I can determine in the first 30 seconds of a song whether or not I want to keep listening. It takes even less time with people — but I’m patient when it comes to what I read.

 

Writers have to set their stage. Some are better at drawing you in slow and others get you hooked off a few lines. I like to think I’m somewhere in between but in this space — I’m gonna take my time. Let you, myself, the words settle in a bit. Get comfortable.

 

While some of the biggest “topics” in the world right now are the climate crisis, reproductive rights, and economic instability — very few people are talking about where these “topics” sit with our people. My people. The ones that both do and do not look like me but as artists show up in and for their community shaping what culture beyond struggle and scarcity looks like. The visionaries known and unknown that are out here creating a world that people can dream in despite the worst of our current reality.

 

We’re gonna sit down and talk about them. Uplift their work. Give their stories some shine and explore all the possibilities cultivating community with people like them can bring. And not the kind of community people build for clout — but the true kind of community lifetime bonds are built from.

 

You’re gonna be reading all of this from the mind of a real romantic intellectual type that lives for hours spent thinking, talking, working things through, and breaking shit down. 

 

So I’m inviting y’all in to do a little deconstructing with me. Welcoming you into the process. Looking at all things expressive, reflective, and revolutionary at the intersection of the arts, community, activism, and culture and asking y’all to get intimate with me — and I want to get real intimate.

 

Here, in this space with me, there is no subject off-limits and no emotion unwelcome.

 

I’m talking about a room for us to get real-life vulnerable and provocative in the best way.

 

That’s the vision and the mission.

I hope y’all don’t mind.