Issue 13: Rebellion

04. Attitude from our Editor 06. Issue 13 Rebellion

08. Ex Fabula Story Camille Davis

10. What Dreams Are Made Of with Shawn Dekay - Owner of Dream Lab

18. Goin’ Deep

A conversation with Mudy

ABOUT OUR FEATURED COVER ARTIST _ LEEVEL FORD MILWAUKEE TO ARIZONA TATTOO ARTIST SKIN FANATIC FOLLOW HIM @LEEVEL_F READ MORE ABOUT HIM ON PAGE 36.

26. Raging Rebel w/ Kane Rulan

36. In Ink

with Leevel Ford

42. Faux Flexin’ Winter Fashion

50. Carrie’s Curl Conversation

CONTRIBUTORS

CONTENTS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / LEXI S. BRUNSON CONTENT EDITOR / LAUREN “HONEY” GRANIELA FASHION EDITOR / VATO VERGARA

FASHION STYLIST / JACOB STEGALL INTERN JOURNALIST / CARRIE NONI MAHONE

& WE COULDN’T MAKE THIS ISSUE POSSIBLE WITHOUT/ KELVIN “DAYNAGE” CROSS TIFFANY BEAN SEAN CHRIS ROB RANDOLPH SHAWN DEKAY MUDY KANE RULAN LEEVEL FORD CAMILLE DAVIS MARTA ALCANTAR

RANDY RANDOLLA JOJO WEST EX FABULA DISTINCTIVE DESIGNS BY TOMIRA J’ ADORNMENTS HERBAL LOVE JAZALE’S ART STUDIO NILO DESIGN CO. MIAD FEATURED MODELS

IN HONOR OF DELORES GWENDOLYN PARR, THE QUEEN

CopyWrite Magazine Media & Design, LLC currently runs as a Milwaukee-based organization. All images are not licensed or owned by CopyWrite. For any questions regarding photos, future advertisements, future employment or any information about any featured artist, producers or creators, please contact us at copywrite.mke@gmail.com.

ISSUE 13 - REBELLION 3

Attitude From The Editor.

“I’M UPSET . . .

FIFTY THOUSAND ON MY HEAD, IT’S DISRESPECT SO OFFENDED THAT I HAD TO DOUBLE CHECK I’MA ALWAYS TAKE THE MONEY OVER SEX THAT’S WHY THEY NEED ME OUT THE WAY, WHAT YOU EXPECT? /Drake

Where is the effort?

Not too long ago I was met with a challenge. The terms were simple: be practical or be passionate. As I run back my choices in my head I remember the options being presented to me as if I was caught up in the matrix. This red pill, blue pill type scenario would have its repercussions either way. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t reason . . . so at that point, I made a choice.

And now I understand why . . .

I had not been the only one who had been presented with a choice. I had not been the only one who had been tortured by structure, rules, regulations, doubters, naysayers, and snakes with impenetrable skin. As I had learned to accept that my human flaws made me a force to reckoned with, others had wanted to keep theirs hidden.

How could I blame them? Vulnerability will make you hit the bottle, spark the blunt, and pop the pills, just to create a mirage that everything is okay.

I couldn’t keep faking it. I didn’t want the storybook fantasy of success, love, and acceptance.

I wanted to live. Not just breathe.

So I chose passion.

That passion wakes me up every morning now and it is the last thing I think about as I fade out into the night. It is the unwritten truths, the tainted tears, the problem solving, the soul-searching . . . It’s everything that they told me I couldn’t be and all the things . . . Well, even if I explained, you wouldn’t want to understand.

I am stressed. I work too damn hard. People still make me itch. Society is still a mess. I’m still not perfect, but I’m happy. Unapologetically happy, with who I have decided to become.

My choice wouldn’t leave me unscathed. For months I sat in my fortress drawing up the blueprints for a rebellion. One that cost my body to deteriorate out of hunger. One that would deplete my funds. One that would isolate me from communication. One that would send me into hyper-focus. One that would send me into rage.

Like I asked at the beginning, where is the effort?

I had been given a choice. To do what was expected of me or to break all the rules. To be docile or to be defiant . . . Because honestly, my life would depend on it. All my unorthodox behavior would be judged by the people closest to me. One by one they would drop out of view. Out of fear, and self-preservation.

What I was about to do must have seemed dangerous. What I had become must have been a reflection they couldn’t bear to stomach. As I had been prophesying this moment for what feels like a decade, only some had truly ever believed me.

So I’m upset!

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Something, somewhere, somehow, thought that I was going to fall. Some power, some energy, some being, thought that a little discomfort was going make me break. Leave me face flat in a ditch in my faux fur?

You should have known better. Nothing worth having in life will ever come easy. Sometimes the fight is beyond the choice.

I am a rebel & I have found my cause. /Dirty

@THRUDIRTYEYES

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We rather ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.

If we are defiant, it is only out of suppression. Tiptoeing through society has left us off balance, anxious, and unable to continue to survive playing it safe. Why not assimilate, emulate, and perpetuate the norm? Why not be complacent, compliant, and controlled?

It is unreasonable to ask us to stay in our place. We have been idle for too long.

It is idiotic to think that they will let us pass without a fight.

Unorthodox behaviors become monstrous in the face of fear . . . but we can no longer be afraid.

Issue 13, is problematic in all the right ways.

Where there is often this Triskaidekaphobia, we laughed. Everything that could go wrong did. And still, we are here.

Our features include middle fingers up to gender politics, social stigmas, industry standards, and all those other manufactured methods of doing that can get in a creatives way. As we crack our knuckles, pop open our spray paint cans, ink up our tattoo guns, fluff out our afro’s, and throw on gold chains, fur jackets, slugs, and fangs, we are not looking for approval but demanding respect.

Because let’s face it. Nothing else will suffice.

Whatever you are expecting . . . think again.

THIS TIME WE REBEL.

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Ex Fabula Story: Camile Davis

Ex Fabula is thrilled to partner with CopyWrite Magazine.

This partnership will combine different forms of expression and produce a space for community members’ true, personal stories in written and visual form. By connecting the stage to the page, both Ex Fabula and CopyWrite will reach new audiences, connect with new storytellers, and build community.

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While getting my MS in Sports Management, I decided that I wanted to try and establish something of my own, so I started my own sports podcast called TECKnical Foul. I didn’t want to follow the format of traditional sports shows where the woman is regulated to solely being the host. We had to bust up the stereotype that being a host in this field was only what women represented. We’re establishing a new brand of sport commentary for the culture in our own unique fashion.

Since I can remember, I’ve been in love with sports. I grew up in a household with my mother and four uncles and sports was something used as a family unifier. So much time was spent around the television in the living room, all together, watching and discussing the games that played out in front of us.

Inside of my home, I was always encouraged to be uniquely me—whatever that may be. And what I became was a woman who never tidily fit into any generalization or stereotype. Growing up, I wanted to be a referee. Looking back, I’m not exactly sure why I felt so strongly about that but I was serious about it. I rented books from the library, re-watched old games, and mimicked the hand signals corresponding with the calls made during games.

At the end of the day, I’m just trying to be a woman that my seven-year-old self could’ve pointed to when trying to explain what I wanted to be when I grew up. I want to be an example of someone doing what “can’t” be done. I don’t subscribe to gender norms, stereotypes, or generalizations. If you have a passion in something, I believe that you should continue to craft that and get better at it. With all of that being said, I am going to continue to break the mold of what it’s believed women can and cannot be within the field of sports. /Camille Davis

I never thought that my living situation or my interest in sports and video games was odd until I spoke with people outside of my household about my interests. At school when I finally told my classmates that I wanted to be a referee, they laughed at me.

I’d try to fight back viciously and say that girls can do anything boys can do but then they’d ask me to name a woman who is a referee. At that time, there weren’t any and I would just say, “Well I can be the first then!”

As I got older, my aspirations to become a referee faded but my love of sports never did. Seven-yearold me can yell about being the first to do something but there is a lot of power in being able to see yourself represented in fields that you’re interested in. I knew that this was the field that I wanted to be in, one way or another. Not seeing more women represented in this field, moved me towards creating a new reality.

CHECK OUT CAMILLE’S PODCAST ON ALL YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST STREAMING SERVICES: APPLE PODCASTS: http://bit.ly/TFonITUNES SPOTIFY: http://bit.ly/TFonSpotify GOOGLE PLAY: http://bit.ly/TFonGP STITCHER: http://bit.ly/TFonStitcher SOUNDCLOUD: http://bit.ly/TFonSoundcloud

ISSUE 13 - REBELLION 9

What Dreams Are Made Of. Interview with Shawn DeKay -- Owner of Dream Lab.

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THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE. CHILL VIBES LINGER IN AN INTIMATE SPACE WHERE ART IS THE WALL (GRAFFITI MURALS, PAINTED CANVASES, SPRAY PAINT CANS ARE MOUNTED WITH HONOR) AND HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYS SOFTLY THROUGH THE SPEAKERS, SOUNDING AS HARMONIC AS A SYMPHONY. IT’S 3 PM, THE HOOKAH IS LIT AND THE COFFEE IS READY. IS THIS HEAVEN? WELL IF YOU ARE A CREATIVE IT MIGHT BE. THIS MYSTICAL PLACE WE SPEAK OF IS DREAM LAB, LOCATED AT 327 W NATIONAL AVE OF MILWAUKEE’S SOUTHSIDE. AS THE BRAINCHILD OF SHAWN DEKAY (OWNER / STREET ARTIST / CREATIVE / DREAMER), DREAM LAB EXEMPLIFIES THE CREATIVE CULTIVATION AND SENSE OF PLACE THAT MOST ARTIST LONG FOR IN THEIR EVERYDAY LIFE. WE SAT DOWN WITH SHAWN TO FIND OUT WHAT DREAMS ARE REALLY MADE OF.

CW: “IN YOUR WORDS WHAT IS DREAM LAB?” SD: “It’s a creative cafe. It’s a creative hub. It’s a place anyone can come, unwind, feel inspired, get that creative juice flowing, be around creative people, relax and have at it.”

Being that place allows Dream Lab to provide services that are outside the box for your everyday cafe, where they serve coffee, tea, and hookah with a gallery space, they also serve as a venue for a range of events including art classes, podcast releases, video shoots, networking events like MKElinkup, PENtastic!, and more.

But a business like this doesn’t just pop out of thin air. They are fragments of bigger pictures, some that are not quite fleshed out till they are actively pursued.

CW: “SO HOW DID IT START?” SD: “Out of me being sick of working for someone else. I have always been an artist. I have always wanted to paint but I’m also a realist. So I knew that 12 COPYWRITE MAGAZINE

in Milwaukee it would be very hard to make a living off of it . . . I thought I could provide a space for other people, learn things as I go and paint on my downtime. To me there is no place in the city like that. So it was almost the perfect idea, at the perfect moment in my life where I was ready to make a jump. So I jumped.”

Since the age of 12-13 Shawn has been taking many jumps, like the ones that would eventually lead him here. Street art would be a big one.

SD: “I mean I’m not going to lie. It was to fit in. I grew up in a rough neighborhood. I went to a rough high school. I was like well ‘Hey, I can draw and it’s cool to draw on buildings’. So I’m like okay this is my ticket.

This is how I will make it through. So I dived into the culture a little bit and I just fell in love. It’s been in me ever since.”

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CW: “THIS IS A PRETTY BIG MOVE THOUGH. HOW DID YOU EVEN GET THAT SUPPORT AND BACKING THAT GAVE YOU THE CONFIDENCE LIKE ‘YES, I CAN DO THIS’?”

SD: “I had none!” He laughed lightly. “I mean I think that was the scariest part. I didn’t have a support system per se. I mean obviously we all have good friends that are always going to have your back and help you out and things like that but you know I was very unsure. I didn’t have that ‘Okay, I can do this’. It was more of a ‘Okay, I’m going to try this’. I’m pretty good with my back against the wall. It’s a move I really wanted to make so I knew inside I would really, really make it work. So it was a little blind faith but at a point in your life when you start to take things serious and know what you want and don’t want, I was like ‘F*ck it! It’s go time’.”

Overall, Shawn says he is happy. He has lived the other lifestyle where money was the major motivation. But now that he has focussed in on his own goals he wakes up every morning feeling more

positive about what the day has in store. His bills are paid and the community is loving it. We call that a #WIN. Now schemes and dreams have to be strategic. In order to reshape his life Shawn had to be thoughtful about how he would turn his idea into a business, and location is definitely one of those factors.

CW: “SO HOW DID YOU PICK A LOCATION?” SD: “Honestly it was just a lot of driving around the city. I knew I wanted to be on the southside because that’s where I grew up. I wanted to offer something back to the neighborhood I grew up in . . . this neighborhood is full of creatives. You have art studios everywhere. You have murals. I would say Walker’s Point has the most mural’s per capita than any other little neighborhood [in Milwaukee]. I thought that it was very important for me to join a neighborhood that has the same ideas and goals as me. And let’s not lie, it’s the fastest up-and-coming part of Milwaukee right now. I mean that’s good and bad at the same time. I get that. But my business mind, if ISSUE 13 - REBELLION 13

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you take away my personal feelings, is, if you want to make money you go where the money is coming and where you fit in best.”

He feels that the people in the Dream Lab neighborhood have been really accepting of his presence.

Warm welcomes are not always easy to come by but with his creative ideas and dope skills, he is making it look pretty easy. Especially appealing to some more unconventional fans with his street mural of Brewers player, Christian Yelich, that went viral. Pulling at his preferred aesthetic, Shawn is still trying to stay true to his roots.

CW: “WHAT’S YOUR STYLE? . . . IF WE SAW SOMETHING THAT WAS DEVELOPED BY YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS, WHAT WOULD THAT LOOK LIKE?” SD: “It’s definitely going to be street art inspired. I love to use layers and make a little bit of a mess.

So anything I do is usually going to be a prominent clean-cut figure over layers and layers of graffiti style artwork . . . As an artist I grow every day so every piece can be different, but 9 times out of 10, you’re going to have some spray paint in there. You’re going to have some hidden letters in there, and there is going to be some sh*t that you probably don’t even see, but I saw it as I was doing it. I’m a real big fan of hidden messages.”

With that being said, all these skills that he learned as a kid tagging up the city he is now getting hired to use. Summerfest, UWM, and other reputable institutions have paid Shawn to work his magic.

“This is stuff you used to try to put me in jail for and now you’re paying me to do it!”

Graffiti and street art tends to have a bad rap. Admittedly Shawn has been arrested and ticketed in his youth for contributing to the natural order of its creative culture.

CW: “SO WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT GRAFFITI LAWS?” SD: “Sh*t, it’s rough. I mean I’m older now. When I got caught I had just turned 18. I was still a kid. Now I’m 35 and I have a business and own a house. So I think it’s a culture and it’s an important culture. I don’t think it’s something that should ever disappear.

However, there are kids out there who do it in a very disrespectful way. Yeah, you can do trains. That’s not hurting anybody. That’s putting your name up.

This is stuff you used to try to put me in jail for and now you’re paying me to do it!

That’s creating the culture. That’s making beautiful art, but then there’s kids who will go to a 80 year old grandma’s house and put up the stupidest scribble you have ever seen. Now that I’m older I know that’s bullsh*t . . . stick to places where you know it could be covered up easily or not hurt anybody’s future or lifestyle.” #RespectGraffiti as an art!

Shawn believes now more than ever Milwaukee has the opportunity jump out of the box and take risks. Things have shifted to where opportunities are no longer “dangerous” dreams but the makings of reality.

SD: “I think it’s more of a collaborative force. Coming from a smaller big city, there used to be that mentality of ‘Only Me. Only I can make it. I have to be better than you. Only one of us can make it out of this city and it has to be me. No, I’m not featuring you. No, I’m not painting with you’. I feel like that has just shifted completely. Just with events alone, I see people linking up. It takes people to make people. I think when you can get two brilliant minds or two talented artists together, you’re reaching [different] audiences and you’re learning as you go. I would say over the last year people have been way less cutthroat and more cooperative. I think that’s key to making a community grow and key to making art grow.”

We think he may be on to something. As collaboration has grown in MKE more people are spreading their wings. The creative pot seems to be getting younger and the lanes of “making” have dispersed.

There are more of us actively pursuing our creative talents even in unorthodox ways, like starting a creative support business like Dream Lab. ISSUE 13 - REBELLION 15

CW: “DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVISE FOR CREATIVE ENTREPRENEURS?” SD: “I’d be like Nike, man. Just do it!” He smiled facetiously. “No seriously. I know it sounds so corny but so many people are scared of what could or could not happen. I think there are so many brilliant ideas out there and so many amazing people but we are never going to get to know those amazing people or see those brilliant ideas just out of fear. I think if you can put yourself in a position where your back is against the wall and say ‘You know fear is not going to stop me. I’m going to play this out’ . . . I think if they just give it a f*ckin chance, there is a lot of room to go places.”

The world is full of possibilities and Shawn has decided to make Dream Lab a part of his. But could it have been something else? Could he be just as happy pursuing something more . . . what’s the term . . . “Practical”?

He believes that there are a million ideas and the hardest part is to pick one.

Dream Lab is a testament to that. Our talk with Shawn has revealed that dreams can be made of many things, but hard work, creativity, reflection, and confidence will bring them to life. As a final thought, Shawn left us with a little ego that we think you should challenge him on by taking a visit to his space and experiencing it for yourself.

SD: “Dream Lab is the coolest place on the planet and everybody should come!” he said with a big smile.

Don’t forget to let him know, CopyWrite sent you. /CW

CW: “SO IF YOU WEREN’T DOING ART, AND WEREN’T AT DREAM LAB, WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?” SD: “Who the hell knows! Finding a way to do this. I mean my last job I was a medical courier . . . See that was hard to leave because I made really good money and I didn’t do shit. So this was a very big jump for me. But I have always been that guy to just . . . I don’t know, I know what I’m capable of and I’m going to make it . . . I have been very open to different experiences in jobs. So regardless of what I was doing I would be finding a way to do art.

PERIOD.” “When you are a creative that ONE picture does not exist.”

MURAL BY CHACHO LOPEZ

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When you are a creative, that ONE picture does not exist.

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“Know yourself� is one of the many phrases inked into her skin. It is a constant reminder that twenty-two year old rapper, Mudy (moo-dee . . . make sure you get it right) uses to reflect on her own self-acknowledgement, which is something that she is constantly working on.

g Deep A conversation with Mudy.

As her life has manifested and her future plans have strategically not yet been solidified, she discussed with CopyWrite why the artistry of layered lyrics, bending emotion, and stereotypical misogynistic references, are not just industry stigmas but methods of expression that may deserve a deeper listen. Breaking down the barriers, Mudy shakes up the stigma of what it means to be a rapper.

M: “I went through a lot of phases . . . It was also a time when I was trying to find myself. People will tell you that the first step when you are going through stuff is admitting. Like recognizing that you have a problem or whatever the case may be. So not to turn it into a psych thing but that’s really kind of what it was. Like I have a lot of mood swings and a lot of different personalities so it wasn’t that I’m afraid of [it].

I have always been the type to let people know what you’re getting up front and that’s where Music came from. You can’t question me as an artist or ask me who I am as an artist because it’s all in my name.”

Deep! Like an eleven year old calling in to sing a Mary J. Blige song on the Radio (LOL insider) But true to her nature and name Mudy, cleverness and emotions can be streamlined. Her style of expressing herself revealed to be out of the norm long before she knew she was a rapper. It actually became an alternative to what was “expected” of her.

CW: “HOW DID YOU WIND UP BEING A RAPPER?” M: “I started off writing short stories actually . . . When I was in 6th grade I went to Morse [Middle School in Milwaukee Wisconsin] and our English teacher gave us a writing assignment to write a short story. Mines was actually about a high schooler with Dyslexia. So she was like ‘Oh, you’re in 6th grade and you are writing something this complex? You should look into writing’. It kind of evolved from there. I started doing poetry. My poetry brought out a lot of different 20 COPYWRITE MAGAZINE

emotions, a lot of aggression, and a lot of things that I felt I couldn’t say to people directly.”

Leaning towards poetry venturing into High School, she would try to take a more active way to release those emotions. In preparing for a poetry slam she was told by one of her teachers that she would not be able to perform her poems because they sounded too much like raps.

M: “I thought poetry and rap were kind of the same thing. What makes them so different? But he was adamant. So that’s what kind of escalated me over into making music. If they sound too much like raps, why not make them raps intentionally?”

She claims that the poetry (music), no matter what forms it comes in, is therapeutic for her. She has always been the strong friend. The one that people come to when they need someone to listen. With her mother having twelve kids, she felt that it was hard to self-identify in a setting where there were so many people and personalities around. She asserts that growing up it was hard to get her mother to acknowledge or show interest in who she was as a person.

M: “That put me through depression and it put me through angry stages . . . So this is my way of getting in touch with myself. I get to track my growth this way or I get to look at my old songs and say ok I was [there] and here now.”

MUSIC Regardless of the negativity, Mudy firmly believes that her family experiences helped her grow as an artist. She was the only child on her father’s side.

After her parents divorced he decided to be her primary caregiver until he passed away when she was thirteen. The shift in households was a wake-up call and the perspectives she did experience on both ends speaks volumes on how she sees herself today and where her music comes from.

CW: “DO YOU THINK FROM ALL OF THIS YOU HAVE DEVELOPED A STYLE OF RAP? DO YOU HAVE A STYLE?” M: “I think it’s Mudy. It’s not really tied to any specific thing. I think that what I have the most fun with is talking about women oddly. But I have passionate songs, and those are singing songs. I’m not rapping on those. So I have crossed over into different artistry depending on what it is I’m trying to expose about myself I guess.”

CW: “TALKING ABOUT WOMEN IN WHAT WAY?” M: “Whoa!” She laughed lightly.

CW: “YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING!” M: “No I didn’t!” She laughed harder and proceeded to reply. “So I take interest in women. But I feel like there are levels in what that interest could be. I know that I could never be with a woman because of how I view women in that sense. So in my experience I like to be a dominant figure in those settings . . . and it works a lot. [If I can say it] in the nicest way without being profane.”

CW: “DO YOU THINK BECAUSE YOU CAN EXPRESS IN THAT WAY YOUR RAPS CONNECT WELL WITH MEN?” M: “Yeah. I definitely have a strong male fan base.

I like it because you go to the shows and I look womanly. I look this sort of way and then they hear me start rapping and they are like ‘What the f*ck!’. But

I love catching people by surprise like that. If I could change my name it would probably be Surprise or some sh*t. But I’m humbled by it. I would never be like, ‘Yeah I rap better than these ni**as but . . .”

But she is definitely up to par.

The title of female can add a gender-oriented stigma to an artists identity. Mudy noted that even at shows, hosts will introduce her as a “Milwaukee Female Artist” or even comment how the industry is in need of more female artist. Where she appreciates the support, she dislikes it in the same sense:

“I’m an Artist. Don’t dumb it down by putting the ‘Female’ in front of it . . . I demand my respect. It’s going to come regardless. You don’t have to address the fact that I’m a woman.”

Are we getting bogged down on semantics or does Mudy have a point?

Well, check this; we never say, ‘Give it up for the MALE rapper’. We are surely not praising using gender like, ‘Those are some dope rhymes for a MALE’. So what’s the catch? Why are we constantly refreshing artists that just so happen to identify as female as the category in which we place their relevance? Maybe it’s the male-dominated industry standards, or maybe it’s the “unconscious” social standards we have as audiences. One thing’s for sure, that’s not the box Mudy is checking on her credentials.

CW: “WELL SINCE WE ARE ON THE SUBJECT OF GENDER, WE KNOW YOU GET A LOT OF RESPECT FROM GUYS, BUT HOW DO WOMEN RECEIVE IT.” M: “It depends on the type of women that they are.

So you have a lot of people . . . I’m going to quote. . .”. She put up air quotes with her hands “. . . like ‘woke’. Sometimes they will hear my lyrics and be like, ‘Oh, okay you are degrading women’, or this is that. But these are my experiences. You shouldn’t judge the fact that this is what I have been through . . . and this is what I am saying about it. Then you have some women who are uncomfortable with me being attracted to women. But it’s like, well I’m not attracted to you! Soooooo what’s making you uncomfortable?

Then you have the ones who are begging for the music to come out and the lyrics may go over their

head and they just like the vibe. So I don’t know. I haven’t gotten many complaints from women, but when I do, they’re always those outlandish ones.”

Well everything isn’t for everybody *shrugs*.

CW: “DO YOU THINK THAT’S SOMETHING THAT IS OFTEN CONFRONTED IN THE HIP HOP INDUSTRY? LIKE THERE’S A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD, WHERE IT EITHER APPEARS AS OVER SEXUALITY BY WOMEN IN THE WAY MEN WOULD USUALLY DISCUSS THOSE CONCEPTS? OR YOU ARE EXPECTED TO BE SUPER FEMININE OR SUPER MASCULINE AND YOU FIND YOURSELF MORE MID-GROUND?” M: “Yeah! I do! I have had people tell me in order to push myself or market myself a little better I need to start tending to sexual appeal. Or that as a female artist that’s what is going to draw people to me. But I don’t feel that’s it. I know that’s not it, as a matter of fact, because if you hear it . . . If you hear my music without seeing me, you’re not going to even know that I’m a girl half the time. Secondly, I’m not going to show you a little nipple just so I can get a few views!

I’m not like that. I don’t appreciate that and I don’t degrade women in that sense. My views as a woman,

don’t make me feel that I have to sale myself that way.”

Mudy believes that people will always have expectations of you and when you don’t meet those expectations that says less about you and more about them. Like even with her showing up on the scene occasionally wearing slugs* in her mouth can cause a double take. *Slugs: Not the slimy gastropod mollusc (Haaaaa!

Big Words!). Defined by Urban Dictionary (See Gold Slugs): “A grill; mouthpiece typically worn by guys and occasionally girls”.

“Why can we not look at the fact that you’re that, and I’m this? We are all artists here. You think people would be more respectful of that.”

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Respect is the real piece of the puzzle that’s missing.

Where Mudy has all the confidence to speak her truth, it is within the systemic realities that she exists and where she helps to open up a few eyes.

M: “I would just tell people to make sure they are keying in to more people that are like me. I don’t mean that in a cocky sense at all, it’s just that with my story, how much I can offer to people and how much help I am to people. I’m still a person too. People like me are still people too. We need people as well.

So if you get to hear those songs and recognize the pain in them . . . I mean there is always cover up . . .

Something is behind that. What’s pushing you to put that out there. Why are you saying what it is that you are saying? So I would tell people just to focus and make sure they are actually listening. You can’t listen to respond. You have to listen to understand . . . a lot of lyrics and words go over people’s heads. But play it a couple more times.”

doesn’t even get acknowledgment for. Like the Andre 3000’s and the Common’s. She was a part of their evolution as artists . . . and as men or people. Period!

And her spirit from afar just looks so welcoming and so nurturing. So I call her Mama Badu because she is actually like a mother spirit to me. The older I get I listen to her songs, over and over again and I learn something new each time and now I can read between the lines.”

You might actually learn something.

She named dropped Von Alexander, PaperStacks, Camb, and D. Bridge.

Unlike most artists we talk to when questioned about her career in music she says she’d rather not pursue it in that way.

M: “I’m so patient about the artistry. I feel like if I wanted to make a career out of it, that would come with a lot of expectations and I don’t want to be disappointed in this field. I don’t want for my heart to be broken with something I care so much about. I just want to have fun with it and if it blossoms then that’s what was destined for me. If It doesn’t, then I wasn’t expecting it to.”

She plans on taking it how it comes. She is also trying her hand at an online boutique. Highly interested in expressing individuality she thinks that if it expands as a career she would not mind, and if not, just like with the music, then it just wasn’t in the cards.

M: “ I’m really nonchalant. I focus on things, but I feel there’s going to be something I just key into and I haven’t found it just yet.”

But for now the energy that she does use on music goes into making releases like “Pressure”, a spin-off of Wale’s “The Need To Know”, which is a spin-off of Musiq SoulChild’s “Just Friends” (Which you can find on SoundCloud).

Even if a career is not the move there are still iconic artists that Mudy would love to work with.

M: “Erykah Badu. Just because I think throughout her career she molded so many people that she

#SupportingTheLocal Mudy has been keeping up with her peers, less concerned about industry names she has been using her time to keep up with local projects finding inspiration in the same place that cultivates hers.

M: “I really want to acknowledge D. Bridge because he has been pushing me to be consistent lately. And he has required me to turn in a song a week to him, well more like two songs because we have to have a song together too. He has just given me a lot of connections recently. He took me to Chicago to meet with engineer and record a song there. I just feel like if anything does happen in the upcoming months or next year, or whatever the case may be, he is going to have a lot to do with it just because he pushes me as an artist and I appreciate that.”

With a last word of inspiration she left us with a quote that we all have heard before but with every repetition, should hit a little deeper: M: “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything. I don’t know who originally said it but my Daddy used to say it all the time and I have that tatted too.”

Deep, in ink, and with no lessons lost, Mudy says: “IT’S A RAP!” /CW

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Raging Rebel Interview with Kane Rulan.

Kane Rulan is hands down one of the most unique rappers on the scene in Milwaukee right now. From his dope flows and visionary mindset to his creative style, Kane has something about him that makes you want to find out more. So that’s exactly what we did.

Luckily, he was willing to give CopyWrite the inside scoop on his life when it comes to his childhood, musical influences, and the message he’s trying to spread to the world.

But first, that interesting name!

CW: “SO, WHERE DID YOUR NAME COME FROM?” KR: “It [Kane] has always been a nickname because I was a bad a** kid. And I was into wrestling and it’s a wrestler with the name Kane. And I watched it so much, people got to start calling me him because I was infatuated with him . . . then that movie Menace II Society. When I stumbled upon that, I was like, ‘Damn, that’s damn near me’, the main character Kane and sh*t. Like I be going through certain dilemmas and sh*t.”

CW: “WHAT DID YOU RELATE TO WITH THE MAIN CHARACTER IN MENACE II SOCIETY?” KR: “When I first started really understanding it and I was getting out of high school, that character was doing the same. And you know, not knowing where your life is headed. Tryna stay on the right path but your surroundings catch up to you. It was this one summer I kept watching it over and over and over.

Everybody else was outside. I was in the crib writing

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music and watching that movie, taking different stuff from it.”

CW: “WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST THING YOU TOOK FROM IT?” KR: “Don’t get caught up in the bullshit. That’s the main thing. You gotta keep your head on straight if you really want to accomplish something great. And I’m happy I caught on to that early. Like, I’m a big believer in hard work. I know it take a little bit of luck, but I rely on hard work more.”

CW: “AND WHAT ABOUT RULAN?” KR: “It was a nickname a girl gave to me because she was like, ‘You need to add something to Kane’ . . . Her name was Mulan and she was like, ‘Just make it Rulan’. I was like yeah, that kinda sticks, I like that.

And I just ran with it.”

Kane was born in Kansas but moved to Wisconsin when he was about 8-years-old. He didn’t come straight to Milwaukee though, he was always on the go from Racine to other places around the midwest, until he settled in the 414 when he was 13.

CW: “IS MILWAUKEE YOUR FAVORITE PLACE YOU’VE LIVED?” KR: “I would have to say yes. I just love the culture of Milwaukee. We got our own thing going.”

SHOOTER: ROB RANDOLPH

CW: “CAN YOU DESCRIBE THAT?” KR: “It’s different, you know? Like we [are] a different breed. We talk a lot of smack but we be willing to back it up, you know? Even taking it back to 2009 days when everybody was wearing polo with NBA socks. Sh*t like that. We just always been on our own wave. Anywhere else, they couldn’t swag no NBA socks or sh*t like that. With the Rockport’s and shit.

We got our own slang. I just love it.”

CW: “HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HIP-HOP HERE IN MILWAUKEE AND THE RAP GAME HERE?” KR: “I love it. I like the different styles. I like the different lanes. And I like that everybody is succeeding in their own different ways. I just feel like we need to keep this sh*t going but we also need to start like a train with this. Like alright, I’ll help you, you help him type sh*t. Because Milwaukee has potential . . . We have the potential to become a Black Hollywood.

That’s what I want the goal to be. I want people to want to come to Milwaukee like how they want to go to Atlanta.”

In order for that to happen there has to be support from locals doing cool things. The wave of talent doesn’t just make waves with one voice. this is something that Kane is continuously aware of: KR: “I fuck with Gwapo Chapo. I fuck with We Up Next. Pizzle, that’s my nigga. We chopped it up a lot throughout me doing music . . . He’s really one of them OG nigg*s whose not afraid to give game. And

that’s a key part of being an OG. You can’t really be an OG if you want to keep the game to yourself . . . Pizzle, he’ll really sit you down . . . and teach you how to market yourself and take yourself serious as a business person. But I f*ck with everybody though.

It might not cross my radar because I be on and off social media, I take hiatuses and sh*t, but I fuck with everybody. Genesis Renji. Everybody.”

CW: “WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO TAKE YOUR HIATUS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA?” KR: “Because that sh*t can become so toxic sometimes. It can be funny as hell too, entertaining. But sometimes [it] gets draining. Because a lot of people on social media be lying and most of it is like a facade. You’re tryna impress people you don’t even know. It’s kinda weird. I just do my own thing and live life. I focus on living life. I don’t really be tryna be scrolling. I want to live it.”

Being low-key is right up his alley. Kane admitted that he can be a little secretive from time to time.

Some of the people he’s closest to don’t even know his age! But Kane has love for CopyWrite (which is much appreciated) so he revealed a few thangsss to us that he’s cooking up—like a clothing line! Mostly denim and cotton pieces, so things like jeans, sweaters, cardigans, etc.

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MUSIC

KR: “I’m under the radar with it right now,” he says.

“Just until I really start turning up with it.”

He’s in no rush to reveal his clothes to the world yet though, and for good reason.

KR: “Yeah, I’m waiting on the right moment because I don’t want to oversaturate. I’m big on that. I don’t want to oversaturate things. I’m a big believer in patience is a virtue. Time is everything so I’m just waiting right now.”

For now, Kane is good with just having his music out there. But how did the music even get started?

KR: “When I was 8. I watched a Lil Wayne documentary and he said he was making music when he was 8. I was like f*ck it, I’m 8 right now, I’m about to start making music. That’s when I start writing and finding my flows and who I was. But my first time touching a real studio was when I was like 13.”

CW: “IS HE ONE OF YOUR INSPIRATIONS?” KR: “Yeah, Lil Wayne, Prince, and Marilyn Manson.”

What a combo, right?!?

CW: “HOW CAN YOU RELATE TO THEM?” KR: “I relate to Wayne because I don’t write music at all, I freestyle it, and just work ethic wise. I learned a lot from watching his documentaries and what it took to actually make this sh*t happen. From Prince, I learned flamboyancy and not really giving a f*ck what people think. They can question what they want but I know I’m fly so that’s all that matters.

Same thing with Marilyn Manson. They both really just taught me to be myself.”

One of the first places Kane got to show off his creativity and uniqueness is most notably FREESPACE. The intro made by a dope Pulaski High School teacher Mr. Gaa, to Webster X, would bring Kane into a new level of community that would expand his music as we know it.

KR: “The weekend came and me, him, and Webster X all had a meeting and at first it was going to be a show for nothing [or as Kane pronounces it, for “nan” LOL]. We were just going to throw a show. I was going to bring all the young nigg*s out and that was going to be it. But I was like nah, I’m tryna play too. Then Mr. Gaa was like, let’s do it! From there we were like let’s keep doing this. Let’s keep putting

people on from the city. People who don’t have an outlet and people who struggle to find all age venues to perform at. Let’s lend a helping hand. So, we all agreed on that. Janice—she’s the designer and co-founder of FREESPACE—she be blessing us visually. We just combined all of our talents and that was the start of FREESPACE. We still throw shows to this day because we don’t wanna stop! We want people to follow our lead and create their own FREESPACE. But as far as giving people a chance and opportunity, we don’t ever want to stop doing that no matter what.”

Kane still performs at FREESPACE and he says every time it’s a new experience making the intimate experience grow deeper and deeper bonds.

Creating bonds are important, that’s why when it comes to Kane’s inner circle, he’s particular about the company he keeps. Filling it with the right people to keep him on the right track.

KR: “I would say creators but I like to surround myself with innovators. It’s one thing to be creative but it’s another thing to be innovative. Those are the type of people that always push you. And I try to surround myself with positive people too. People who got an optimistic look on life. If I’m around something negative, I’ll literally just move around, if I feel it. I don’t like that because I went through a stage in life where plenty shit was negative. It was hard to be optimistic. I don’t want to go back to that.”

CW: “DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE A REALLY GOOD SUPPORT SYSTEM?” KR: “Yeah, very good. I appreciate anybody who ever supported anything I had a hand in and this is crazy because it kinda happened out of nowhere.

One day I was getting slept on then the next day . . .” *Kane’s friend interjects* “. . . everybody was picking your sh*t up . . .”.

KR: “Yeah it be crazy bro!”

Optimistic about his support he also feels that though every accomplishment is a celebration he still has to keep the ball rolling in the hopes of spreading his message not only locally but globally.

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KR: “A lot of people didn’t get that shit. But I don’t care. Some people even approached me like ‘Damn, what made you do that?’ and I’m like ‘cause I knew you were gon’ be asking me this question right now, so I did it’.”

We told Kane if he lost friends, that means they weren’t his friends to begin with! Really, it revealed the people who are really down for him.

CW: “WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE?” KR: “I got a couple, but my main message is I just want people to go back to being themselves. Because I just feel like we just live in an era where the internet is like a main source and people on social media compare their lives to other people’s.

It doesn’t have to be like that. Everybody has their own life and everybody has their own passions. Be yourself.”

His other message is to take time on your craft, because it’s vital. He believes you can’t rush to let the world see what you’ve got going on, even if you’re excited. Make sure you perfect it first. If you’ve ever heard Kane’s music, you know it isn’t like anybody else’s and that’s a part of his cultivation of craft. The best way to describe it is edgy, punk with a mix of trap.

It is rebellious for sure. But if Kane were to describe his music, he would call it—Sparkly. Interesting word choice . . .

KR: “I say sparkly because I make sh*t that I want people to have a good time but I also make shit that I want people to sit down and think. No matter what, it’s going to be a spark in there. You’re gonna hear something that you like throughout my catalog.”

People will always have something to say about Kane’s music, good and bad. The last tape he dropped, “No Way Out This Nightmare”, made him lose a lot of friends just based off the cover art that is inspired by Marilyn Manson with Kane wearing makeup, just doing him.

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KR: “Exactly, and that’s why it takes things like that so you can get a reality check. Like, I was stressing myself out like should I do this shit or should I not? But I wouldn’t have been happy with myself if I wouldn’t have released that project and did what I did on the cover. I wouldn’t have been satisfied. You just gotta be comfortable with yourself or you gotta know what you are.”

Kane’s journey to becoming comfortable with himself wasn’t easy or one that anybody would want to experience to get there. However, it was detrimental for Kane to become who he is today.

CW: “SO, HOW DID YOU GET TO BECOME SO COMFORTABLE WITH YOURSELF? HAD IT ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY?” KR: “Umm, nope. I used to be fat. And I used to really stare in the mirror like damn, I need to change this type sh*t. I don’t know . . . I had very low self-esteem.

But I’m just never going back to that . . . It was just a change in me period after my mama went to prison.

After that it was a whole shift in the way I thought about sh*t, the way I carried myself and everything because that shit came out of nowhere. Nigg*s was living regular and then all of a sudden, mom’s in prison. It’s just like damn . . . whoa, type shit.”

CW: “WHEN DID SHE GO TO PRISON?” KR: “My mama went to prison in 2011. And it wasn’t like she was around, they shipped her to West Virginia type shit. She was gone for like a year. That year I was just raging. I was doing all types of crazy a** shit. And I don’t know, it really made me sit down and smell the roses because my brother had went to jail too. They both went to jail within like a week after each other. They didn’t even make it to my eighthgrade graduation. I just remember that day I came home from graduation and my house was empty and I just was like damn. I damn near wanted to cry, but I just hit it. I feel like that’s the day that changed the way I went about sh*t.”

MUSIC

music. I’m vulnerable with my music too now. I’m opening up more about my life and sh*t instead of just rapping about being fly and all that.”

Kane has a wide variety of genres that interest him (if you couldn’t already tell). And he appreciates the creativity that’s emerging in all areas of music, whether he rocks with it or not. With that being said, a lot of talk has been around the new era of hip-hop, or as Joe Budden likes to call it “mumble rap”. Some think it has changed hip-hop and not for the better, while others like that it’s different.

Kane’s grandmother & father would step in to raise him. His Grandmother would bring him into an extensive music catalog that has inspired him along the way.

KR: “The Isley Brothers, Earth Wind & Fire, Jimi Hendrix, The Beach Boys, like a lot of groovy shit forreal.

That type of music you just feel it in your soul. Like, I’m young as a bitch, I didn’t even know half of the sh*t they were talking about back then but I felt it.

She put me on to a lot.”

CW: “DO YOU STILL HAVE STRONG CONNECTIONS TO HER?” KR: “She passed in 2012, so it was a lot of sh*t happening back-to-back. It was just crazy how it came out of nowhere.”

Kane puts it all into his music. He told us that this interview with CopyWrite was his first time really talking about his past. Like mentioned earlier, Kane admits to not opening up to people, but he’s learning to be more vulnerable. It can be a relief, being able to talk to someone about things you’ve been holding in for years and just release it all. With being more vulnerable comes growth, and with growth comes progression. Kane’s music definitely shows this progress KR: “When I was 8, I was just trying to be like Wayne and mimic everything he was doing damn near and trying to make that next hit that sound like the sh*t that’s out. But as I got older and got into my preteens and started becoming a young man, I wanted to distance myself as far as I can from the mainstream people. I don’t want my music to sound like theirs at all. So, I would say I’m raging more in my

CW: “WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE MAINSTREAM RAP CULTURE TODAY?” KR: “I f*ck with Uzi because I seen him live a couple times and I fuck with his energy. He got a whole lil wave going. I just feel like it’s a lane for that nowadays. As long as they don’t put it into people minds that that’s the only cool shit to do, then it’s cool.”

CW: “DO YOU FEEL LIKE MORE RAPPERS ARE GOING TOWARDS THAT LANE?” KR: “I feel like they are going towards that lane because that lane comes with clout and that’s one of the biggest drugs in America right now—clout. That’s what a lot of people want nowadays. They don’t even want to be respected as an artist no more. As long as you know them, that’ll be enough. But that’s not enough for me. I want you to know me, know my catalog and know what I’m tryna do.”

Kane Rulan wants to leave a legacy rather than just be trending, or as he says, “hot for the moment”.

But even if something isn’t for him, he’ll respect the grind.

On to a more random question, just out of Intern Carrie’s curiosity . . .

CW: “WHY DID YOU DYE YOUR LOCS?”(I didn’t know when to squeeze that in lmao) KR: “I just like dying my locs to be honest. I don’t really like keeping the same hair color for a minute but this damn near the last time I’m gonna dye my sh*t. Because I’ve had every color: orange, green, red, all that and my hair is still healthy. I just wanna stop while my hair is still healthy. I don’t wanna be out here looking like Wayne and shit. On God LOL. But yeah, I just like color.”

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“I feel like they are going towards that lane because that lane comes with clout and that’s one of the biggest drugs in America right now—clout.

That’s what a lot of people want nowadays. They don’t even want to be respected as an artist no more. As long as you know them, that’ll be enough.

But that’s not enough for me. I want you to know me, know my catalog and know what I’m tryna do.”

Kane claims he has always had hair but had a big interest on how locs looked. Bob Marley’s hair was one of his inspirations.

KR: “. . . heavy. [i’m inspired by] more of like his values and morals, definitely. And to keep that shit 100, I got a funny a** head and sh*t. I wasn’t finna do no low cut or nothing like that. It’s a wrap for that LOL.” Another one of his inspirations is Lady Gaga. If he could collaborate with anyone, she would be first on the list.

KR: “She’s one of my biggest inspirations. I seen her play piano with her toes *laughing*, swear to God. She been fire ever since I discovered her back in 2009 and I was probably like 9. She just fire. Everything about her. Even the shit she be wearing it’s like an art form, everything she does is like an art form.

Who else would I collab with? Of course Wayne, A$AP Rocky, and Elton John.”

The future for Kane looks bright and it seems like he is always working on something. Other than his clothing line, Kane says he’s got a lot of music coming soon, including a new album.

CW: “TALK ABOUT THE ALBUM!” KR: “Man, it’s gonna be crazy. I’m calling it Temperature. I’m just tryna change the climate of this sh*t, the whole trending shit that’s going on and bring something new.”

There was so much more said. But some of those things we will keep for the vault. He did however, leave us with a token of advice for anybody coming up behind him or anybody paying attention: “Don’t get discouraged. As long as you’re happy with what you’re doing, put other people’s opinion second. I’m not going to say just f*ck their opinion because opinions are helpful sometimes. Constructive criticism, you know? Just keep your values and sh*t first.”

If you learn nothing else from this entire interview (which is nearly impossible because we covered a hell of a lot), Kane Rulan is on the come up. We would like to thank him for letting us in and allowing us to tell his story. He’s such a down-to-earth, upstanding guy . . .

A raging rebel, with a cause. /Carrie for CW

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In Ink with Leevel Ford.

Leevel Ford. Creative from the northside of MKE. Proud alum of Milwaukee High School of the Arts. An unconventional pick for our visual artist . . . but how? The profile sounds so normal. So expected.

But Leevel doesn’t just do art. . . his canvas of choice: skin.

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Leevel is:

the first tattoo artist (to grace the pages of our magazine)

The first to have skin on our agenda and the first to show us what ink means once it hits the flesh. CopyWrite sat down with him to see how he has made his art live.

CW: “WHY ART?” LF: “Why art? It’s the only thing that has just been honestly consistent in my life . . . I have always taken a liking to it. I used to zone out and just get into big spills of it. It was just always art growing up. I did other things like sports and stuff but it just wasn’t like art.”

Around the age of four he would be intrigued by the drawings his uncle would make. He would take his pictures, trace them and eventually would start sketching them out to try to mimic what he saw.

LF: “That was kind of like my training and how I learned how to do things. But my uncle slowed down on his drawing and I would just be sitting there waiting for him to do something else to the point where I had to go into my own creativity. I couldn’t just wait for someone else.”

Like most children he would venture into drawing cartoons, but he also became observant of the world around him, starting to sketch out whatever he saw, developing his love for realism. While he is quite talented in many styles his favorite things to draw are animals and people. Portraits of course are his pièce de résistance.

CW: “WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO TAKE YOUR CREATIVITY TO THE FLESH?” LF: “I have two stories. My first story of me tattooing is my brothers trying to force me to tattoo them. I didn’t know anything about tattooing and they bought the little machine and were like, ‘Bro if you can draw, you can tattoo’.”

PAUSE!!! (These are lies yall. . . It is not sweet like that! LOL)

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LF: “I was like, naw. I don’t think that’s how it works. I learned quickly too that, that is not the case. They had a little video [to show me how to do it]. It was hilarious. I sat there watching the video . . . I did all their tattoos. I hated doing it the whole time. It just dragged on because I was trying to do it while I was learning. I felt like I was doing nothing but just scaring them . . .”

Leevel admits that the tattoos turned out terrible. So much so to the point that he doesn’t even want to look at them, now that he is a pro, to cover them up. He promised himself after that night he would never pick up a tattoo gun again unless someone was teaching him how to do it properly.

At twenty-one he would get another opportunity. This time he would fall in love with the skill and never look back.

LF: “My friend was working at a shop and that was like my only guy that I would actually really kick it with. So after school I would go over to the shop. I was slowly getting out of art because I wasn’t doing it as much but [being there] actually got me back into the mode of wanting to draw. So I would just go and draw in there all the time. The boss there wanted me to work for him but I didn’t think it was something for me. I was just staying around. He told me if I was going to stick around I might as well answer phones or do something. So I started answering the phones and pretty much doing all the work an apprentice would do . . . I was just doing it because I was around, but as me being around it so much, I started to draw a bit differently. To the point where I just wanted to draw tattoo ideas.”

VISUAL ART

Once he started to style into the art, and watching his friend grow at it, slowly Leevel wanted to give it a second shot. One day he would get that chance. He would tattoo two small zodiac signs on a fellow “shop rat”. A piece, that involved both line work and coloring, he would have another artist guide him through the process, boosting his confidence with every swipe of the needle.

LF: “The tattoos went so quick. When I got done I was geeked. Now I gotta do something else I have been drawing. I don’t want to do no little zodiac signs. I want to do something cold!”

His face lit up as if he had traveled back in the moment of nostalgia that brought him to this conversation today.

He already had people lined up to be his canvases, so without another thought, the creations would begin.

Growing up one question that would define Leevel would be one his stepfather would ask.

LF: “He asked us what did we want to do with our lives.

All my brothers and sisters didn’t know what to say. I think my little sister might of answered but I didn’t. In my head I knew I just wanted to be doing something with art.

But I was afraid to tell him that.”

He was afraid of being questioned about what he was going to do with art. Though his idea was not fully developed it turned out to be the path he would take.

Understanding his responsibility as an artist, especially one that creates his compositions on living beings, would mean so much more than a career.

LF: “I always wanted to have my art in a museum. So to be able to put it on someone’s skin is way deeper. It was like a high to me once I started to realize that I am becoming a part of somebody. They are taking their time, their skin, and letting me do whatever I want to try to portray their idea.”

Tattoos are a forever thing—except for the costly laser removal process. Letting someone ink you becomes a part of your identity. That is a major responsibility that Leevel does not take lightly.

“There are a lot of people who do it more for the money. I want my piece to speak for itself.”

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CW: “AS A MALE OF COLOR DO YOU FIND THAT IT’S A NORM TO DO TATTOOS? OR DO YOU FEEL THAT THE RECOGNITION AND PRESTIGE IS DIFFERENT?” LF: “I feel like there’s enough of us, but not enough in the light. There are a lot of Black artists but they are not being seen. They are also like diamonds in the rough too. I see it all the time. Somebody will come into the shop and be like, ‘Oh snap!’ Then they see me suited up and be like, ‘You tattooing?’ . . . So yeah it throws them off but I feel like there are enough of us. We just don’t get the light to show.”

And that’s why we are here. We realized that we had never featured a tattoo artist in CopyWrite. Though we are fans of the inked life, we had never noticed how big of a chunk we had been leaving out of the urban scene, and voices left unheard in our city.

CW: “SO YOU ARE STATIONED IN BOTH MILWAUKEE AND ARIZONA RIGHT? HOW DID YOU MAKE THAT DECISION?” LF: “I wanted to expand my business so that’s why I wanted to move out there to Arizona. I’m over there on the west coast so it’s easier for me to get out to Vegas and Cali, both places I really want to tattoo at as well. So I just jump back and forth all the time. But really it was just a gut feeling. I felt a bit of an artistic glass ceiling in a sense [here]. As if you can only go so far. I moved out just so I can expand and that way I can always come back ‘n forth.”

Even with his move Leevel does most of his work in Wisconsin, still applying his talent to the place that helped shape him. In the future he would like to have his own shop in Milwaukee, but as things are unfolding well for him in his ventures as a tattoo artist, he just wants to make sure he plans it out right.

CW: “DO YOU HAVE ANY FAIL STORIES?” LF: “A heart-pounding moment was misspelling something in a tattoo. But it only happened because the client wrote it wrong. I always have them write it out and then do it. I guess they spelled the name wrong.

My heart goes through the same thing every time I think about it. It’s like, ‘You need to be sure about these things.

You saw the stencil!’, and I think of all the moments before that we could have stopped this from happening.”

CW: “WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT DID YOU DO?” LF: “I was able to fix it but I was still irritated with it because it wasn’t fixed the way I wanted it to look.”

Leevel has been tattooing for eight years now, but it wasn’t until about five years in that he realized that he was definitely headed in the right direction.

LF: “I was flown out overseas to Germany to tattoo for a weekend . . . I took that as a sign that I just have to keep focusing and doing what I’m doing. More opportunities will come.”

One thing that is very refreshing about Leevel is his appreciation for the work that others do. He doesn’t hold his craft higher or lower than anyone else’s but he really appreciates what creativity can put into the atmosphere.

LF: “ I love all art . . . Whoever is doing something or making something that they love, especially with art, I’m a fan. It could be something I would never buy, or put it up in my house, but it will still inspire me because you are doing what you do. You are doing what you love to do. So I can say I get inspired by everybody.”

With all the inspiration out here, he has found several ways to interpret his own ideas. Where his favorite creations have been his large-scale tattoos, including the mermaid scene pictured in this spread, he also has

been dabbling in more graphic expression, like comic booking.

CW: “SO ALL THIS TALENT IN THE MIX, WHAT IS NEXT FOR YOU?” LF: “Right now I’m trying to figure out where I want to station the shop . . . I have also just started a clothing line called Artistic Perspective. So I want to kind of get that off the ground. Really, I want to just build an art environment, to where like whatever you do, you can come here for that. I want it to be like the Starbucks of art.” (Hmm . . . We feel like these ideas we hear from creatives are overlapping, is the universe trying to tell us something?) “Besides that, just travel and tattoo.

Travel and tattoo.”

CW: “IS THERE ANYBODY THAT YOU WANT TO PUT A TATTOO ON SUPERBAD? OR ANYBODY WHO YOU’RE LIKE ‘THAT’S A GOOD CANVAS!’?”

LF: “I see skin and I be like, ‘Auhhhh!’.” (The pitch of that “Auhhh” was like the sound of yearning.)

CW: “THAT’S ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS!” LF: “It’s not the person, it’s like I see skin and be like, ‘I think this could look good’. Or ‘What ya’ doin with your back? Are you doing anything over there?’. So I mean, it’s not a certain person but I will think of an idea when I see skin . . .”

Blank canvas? Leevel is plottin’! Who wants to get inked?

If there is one thing we have learned from talking to Leevel it is that being “unconventional” can be the only convention that makes sense.

Leave it in ink, so you know it’s real. /CW

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Carrie’s Curl Conversation THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN WITH EXCERPTS FROM A FILMED PANEL DISCUSSION OF SIX YOUNG MILWAUKEE WOMEN DISCUSSING THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS AROUND NATURAL HAIR

CULTURE

Hair is one of the biggest conversations within the Black community. Whether you wear your hair straight, in a low cut, throw a wig on it or put a relaxer in it, Black women love hair and can talk about it all day long. There is one area of discussion that isn’t so talked about, and ironically, it’s the hair that Black women receive at birth—their natural hair. Natural hair has been a hush-hush topic since, well, forever.

But with the natural hair community on the rise, and with more women deciding to go natural, there is a need to have these conversations. Discrimination has been at the heart of the conversation revolving the evolution of natural hair for Black women over the last century. This discrimination caused setbacks for self-love, acceptance, confidence and general natural hair care knowledge and practices for a lot of Black women today. However, a decade ago there was a significant change in the way we started thinking about our natural hair which is now a narrative at the forefront of Black beauty salons and shops across the country. The slow, yet steady, progression of the so called “trendy natural hair movement”, doesn’t allow for the knowledge and education of natural hair to be shared everywhere, but now with more acceptance of the idea of natural, the real question is why not? And more specifically, why not Milwaukee?

FROM THEN TO NOW After slavery, Black women still had to assimilate to white culture to be accepted. European beauty standards like fairer skin and straight hair were forced into our brains and made us feel like we weren’t beautiful without those features. So, we tamed our hair with hot combs and chemical relaxers to get the straight look like the white women around us. That is what we were taught was beautiful. We couldn’t embrace our own natural tresses the fear of being discriminated against in social and work environments. Former African American academic advisor at UWM, Susan Fields, recalls a switch transpired when James Brown came out with the song “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” along with Angela Davis rocking her big afro.

“Basically, it was looked at that we need to embrace our heritage and not try to assimilate into white culture, and that was to wear your hair natural,” Fields said. “We had to get to a cultural era where we tried to embrace what our naturalness was, but it was a

way that we were trying to connect to our African heritage.”

The afro was seen as rebellious. A public statement.

Radical. Something that wasn’t appropriate.

We shortly went to the Jheri Curl, which was a juicy curly afro. The Jheri Curl was the equivalent to white people getting a perm, because perms made their hair curly. This was our way of having both the afro and tamed curly hair, to fit in with society. After the Jheri curl in the greasy 80’s, when everyone was tired of the drippy activator, relaxers came back, along with weaves. Few people were natural during this time. The natural hair movement really made its mark in history after Chris Rock came out with the documentary Good Hair. This movie looked at the billion-dollar Black hair industry, and according to the podcast The Stoop, it brought up some deep-rooted issues regarding the “creamy crack” aka relaxers, and how harmful the chemical is to the hair. Since then, relaxer sales have decreased 26% since 2006.

Relaxers have phased out and now it’s time for natural hair stylists to catch up.

COSMETOLOGY SCHOOL Aishia Strickland, the co-owner of The Curl Society, in Chicago, says that in cosmetology school natural hair is not taught. When you go to cosmetology school, they are teaching you the foundational aspects of hair. You’re learning about the structure of hair, basic shampooing and roller sets.

“The whole curriculum is based off of straight hair, honestly. It’s really based on Caucasian hair,” Aishia said.

Vanishea Jackson from the Transcending Salon and Spa in Milwaukee, thinks it has to do with who’s teaching the classes.

“Natural hair wasn’t a big thing for us,” Vanishea said. “One, because I felt like our educators were predominately white. They weren’t educated enough to teach a curriculum on it.”

At least when it came to learning Black women’s hair in its natural state, there was no knowledge on it and it wasn’t discussed at all. Going back to what Aishia said, in beauty school, their entire curriculum was based on straight hair. If a Black woman wants to get ISSUE 13 - REBELLION 53

INFOGRAPHIC BY JOJO WEST

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CULTURE

her natural hair done, she will more than likely have to get it straightened first. Finding a hairstylist who is educated about natural hair in its natural state without straightening it is nearly impossible in Milwaukee, which is frustrating for a lot of naturals in the city. That’s the problem.

“The reason why so much education may be lacking for natural hair is because for a long time in the Black community, it was almost like taboo,” Chinyere Charles said, hairstylist at the Transcending Salon and Spa. “We couldn’t wear it in corporate settings, it just became a negative thing. We weren’t even embracing it ourselves.”

But now that we are learning to embrace it more, where can hairstylists go to learn more?

CONTINUING EDUCATION CLASSES After cosmetology school, most hair stylists go to continuing education classes to keep gaining knowledge about their craft. Madison Ringersen from the Clark Richard Salon in Brookfield thinks it’s crazy that textured hair isn’t taught in school.

“You have to take extra classes to learn curly hair, which is crazy to me because everyone has texture in their hair,” Ringersen said. “Even if you have straight hair you have a tiny bit of texture in there.

Everyone has a little wave or curl and it breaks my heart because what I was taught in beauty school to cut curly hair was to blow dry them straight, straighten it and then cut.”

Madison went through the product line DevaCurl to learn how to do a DevaCut. Lorraine Massey is the co-founder of DevaCurl and she was on a hunt to find an alternative way to get her hair cut after salons kept telling her she had to straighten her curly hair. She came up with the DevaCut, which is a technique for cutting curly hair curl by curl, while it is dry, to give it a trim and shape—natural hair is all about shape. There are three different DevaCut levels a stylist can achieve, with level three being an advanced stylist, the highest certification. Madison says she mostly gets clients with wavy and curly hair, but she is still working on learning kinky curly.

Most Black women have kinky hair, which can make

it even more difficult to find a stylist who knows how to work with it. Kinky curly hair is a lot different and can be more challenging than learning how to do looser textured hair. You have to go to an even more specialized class to learn kinky because it’s in a category of its own. Aishia and her business partner Aeleise Jana created a course called “Cut it Kinky,” where hairstylists can learn how to cut coarse textured hair.

“We happen to be one group of people teaching about textured hair care to consumers and to professionals and we are getting ready to create a certification for what we teach,” said Aishia.

There are other places you can go to learn this specific type of hair, but most of the time the hairstylist will have to travel. Madison went to Rockford, Illinois to just learn level one of how to do a DevaCut, then went all the way to New York to get certified in level two and three. There aren’t any certified classes being taught in Milwaukee currently. This leads to Milwaukee hair stylists only being self-taught when it comes to natural hair, but for this complex type of styling, only being self-taught literally doesn’t cut it.

Self-taught is not good enough because it creates distrust between hair stylists and clients since a lot of them don’t know what they’re doing.

WHY NATURALS DON’T TRUST NATURAL HAIRSTYLISTS Antoi Johns, the owner of Transcending Salon and Spa, says there is a disconnect between hair stylists and clients because of hairstylists saying they know hair, when really, they only know the type of hair they’ve been dealing with. One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch.

“Because some of these stylists are so used to working with weaves and relaxed hair, when someone comes in with natural hair, they treat it like a foreign object,” Johns said. “A lot of newer stylists aren’t trained to do just hair, only one type of hair, so when they’re presented with a different type of hair they’re not used to, technically they don’t know what they’re doing because the knowledge is not there.”

Almost every woman can attest to having a bad salon experience from a licensed natural hair stylist, which is why they don’t trust them anymore.

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Emani Taylor, a short-cut natural in Milwaukee, recalled a bad salon visit to just add some color to her hair. Why did she come out of the salon with bright orange Halloween colored hair?? These are simple things stylists mess up that ends up ruining the relationship with clients and any other natural hairstylists. A client shouldn’t leave from a hair appointment unsatisfied every time.

“My exposure to a lot of stylists is them thinking they know what they’re doing and then they’re presenting themselves to be qualified to do it, but then not holding themselves accountable and say “Hey, I actually can’t do this””, Emani said.

Another Milwaukee natural, Ashley Jordan, says she has searched high and low for a natural hairstylist and has plenty of salon horror stories because she feels like they’re completely nonexistent. There are people here in Milwaukee who know how to do a silk press, but when it comes to two strand twists or flat twists, styles other than just hair straightening, that area is lacking.

“Even though all of us are natural, we all have a different hair texture. Really, natural hair is a science,” Ashley said. “A lot of stylists here are trying to make quick money. Yeah, they may be licensed and did what they had to do to get the pass but they haven’t actually studied different hair textures to become an expert in it.”

What will we have to do to change this client/hairstylist relationship? Aishia says, in short, invest.

“I think people feel like they think they know it, so what they know is enough and they don’t need to know anything else. Plus, for some stylists, natural hair is like “no thanks, I don’t want to do that, it’s too much work.” It’s going to take people really valuing knowledge. And valuing knowledge just means that you have to pay for it.”

Until then, naturals have taken matters into their own hands to figure out their kinks and coils. And the one place that has it all—YouTube.

YOUTUBE AS THE ALTERNATIVE SOURCE Naturalistas love YouTube. YouTube is a natural’s 56 COPYWRITE MAGAZINE

best friend. You can look at product reviews, hairstyles, styling techniques and so much more. The natural hair community took off on YouTube after naturals couldn’t get natural hair services from hairstylists. When being natural first became a “thing” in the late 2000’s, stylists weren’t advertising that they did natural hair. The women with natural hair didn’t know where to go, so bloggers would make videos showing what works for their hair and what doesn’t. This is where the trial and error narrative about natural hair came into the picture, because in the beginning, YouTube was saturated with videos of naturals figuring out their hair on their own. To this day, natural women rave over YouTube because this is where they have been somewhat successful at finding the information and knowledge about their hair since they don’t have the trust in hairstylists to help them.

However, YouTube isn’t the best option because since most of the content on there is coming from people who didn’t go to school for natural hair, a lot of wrong information is being spread. Naturals are being fooled into buying products, they are being showed the wrong techniques and they’re having unrealistic expectations for their hair.

“A lot of the confusion about natural hair care comes from the fact that cosmetologists were not present in the conversation. They are too busy in the salon helping clients who are paying them to come in and service them,” Aishia said. “The inaccurate information came from everybody saying, “ok well, there’s nobody who does natural hair, so we just going to figure it out on our own.””

The DIY attitude with natural hair is one reason why there is a slow progression of having knowledgeable natural hair stylists in the city. According to Aeleise Jana, licensed cosmetologist and co-founder of @Iamblackgirlcurls, since the natural hair community has been so DIY, stylists don’t see the benefit in investing in the education to learn how to do it.

“You’re going to have to travel to a stylist who sees the benefit because typically, unless you live in a larger metropolitan area, you’re not going to find a local hairstylist who has this very specialized knowledge because a stylist has to see an economic benefit to go into those classes. They are investing in the services they know will make them money.

They’re taking classes in relaxers, they are taking classes in weave, classes in color. They are taking

CULTURE classes in something that is not so stereotypically DIY.” This is the cycle. Hairstylists don’t invest in learning natural hair because they don’t see the market for it, so the natural hair community relies on YouTube and the internet since there aren’t hairstylists who know how to do it. This cycle will continue until more hairstylists AND natural consumers see the need to invest in the knowledge. That means stylists investing in the continuing education and consumers investing in the hairstylists who have what they’re looking for. You can get all the free information you want from the internet, but eventually realize that route won’t be the most beneficial in the long run.

WHAT IS THE RESOLUTION? Aeleise says luckily natural hair is becoming more mainstream to where stylists are starting to want to take the classes to learn textured hair. The first time Aeleise and Aishia did their “Cut It Kinky” class a year ago, they only had three stylists sign up. The next time, seven stylists showed up. The last time they did the class, 17 stylists came. The natural hair community is continuing to grow so the stylists have to grow with it.

Aeleise and Aishia are two licensed curl artists who saw the need and wanted to help anyone willing to learn, on the professional and consumer side.

They created @Iamblackgirlcurls and founded their salon, The Curl Society, to debunk all the natural hair myths and give people simple hair care information to achieve dope curls. They have written books and created an online guide for natural hair so there would be no more confusion about this once taboo topic that has now hit the ground running.

Some people aren’t quick to believe Aeleise and Aishia’s methods because most of it goes against everything the natural hair community has had drilled into their brain for the past decade. That is a lot of debunking to do.

Naturals need to be more open-minded when it comes to their beloved trial and error opinion, not fact-based internet knowledge. (As harsh as it may sound, it’s true). Hairstylists need to realize they can’t teach themselves everything either, because they’re not always right when it comes to hair. Listen to the client. Milwaukee, and other cities, will continue to fall into the cycle if there isn’t a change.

CARRIE’S THOUGHTS Through all of my research and observation while doing this project, I noticed even with being natural, we still subconsciously go back to the Eurocentric standards of beauty. The images we see when natural hair is represented in the media—loose, big and bouncy curls, fair skin—is still not what most of us look like. Product companies use models with those features to promote products that are supposed to work for our kinky hair? Nah, try again. The idea of having “good hair” is still being drilled into our minds.

The natural hair look women desire is still nothing like the hair that is coming out of most of their heads. We watch the twist-out YouTube videos of the girls with silky ringlet curls and get frustrated when our hair doesn’t turn out the same. We get frustrated when we buy a product promoted by a girl who looks nothing like us, and get discouraged with the end result. The women on social media who get most of the praise for being natural are women who have long hair and are usually of a mixed race. Natural hair and colorism is known but not widely discussed. And don’t even get me started on our romanticized idea of hair length.

Instead of being pleased with our healthy shrinkage, we demonize it since it makes our hair look short (because length matters, right?). Kinky hair was never made to look long, it was made to be worn like a crown on our head, but length is the image we saw and thought was beautiful growing up, so that is what we try to achieve and prove, that we have length.

Obviously not everyone in the natural hair community thinks this way, but it’s a good enough amount to make marketers pay attention. Companies don’t push those images on us just because they think it’s what we want to see, they do it because it’s what we show them we appreciate and value. Companies do their research based on what consumers seem to love the most. If they saw us embracing beautiful chocolate women with short kinky hair, do you think they would still be using other types of women to promote their products? No. They promote what they see their market wants. Social media is such a powerful tool.

The companies see that when a darker woman with coarse hair is posted, she doesn’t get nearly the same number of likes, comments or engagement on the post as the woman who looks the exact opposite from her. Alex Poole from the panel discussion said it best, “We’re not going to get that kind of representation unless it’s done by us. We can’t expect other people to do it.”

Follow @carrieecarina for more hair stories.

I understand some of our ways of thinking aren’t our fault because these behaviors have been passed down for generations, but now it’s time to change that narrative and teach the next one. I’m thankful that the natural hair community is on the rise and is here to stay. I’m glad little Black girls can grow up seeing their hair being represented and feel inspired to keep the movement going. We have a long way to go, but we are headed in the right direction.

Embrace your natural hair journey, at every stage. & Love yourself. /Intern Carrie for CW

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