Just Talkin'...

Le Boxer (for Biafra)

2008 acrylic, collage, opaque metallic inks on canvas

Private Collection

Q. If you weren't an artist, what would you be doing?

A. I would be a teacher, preacher and radical griot in the modes of Dr. Cornell West and David Chapelle. A Deejay raising awareness, superbad knowledge and open dialogue across Academia and the Satellite Radio domain...with media campaign and book tour to follow....Selah!

Q. I know you travel frequently. How has travel influenced your vision?

A. Being immersed in a foreign environment engages the artist's innate creative vision in an alternative means of perception. Your mind's tripping at the most mundane thing. What the native ignores or takes for granted, is a source of wonder for the traveler. The bright gold i use in much of my work comes directly from my time in Thailand, where it is a pervasive color in ordinary daily life, in the temples and street markets.

Q. Do you ever work with youth through your art?

A.Most of my work (and income) through the Nineties was related to substitute teaching gigs and interacting with youth through artist-in-residence programs and contracts for workshops in public schools.

Inspired by Sesame Street, graffiti art and posters of Mao's Cultural Revolution, i created a number of large scale murals for school gynasiums, libraries and public spaces. Today my time is more challenged. But when the opportunity arises, i do feel an acute responsibility to share my personal experiences as a point of maybe meditating on their own life....and i'm always willing.

Q. Do you think artists have a particular responsibility to use their art for activism? Not necessarily through the artistic vision itself, but using it as a platform.

A. I don't think artists have a particular responsibility to use their art for activism if they aren't activists. Most artist just want to pursue a more spiritual, personal, introspective life journey through the process of creating art. That's some good, yummy stuff! I'm cool with that.

Others just want to make money, and I can respect that too.

But for those, who are in fact, more politically minded, their art or their visibility as artist, can indeed be a platform. So, you have some 'hip, politico-art cred', But what's your message? What's your motive? What are you trying to affect and why?

Q. In the United States, however, artist have never been afforded the often grudging respect granted lawyers and businessmen.

A. In Africa, Europe and Latin America, it is not uncommon to have artists, poets, actors and writers serving as members of government, or celebrated as political leaders. The playwright, dramatist and president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, comes immediately to mind.

But, you're right. In the United States, artists aren't afforded the respect granted legal minds and entrpreneurs .Perhaps that is because "Art" in this country is viewed by the general populace not as thoughtful, focused, solution driven endeavor (work!), but as a narcissistic indulgence. i know there are artists out there who could represent a Senate seat, or make sure the trains run on time.

Imagine what the United States, and perhaps the world, would look like if this nation were guided by the ideas and voices of artists like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville or Walt Whitman, Toni Morrison or Langston Hughes?

"To be an Afro-American, or and American

black, is to be in

 the situation, intolerably exaggerated, of all

 those who have

Ever found themselves part of a civilization

which they would in no wise defend-which they were compelled, indeed endlessly

to attack and condemn-and who yet spoke

out of the most

passionate love, hoping to make the

kingdom new,

to make it honorable and worthy of life.

  James Baldwin,No

Name in the Street (1972)

I believe the politically minded artists is the prophetic

voice calling people to awareness, to critical self-examination, to awaken us to our higher selves, ... and

to act.

Q. I recall the pieces for the SKIN exhibition at the IAO Gallery. I notice that the theme involved perceptions of Black males throughout history. What is your opinion about the state of African American men, particularly young men? Do you think the images of Black men in media evoke a positive image? If not, why has Black America embraced the new image?

A. Look, These guys are our children, our beautiful youth, our God-kissed sons, our very future and I love them. I'm proud of them and yet I grieve for them. 

I want to make that clear up front before I respond this way; too many of them are spoiled, insecure, greedy, disempowered narcissists.

They are confused and searching. Of course, they want to be somebody special, they recognize the sense of a personal destiny, that's hardwired into all of us. But many don't know who they really are and too often Daddy ain't there to tell them. And the rites and rituals of recognition from the elders is gone with the Boy's Bible Study class and the pervasiveness of media bingeing among our kids. Once they are getting paid, and getting their "swerve on", they ain't trying to know. They embrace as a real identity the phony messages dictated to them, with a slammin' beat, the right hooks and plenty of rump shaking and nihilistic coonery, driving them to find some validation in bling and material consumption. If the media machine glorifies the thug, the gansta', the hustla', the baller, the playa', and the nigga', then that's the thing to be when you don't know what else to be.

But remember, modern American media had traded in derogatory images of Blacks ever since D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation in 1915, the most successful box office attraction of its time. So, what we're seeing today as far as toxic images of Black people isn't new. What is heartbreaking is the eagerness with which young Blacks, regardless of socio-economic class, clamor to "Keep It Real!" by glorifying, as authentically Black, these ghetto minstrels who are in fact fabricated by corporate owned recording plantations with the help of their Sean John wearin", Hypnotic drinkin' overseers.

Man, I love the artistry, the improvisation, the politics and uplift, the spirit of real hip-hop but, ...Jesus... there's a particular dose of the form that is clearly warping Black culture as much as Jim Crow ever did

Q. Going back to the perception and state of Black men in this country, how do you view the controversy over Barack Obama's "blackness" or lack of it in the eyes of some individuals?

A. ...the controversy over Senator Barack Obama's "blackness and authenticity" is a reflection of many Black folks' almost schizophrenic, (God help us), reactionary impulses regarding race and power. What troubles the so-called Black leadership, (I'm down with them, I just don't remember voting for them), is that he has risen to a national prominence without their influence and blessings. "Look, if whites embrace him with such enthusiasm, then he must be suspect". He's not a descendant of slaves, his momma is white, his daddy; African,...what does he have to do with us?

But these same so-called Black leaders stuck in a 1960's Civil Rights Movement paradigm have no problem supporting and voting for any rich, white Democrat who comes around every four years to grace their pulpits with platitudes about "content of character' and singing a verse of "We Shall Overcome".

For those whites that support him, Senator Obama is indeed a refreshing "clean and articulate" figure, even compared to a white dude, that will engage them without guilt-tripping them or whipping out the race card of Black victimology or making too much noise about America's unresolved racial issues. At this point in the campaign, it's probablly a good strategy.

I believe If you have a problem with Senator Obama, let it be based on his policy issues and not your racial issues. On the real, before the campaign, the man would have just as hard time as any other brother hailing a cab uptown to Harlem.

 

continued...trois