Check out my piece on the singer-songwriter-guitarist Benjamin Booker in the new issue of Kinfolk Magazine (issue 29) on newsstands and online now! A native Floridian, he talked about transitioning to L.A. (by way of an open-ended vacation to Mexico City), and how James Baldwin inspired him to be a witness, and then some.
Watch the video for his lovely song "Believe" below:
I got to speak with the great Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kenyan author, scholar, activist and all around non-word mincer about his new memoir Wrestling with the Devil, which covers his year of unjust imprisonment in Kenya, back in 1978.
“If I meet an English person, and he says, ‘I write in English,’ I don’t ask him ‘Why are you writing in English?’ If I meet a French writer, I don’t ask him, ‘Why don’t you write in Vietnamese?’ But I am asked over and over again, ‘Why do you write in Gikuyu?’"
Plus, we have the same birthday!
I have 3 prose delights up on Puerto del Sol's Black Voices series: "Stephanie Mills," (about interracial dating!) "Crush," (about not dating at all!) and "Visitation," (if you went to an HBCU, you already know) plus a mini-interview. Checker out!
I got to talk to my favorite late-night TV hosts whom I watch the next day on the VICELAND app...Desus and Mero! Read our "30 Minutes with..." convo on the Guardian here.
Ps: Mero is like a puppy dog, and #DarkDesus is really a thing :D :D :D
How was jazz in 2016? I had some thoughts––and I shared them on the NYT Popcast, hosted by pop critic Jon Caramanica with guests Nate Chinen, Ben Ratliff and Seth Colter Walls. It was my first podcast!!! Check it out...
Not content with being a video vixen, I up and got myself featured on a style blog, Passerbuys. This site profiles dynamic women in New York, and finds out where they shop, dine, what they read, listen to, and love. Check out my playlist here.
And, in the #MentorMondays spot on Instagram, I talk about one of my childhood sheroines, Irene Cara, who played triple-threat Coco in Fame.
Fashion!
"I felt like it’s always interesting to get as many sides of a story as you can. A contrapuntal poem has the capability of bringing two people together and having them talk in a way that is very hard to duplicate." - Tyehimba Jess
Words and music! My two loves! Here's my conversation with poet Tyehimba Jess, whose new book OLIO reanimates the lives of 19th century black musicians--everyone from Scott Joplin and Blind Boone, to Sissieretta Jones and the McKoy Twins. Plus, some of the poems you can tear out and fold into new forms/ways of reading. Hashtag: innovation.
Hey! I have a piece in the February issue of O, the Oprah Magazine (get it now! It won't be on stands in February!). I wrote about my harrowing experience with mental illness as a teenager, and how certain symptoms, like delusion, magical thinking, and hallucination are ones we all experience in some perfectly healthy way, shape, or form. Pick up a copy! This issue is the first in a 3-part series on mental illness and treatment. Many great resources. And here is my snarky interview. Yay.
