for Covid-19, who received treatment and who ultimately died from it. Black DC residents make up 46 percent of the DC, they make up 74 percent of DC’s Covid-19 deaths.

And Wards 7 and 8? The communities served by the single testing site at UMC? They had the highest rates of Covid-19 deaths in the city. Of the 616 people who have died in the District, 124 died in Ward 8. Compare this with Ward 3, which lost 34 of its residents.

Since the Pandemic started, Mayor Bowser ignored the demands to improve Covid-19 protections for the patient population at St. Elizabeth’s; she has failed to extend unemployment assistance to thousands of DC workers who were not covered by the federal CARES Act (including street vendors, undocumented workers and sex workers) and she has pushed for the reopening of DCPS triggering backlash from students, parents and teachers alike. In almost every way that mattered during this pandemic, Mayor Bowser failed Black DC residents.

We definitely did not fail ourselves. Black communities swiftly and effectively stood up and filled in the gaps that the DC government had left. Organizations like Black Lives Matter DC and their East of The River Mutual Aid set up networks targeted at providing food, medical supplies, school supplies to DC residents who were homebound or who had lost their source of income. Mutual aid networks like this existed in all 8 wards in the city and were community-led and owned. By April 20th, East of the River Mutual Aid had already provided 55,000 hot meals to community members.

This theme - the failure of Muriel Bowser to act effectively in response to the needs of Black Washingtonians and the diligence with which those same Black Washingtonians provided for one another - would become even more clear when The Uprisings began.

Protests seeking accountability for the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade began in DC within a day of the death of Mr. Floyd. From Day 1, the response from law enforcement was one of aggression. Reports of the use of rubber bullets, tear gas and preemptive arrests came quickly from the frontlines and have continued over the last 4 months. And, while Mayor Bowser may attribute much of that behavior to federal officials it was visibly the DC Police who trapped over a hundred peaceful protesters for 10 hours on a block on Swann St. NW after tear gassing them in clear violation of dc, federal and international law.

This made her comments at the 2020 DNC even more confusing for activists. Sitting with BLM Plaza behind her, Mayor Bowser criticized the Trump administration saying ““He [Trump] sent troops and camouflage into our streets. He sent tear gas into the air, and federal helicopters, too..I knew if he did this to D.C., he would do it to your city or your town. And that’s when I said, ‘Enough.'”

But what was she saying enough to? Her own actions? Muriel Bowser had used tear gas, rubber bullets and helicopters. Muriel Bowser had set a curfew that justified arresting hundreds. Muriel Bowser flooded the streets with police and set up roadblocks that some nights could be found as far north as Columbia Heights. Those were decisions she and her administration made and continue to make, independent from the White House.

Undeterred by the violence of the police, groups like Freedom Fighters DC, Concerned Citizens, Frontline Women established themselves as organizers and defenders of protesters - providing supplies, medics and safe spaces. Many of these groups were built by DC natives with DC natives in mind and have advanced a narrative of police abolition and reform that stems directly from DC’s unique situation of being policed not just on a local but also federal level. Protest groups and traditional advocates have created an organizing framework for the defunding and ultimate abolition of the MPD.They organized over 500 people to sign up to testify at DC police budget hearings, and protests city-wide that have continued every day for the last 112 days. Unlike Muriel, DC natives said “enough” and actually meant it.

What is abundantly clear from the last 7 months, is that Muriel Bowser’s national success as a politician - her awards, her speaking engagements, everything - has come directly from an unabashed lie - that Black DC Matters to her. If Black DC mattered, there would have been more than one testing site East of the River. But there wasn't. If Black DC had mattered, Swann St. wouldn't have happened. But it did. Instead of actually choosing to do the work of protecting Black communities in DC, Mayor Bowser chose the national spotlight. Leaving us to fight her and the federal government at the same time. And, that's not something people are likely to forget come the next mayoral election.

Yaytunde Speaks: Expressing Artistry in Tumultuous Times

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

from our PACK Express project...

On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin, when he held his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. Video of Floyd’s last moments were recorded, and ultimately went viral through social media, sparking instant outrage. Subsequently, protests began nationwide, and the conversation on race and injustice in America was sparked once again. For many young Black Americans, Floyd’s death was the last straw. The tragic cases of Ahmaud Arbery as well as Breonna Taylor were already weighing on the minds of many. This was insult to injury. It was also nothing new. Each year, the list of black people who are murdered at the hands of the police grows. Many of those cases conclude with officers not being held accountable for their actions. In June 2020, we saw a boiling point nationwide. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic prompting the shutdown of business and life as we know it, protestors of all ages took to the streets. Many, looking for an outlet. A way to grieve and sort through the familiar pain of losing life to a system that does not care whether you live or die.

Protest across the country have brought light to issues when many mainstream media outlets have failed to feel the pulse of the people who are demanding change. During protests, many are inclined to carry a sign to convey a message or share something they feel needs to be addressed. Within the new generation of protesters, art has become an important medium to convey messages to the masses.

Coupled with protest, the lockdowns put in place due to COVID-19 presented challenges for many. In a world where technology rules and everyone is now working from home or attending school remotely, it was hard to ignore the movement for social justice taking place outside. Social media would ensure that was the case. And though it was good that a lot more people were forced to pay attention because of the surrounding circumstances of the world, for those who are all too familiar with the pain of being black in America, it was hard to take in all of the news without it taking a mental toll.

For DC born and raised artist Yaytunde, art has been a major outlet during this tumulus year. A true chance to make a statement, while also addressing the many emotions that the death of black people wakens.

“I was inside a lot obviously, and I think at one point, my screen time on my phone was like 21 hours a day. It was insane. I was like this is just not healthy, but I was just taking in all the news.”

Yaytunde’s sentiments are felt by many. The constant consumption of black trauma on social media is troubling, and may ultimately desensitize a generation of black youth to the death and brutality black people face in this country. Luckily for Yaytunde, the constant consumption translated to action.

“Everyday I was just like taking it all in; and it was really traumatic news too. I was having to process this on my own. But I also recognized that this is a time for a lot of change and I was like, I cannot just stay in the house and do this. So one day I woke up and I was like I'm going to go protest. “

Coincidentally, Yaytunde picked one of the most intense days of the summer protests in DC to join the fight. The President, trying to enforce his rhetoric of law and order and curb violence and destruction to buildings and statues in the city, unleashed the national guard on protestors into the streets of DC. Many were arrested. Rubber bullets were shot into crowds. And the national guard used several tactics to separate and stifle protests of any kind.

“It felt like I was in the purge, it was very overwhelming for me. There were loud explosive noises that were happening, and people just like running. In my mind, I was like I support people, but I can’t be out here and do this part, I had a friend get shot with rubber bullets.”

The events that took place during her first night of joining protests lead to some critical thinking. What would be the most effective way to spread a message, support protestors, without being caught in the direct crossfires of the chaos. She found the answer around her, on the now boarded walls of DC.

“I noticed there were so many boards, everywhere for blocks and blocks, and this was around the White House in D.C I was like these are basically empty canvases essentially.”

After noticing many people painting on canvases in downtown DC, she reached out to someone she saw painting about how she could participate. After submitting previous work addressing police violence to the group, they asked if she could turn in something different. This rubbed Yaytunde in the wrong direction. Who were they to police how she should express her grief. It was then that she decided to work alone, and spread her own message upon canvases,

“There were still things that needed to be addressed. Still things happening, and the art being put up, it was nice but it was the kind of cliché unity pieces that people have been talking about for years. So I was like okay, I'm just going to do it myself. Like, why am I asking permission from a white person to do black lives matter art or art for black lives? I saw this thing online and that was like, if you carry a ladder around nobody asks you questions. So I just grabbed the ladder from my basement and took some paints and set up a wall. This is the night before Breonna Taylor's no knock warrant (law) was going to be passed, so I felt like the bulletin board or the plywood, would just be a way to get information to the public because I know that on my Instagram timeline, there's a lot of people who are obviously advocating for social justice or all preaching to the choir. Everyone that I follow is circulating the same information to each other. And it's like, we're not the ones who need to see it. I mean, I understand that we might be a network, so we spread to people who do need to see it, but it was just like, this is the same information being circulated to the same kind of groups.”

“As public art, anybody who would pass the White House, or those very corporate places would see it. So I did my first mural and it was like images of these random protestors and they’re holding up signs, and in the signs I put the number to call for the Breonna Taylor case and what to say in order for the to pass the no knock warrant law.”

“That was the first piece that I did. Part of it was kind of relieving to not attach like social media to it. because it's just like whoever sees it sees it, like, you're not worried about that. It’s not for any kind of personal attention, but while I was out there and painting, people would stop and ask questions, which was really interesting because a lot of them actually didn't know what was happening in that sense, which I found interesting because just being online, you just assume that everyone is.”

With her dynamic art style, Yaytunde’s art gained many admirers. Those who passed by would often take pictures to tag on Instagram or call the numbers or donate to the initiatives she highlighted within her work. On the flip side, some of the pieces did draw Ire.

“One day I actually went out to paint with my mom. A group of cops came up and one had said nice art and asked if I had been working on this before today, and I was like yeah. Then another came up and asked a similar question and I was like okay, what is going on? And my mom actually said it looked like he was going to cry. And the officer was like, I’m sorry to have do this, but someone reported that you had guns, I’m going to need to check your bags. And he was just like I’m so sorry, it’s my job and I have to search for safety reasons. That kind of scared me a little bit because who would tell the police we had guns?”

Despite her brief interaction with law enforcement, Yaytunde found her outlet, her way to contribute to the movement and voice her concerns.

“It was also a way for me to get my frustration out at the time, and just like leave it in that space. So that gave me the opportunity to process everything that was taking place.”

Though she was able to find a positive outlet, she still had a lot on her mind, especially in regard to Breonna Taylor.

“I haven’t posted this one yet though because it just felt weird how often I was seeing her named used in different places for different reasons After a while I was like, I don't even know anymore what justice would look like for her. A lot of what people were saying was to abolish this system, abolish police, abolish just everything and for people to say arrest the cops in the same breath just seems like we're trying to put them in the same system you’re saying is flawed. So, what's the real solution?”

“It just became like a punchline, you know. It was just like, Hey, I'm at the beach, also arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor and just became like, do you even know what you're saying anymore? Because it's a contradiction. And it just kept being in the news.”

As the weeks went on in the summer, many of Yaytunde’s pieces were ultimately removed or painted over. DC has tried to make a transition back into a normal state removing boards off of many of the businesses. Yaytunde however, was not discouraged by the arts removal.

“I painted it, knowing, that it’s temporary. It would be seen when it was seen. I wasn’t painting it to keep it. Its purpose was to inform, to be there in the moment for protestors.”

Yaytunde, like so many other black women, channeled the many emotions she felt into something that would help and ultimately uplift others. In 2020, it has been common for people to be absorbed with everything taking place, especially in the era of COVID, with our definition of what’s ‘normal’ currently being redefined. As we continue to live in America, many of the injustices that black people face will not disappear. It is important that we all find our process for grieving, and how to channel the emotions that grief brings into the change we would like to see.

What is Police Abolition?

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

from our PACK Express project...

Why don't you like cops - All people have inherent worth and dignity - and people are not their jobs. When people say ACAB or Fuck 12 they are attacking the institution of the police and people who uphold and defend that system, many of those people are current or former law enforcement. The fact is policing is rooted in anti-blackness and racism. The origins of American policing come from pre-civil war slave catching forces and has throughout its history created and perpetuated a criminal justice system that actively kills Black people and holds Black communities back.

What is Police Abolition?

Police abolition is a term used by a wide range of activists and scholars and means something a little bit different to everyone who uses it. In its broadest sense, when activists say "Abolish the Police" they are referring to removing all institutional, financial, and social support for police departments, child welfare enforcement, immigration enforcement, federal enforcers like the FBI, CIA, and Army. These advocates believe that the foundation of policing is so rotten because of its relationship to American slavery and racial stratification that it could not possibly be reformed, the only way to achieve public safety then is to remove the police. For example to some people this means that the Metropolitan Police Department would cease to exist - they would no longer carry out arrests, investigations, or do crowd control. For others this means that they would not have "police powers" - the power to arrest or seize assets but would be able to engage in investigations, make referrals to courts, etc.

What does it mean to "defund" the Police?

Defunding the police is also a broad term but often means using legislative tools to decrease the police budget as a way of reducing the overall size and power of the police force. Police budgets are often oversized, much larger than other community investments like education and public housing. Defunding the police provides us with an opportunity to shift our public tax dollars away from policing to more effective investments like in creating street intervention teams, expanding educational supports to all students, improving public housing. These types of policies have much more of an impact on crime rates and ultimately lead to healthier, happier, safer communities.

Why can't we just reform the police?

Lots of policies have tried to reform the police - increasing the #s of Black officers, requiring body cameras, banning especially dangerous practices like kettling or the use of tear gas, improving community relations with the police have been tried across the country. In fact, DC has been treated as a model for police accountability in the past despite the fact that we have had 4 police shootings in 5 years. Police reform was a noble effort but it has become clear to many people that it is not how police do their job, its that they do their job at all. Abolition means that

How will we be kept safe when there are no police?

Ask yourself what it means to be safe, DC's police budget and size have grown every year for the last decade but the murder rate continues to climb. Policing, especially patrols, can create a veneer of safety in some communities simply because those communities trust them. In places where Police have not built positive relationships, even patrols can cause fear and trauma responses. Police are also active perpetrators of violence - arrests, seizures, high-speed chases, etc are all deeply traumatic experiences that can lead to injury and death, when police use these tools they do not increase safety inside of communities they very directly make people less safe.

Community safety actually does not come from enforcing the laws, research has shown that the effect of deterrence (the idea that the existence of the law and law enforcement stops people from committing crimes) on reducing crimes is much much smaller than other interventions that focus on the prevention of crime and building safer communities. So investing in education and safe public housing in many ways makes us even safer than police ever could.

What about rapists and abusers?

Rapes are barely dealt with by the criminal justice system in the SQ. Only 23% of sexual assaults are reported, less than 1% of rapists end up in prison.1 in 3 survivors feel less safe when in the presence of law enforcement. Alternative methods of punishment that don't include an arrest and criminalization - like mediation or restorative justice processes - may work better for many survivors because they give them autonomy in how to approach their healing instead of the one-size-fits-all policy of jail. Police are also active perpetrators of violence in their own lives. Households with police officers have a rate of domestic violence four times higher than other households.

Washington D.C. on Track for Highest Murder Total in 15 Years

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

from our PACK Express project...

Amidst the most chaotic year in recent history… during a pandemic, during a social revolution regarding this country’s past, present and future racial transgressions, with a paradigm shifting Presidential election looming, Washington D.C. is facing a heartbreaking and familiar epidemic that it knows all too well: gun violence. Whether at the hands of the people sworn to protect and serve us or as a by-product of poverty, the lack of opportunities in our communities and displacement, murder has run rampant in the District in a way we haven’t seen for 15 some odd years. With 150+ murders in early October of 2020 (compared to 166 total murders in 2019), Washington, D.C. is on track for topping 200 murders for the first time since 2004.

History of Murder Capital

D.C.’s Mayor for Life, Marion Barry, once said ”It’s been like a frenzy. Once you start a name, it just becomes a name. You can’t get rid of it,” in respect to the city’s ‘Murder Capital’ tag. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Washington, D.C. did more than earn enough to earn the grim title. From 1988 to 1995, the homicide rate rested comfortably in the 400s, a frightening number for any city, but especially a city as small and compact as D.C. There were many contributing factors to this traumatic time period. First and foremost, we’d be remiss in not recognizing the profound effect the crack epidemic had on this area. Crack’s introduction in 1986 is the most obvious precursor to the ‘Murder Capital’, with D.C. also essentially becoming the ‘Crack Capital’ as well, with the largest crack-dealing organizations making as much as $8 million a month ($18 million in 2020, with inflation). This much street traffic, money and the murder that followed garnered a lot of attention - all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Newly elected President George Bush made it a point to “restart” the War on Drugs because of the drug trade in Washington, D.C., using crack sold in a park across the street from the White House as an example. The subsequent policing and attention caused more harm than good, as the murder rate rose in the following years, but this clearly outlines the landscape this nickname was given in.

Factors in Violence: (gentrification, poverty, lack of opportunity)

Gun violence is not an issue that exists in a vacuum. It is the culmination of a number of things, ending in the perfect cocktail of circumstances needed for someone to be injured, sometimes fatally. When citizens are asked, they bring up the following as contributing factors: D.C. natives struggle with a lack of opportunity in an economically booming city, rising rent costs forcing residents into unfamiliar (sometimes even warring) neighborhoods, on top of an already irreparable relationship with the black community and the Metropolitan Police Department. This creates a deadly atmosphere, a hotbed for gun violence. Residents don’t feel safe and it is obvious how some may feel that carrying a weapon for your own self-defense is better than potentially losing your life, falling victim to this new landscape they have been put into. On the other hand, when it comes to individuals that may not have any opportunity, any way to feed themselves or their families, relying on less than savory methods of making money become necessary. This puts an unavoidable target on your back - either with other individuals in the streets, the police or both. The powers that be in Washington, D.C. have a responsibility to its citizens, to ensure that they are never put between a rock and a hard place, in this way. The cross-section of economics and public safety can be seen plainly here and real steps need to bee made to ensure the progress of all Washingtonians.

34th N EAT Party Shooting

More recently, there has been two captivating stories: a celebration turned mass shooting and another young life taken too soon by America’s over-militarized police force. In the days leading up to August 9th, near the apex of a somewhat dormant and stifled summer as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a video went viral on social media. Hundreds of bottles of liquor advertising an annual cookout branded the ‘34th & EAT Cookout’, featuring the popular D.C. brand EAT, prompted hundreds of people to take to the streets. A little past midnight, shots rung out. 22 people were shot. 21 individuals were adults, including 12 of which are women, 9 male victims and 16 people between the ages of 20-29 years old. Heartbreakingly, a 17 year old young man, a father to an infant, lost his life. No one has been charged for these murderous actions and no explanations have been produced. The event was a perfect cocktail for mayhem, with alcohol amounting to thousands of dollars, the common violent occurrences of dice games and other cash-based gambling at parties and cookouts, ontop of the reality of warring neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.

DEON KAY

Deon Kay was similarly young. 18 years old with years of life ahead of him, his journey was cut short in a way that is all too familiar to young black men in this country: by a gun in the hands of a police officer. Police responded that a tip that Kay and two others were in their neighborhood brandishing guns and officers actively went looking for them. Upon being discovered, Kay fled, trying his best to escape capture. Officer Alexander Alvarez runs ahead of Kay, trying to cut him off. As we can only guess at this point, Deon realizes his capture is inevitable and he tries to best to toss his weapon. While doing so, Alvarez shoots and kills Deon Kay. The weapon in question was found nearly 100 feet away from Deon Kay’s lifeless body. Police shootings happen everyday in America. Rarely are we, the people, given the information to truly discern whether or not justice was truly served. Do I believe Deon Kay could have been apprehended without loss of life? I do. But at the end of the day, we can only truly focus on how to stop these situations and circumstances from being common occurrences in our communities.

An Interview with Frontline Women: Advocating on behalf of the people of Washington D.C.

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

from our PACK Express project...

Activism is inspired by a call to action. People observe a need that is often neglected and ignored; and that neglect elicits action. This has been a constant theme for the year 2020, which has been plagued with the COVID-19 pandemic and racial strife in the country, especially within the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. Frontline Women DC, a group of young black women who are advocating for the needs of Washingtonians are one of the best examples of recognizing areas of neglect, and organizing to address them head on.

In early June, they came together in reaction to the death of George Floyd, a definitive last straw for many black people who were tired of hearing about police encounters ending with the same deadly result.

“The inspiration was definitely through the George Floyd protests. That’s when we came together right at the beginning of June. We really just wanted to make an impact and we didn’t know exactly how we were going to do that, but we just wanted to be a part of this special moment in history. It was like a really weird time and it’s just like, I want to do something. I can’t sit home and watch this on social media and on TV and not be a part of the movement.”

The need to participate in the overall movement for justice translated into the formation of Frontline Women. Subsequently, the group organized resources from district residents across the city to provide protestors with food, water, and general financial support to help protests spread their messages.

Though their advocacy started with a desire to support protestors of racial injustice, Frontline Women’s mission has expanded into many areas that directly addressed problems DC residents are facing, especially when it comes to black women.

“We wanted to center black woman because we felt like in the movement in general and also in DC, we don’t really see the focus of a lot of the movements and activism here being black woman. So we wanted to create the space for ourselves. A lot of black are black women are abused, killed, violated by the police and just by the system in general, that gets overlooked. I think when you have an organization that is founded by black women, we’re always going to put those issues first. For example two girls back in June, were murdered in DC. It wasn’t by the police, but we are still victims of violence within our community and outside our community. We really made an effort to donate to their go fund me’s and spread awareness to violence against black women in DC. I think it’s important to have things that are for us by us when it involves black women, because we’re always going to champion us.”

Saige Ballard and Zymia Joyner are the young women referenced. They were two black teenagers who were murdered due to the rampant gun violence that has taken place in DC this year, especially during the summer. When Frontline Women heard of their stories, they immediately used the profile they built aiding protestors in order to funnel aid and support to those two families.

Since the summer, Frontline Women DC have organized a series of events to give DC residents resources. Grocery giveaways to Wards 7,8, which are areas that have been historically disenfranchised due to their demographics and location. School drives to provide supplies, as many children went back to school in September without the same familiar infrastructure present. As election season approached, they mobilized to register people to vote, as well as sharing important information with their communicates about how and where to vote.

Though they have been able to organize and provide resources to support many communities in DC, members of Frontline Women DC sounded off on a number of issues that are on their radar moving forward:

“I think one of the biggest issues is definitely the lack of access to healthy food across the city, food insecurity in general. As DC has become more gentrified those neighborhoods before that didn’t have access to grocery stores, maybe only have like a corner store, now have grocery stores and things like that only because white people have moved in the neighborhood. You can see that these places where white people haven’t moved yet still don’t have access to groceries. Someone should be able to walk down the street and get food because everyone doesn’t have access to cars.”

“I also think, to be a little more black women specific, DC is one of the most high risk places to have children in the country, especially if you live east of the river because there aren’t any hospitals, and the hospitals that are in DC right now outside of Howard, you can’t really go to most of them if you don’t have insurance or it’s going to be extremely expensive. That’s something that alarms me. That’s also a huge issue since we’re in the middle of a public health crisis; that there’s just not access to medical care, especially for black women, like there should be in a major city like DC.”

“A big thing is cultural and social awareness, just coming back to DC and seeing how gentrifiers, even black people who are new to DC, not understanding the culture. We would like to see more emphasis on teaching people about black DC culture. I just felt like a lot of people are just not culturally sensitive or aware of how inspirational DC’s culture has been and how it’s being taken away through gentrification.”

“DC has always been violent, but I feel like this summer in the past couple of years, it’s been super evident. We know that a lot of that is the effect of gentrification. People are being pushed together, but also there’s not a shared community responsibility just to keep everyone safe and alive anymore and that’s just stressful and kind of alarming to think about, especially as we get older and we’re going to start having kids and wanting to raise families here, it’s just not safe and we don’t feel safe when the police come. They don’t necessarily give the care and the proper attention to a lot of these cases like they should, the mayor doesn’t; It’s like us as activists and as community members are the only one who cares.We’re the ones supporting the families when they need help after they lost loved ones.”

“It kind of goes back to gentrification. I know growing up here, there were a lot more resources for homelessness. A lot of homeless people had a lot more shelters that they could go to. A lot of addicts had drug treatment programs that they could get into, and now it’s little to none. That’s extremely frustrating, especially with drugs being exposed to younger kids. A lot more people are on the street and there’s a pandemic on top of all of this. Homelessness is at such an alarming rate and then people are already being pushed out from some of the places that they are staying. It’s very concerning.”

You can follow Frontline Women DC on Instagram @FrontlineWomenDC in order to keep up with their community events, as well as receiving information on how to donate or volunteer.

Sneaker Sunday #1

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 02:28:33 GMT

What sneakers made you fall in love? ThePackWorld team weighs in!

Do you remember that one sneaker you saw growing up that just made you fall in love? Couldn’t keep your mind off them? We at the Pack World reflected on those shoes that got us into the sneaker game. Here are some of our first loves.

Air Jordan 9 White/Black/True Red “Count Down Pack”

Najee : “It’s one of them first Jordan’s I ever saw in person. The bottom is what drew my attention with the blocky structure eating the toe box it almost looked like the mouth of a beast. The cool, smooth suede then the white leather was just so sexy, so smooth. When the light hit it right the suede would glisten and sparkle a little bit. Then the shoe has a good shape for different pant cuff sizes. My good buddy talks a lot about that and the 9 looks good with skinny’s boot cut, relaxed, tapered, shorts, sweats, whatever you wanna throw on. The white on top of the black, with the white pocket below the ankle w/the jump man, make it so you can crack em with almost any colors. So why do I love them? Because they tough as shit, fly as shit, and got a sock built in. That’s key.”

Shaan : “The first sneaker I fell in love with was the Playoff Jordan 9s. I always liked shoes but I couldn’t cop all the new shoes cause my feet kept growing and the price of shoes was too high. But those were the first shoes I copped once my feet stopped growing. They were black and white so they went with everything. And I just loved the look of em on my feet. Paying for em with my own money just solidified our bond.”

Interesting facts about the Air Jordan 9 White/Black/True Red:

Originally released in November 1993
Became the first Jordan model to be released while Jordan was retired
The Jordan 9 is the only model of the original 14 Air Jordans not tied to a distinct on-court moment during Michael Jordan’s career
The Jordan 9 model is tied to Michael Jordan’s baseball career and the 1993 Nike ad campaign for Johnny Kilroy, which was an alias for Jordan, suggesting that although he was still playing basketball for a fictitious team while playing baseball for the Birmingham Barons

Air Jordan 3 “True Blue”

Nayion: “I would say true blue 3’s… I had a pair when I was young in like 01’ or 02’ when they originally released so they remind me of my childhood… that time period, and it was also one of the shoes that Jordan wore as a wizard and I had/have a Michael Jordan obsession… It was also one of the first major non OG color ways that dropped on a classic silhouette, previous to those I only remember aqua 8’s, space jams and cool greys being the only Jordan to release with colorways outside of black and red… it was also the first shoe I purchased with own money in like 2010 or 11’ when it retroed… it was like the first new shoe I bought of my modern shoe collection and marks a turning point in my personal style… and it’s the only Jordan 3 with the elephant print behind the eye holes, it’s just a dope ass shoe.”

Interesting facts about the Air Jordan 3 “True Blue” White/True Blue:

The True Blue had a significant impact on the boom in the retro market back in 2001
Kobe Bryant wore the shoe during the 2003 NBA All-Star Game as a tribute to Jordan
One of the first 3s to replace the Nike Air branding with the Jumpan logo
Michael Jordan never got to wear the shoe as a Bull, but had plenty of runs in them during his time in DC
During the season the Jordan 3 was released (1987-88), Michael Jordan won NBA All-Star, All-Star Game MVP, Slam Dunk Contest Title, Steal Champion, Scoring Champion, Defensive Player of the Year, and Most Valuable Player

Air Jordan 11 “Concord”

Kluse : “This had to be around 01 or 02, I had a neighbor named Buster who was like 16 or 17 and he had both. And I just remember having seen nothing like them. Shit was so futuristic. So clean. And I remember wanting a pair and my parents just not rocking. Didn’t get my first pair [of Jordans] til sophomore year of high school. Didn’t finally get my Cords till college.”

Interesting facts about the Air Jordan 11 “Concord” White/Black/Dark Concord:

Originally released in November 1995
Michael Jordan debuted the shoe during the 1995 playoffs against the against the Orlando Magic; Tinker Hatfield warned Jordan not wear them because they were not yet ready for market
Michael Jordan was only able to wear the shoe for two games because the colorway didn’t abide by league regulations
It’s the first basketball shoe to feature patent leather as a material
The Concord was Jordan’s first release after he came back from his retirement

Air Jordan 5 “Grape”

Jordan: “I remember watching the Fresh Prince and seeing Will Smith walk around in them with no laces. His style was so crazy and colorful, and the shoe was so icy. Plus, my name is Jordan so I really thought I deserved to have those shoes. The purple bottoms with the emerald spikes really appealed to me and I loved how the rubber netting looked on the side. I finally got em back in 2013 too, but I think I either traded them or sold them. It was the 2013 release though, so when I get my next pair I’d rather cop the 06 joints. ”

Interesting facts about the Air Jordan 5 Grape White/Grape Ice/New Emerald:

Originally released in 1990
The only original Jordan 5 not to be worn by Michael Jordan in an NBA game
Tinker Hatfield was inspired by World War 2 Mustang fighter planes when designing the Jordan 5 model
Will Smith had such an impact on the shoe that Jordan brand released them in 2018 with no laces, as a tribute to the Fresh Prince

We promise this wasn’t planned, but all of our first love sneakers were Jordan brand (of course). Jordans were, and still are, such a big part of our lives, culturally speaking. Tune in next Sunday to get the scoop on some quality kicks.

PACK+PLAY #203

Sun, 16 Jun 2019 16:04:03 GMT

GRAB YOU A GLIZZY AND A COLD ONE... kick back, it's Summer.

• This will get you where you gotta go •

Brought to you every Sunday, like it's the 1st and the 15th.

Exclusively curated by The Pack

www.thepack.world • @thepack_world

@_jordeezy @najeeblack @nayion202 @thepack_kluse @shaanofagun

PACK+PLAY #202

Sun, 09 Jun 2019 18:54:02 GMT

"Aye sweetheart! You see my mans over there?" "He tryna go smack ��‍♂️ so wassup?"

• This will get you where you gotta go •

Brought to you every Sunday, like it's the 1st and the 15th.

Exclusively curated by The Pack

www.thepack.world • @thepack_world

@_jordeezy @najeeblack @nayion202 @thepack_kluse @shaanofagun

PACK+PLAY #201

Sun, 09 Jun 2019 18:22:14 GMT

Season 2 is here and you're in for a show: the Season Opener.

• This will get you where you gotta go •

Brought to you every Sunday, like it's the 1st and the 15th.

Exclusively curated by The Pack

www.thepack.world • @thepack_world

@_jordeezy @najeeblack @nayion202 @thepack_kluse @shaanofagun

Silver Screen Situations: The Beach Bum

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 21:04:25 GMT

"You gotta go low to get high."

The Beach Bum is a fun film with plenty of great lines about love and life. Mathew McConaughey played the role to a T. Following the life an epic man, Beach Bum takes the viewer through a series of moments capturing his full essence. Moondog is the definition of a free man, drinking and smoking his days away, finding time to share some of his deepest thoughts with the rest of us. Often found wandering the boardwalk in the Keys, Moondog is something of a modern day philosopher. A poet by trade, his words are magic. They are fire, waiting to ignite the light inside of you and bring your most joyest self to the foreground. Joined by a wife who may be one of the richest women in their Southern Florida neighborhood, Snoop Dogg as a best friend, and a remarkably strong and intelligent daughter, Moondog has one last book to write.

Often throughout the movie, you may find yourself asking, “When will enough be enough?” The hijinks, the drinking, it seems to be never ending and you wonder how those around him can stand to put up with him. But as an artist and a creative, those around him understand that a certain level of comfort and space to be himself will allow his brush to stroke away at the canvas and leave us with a masterpiece.
At some point along his journey, Martin Lawrence and Zac Efron tag along to help Moondog on his travels. Life is funny sometimes and this film shows you how being light hearted can make any situation seem like a walk in the park.

Kluse presents... 2010FIBAWC Series

Sun, 30 Sep 2018 16:20:35 GMT

"IM ME, I DO ME, AND I CHILL"

https://soundcloud.com/thepackworld <- ALL AVAILABLE HERE!

DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.mediafire.com/folder/jvkfyt522oe22/2010FIBAWC

BACK-UP LINKS:
1ST QUARTER - https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/758637/q1.zip
2ND QUARTER - https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/758638/q2.zip
3RD QUARTER - https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/758639/q3.zip
4TH QUARTER - https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/758640/q4.zip

"Good inspiration makes the work easy. Any questions about it, I’m more than willing to answer. Special thanks: @ RashadStark , co-exec. prod & @ TrippyKayyy , you’ll hear her. Uh... a bunch of other people too. Mention them when/if you hear them."

Artist Spotlight - T.Y

Fri, 14 Sep 2018 19:58:49 GMT

"Just a lot of just real conversations that I wish we would have as homies, as lovers."

So we're here today with Ty Hobson-Powell, M.A., a man whose credentials speak for themselves at this point. But this interview isn't about his long and lengthy history of service and commitment to the community, commitment to education and academia, commitment to black people (even though we'll touch a little bit on that last one) but this interview is about where he's headed right now.

So my first question is, how have you dealt with this new and very public entrance into the creative space? I'm sure you've been a creative your whole life, but this public transition from opinion leader/academic/community advocate to artist/model/etc.

Ty : I have been a creative for some years, so it's always been something that's kinda been brewing. I just always wanted to wait for the right time to unpack it. I felt like I was knocking out some of the things that people had expected of me (school, etc.). The Bachelors, then it was my Masters and then it was getting a job and doing things to show people that I was active, but I’ve always had these ideas in the back of my head that were screaming to be brought to life.

I was waiting for the right time. It just so happened that when I got down to Atlanta, I was on the back end of a break up and I was very, very, very tied to that relationship. The space after that is kind of like a lame deer learning how to walk, you know what I'm saying? I was regaining my balance after being tethered to a situation that I was really invested in. Rediscovering what it meant to be me at a time when I moved to a new city, Atlanta of all those cities, being a creative hub of Black Hollywood.

My man Apollo has a company called Stu2Go, where he goes around with studio equipment and people can record a podcast, an album, whatever - based out of my crib. I met him through one of my roommates and we just hit it off. My roommate does photography and I ended up doing the modeling. Everything that began taking place was a well intentioned accident. I was put in a position with the perfect people to catapult these ideas in my head.

You have a group of individuals, now, who are just as invested in the community and in assisting black people with expressing themselves, telling their stories, creating/promoting their art. How does it feel to continue to express this other side of yourself but still very much on brand with your beliefs and your previous actions?

Ty : It’s beautiful. There’s an ancient adage that goes “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” So it's the idea that you can do a lot, in no time, by yourself. But if we're talking about this longevity, the idea of building something longstanding, something that can really be a pillar for our community - it has to be done together. I found a lot of beauty in the fact that I was able to get that sense of collaboration, literally, in-house. Jahde, one of my roommates, I ended up going to Howard University with his older brother, years ago. The entire movement feels years in the making. It just so happened that we ended up in the same space. He teaches financial literacy. We have Ghost, who has a hand in the photography, videography. Really a creative in all aspects, truly bringing stuff to life. Apollo, with the music and using music as a medium to speak on what matters in our community. And that's some of what I do in some of my music too. But the ability to pull all of those talents.

What were some of the sonic inspirations or even artistic inspirations that helped you craft your debut project?

Ty : I like to think that I make mood music. I have some music where I'm rapping and some where I'm singing. Some that teeters right there in the middle. Every single one of my songs has a vibe and I hate the word vibe. People overuse the hell out of it, but you’re gonna hear it and be like, “Oh yeah, damn right. I can ride down 95 listening to that.” That really comes from my dad playing James Taylor, Michael Franks, Jamiroquai, Maroon Five. I mean, I'm talking about my inspirations were literally all over the place. So you have you that kind of pocket of it and then you got what I was already naturally listening to - the gogo in the city (Chuck Brown, Rare Essence, TCB, XIB). Gangster rap to even what we would call ‘white boy music’ like Metro Station, Gorillaz, and things along those lines. I love music of all kinds and I’ve always been like that.

In a perfect world, what would be the people's response to your first project? For you, what kind of reaction does it need to garner for you to consider it a success?

Ty : My project is called Master.Peace+ and it explores a lot of concepts. We have a lot of conversations on this project. Like I have one song, for example, called Anxiety and it talks about my experiences with anxiety and depression, being somebody who people would feel like is doing well in the world. A real, honest conversation about that, using a medium that's comfortable for us. Sonically, the song is rocking. But it finally hits that, “Damn, that nigga is talking about depression right now.” I'm really intentional in the messaging and that's honestly what I want people to get out of the project. Every song was well constructed. Every note was in there for a reason. Every lyric was in there for a reason. Everything was quality tested, a million times over. I wanted you to have a specific reaction from the sounds that I put together for you. Just a lot of just real conversations that I wish we would have as homies, as lovers.

What do you believe is the state of relations between black men and black women right now, in your opinion?

Ty : WHEW. I have to think about this one right here. I gotta say all the right shit. First and foremost, I bear witness to black love, in my house. My parents have been married for 25 years. Seeing that always has kept my faith in black love because I literally remember transitioning from a one bedroom apartment in Southwest to the house that we're in now. We’re having this interview in a house where the basement is bigger than the whole apartment we lived in and it is a tangible testament to black love. To their ability to stick together, to pull together resources, to pull together individual talents and be the best versions of themselves. I can't lose faith in black love now. Geographically, where I'm situated is also an interesting. Up here on the Gold Coast, amongst fairly affluent, black, older black people, right? A lot of these people have been married forever, ever. My neighbor was married for over 75 years and that story can be told by a lot of people on my block. Sadly, you can also go on social media and get the pulse of other things and see that we may not be at an ideal place, in terms of loving the black woman.

That's a conversation that I had at Harvard this past November, where it was just the idea that we are situated in a place where black women are really being the best advocates for black women, right now. And we're not. We're not stepping up and showing up with that sense of partnership that they show up for our issues. We're not having their back. We're not hearing their cries. There is definitely room for improvement, but that’s with everything in life. I think, all in all, despite whatever you may see, black love is still very much alive. I'm encouraged by it every day.

My final question for you: where do you see Ty, the artist, and Ty, the man, being in year or two years? Everyone loves saying five years, but I think sometimes we can underestimate the amount of change that happens in a single 365. So just just in those short time spans, where do you see yourself?

Ty : I want this to be a gem. Like when people go looking for Drake's first interview or Kanye’s first interview. I want this to have planted a seed for what the rest of this year is going to be like. I got this project coming out any day now and we’ve been sending it to different focus groups, sending it to different engineers, getting different mixes on it. I'm that kind of person, you know what I'm saying? I've heard it seven different ways already, just trying to get it perfect. I kind of just want to see how far it all takes me, where we're taking the collective that I talked about previous, the House of Collaboration and focusing on housing creatives and making that more of a formal business entity. Joint ventures and physical manifestations!

I just wanted to create opportunities in this next year for myself and everyone around me. The thing is I'm thinking about my creative world, but then I'm also in law school. I just looked at my schedule today and I have all these classes, all of these other undertakings. So I’m just mapping it all out. I know this shit is going to happen, so I just try and plan it out and take it day-by-day. You can’t take it too much more than day-by-day in my world. It’s coordinated chaos where success is based on troubleshooting and problem solving. How are we gonna do this? How are you going to fit this in? But you get it done. Because that’s really what I’m on this planet to do.

FOLLOW THE REST OF THE HOUSE OF COLLABORATION CREW ON INSTAGRAM

@ghosthallmon

@apollosphere

@kenieceee

@doni_d

@youngjahde

Small Business Spotlight - WrappedByRu

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 20:01:11 GMT

"As women, our weight fluctuates so much that it’s hard to pinpoint the progress we’ve made. Waistbeads help you celebrate your small victories, even if they don’t show up on the scale."

Instagram: @wrapped.by.ru

I’m here with Ruth Fikeru of WrappedByRu on her business which relates to-

Ruth Fikeru : -waist bead and anklets and body jewelry-

-artisan goods of all kinds. I don't want to pigeon hold her down because she's growing to do big things! First question - what’s your background as it relates to the craftsmanship aspect your work?

R : I would say that I'm a consumer first. I started making waist beads for myself and people would see the things that I was wearing and wanted to purchase them for themselves. That's really how this whole thing got started. So I really feel like I know what people want because I hold myself to making a product that I too would want—so appearance and quality are very important to me.

You touched on quality a little bit and I think this goes into your work as a craftswoman, as well. What are some of the issues that you faced as a consumer in your experience with waist beads and how did those experiences affect your approach to your own products?

R : I started wearing waist beads in May when I was in a fitness club at work and trying to track my gains. I've always known that one of the purposes of waist beads is to track your weight fluctuation, which means that that they never come off. So they should be very heavy duty. They should be versatile. You're going to wear them all day long, every single day. For this reason, I've never purchased them off the street ("I live in New York City now”) even though they're very available, but I just think that the quality is low. A lot of people will make them out of stretchy string or just low-quality beads/items, overall. And I never wanted that because I think the most embarrassing thing that can happen is you can be in a meeting and you scratch your stomach and boom, your waist beads pop. That's super embarrassing.

So the biggest thing for me is quality and one thing that I make sure to do is have every individual item be as high quality as possible and that starts with the strings that I use. A lot of people will try to use stretchy string because it allows for wiggle room if people do not know their exact measurements—which is a major challenge for me. But still I make sure that I use a real quality string with wire components and plastic wrapping. The reason that I want to use wire is because waist beads should not stretch at all. And with the amount of wear they get, they should be the most heavy-duty thing ever. So that wire - you can pull on it, tug on it, you can get super bloated, and nothing is going to happen to it. Then, when it comes to design as well, I think there's a lot of quality in that too because I put a lot of focus and a lot of attention and detail into the way that I design things. Texture, color, combinations, vibes *smiles.* I put a lot of thought into it.

Absolutely. I wanted to ask, what impact do you feel your products have on people's body image? Both in positive and negative ways.

R : So one thing I would like to make extremely clear is that waist beads are for everybody. I know a lot of people are just like “Oh, my body is not ready for it,” “I'm not ready for it,” whatever it may be. But I think waist beads are really great way to get to whatever body goal you may have or celebrate where you already are in life. Waist beads can track your progress because the numbers on the scale are not always reflective of what your body is doing. Especially as a woman and having our bodies disperse weight in so many different ways, it’s hard to pinpoint your progress. But when you're looking at the waist bead, they really tell you every micro-movement that your body makes. And so if you lose a quarter of an inch on your belly, you're going to be able to tell because your beads are going to drop. If your goal is to gain weight, then your beads are going to rise a little bit. And that really helps people celebrate the small victories that they may have every single day, thanks to their waist beads. I think that is really important.

I've been talking about doing like different lines as well. I've been thinking about women who have had babies, a lot. And that got me thinking about a maternity line because I find that women who have babies don't celebrate their bodies as much as they should. Like your body's doing something extremely amazing, extremely wonderful! And we tend to look at the downside of it like “My body is not the same as it was before I had this child.” Overall, when wearing waist beads, I feel like it’s important to celebrate whatever your beads are showing you at the time!

That’s amazing. I think a question ago you mentioned how your attention to quality doesn't just extend to the materials you use, but also to your approach and design. Since you started WrappedByRu, how have you seen yourself grow as an artist and a craftswoman as far as how you approach the design aspect of your business?

R : I’ve had to grow as an artist whenever I work with people who request custom designs. Sometimes I know them really well and they don't have to communicate too much to me. They just say, “Oh, I want something that's going to reflect my bright spirit,” or whatever it is and I can say, “Oh, okay, I know what you mean. I'm going to do like oranges and different textures, different sizes.” But then I get these same requests from people I do not know, and I turn towards their Instagram page to understand who they are as a person and come up with a design that is going to reflect that. I push myself to communicate with people to make sure that I get them exactly what they want. There was actually one order that took like four hours because we were texting back and forth, which was a really important aspect. I got to understand the person, internalize her vision, and reflect all of that in the design of the product.

It almost sounds like it becomes a collaborative process between you and your customer.

R : It really is. I genuinely tell people that I enjoyed making the product with them. And when I say with you, I really mean WITH you. There are cases in which we put in an equal amount of effort and I wouldn't have been able to make something that they love so much without them telling me what they want and who they are.

That most definitely gives the consumer a different level of ownership and investment in the product as opposed to if they just would have bought a premade design from you. And I think that that speaks to your business. What have you found as a small business owner is the most difficult part of owning a small business?

R : Most difficult part is a very simple thing - someone asks “What do I need to do to order?” You can either pick a design or give me an idea of what you would like and then you give me your measurements. The measurement seems like the simplest thing. It’s the base of it. But some customers have trouble figuring out what their measurements are if they don't have a tape measure and that has been the most difficult thing, really. I really hate to send out products that people aren't happy with and if it doesn't fit the way that they wanted to, that makes me really sad and I'm sure someone who spent money on something is going to feel the same way.

Something that I'm really struggling with is figuring out how to troubleshoot that issue because I don't want to leave anyone unhappy. I'm a very small business and I think that my biggest job is to make every single person I interact with extremely happy. So what I'm trying to figure out is a way to, 1) help people come up their most accurate measurement and 2) if it doesn't work out, I want to be able to fix it for them. For the second issue, I don't think that everyone understands the amount of work that goes into it. If someone gives me the incorrect measurement, it's really difficult --or impossible-- to adjust, but that's not enough where I'm not willing to make it right. And some people put in their orders to be mailed and I don't think it's very fair to ask them to pay for shipping to mail it back and forth and it still not be correct. So I've been working on some directions, using everyday products, to figure out your measurement without a tape measure. So that'll be coming out on my Instagram page very soon and I hope that it is super helpful, but we'll see how it goes.

I think about how personalization and customization in a global world is very difficult, especially when one of the perks and one of the reasons somebody would go to a small business or an artist such as yourself is because of that personal experience with the product. How do you see yourself cultivating a fan base/collector base, currently, and then in the future as your business grows?

R : I found that most of my success has been coming from word of mouth. Whenever I make someone a product that they're super happy with, they tell their friends and, like boom, that friend group is my next clientele and so on. I really hope to satisfy all of my customers and grow my business off of the strength of my product.

My final question is where do you see your business in a year? And then also, where do you see yourself growing as an artist and in a craftswoman in a year? What are some skills perhaps you would be looking to pick up and add to your repertoire and what are some things that perhaps are currently inspiring you to venture off and do different things?

R : That’s a lot *laughs* So I'll start with where I see my business going in a year. I find that my clientele tends to be a very specific type of woman and I don't think that that's the best way to run a business. I think waist beads are for everybody. However, everyone doesn't think that and I can create a lot of different things. I just need to be asked. And so what I want to do is come up with things before I'm asked to make them. I started off with waist beads and then I was asked to make bracelets. I made bracelets and I started making anklets. I’m capable of making all sorts of things, so I want to try and make my business expand before somebody requests it. I just want to be ready with those items.

Right now, I'm thinking of the things that people may want, in a way to reach different groups of people. I want to reach the older women, men, and all of these different like pockets of people. My bead work is very beautiful and can be appreciated by everybody. I’m thinking about introducing glasses chains for either sunglasses or seeing glasses, men’s anklets and bracelets, and more. Just trying to cater to a much larger audience.

And then, as far as your question as to where I see my artwork going, I really want to get outside the box, my personal box, because I have a very specific style. There are things that I like, that I think are beautiful, and then are things that I don't think are beautiful BUT people are still requesting them for purchase. I want to listen to my customers a lot more and see those as different paths to take. And so in a year, I really, really hope that my clientele goes from being my friend group and my friend’s groups and networks to catering to everybody. Like anyone who goes on my Instagram page/(hopefully, soon) my website will be able to find something that they like.

I think that's amazing. Not just you as a female small business owner or a teacher, but also someone who's interested in changing the culture surrounding their product. And also an artisan who has initiative, who wants to take initiative in building and creating their skills for future products. I'd like to thank you, Ruth of WrappedByRu. We're extremely proud of you and we can't wait to see what you do next! Thank you so much.

(newmusic) Khalil.Lifestyle - Fashion

Tue, 31 Jul 2018 01:19:50 GMT

"I want a badder b*, put her onto this fashion shit"

D.C. raised & ATL paid! Khalil.Lifestyle debuts, talking his shit over production from DirtySosa and Xangang with Fashion . If high fashion reality raps are your thing, you're in luck. This is just the beginning. Visuals coming soon... follow him on Instagram and Twitter for more.

IG: @khalil.lifestyle
Twitter: @uptokhalil

PACK+PLAY #108

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 15:25:03 GMT

Just a little something for those rainy days... ⚡️��☔️��

Official Tracklist:

Feel It x Young Thug

Penthouse Cloud x The Internet

All Bad x JID (feat. Mereba)

Glass Flows x Smino (feat. Ravyn Lenae)

Single x Lil Wayne

Can You Stand The Rain x New Edition

Bed Peace x Jhene Aiko

Legend x Drake

Mashin x Curren$y

OKAGA, CA x Tyler, the Creator

Hallucinating x Future

Terry x Action Bronson

In the Rain x The Dramatics

The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) x Missy Elliot

It Never Rains x Tony Toni Tone

Wetter x Twista

Acoustic Levitation x Devin the Dude

Tango x A$AP Ferg

Quiet Storm x Shy Glizzy

Heartbreak in Encino Hills x Rae Sremmurd

• This will get you where you gotta go •

Brought to you every Wednesday, like it's the 1st and the 15th.

Exclusively curated by The Pack

www.thepack.world • @thepack_world

@_jordeezy @najeeblack @nippysmalls @thepack_kluse @shaanofagun

Artist Spotlight - 93 Bandits

Mon, 16 Jul 2018 06:14:23 GMT

#floodthemarket

Alright, so we're here with the 93 Bandits. The first question we're going to start out with is how did 93 Bandits form?

Grizz : We started in like 2015/2016. I can't remember.

Rashad Stark : I want to say, it might've been 2015, late 2014.

G : Alright, so we were in this group, right? And nobody was dropping music except for me and Rashad. So we said hey, we should like break off into groups of two and drop individual EPs. Me and Rashad were going to make a joint and everybody else was going to make a joint. You know what I'm saying? So I remember I hit these niggas one day as I was going to work. I used to work at Best Buy. I'm like “Yo man, give me some ideas for the designs of these shirts, man”. And the niggas, I’ll never forget this shit - it broke my heart - said, “You can't design everything for everybody. Everybody's image is different.” I'm like, well I'm trying, you know? A couple of weeks pass and then we decided to break up. All love. So I’m headed to this b* house and I hit Rashad, I have this random ass idea. I'm like, “Yo, you want to start a group? Me and you, like a duo.” He's like, “I could see that happening.” I remember we had this song when we first started rapping, right? It's called Bandit Life and I was like “Wow, 93 Bandits. We’re both born in 93. That'd be a wave.” So after that we just kinda started planning on what we were going to do next. That was in like 2016. We had a little run, this little three song run we did. A lot performing and shit. Then we fell back to really hone and revise how we were going about the group because it was just two of us. It was a lot of niggas that had like eight, nine people in groups and shit. We just felt like we were boxing the whole rack of niggas with just two of us, you know. So that's where we are now. This rebuilding stage or rebrand. You got anything to add, nigga? *laughs*

RS : I just felt like everybody in the old group wanted different things and they were blaming it on the brand. It just got to a point where people felt frustrated and everybody wanted to go their separate ways. But it didn't really make sense for me and Grizz to not keep making music-

G : -because we got good chemistry.

So, we’re here with Rashad Stark & Grizz (Grizz on 13th, Steezy Grizzlies)… how do you all get your names?

RS : So, Grizz actually helped me determine my name. Back in the day, I had a name.

G : *laughs* What was your name?

RS : It was DLo The Hero. Eventually, I felt I needed to change that, you know what I'm saying? For my image, for my brand - I need to have a more serious name. So people can get on that, whether you fuck with the music or not. I don't know how many people really want to support a nigga named DLo The Hero. But I wanted to still stay true to myself, so I was going to stick to the origin of my original name. So it was between two: DLo Parker & Rashad Stark. One of them still sounded corny, so I already knew which one I wanted to go with. Spiderman is my favorite superhero. Iron Man. It's my second favorite, so I was like, I can go with that… sounds sexy, you know, like I'm like a porn star. So that's how that came to be. And Rashad is my middle name.

G : I just changed my name again. So its just Grizz. The Grizz on 13th is just for Googling purposes because if you Google “Grizz”, the fucking Memphis basketball mascot is called Grizz too. So it's really just Grizz. How I got the first rap name Steezy Grizzlies - I was smacked one day and I was watching Animal Planet. Matter of fact, my rap name when I first started was Steezy Snapback. I was in AP Bio and my man Danny, Daniel West, was like, “Oh, you can rap? But that's a shitty ass name.” *laughs* He was like, “The ‘Steezy’ part tight, but you gotta change that ending.” And this is when Curren$y was popping and I was on that smoking wave or whatever. So I was smoking, watching Animal Planet. Motherfucking grizzly bear popped on the joint and it was like the European niggas that be talking like *uses British accent* “The grizzly bear as he stalks his prey.” Just talking about him and, basically, saying how the bear is real peaceful but he could turn up too. So I was like, that's literally me, right? I recently changed it because I outgrew it. I'm not really “steezy” anymore, per se. As an artist, that name had a lot of growing pains. I had to learn a lot, trial and error, a lot of tapes. That was shit that came under that name. The new name represents moving forward.

What was your first real introduction to hip-hop?

G : I remember, man, I used to hang out with a lot of thieves.

So there’s a backstory to the “Bandit” part of the name, like shit *laughs*

G : Shit. redacted used to steal! Him and redacted . They came up off Target, hella CDs: 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’, Mobb Deep’s Blood Money , Lloyd Bank’s The Hunger for More . We were G-Unit stans. I was the only nigga that had a computer, so I’d burn CDs and then sell them at school. So that's how it was in middle school. Then I went to go visit my grandma in Chicago and my aunt had a random ass Kanye CD, The College Dropout . For a whole summer, I played nothing but The College Dropout everyday, bro. Everyday. Everyday for like six, seven hours, I'd be like on AIM, the lil AOL joint. Rapping to random white bitches, bumping Kanye West. Like “Age, Sex, Location. Yeah, I'm listening to Kanye West.” The whole CD is pink too! I was like “Damn.” It's just so tight. So I kind of had the contrast between gangster shit because I used to hang out with nothing but hoodlums. But Ye was off some different shit that I related to more. And then through Kanye, I found Pharrell and Talib and, surprisingly, Jay-Z. That's my first experience,

RS : I wasn't honestly - I'm kind of ashamed to even say it, man - I wasn't really into hip-hop like that when I first started out. I was more of a poet. At the time, I was in high school, in 11th grade and I won this poetry contest, got some good bread and that kind of streamlined into me freestyling and shit. But I would only freestyle big wild shit! Make niggas laugh at the lunch table and shit. So by the time I hit 12th grade, I just had an epiphany in class. I was just like, “Yo, I ain't got shit moe, like b* is cheerleaders, niggas is on the football team, niggas in engineering winning motherfucking contests in robotics.” I was like, I don't do shit. But I'm a poet. Let me see if I can streamline it into rap and I just ended up getting into it. I was in my motherfucking attic, make an iPod mixtapes, dropping them on DatPiff. I remember thought I was doing something man. I had one joint called, it was a Christmas project called The Naughty List , and my friends would support me. This is when everybody was on Twitter. And someone tweeted “I don’t know who this is… but you need to let him know he’s garbage.” And I was just like “Damn.” Let me really buckled down and see if I’m so shit, because I really didn’t know. So I started listening to more artists, more rappers. Probably whoever else was out. Then I heard Big Sean and I just like, “Okay, hold on.” I'm talking about mixtape Big Sean. I felt like he was a huge influence on me. I'm listening to him and I feel like he wasn't super like hip-hop, like super boom bap-ish. I was able to identify and fuck with it and be like, I can understand why this is practically good rapping. So I adapted the flow and I started doing that. Fast forward and I'm slowly but surely doing more and more researching and being more comfortable with my shit. Boom. We started going to Everlasting Life Cafe down on Georgia Avenue and that's when I was around some crazy niggas who knew how to rap, like Sir E.U., that nigga is amazing. I’m talking about they were RAPPING and people were resonating with it and all I could think was, “Yo, this is crazy.” And so I studied those niggas. Like, what the fuck are these niggas doing? Why do niggas think what they did was so tight and why are people captivated by it? I started to see: repetition, metaphors, similes. Really studying the vocabulary. Just trying to get into what really makes a rapper a good rapper. I had to like find my love of hip-hop in the midst of me trying to get better.

G : Back then, I think we actually rapped more than we do now.

RS : Oh, we most definitely did.

G : Because I remember how I would write a verse everyday, just because I was trying to be

better than them. But cookies crumble and bitches mumble. You know what I'm saying?

RS : It’s a new era.

In relation to that, and I think this perfectly rolls into what you guys were just saying at the very end - Do you guys believe that the presentation or the project itself is more important in this day and age?

RS : Presentation.

G : Presentation. Niggas is stupid. Majority likes the presentation. The gatekeepers like both.

RS : If you present something good enough, you can trick people into thinking that something is what it's not when it comes to a product. Whatever an artist decides to put together.

G : It's like buying Fiji water and shit. Fiji, it's just regular water but the bottle looks better. I know a lot of niggas buy the bottle.

RS : And they'll convince themselves, “Damn, this shit tastes cleaner! It be colder when you take it out the fridge! That shit blue!.”

G : Perfect metaphor for rap right now. Big ass bottle of Fiji water.

Putting on it in the context, what's your creative process as individual artists and as a group?

G : This is wild because I recently just changed mine, like as of May. I used to be really meticulous and take like three or four months to make a song because of everybody I'm around. I wanted to make sure the product was so perfect. Now? I hear a beat and if I resonate with it, I try and make the song as fast as possible. Get my ideas, the product and idea, just put it on wax so I can listen to it over and over again. And then I make my improvements after that. Because I'm starting to believe perfection with anything is ji impossible. And people want product. A lot of times niggas got stuck on the perfection of it. Fuck that shit, man. Whatever you produce to the world is what you’re gonna produce and it's gonna get better over time. As long as you keep in mind that you want to get better. So I just try to do shit as quick as possible and not get stuck on a song or stuck on a project. Keep it moving. I'm at the point in my skill now where I'm not making some shit. I'm just trying to get that to the point where everything I make is good. And then, eventually, where everything I make is great.

RS : Honestly, and I'm a bit ashamed, I normally just get drunk as shit and eventually just create. Like literally, when I dropped The Most Lit and The Most Lit 2 , I only recorded when I was drunk. I would get all my inspiration when I was drunk and off the drugs. Especially when I was drunk and off the drugs at the same time, but that’s just me. I can't even explain why it worked, but it did and my best stuff will come out of it. But I don't really have any rituals or anything like that. I'm always thinking of music. My projects, I never have a concept in mind for the most part, I'm always just making shit. Then the music speaks to me. If I make seven, eight songs, I know where my energy is and it feels like I don't even have to focus on it. And then it comes together as genuine as possible, when it just feels right.

G : That’s the thing about this nigga. Even if he feels “Eh” about a song, he’ll have enough confidence to put it out, like "Fuck it.” It'll be the song he doesn't even like the most. But everybody will fuck with it. How many times has that happened before? I’ll say a word wrong. And he will be like “Nah, it's good.” And, it's good. We'll put it out and niggas will geek over it and eventually, I’ll forget what the fuck I was even worried about with song.

That almost goes back to what you had just previously said about your process, about not being as meticulous with it and just getting your ideas on wax. Especially, I think, with people's attention span in music nowadays

G : I don't want anybody who reads this shit to be like I’m off some one & done shit in the booth. I’m off some rap a song, send it to these niggas (the rest of the 93 Bandits team), get their feedback. Maybe I could do this better or that better, but I'm not really about to be like, let me sit down and analyze the metaphor and the context of the similes that I have to put together to create this lyrical masterpiece.

RS : I feel like the reason we as artists are even like that nowadays is the business aspect of it. Once upon a time, I used to be extremely meticulous.

G : Nobody gives a fuck, that’s the sad part.

RS : You really just got to ask yourself what matters. Like for instance, I could have recorded any of my last projects in a professional studio. Does my music deserve that? Sure. Do I have all the resources to make it happen? Possibly. But at the end of the day, for me, it always stems back to creating. Picasso made paintings. Niggas probably sounded dumb as shit going to Picasso like, “Hey bro, you might want to put one more splat on that.” But then after he started getting that bread, it's like, what are you going to say? It's a different type of thing because when you’re making music for other people and the masses, first of all, they can't fucking identify most of the shit that goes into almost any of it for real, for real. It can be frustrating. There is always more music to make, but most definitely. If we got some shit that we know deserves to be taken time on or being really meticulous about bars, etc, we do take that time. But generally we don't stress about it.

You guys are MCs but you also deal with the production side of things. Who is the best producer in hip-hop, all-time, but then also your favorite current guy doing his thing on the boards?

G : Pharrell is the greatest producer of all time. Anybody could fight me over it. Pharrell Williams. I don’t think anybody can argue with that nigga’s catalogue.

RS : Yeah, I don’t have anything to say. *laughs* I would say Timbaland is up there as well.

G : But who's my favorite producer now? It’s between Tay Keith and Pi’erre Bourne.

RS : My favorite producer out right now is Yung Kifo. My little bro.

G : Oh shit! I feel like an ass. He’s the next Metro Boomin’, I’m telling y’all.

RS : I swear to God, that nigga just be in his room for like days.

G : He's 17. He’s in Colorado.

RS : He just trying to trap it out till he can get the fuck. That nigga don't even have the full version of FL. So that means that nigga has to crank them joints out. The mixes are clean. He's not going back to tweak anything.

G : He can't tweak anything. Remember when he just sent us his recent beats because he wanted to put his tag in it? I think he had to remake the whole beat just to put his tag in it. He’s only 17. He going to be the best, I’m trying to tell you.

So speaking on that, who are the members of 93 Bandits as a collective and what are their roles?

RS : Since we started off as a rap group, the first people who come to mind are always the artists. So first, it's me, Grizz and Hooks Ventura, as far as artists who have catalogues. We also have Ian Sadiqq, the PACE man. Yung Kifo, young producing genius, the prodigy. Pine Roasted, our DJ. We got Monty, manager/brand ambassador. And big VP, Farid. Lastly, we got Najee.

In your opinion, how does 93 Bandits differ from other collectives in the area?

G : Well, for one thing, I feel like we actually enjoy what the fuck we’re doing. It's like a lot of collectives, musically, are so worried about getting on, that there’s a level of desperation when I look at their product. Like, “Yeah, nigga. I’m from the mud.” Well, aite nigga. None of us are stacking. So you have to enjoy what you do. We make music we like and we enjoy. I hope people enjoy it. I feel like niggas make shit for other people all of the time. So I feel like if you do fuck with 93, you investing in a genuine brand of person. It's like having good product with good personalities. That’s our main appeal. Just regular niggas that do tight shit and you can do tight shit, too. I'm able to do it. If you're not, you can just get on the bandwagon and watch us do it.

RS : In being realistic, we have a lot of collectives in the city. I feel like when it comes to us, it's the energy and the vibe. Especially with the way we're expanding. There is so much stuff we want to do and it's not even just music based anymore. It's not just about who can rap or who can make a beat, you know what I'm saying? I like to think that the collective is a family that wants to strive and push quality.

G : It’s just a lot that’s wrong. The product be wrong, man. The ambition be wrong.

What was the thought process behind 93 Week?

G : So niggas always do a week where their collective drops music and, while that's tight, it's not different. I want to create experiences for people, more so than just music. So, let’s do shit outside of music to create hype around the music in order to hip people who know us socially to our music and vice versa. A lot of rap niggas, people don't really like them in person and that's not the case for us. We make good music and people like us personally. Hopefully. *laughs* So I don't like. Yeah. So we just created the experience for Niggas bath hundred percent, hundred percent. That was the whole idea behind the joint.

Where do you see the 93 collective in 5 years?

RS : I want to keep it a stack, man. It might sound backwards, but I personally don't even necessarily have a vision of where I want it to be yet. I'm a firm believer in having faith and having faith in hard work and you never know what can come out of it. Of course, there are a lot of like typical accolades I would like to reach, but for the most part I really just want to see where the brand can go with the amount of passion and hard work that I know we're going to put in. Five years is a long time. So if niggas is doing what they're supposed to, we might end up in places we don't even imagine, that we didn't set out to be.

G : I’m trying to make the 93 apparel like the next OFF-WHITE. Also, I want to eventually have an imprint under a major label. 93 Bandits Records. But my biggest thing bro, a lot of times this might sound like real cliche, but I'm not really doing it just for me. I’m trying to do it for everybody who I think is a creative genius.

(newmusic) freejacob - 2020 Vision Remix ft. Kasey Jones

Fri, 13 Jul 2018 16:18:33 GMT

Uptown's very own revisits his latest release with a little help from Kasey Jones

"I be down ROSEBAR throwing 'round hunnits, stand tall nigga, you can call me Paul Bunyan"
freejacob is back and in rare form over spacy production and a Rock The Boat :: Aaliyah sample as he gears up for the release of his debut EP in August. Us, over at THEPACKWORLD, loved the original, but this time around he's back with an assist from Kasey Jones, fresh off of his All Dogs Go To Heaven project. Two of the area's hottest artists!

Links:
https://soundcloud.com/freejacob/2020-vision-ft-kasey-jones

freejacob - https://soundcloud.com/freejacob
Kasey Jones - https://soundcloud.com/kaseyjones107
Kasey Jones' All Dogs Go To Heaven - https://soundcloud.com/kaseyjones107/sets/all-dogs-go-to-heaven

PACK+PLAY #107

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Songs inspired by women (every song ever, right?)

Official Tracklist:
In My Feelings x Drake
Roses x  Outkast
Dirty Diana x Michael Jackson
Turn on the Lights x Future
Girls, Girls, Girls x Jay-Z
Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter's Daughter x Kendrick Lamar
Ms. Jackson x Outkast
Shawty is da Sh*t x The-Dream ft. Fabolous
Ps & Qs x Lil Uzi Vert
Cinderella x Mac Miller ft. Ty Dolla $ign
The Girls on Drugs x Wale
This Love x Maroon 5
I Want You x Common
I Think I Love Her x Gucci Mane
What These Bitches Want x DMX
Selfish x Slum Village ft. Kanye West
Maria Maria x Santana ft. The Product G&B
Bonita Applebum x Tribe Called Quest
Girls Like You x Miguel
You Got Me x The Roots & Erykah Badu
Caroline x Amine
Anita x Smino

• This will get you where you gotta go •

Brought to you every Wednesday, like it's the 1st and the 15th.

Exclusively curated by The Pack

www.thepack.world • @thepack_world

@_jordeezy @najeeblack @nippysmalls @thepack_kluse @shaanofagun

Artist Spotlight - Benny G Photography

Wed, 06 Jun 2018 15:21:05 GMT

"I've also brought that energy back to DC and I'm exploring a little more and making my own story out of those things."

I'm here with a guest who needs no introduction, so we're gonna get right into it. The first question is what is your favorite type of photography?

My favorite type of photography is landscape. But I've found that I’ve become a little more interested in portrait photography because of the interaction with people (just getting to know people as I'm shooting is even more interesting than that photography itself). But I definitely like landscape because it started as a hobby that I liked to do by myself. Real peaceful and tranquil, where I can just go by myself and enjoy anywhere I'm at, you know? So that’s definitely my favorite.

What type of photography scares you the most?

Sports photography scares me the most, but I'm willing to take on the challenge because I find it to be a lot of fun and I really liked being challenged.

As a photographer, the man who is always behind the camera, do you enjoy being in front of the camera at all?

Not a fan of being in front of the camera. Honestly, I'm very awkward. I can help you model. I can bring someone who has no modeling experience and help them; poses, faces, all of that. And I can bring the concept. But when I'm in front of the camera and I’m the subject, very awkward. I don't really like most of the pictures I've ever taken (as the subject).

From your professional standpoint as a photographer, what do you believe is your best body of work so far?

I did a project with a model where we took blue flowers in a forest setting and she has a sheet of fabric draped over her head. She looks like a blue fairy.

Giving us some Mother Mary vibes [laughs]

I really liked that project because the editing was very creative. It was a big challenge and I also got to know her a little bit more and she's a pretty, pretty cool person. I like her.

As far as practicing your craft goes, how have your practice habits changed from when you began to now when you're really doing your thing?

It started as a hobby. I really enjoy it a lot, but now I'm more into the perfect shot. What kind of eye do I need to have? What am I going for, what kind of concept and what kind of idea am I'm trying to bring to life? I started with 4K photography. People usually start with DSLR, but I started with 4K and it brings out colors a lot more than regular DSLR, but DSLR pictures are so much cleaner. I don't have a preference and I definitely like both.

How has where you've been so far (a DC native, attending college at North Carolina A&T State University) inspired your art?

In DC, I've seen a lot of things and the story is kind of already written for most of them. So when you see it, you already know what it is. When I came to Greensboro (for college), I saw a lot of new things I had never really seen before, so I decided to go explore a little more. I've also brought that energy back to DC and I'm exploring a little more and making my own story out of those things.

Take me into your process, as far as what kind of research you do a heading into a shot: prepping a model, scouting locations, etc.

Scouting for locations kind of comes with it [laughs]. So just walk around, go and enjoy myself looking around. It's just whatever pops out to me. I'll be like, I liked that concept or I liked that location. Let me figure out what concept, what colors might match there. The eye for it is really something that you kind of have to grow into because at first you’re just learning to take pictures and how your angles work, but to have the concept fit the background is a whole different level of photography. A lot of different steps are involved in making the vision come to life. Prepping a model is important, considering I haven't shot with that many models that have been models before. So I help them into the poses. The facial expressions. Most models, they're not exactly decision makers, they kind of give you an option list. Then you have to pick out which one best fits your vision. Sometimes you'll find a model that has the idea already - those are my favorite ones! If you come to me with an idea already, that's my favorite because I just want to be able to execute your vision.

What's your goals, short term and long term, with Benny G Photography?

In the short term, mastering the perfect shot. Editing. Editing is a tedious process, but it's so uplifting and it's a great feeling when you get that perfect edit that you finally like. Most pictures I edit, I have to edit at least six times, so while it’s tedious, it's very rewarding when you finally get to that point where you're excited about the project you're about to put out. Long term - It's the sports photography. You create a career out of most of all the photography, but the sports photography is really a challenge that I really want to get. I've talked to a few people on becoming a photographer for their team (Washington Nationals, etc) and traveling with them, which I would really like to get into. Maybe not their team. If I find another opportunity with different teams, I could definitely get into that professionally.

Lastly, why don't you introduce yourself for the people?

My name is Benny G. I grew up in Washington DC. I attended North Carolina A&T and I enjoy sports, which kind of leads to my sports photography interests. I really do enjoy the DC area, but I have to get out.

"I miss the old Kanye" - ye album review by @thepack_kluse

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 15:25:37 GMT

The ever mercurial Kanye West returns for his 8th studio project

Amid all of the choppa spraying from the GOOD and OVO camps, respectively, this was the quietest Kanye West debut… ever, quite possibly. Locked in creating production for a wide variety of the usual suspects (Pusha-T, Teyana Taylor, Kid Cudi x Kanye supergroup) and some interesting, new ones (Nas), the lead-up to this album was greatly overshadowed by Mr. West’s public antics and opinions on matters such as slavery ("When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... For 400 years? That sounds like a choice .”) and Donald Trump, to give you the highlights. However, the fact of the matter is this: if the music is good, people will definitely listen… and maybe even give you a pass on the crazy statements you make. This has been the case with Kanye for years though (4 certified classics), so why stop here? Let’s get into the album:

This album is 7 cuts deep, with a running time of 23 minutes, 41 seconds. Also worth noting that Pusha-T’s DAYTONA (an amazing album, for the record) features 7 tracks as well - this may be a recurring theme during this impromptu CRUEL SUMMER run for the GOOD Music camp. The album features guest vocals by Nicki Minaj and uncredited appearances by Kid Cudi, Ty$, PartyNextDoor (the OVO Sweatshop is back at it again), Jeremih, Uncle Charlie Wilson, Valee, and 070 Shake. West produced the album in its entirety, with additional production by Mike Dean, Francis and the Lights and Che Pope.

At this juncture in his career, West is just as masterful of a producer as he has always been. His ability to flip samples (particularly of the soul variety) in interesting ways are on full display in this effort and his knack for tapping into the tones, moods and grooves that made 808s & Heartbreak and YEEZUS such statement pieces find a home on ye as well. Also, his consistent stream of new and interesting uncredited voices make a return! My personal favorites were Valee on the ‘All Mine’ chorus, 070 Shake’s outro on ‘Ghost Town’ (which feels like a throwaway from the Kid Cudi x Kanye supergroup project… if so, holy shit), and Ty$ soulful singing which is threaded generously throughout the project. Kanye does an excellent job of making every piece fit; a true orchestrator of artists, for his own purposes.

This album falls short in comparison to the rest of his catalogue - maybe even on purpose? This album was very clearly an ode to his struggles with his own mental health and how it has affected his relationship with his family and the general public. However, the project itself isn’t clearly built to convey a message about that theme. But that is not something Kanye has shown us he can do in YEARS. In my opinion, he is just disinterested in coherent projects and concepts. His music from here on out will be therapy sessions with nice production. For most artists, that would be enough. For most hip-hop lovers with any relationship with his more clearly driven and purposeful projects, it won’t do.

Rating: 8/8 (8th best project out of 8 projects)

Standout Tracks: I Thought About Killing You, All Mine, Wouldn’t Leave, Ghost Town

#PackTakes

@nippysmalls - “Production is cool but it leaves me wanting something more from that album, not more songs though, the pen isn’t strong to me on enough songs”

@najeeblack - “Haven't heard it”

@shaanofagun - “Its ok if you dont expect much from it”

@_jordeezy - N/A

2 Exclusive Mixes from DJ Fulani: "night fall", "ladies night"

Mon, 07 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT

DJ Fulani is back... this time with something for the ladies and some for after dark.

DC's very own DJ Fulani graces The Pack World with two exclusive mixes, brought to you here FIRST. Show him some love and check out the links below.

https://soundcloud.com/marcusfulani/night-fall/s-3dTs0
https://soundcloud.com/marcusfulani/ladies-night/s-enrKU

Twitter: @tribecalledfula
Cover Art Credit: @elijah.iii

Upcoming Artist Spotlight: Benny G Photography

Mon, 07 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT

D.C. & North Carolina A&T's very own... The Pack World will sit down with the man behind the camera

As a little taste, Benny G provided just a few shots of the beautiful Destiny Jones from his latest shoot. Enjoy and check him out on his social media!

Twitter: @Eli_1223
Instagram: @bennyg.photography
Model: Destiny Jones

thepackworld

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Keyonna Jones knows the Soufside has something to say in the Arts

The D.C. Native has worked on Murals such as Black Lives Matter Plaza, but her true goal is to reshape the art community in the forgotten part of D.C.

Nia Keturah Calhoun is Navigating the World of Art Without Compromise

The Artist Talks Ketanji Brown Jackson Mural, the D.C. Art Scene and More

Generational Equity Movement is changing the conversation around marijuana and black business ownership in Washington, D.C.

What does the rise of Muriel Bowser to the national stage mean for DC Natives?

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Yaytunde Speaks: Expressing Artistry in Tumultuous Times

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What is Police Abolition?

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Sneaker Sunday #1

What sneakers made you fall in love? ThePackWorld team weighs in!

PACK+PLAY #203

GRAB YOU A GLIZZY AND A COLD ONE... kick back, it's Summer.

PACK+PLAY #202

"Aye sweetheart! You see my mans over there?" "He tryna go smack ����‍♂️ so wassup?"

PACK+PLAY #201

Season 2 is here and you're in for a show: the Season Opener.

Silver Screen Situations: The Beach Bum

"You gotta go low to get high."

Kluse presents... 2010FIBAWC Series

"IM ME, I DO ME, AND I CHILL"

Artist Spotlight - T.Y

"Just a lot of just real conversations that I wish we would have as homies, as lovers."

Small Business Spotlight - WrappedByRu

"As women, our weight fluctuates so much that it’s hard to pinpoint the progress we’ve made. Waistbeads help you celebrate your small victories, even if they don’t show up on the scale."

(newmusic) Khalil.Lifestyle - Fashion

"I want a badder b*, put her onto this fashion shit"

PACK+PLAY #108

Just a little something for those rainy days... ⚡️��☔️��

Artist Spotlight - 93 Bandits

#floodthemarket

(newmusic) freejacob - 2020 Vision Remix ft. Kasey Jones

Uptown's very own revisits his latest release with a little help from Kasey Jones

PACK+PLAY #107

Songs inspired by women (every song ever, right?)

Artist Spotlight - Benny G Photography

"I've also brought that energy back to DC and I'm exploring a little more and making my own story out of those things."

"I miss the old Kanye" - ye album review by @thepack_kluse

The ever mercurial Kanye West returns for his 8th studio project

2 Exclusive Mixes from DJ Fulani: "night fall", "ladies night"

DJ Fulani is back... this time with something for the ladies and some for after dark.

Upcoming Artist Spotlight: Benny G Photography

"Aye sweetheart! You see my mans over there?" "He tryna go smack ��‍♂️ so wassup?"