INDY Week February 15, 2023

GET ENGAGED

CACs are coming back and the Raleigh city council finally has a plan for community engagement.

By Jasmine Gallup, p.8

Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill

CONTENTS

5 Transgender youth face an uncertain future as legislation targets their identities. BY JOE

KILLIAN

8 CACs are on the way back as Raleigh's city council finally has a plan for community engagement. BY

JASMINE GALLUP

10 NC Central's jazz ensemble took first place at a national competition, but the victory is bittersweet as the memory of director Brian Horton, who died last year, looms large. BY

THOMASI MCDONALD

ARTS & CULTURE

12 The photographs of Cornell Watson and Samantha Everette paint a nuanced, tender portrait of Black love in a new exhibit at Bright Black Candles. BY SARAH

INNES

13 In Michael McFee's latest poetry collection, time is tender and waits for no one. BY KATIE MGONGOLWA

14 Troya Pope returns to her hometown with a love letter to it: Heart of Wilson BY

KYESHA WILSON

THE

VOL. 40 NO. 7 W

4 Backtalk | Op-ed 16 Culture Calendar

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Eliza Edens performs at The Pinhook on Sunday, February 19 (see calendar, page 16) PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINHOOK

COVER Durham: Photos by Brett Villena. Raleigh: Photos via Pexels and Unsplash

Last week for print, Jasmine Gallup wrote about the Dix Edge Area Study and reported that it was sent to the city’s Growth and Natural Resources Committee for further review rather than staying with the full council for swift approval. Readers had thoughts.

From reader RICHARD JOHNSON via email:

“For the Indy to call the Dix Edge study ‘stalled’ is shameful. It was a 7-1 vote to study the Plan in committee. If that isn’t a decisive action I don’t know what is.

The only thing stalled here—finally—is Baldwin’s bullying ‘profits before people’ agenda. After 3 years of unquestioning subservience to big money and backroom deals, Kudos to the 6 Councilors who trust Councilor Jane Harrison to find a better course forward for our city that doesn’t mistake restoring transparent, publicly engaged democracy for stalling.”

From reader BRANDON SCHWARTZ via email:

“I live on Duffy Place in the Fuller Heights neighborhood. I moved in a year ago and in that year, I’ve seen the neighborhood change so much. First, my backyard was rezoned for 20 stories and my house sold for a huge profit and my rent was raised by $300. I have been thinking critically about what the ‘Gipson Play Plaza’ and other projects will do to the area and how it connects to the history of Dix Park. I’ve been collecting artifacts for a zine on the project.

I want to thank you for bringing this issue up in IndyWeek. I feel like IndyWeek is providing a perspective and news on a subject that many in Raleigh take for granted.”

From reader LIZ SAYLOR via email:

“Thank you for your Excellent article on housing for raleigh ... <3 Many developers and builders remember and Prioritize People over profit for All! Thank you again, and All the Best for you and yours! Kindness, Health and Love all around! <3”

For the web, Thomasi McDonald wrote about four NC School of Science and Math students who will participate in a prestigious national STEM competition.

We received this Facebook comment from reader JIM MCDONALD:

“I’m thrilled these young adults are willing and able to examine incredibly difficult problems and seek innovative, novel solutions. While everything they’re working on might not be the ‘end all,’ their work might spark a discussion, ‘let’s build on your work and go in this direction.’ I also note the pronoun ‘they’ in the article. Huzzah!”

Bad Old Ideas

The conservative group Moms for Liberty has dangerous roots in North Carolina history.

BY TODD FELTS backtalk@indyweek.com

Anyone can say anything and it’s very hard to uncover the true meanings or motivations. One just has to look at how the admitted liar George Santos fooled voters into electing him to the House of Representatives. Or how investors put money into FTX, a cryptocurrency company that now has millions of missing dollars.

Few of us have time to question every public statement delivered on a controversial issue. To a certain degree, we could take Moms for Liberty at their word when they say they aren’t for banning books and simply want their principles “to be treated with the same respect as all others.”

Yet American history studies are the ones these activists need to consult to fully understand the impact of their actions.

Rebeca Klein writes in Jane Crow: Then and Now that some historians observe that Moms for Liberty’s ideas and rhetoric echo dated white supremacist thinking. Klein and other writers have explored how white women, in their roles as heads of households and classrooms, have traditionally used their positions to preserve oppressive systems.

They state that “white women are humans who have blind spots, exercise power to pursue their self-interest, and can get defensive when held accountable. In a country where two-thirds of women voters are white and 61 percent of public school teachers are white women, those human failings and biases have real consequences for Black and Brown youth.”

Western Carolina University associate professor Elizabeth McRae has charted the history of white women who have fought against what they’ve deemed unacceptable to their children. Their list of complaints through the years have ranged from integration and teaching about the United Nations to more modern concerns focused on diversity and gender issues.

Advocates make a compelling point that we must move beyond our deeply rooted cultural portrayal of white women as “good, kind, pure, and in need of protection.”

One only has to look at North Carolina’s troubling history of school segregation to understand how white mothers have historically taken the lead in these efforts. In 1957 Mrs. John Z. Warlik shouted, “It’s up to you to keep her out,” to a mob of whites in Charlotte as others tried to enroll Dorothy Counts, the first Black student in Harding High School. The New York Times reported that Warlik was “the

most vociferous” in the crowd and that she served as treasurer of the White Citizen Council, a white supremacist group.

It appears the antisegregation forces had strategically positioned a white woman at the center of their fight. After all, that probably helped soften the public scene as protestors made Counts endure “taunting, racial epithets, and being spat on.”

Communications theories help us understand that we give certain people more power and believability when they say things. We’re going to trust a medical doctor for health advice. Likewise, a white mother of schoolage children is simply going to have more influence as it relates to education than a widowed male senior citizen, for instance.

Amazingly, nearly 50 years after those tragic events in Charlotte, Dorothy Counts received an email from Woody Cooper, a white man who said he was part of that protest from many decades ago. He apologized and they went on to hold joint speaking appearances where they reconciled the past.

Today, some conservatives have chosen their path and the tactics they’ll use. No one is likely to dissuade them from their perspective, just like we can’t stop someone from putting money into a Ponzi scheme if they really think that’s the right thing to do.

But the rest of us—the majority of the people—must take the time to understand what Moms for Liberty is doing, who they’re using to accomplish their goals, and what history will record if we follow their words. W

Todd Felts is a teaching associate professor of public relations and advertising at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Todd Felts PHOTO COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO

A Hundred Steps Back

Transgender youth face an uncertain future as legislation targets their identities.

BY JOE KILLIAN backtalk@indyweek.com

In many ways, Alex Lounsbury has been lucky. He knows that.

Now in his senior year at Atkins High School, a technology magnet in Winston-Salem, he’s happy, healthy, and looking toward the future. But it wasn’t easy getting there.

Assigned female at birth, Alex knew he was transgender by the time he was in middle school. But he wasn’t ready to talk about it with parents, teachers, and all of his friends right away. When he did come out to his family, they were supportive.

“They just wanted me to be healthy and happy,” Lounsbury told Policy Watch this week. “I know a lot of people don’t have that from their parents. I wish everyone did. They wanted me to be myself and be who I really am.”

For Lounsbury and his family, that meant transitioning. First socially: telling friends, family, teachers, and administrators he was changing his name and his gender pronouns. Nobody was ready for it, he said. The school had never encountered a transgender student.

“There was bullying, even assault,” he said. “But my parents supported me. We sat down with teachers, the principal. It just took time and persistence.”

At 16, he and his family began talking with doctors about hormone replacement therapy to begin a physical transition. In a few months, he’ll take the next step—a “top surgery” to remove his breasts, which he’s been working toward slowly and deliberately for years. At every step, with the backing of his family and the knowledge and advice of his doctors, he’s felt more at home and at peace in his own body.

As he moves toward graduation this year, he’s happy the environment has changed for young trans people since he came out.

“It’s just something people understand a little better now, they know about it more,” Lounsbury said. “Teachers hand out introductory cards at the beginning of the year, asking about preferred names and pronouns. That’s really helpful. There’s more of an understanding.”

But under two new bills moving through the North Carolina General Assembly, that could all radically change.

Senate Bill 49 would, among other provisions, require teachers to notify parents if a student questions their own gender—outing many young trans people before they’re ready to tell their families, who might be hostile to their identities.

House Bill 43 would make it illegal for anyone under 18 to receive the sort of gender-affirming care Lounsbury did.

Lounsbury can’t help thinking of how much more difficult his life would have been under laws such as these.

“This would have been my nightmare,” he said. “Being outed, not being able to speak my truth about who I really am in my own time, when I decided to. And to not be able to make a decision with my family and my doctors. I don’t see why it’s anybody else’s place to say, why they belong in that conversation.”

For Lounsbury and many transgender youth, the two bills offer a perplexing insight into what Republican lawmakers believe to be the place of government in family and medical decisions.

Under SB 49, the so-called Parents’ Bill of Rights, the place of parents is paramount in any discussion of gender, sexuality, and identity. Its sponsors argue the government—in this case, through teachers and school administrators—has no place in conversations about a young person’s gender identity without them.

But under HB 43 parents like Lounsbury’s, who support their transgender children and follow the standard of care prescribed by doctors and myriad medical associations, would see the government intervene to prevent any steps toward transition until they are 18.

These contradictory ideas about family versus government seem to be bridged by one overarching belief, Lounsbury said: the assumption that being transgender is dangerous, something to protect children against even if their families and doctors don’t share that view.

“What they’re saying is the parents should have these conversations and make these decisions—unless they support you,” Lounsbury said. “Then the government just makes the decision it wants them to. It’s only the parents who are against it whose rights matter.”

After years of advocacy, transgender North Carolinians have finally made progress, securing hard-won legal victories about their rights to gender-affirming health care coverage and the right to change their gender marker on government documents.

But now they are facing a backlash. More than 200 antiLGBTQ bills have been filed across the country already this year. Republicans who picked up seats in state houses are pushing through legislation and will likely use it to campaign on in the next election cycle.

The certainty of a veto from Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, kept Republican leaders in the NC General Assembly from even bringing some anti-LGBTQ bills to a vote in the last legislative session. But with gains in the last election, Republicans again have the votes to override a veto in the state senate and need the support or absence of just one Democrat in the house to override it in that chamber.

That new legislative math makes bills codifying the most conservative view of gender identity a real possibility, despite the objections of LGBTQ families and the mainstream medical community.

“It doesn’t feel like a step back; it feels like a couple of hundred steps back,” Lounsbury said. “It’s completely and utterly terrifying to know that just being myself is possibly going to become illegal in some ways.”

Doing measurable damage

For State Rep. Marcia Morey (D-Durham), the attacks on LGBTQ people aren’t new. One of the General Assembly’s few out LGBTQ legislators, she’s spent years pro-

Alex Lounsbury. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT

moting bills that would offer greater protections for these marginalized communities. Under a Republican majority, those bills can’t even get a hearing.

With these new bills aimed at gender identity, Morey said, GOP lawmakers are sending a very clear message.

“The damage that we’re doing by introducing these bills is that it communicates to certain young people that something is fundamentally wrong with them,” Morey said. “They’re watching, they’re listening. They’re paying attention as we’re trying to legislate their identities at a very tender time.”

This week State Rep. Vernetta Alston (D-Durham), another out legislator, sponsored a competing house bill she said will account for the rights of both parents and students—including families like hers.

Alston and her wife are also parents, she said in a press conference Tuesday. LGBTQ students and their families need to be acknowledged when lawmakers legislate gender identity and sexuality.

“Like so many parents, my number one priority in life is the health, safety, and well-being of my children,” Alston said. “Instead, my Senate colleagues are debating bills like Senate Bill 49 … a bill that will harm our students, especially our LGBTQ students who will only be more vulnerable and more isolated at school if Senate Bill 49 passes.”

A Department of Health and Human Services report shows a 46 percent increase in North Carolina youth reporting a depressive episode since the COVID-19 pandemic began nearly three years ago. One in five high school students seriously contemplated suicide last year, according to the report. For LGBTQ students, that number is one in two.

Medical experts point to years of studies that show that legislation targeting LGBTQ youth, particularly in schools, where many find support they lack at home, contributes to a rise in depression and suicidal ideation. On Wednesday a panel of doctors from Duke University who study the issue and treat LGBTQ young people spoke out against the bills now moving through the legislature.

“There is a high likelihood both these bills … would have reverberating impacts on the health of LGBTQ+ children and adults throughout North Carolina,” said Dr. Sarah Wilson, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and co-lead of the Duke Sexual and Gender Minority Health Program.

That’s clear when studying the aftermath of House Bill 2, Wilson said. The 2016 law excluded lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from statewide nondiscrimination protections. That legislation caused a national firestorm, with protests and boycotts leading to a partial repeal.

For LGBTQ people who lived through having their identities and rights debated and assailed daily throughout that controversy, the effects were devastating. Wilson pointed to a two-year study in HB 2’s wake, highlighting a number of alarming trends.

“In North Carolina after HB 2 … we saw gender-identity-motivated hate crimes actually increased in the state,” Wilson said. “So there can be these larger cultural effects of the legislation that can adversely affect LBTBQ+ individuals by normalizing stigma. Where there is stigma, oftentimes there is increased violence.”

During the HB 2 controversy and its aftermath, state lawmakers promoted right-wing groups that opposed

same-sex marriage while rejecting the medical mainstream conclusions of the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics. That came at a cost, Wilson said.

“There are downstream effects of that increased exposure to stigma, violence, and hate crimes, where North Carolinians who are LGBTQ+ reported feeling increased depression and anxiety,” Wilson said. “This is a group that already faces disproportionate rates of discrimination, harassment, stigma, and these bills serve to potentially have an amplifying effect for these inequities we already see.”

Transgender people—especially youth and people of color—suffered the greatest negative impact.

“Suicidal ideation increased among transgender and gender-nonconforming North Carolinians, and hate crimes increased,” Wilson said. “Depression and anxiety among transgender North Carolinians also increased. We saw these reverberating effects throughout people’s lives. We saw people delaying health care because of these bills, because there was a concern over general attitudes towards transgender and nonbinary folks.”

Limiting what students can hear, read, and say about gender identity in their schools is particularly dangerous, Wilson said, as LGBTQ youth often find badly needed support and community there.

“We know the majority of LGBTQ+ youth report their home is not LGBTQ+ affirming—three in five,” Wilson said. “The rates are actually a little bit higher for schools. There are more LGBTQ+ who report their school is an affirming place than report their home is an affirming place.”

“Youth and adults turn to friends, teachers, other people in the community to be able to gain that acceptance and willingness to support the person regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Wilson said. Sponsors of these bills see that as the problem. “Parents do not surrender their children to government schools for indoctrination opposed to the family’s values,” Sen. Amy Galey, an Alamance County Republican and one of SB 49’s main sponsors, said during a press conference last week.

That view was amplified in a senate rules committee meeting this week, where members of the conservative group Moms for Liberty made clear the religious motivations of the bill’s supporters.

“It seems that it would be extreme emotional abuse by the system to allow a child to believe and grow into something that is against the definition given by the Bible of truth and God’s word as far as their sexuality,” said Nicholas Jaroszynski, a board member of Moms for Liberty of Iredell County.

“To allow the state to define that is even further of an abomination,” Jaroszynski said.

The view that acceptance and support for LGBTQ students amounts to indoctrination is problematic and scientifically unfounded, said Dr. Dane Whicker, a clinical health psychologist at Duke Health who provides therapy for LGBTQ+ adolescents and adults.

Decades of scientific research don’t support the political narrative that young people become LGBTQ because of outside influence, Whicker said, while volumes of research demonstrate that trying to prevent LGBTQ people from embracing their identities is harmful.

“There are no interventions or practices that can stop youth from having LGBTQ+ identities,” Whicker said. “In reality these types of bills, the impact they’re going to have, is on concealment—people hiding really important parts of their identity and depriving them of the support they need to navigate those really critical pieces that affect their health and trajectory in life.”

Dr. Deanna Adkins, a pediatric endocrinologist at Duke Health and director of the Child and Adolescent Gender Care Clinic, has spent years working with hundreds of transgender patients.

The debate around gender-affirming care has unfortunately strayed far from the realities of how doctors like her actually work with families and young transgender people, she said this week.

“New territory for a lot of people”

“[Young people] are watching. They’re listening. They’re paying attention as we’re trying to legislate their identities at a very tender time.”

Rep. Marcia Morey. PHOTO COURTESY OF NCGA

Rep. Vernetta Alston. PHOTO COURTESY OF NCGA

“Gender-affirming care is lifesaving care with decades of research behind it,” Adkins said. “You wouldn’t ask me to not practice the standard of care for any other care I give. You wouldn’t ask me to not do what the American Diabetes Association says I should do for my patients with diabetes.”

Current discussions don’t reflect the reality of the care, nor the risks of suddenly making it out of reach, Adkins said.

“This is a group of individuals, a small portion of the population, only about 3 percent of those under 18,” Adkins said. “And they are a quite vulnerable population. It would limit their access to potentially lifesaving treatments that we have excellent evidence within the medical literature that this helps these patients in many ways. It decreases their suicidality, it improves their overall mental health, it decreases self-harm as well.”

For Sage, a 13-year-old nonbinary person from Greensboro, gender-affirming care of the type Adkins describes has been lifesaving—as has been the support of their family.

Because Sage and their family have experienced harassment and threats during Sage’s transition, Policy Watch has agreed to identify them by their first name.

After consultation with doctors, Sage and their family chose to use puberty blockers for about two years to delay its onset. The extra time allowed Sage to more consciously work through their gender identity and the steps they wanted to take to prevent gender dysphoria—the distress that comes from a misalignment of one’s body and gender identity.

The process was simple, safe, and reversible, Sage and their family said. “I had a lot of questions, of course,” said Sage’s moth-

er, Debra. “This is new territory for a lot of people, us included at that time. We talked a lot with the doctors about what could be done, possible side effects, steps for the future. Ultimately, we weighed this treatment against the dangers of our child not wanting to live in their body and we made the decision that would make them healthy and happy. And they are.”

Legislation could soon prevent other young transgender people from having the same experience. That’s something Sage, still on their journey of transition, thinks about a lot. They’ve stopped puberty blockers and are weighing next steps, such as hormone therapy or, eventually, surgery.

But having those options taken off the table by people outside the circle of their family and their doctors feels wrong. “It’s really scary to me that the things that have been available to me might not be, and that could happen in a matter of weeks,” Sage said.

Adkins said she is hearing that concern from patients and their families daily. Without access to safe gender-affirming care, she said, there’s a danger some will turn to black-market medications and treatments, which aren’t safe and tested, out of desperation.

That’s not something their family will do, Sage’s mother Debra said. But they will take their child out of state for treatment if needed, she said, or even consider moving if it becomes necessary.

“This isn’t something that the government should be involved in, when a person and their family and their doctor make the decisions that are best for them,” Sage said. “Having freedom in this country, including freedom of religion, also means having freedom from having someone else’s religion used against you.”

Sage’s mother, Debra, said she’s proud her child felt supported enough to speak openly with her and her husband about their gender identity—and proud that their family has navigated this journey with love.

That’s not the story every LGBTQ person has, she said. Some face physical violence or abandonment by their families. Others face so-called conversion therapy—a scientifically debunked and harmful practice North Carolina has yet to ban.

“We need to be doing everything we can to make this easier for our kids, not harder,” Debra said. “For every kid who isn’t lucky enough to have the full support of their family, who doesn’t have access to the care they should, we shouldn’t be making this harder.” W

story was originally published online at NC

This

Policy Watch. Rep. Amy Galey. PHOTO COURTESY OF NCGA

Get Engaged

CACs are coming back and the Raleigh City Council finally has a plan for community engagement.

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

Three years after abruptly dismantling citizen advisory councils (CACs), Raleigh’s leaders are once again giving them an opportunity to join the conversation around important issues, including the city’s extreme growth.

A new community engagement plan— first presented to the city council during its retreat in late January—includes a recommendation to temporarily allow citizen advisory councils free use of five of the city’s 27 community centers, one in each district.

After approval from the city council during a meeting last week, CACs are now allowed to use the city’s community centers until a more formal “Community Engagement Network” is established. The network is expected to include CACs and other community-based groups, all of which would have free access to city community centers and other resources.

The change doesn’t restore CACs to the status they once had, where they could make formal recommendations to the city council, but it does give them a place to meet, which could help revitalize the now-scattered network of neighborhood groups. In the three-year interim since CACs were disbanded, many of the smaller organizations have fallen apart.

“We had 18 CACs prior to being dismantled and I think roughly half of that may take part,” council member Christina Jones wrote in an email to INDY Week. Jones is also chair of the overseeing Raleigh CAC.

“I hope all CACs will take advantage of the free meeting space provided by the city as the first step towards this new program,” she wrote. “This is [their] opportunity to connect with other community groups and help grow engagement throughout the city. There are strong leaders both inside and outside of the CAC

structure and when they combine forces, they will be unstoppable.”

During last week’s city council meeting, Jones expressed some concern over the number of CACs that are currently inactive. Raleigh’s community engagement manager, Tiesha Hinton, said the city plans to reach out to those inactive groups, starting with the previous chairs. The city also plans to support now-defunct CACs in becoming active again, if that’s their goal, Hinton said.

The city’s immediate plan for engagement isn’t perfect—Jones noted that CACs don’t cover the entire city, so some areas may be left out. Other council members also expressed concern over giving community centers access to CACs while other groups are temporarily excluded (although there is an existing discount for nonprofits).

Ultimately, giving CACs free access to community centers (and the tables, chairs, internet access, and projectors that come with them) is just one step in a wider community engagement plan, said Hinton. The plan includes immediate actions as well as short- and long-term goals for community engagement.

“It’s three years to the day since CACs changed,” said mayor pro tem Corey Branch during last week’s meeting. “At that time, I voted not to get rid of CACs or move them, because we didn’t have a plan. It’s taken us too long. This is a step in that direction.”

What’s happening with community engagement now?

During last week’s city council meeting, the council also unanimously approved a measure to hold town hall meetings

four times a year rather than only twice a year. City staff also plan to kick off an “engagement campaign” that increases offline communication between the city and Raleigh residents, Hinton said.

“That’s touching libraries, that’s touching the Department of Social Services, and just really enhancing the way we engage off of the internet,” she said.

City council members have talked in the past about improving offline communication, including posting paper announcements on doors that notify people of major projects. For example, during the Dix Edge Area Study, one way the city conducted outreach was by going door to door.

The city has also started improving its website with online pages about opportunities for residents to give their two cents to city staff, both in person and online.

Another item on the agenda is public comment. For the last couple of years, public comment has been one of the few ways for people to speak directly to city council members. After returning to in-person meetings, the city council added an option to leave comments via voicemail, although many continue to criticize the three-minute time limit for all public comments.

Now, the city council is considering holding additional meetings reserved only for public comment, a measure that could bring some relief from hours-long evening meetings, where comments can take more than an hour. The city is also looking at adding a time minimum and more wide-

ly spreading information about how and when people can comment.

Last Tuesday, Hinton also gave a presentation on the city’s various boards and commissions (another way the city engages people), particularly how people can view and participate in them.

Hinton explained that of the city’s 21 boards and commissions, 11 meet in person only, with no option for online viewing or attendance. That includes, ironically, the Community Engagement Board, as well as the Police Advisory Board, Environmental Advisory Board, and several boards dealing with the arts and other issues.

The remaining 10 boards and commissions (including the Planning Commission, Raleigh Transit Authority, Raleigh Historic Development Commission, and others) all have meetings that can be viewed online, although access varies.

Short-term goals

The city council is prioritizing the development of the Community Engagement Network, mentioned above, which is expected to take 6 to 12 months. The network will likely include small nonprofits, student groups, churches, civic organizations, social groups, and “topic-focused” groups that want to participate in government decision-making.

These community groups wouldn’t have free access just to meeting spaces but

PHOTOS VIA PEXELS AND UNSPLASH

also to other resources, Hinton said. That could include a community relations analyst assigned to each group, access to city equipment, and the ability to send out mailings twice a year. The city also plans to give these groups access to strategic planning tools and help them set goals that are “SMART” (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound).

Unfortunately, not every nonprofit will have access to all of these resources, since there are hundreds across the city, noted city manager Marchell Adams-David. Providing access to CACs is a first step toward restoring the privileges they once had, but going forward, the city will have to have intentional conversations about how to “spread the love,” she said.

“Not every nonprofit, even if they have the appropriate credentials, is gonna be able to use the space, because we have so many programs that make [the Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources Department] what it is,” Adams-David said. “We’re gonna have to figure out the parameters of when, how often, and which groups are gonna be afforded the opportunity to use the space, because those rental revenues help offset the expenses of the department.”

Within the next year, the city also hopes to start hosting regular meet and greets between residents and city departments that offer services, including Raleigh Water, Solid Waste, and Transportation. During those events, staff would be able to educate residents on city services.

Long-term goals

During the city council retreat, Hinton outlined two long-term goals: first, establish an “external community engagement service unit,” in which residents would work with city staff to address the needs of the community. For example, the unit could help add sidewalks and bus stops to areas that need them, bolster sustainability and stormwater management efforts, or help add public art and historic markers.

Second, Hinton talked about the creation of a City of Raleigh Expo, a biannual event in which city staff would answer questions, share engagement opportuni-

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PLAN

Immediate (0-6 months)

• Give CACs free access to community centers (approved by city council)

• Host quarterly town hall meetings (approved by city council)

• Start an offline engagement campaign (staff are working on it)

Short-Term (6-12 months)

• Develop a Community Engagement Network (pending funding)

• Host regular meet and greets with city service departments

Long-Term (1-3 years)

• Create an external community engagement service unit

• Host City of Raleigh Expo

ties, and pass out educational materials at various booths, organized by department. Both goals are expected to take one to three years to fully implement.

These short- and long-term goals can only be accomplished with additional funding from the city, which council members are considering as they discuss the budget for fiscal year 2023–24. The community engagement department is asking for enough funding to hire several more

full-time employees, as well as fund these long-term projects.

Budget discussions will last several months before a final budget is approved sometime in June. This year, budget work sessions are set for February 20, March 13, and April 10. An online survey on budget priorities is open to the community through February 28. A public hearing on the proposed budget is set for June 6. W

“There are strong leaders both inside and outside the CAC structure and when they combine forces, they will be unstoppable.”

A Bittersweet Victory

NC Central’s jazz big band made history last month at the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship, but it was a bittersweet win in the absence of Brian Horton.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com

It was all in the music that was grooving and swinging, baby.

Last month, a team of judges led by jazz giant Wynton Marsalis selected NC Central University’s jazz studies program as the top college jazz band in the country. But it was a bittersweet honor, coming months after the orchestra’s director, Brian Horton, was found dead in his Durham home in September.

During and after their award-winning performances at the 2023 Jack Rudin Jazz Championship in New York’s Lincoln Center, the spirit of the students’ former director, professor, and mentor was omnipresent. Last year, Horton led the big band to a third-place finish at the championship.

“After Dr. Horton passed away, we really, really needed this moment,” says Lenora Helm Hammonds, the interim chair of NCCU’s music department and director of the school’s graduate program for jazz studies.

Horton was a tenor saxophonist and composer who also led a trio of musicians—horn, upright bass, and drums—at Kingfisher bar on West Chapel Hill Street in Durham. He was 46 when he died, just six days shy of his birthday. His sudden death rocked the Triangle’s jazz community, and it devastated the students and faculty with NCCU’s jazz studies program.

“Dr. Horton, he showed us that no matter where you began—he came from Kinston— you could play high-quality music,” says big band member Dexter Moses, who grabbed

an honorable mention for his solo work on the alto saxophone during the competition. “He could have taught anywhere, but he came back here, and it was kind of humbling to witness that.”

Moses adds that Horton’s time on the road also informed his teaching approach.

“He was integrating the real world with education,” Moses says, and would also encourage his students to study other music forms—classical, rhythm and blues— and use it to their advantage.

“He made people feel creatively valued,” Moses says.

Orchestra member Shaquim Muldrow says Horton’s sudden death “changed everything.” The big band members and faculty dedicated their January performance to their fallen leader.

“If a section forgot a part, somebody would say, ‘Hey, we’re not doing this for play, play. We’re doing this for Horton,’” Muldrow says.

A month before Horton died, during the second week of August, Muldrow says the professor was considering tunes for the Jack Rudin competition. Muldrow remembers how diligent Horton was in his preparation for class.

“You could tell he was dedicated and passionate about it,” Muldrow says.

NC Central, in comparison to the other schools that boast world-class resources, was the only historically Black

college in the competition. It appeared outgunned and outmatched, at least in theory.

Robert Trowers, an NCCU jazz professor who directed the big band’s winning performances, told the INDY that there are fewer than 10 jazz studies programs at the nation’s roughly 100 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

It’s really important in that it gives a message to HBCUs in this area,” Trowers says. “HBCUs have the potential to be with the best. In a lot of circles it’s thought that HBCUs aren’t into jazz. They’re more into marching and concert bands.”

Muldrow compares NCCU’s Jack Rudin victory this year to that of the 1935 debate team of Wiley College, the tiny, private HBCU in Marshall, Texas, that defeated the reigning national debate team champion, the University of Southern California.

“We’re a small school competing against bigger schools with more resources, through grants and funding,” he says. “Sometimes Brian [Horton] used to say, ‘We always have to do the most with the least.’”

Horton suggested Muldrow try a different approach when soloing on “Chinoiserie,” the first movement in Duke Ellington’s suite The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse.

“He told me to hit a high note and hold it,” Muldrow says. “I told him, ‘I’on’t know, Dr. Horton.’ He told me the piece has a lot of high notes, and there’s a lot you could play.

He said just pick one you’re really feeling.” Muldrow’s solo on “Chinoiserie” played no small part in the judge’s decision to award NCCU first place.

The orchestra played the tune in the first and second rounds of the competition. The audience roared their approval each time after Muldrow’s solos.

“With all that’s happened this past year, it just made it special,” Muldrow says about those sessions spent learning from Horton.

The jazz championship, which took place on January 14 and 15, attracts the top collegiate jazz programs in the country. NCCU was one of nine schools in attendance, along with Michigan State University, Temple University, Florida State University, Ithaca College, the University of Wyoming, the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Vanderbilt University, and Northern Illinois University.

Michigan State, the defending champion, placed third, and Temple placed second. Trowers says his hopes dimmed a bit when he heard those announcements.

“The other bands were so good,” he says. “I started thinking, ‘Maybe next year.’ Then I heard ‘North Carolina,’ and the students were making so much noise.”

Muldrow says there was a lot of excitement and even more tears of joy. He was sitting near the rear of the performance hall.

“I had to run, but not too fast. I wanted

Benjamin Johnson, a pianist in NCCU’s jazz big band.

PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

to be relaxed,” he says. “I knew it was being recorded, and I didn’t want to be recorded running frantically on camera.”

Helm Hammonds, the interim chair, praises Temple’s and Michigan State’s performances and says they are both great bands.

“HBCUs are elbow to elbow, compared to the other schools,” she says.

Trowers agrees.

“This is a statement that we have the potential to be as good as anyone else.” The school also received honorable mention for its trumpet and saxophone sections.

Although the college jazz championship is only in its third year, it is a significant event.

Marsalis, the jazz musician, is Lincoln Center’s managing and artistic director. According to his website, Jazz at Lincoln Center is the largest jazz education program network in the world. He states that the educational program’s objectives are grounded in Lincoln Center’s “35-year history of education in jazz performance and appreciation.”

The educational process is bolstered by “insight into American vernacular music and jazz,” while learning about the “communal history of jazz in a sociopolitical context.”

Jazz students are also guided on how to better communicate personal objectives within the art form, and they become more aware of the mission of jazz musicians today by building on the aspirations laid by earlier generations, Marsalis states on his website.

The Jack Rudin Jazz Championship honors the legacy of Jack Rudin, a native New Yorker who fought in World War II and received a Bronze Star. Rudin went on to become a philanthropist and one of the most prolific builders of skyscrapers in Manhattan.

He was a “longtime supporter of Jazz at Lincoln Center,” and the jazz championship honors “his founding support for Essentially Ellington, the organization’s signature transformative education program,” Marsalis states on his website.

Rudin died in 2016 at age 92.

The college jazz ensemble championship started in 2020, before the pandemic outbreak, as a creative ground where participating ensembles would have access to “quality literature and a forum for celebrating excellence and achievement” and for “extending Jazz at Lincoln Center’s educational mission into the sphere of professional development for the next generation of leading jazz artists.”

“[Rudin] was a man of great dignity and honor,” Marsalis told the jazz championship audience before announcing the com-

petition winners. “He would be so proud if he were here.”

The past year was a tough one for NCCU’s jazz studies program. Months before Horton died, Arnold George, an assistant professor who had been with the program, died in June.

According to the school’s website, George had been with the program since 1991 and directed its vocal jazz ensemble, which had won multiple DownBeat magazine awards and had twice performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and Paris.

But other factors enabled the jazz studies program to endure and continue to thrive: namely an unrelenting adherence to the jazz tradition coupled with longtime faculty members who are also seasoned professional musicians and have spent ample time playing on the road.

Helm Hammonds likens NCCU’s successful jazz studies legacy to the winning athletic traditions of neighboring schools Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill and longtime coaching staffs that have fostered a winning attitude.

“It’s a legacy of playing the blues,” Helm Hammonds says. “It’s about really impressing on the students how to swing and how to get into a groove.”

That legacy began nearly 50 years ago when legendary trumpeter Donald Byrd started the jazz program at NCCU while serving as an artist in residence at the uni-

versity. The program bloomed under the leadership of saxophonist and flutist Ira Wiggins, a Kinston native who ushered in a crop of Kinston-born horn players, including Horton. The program’s current artist in residence is acclaimed saxophonist Branford Marsalis, and faculty members include Trowers, percussionist Thomas Taylor, and trumpeter Al Strong.

Moses, a native of Richmond, Virginia and current graduate student, first arrived at NCCU in 2017 as a freshman. He says Branford Marsalis was an early influence. He became a much more confident jazz musician by learning and understanding the art form’s tradition.

“Today’s culture is so individualistic, people want to reject the past, like it all came from nothing. It’s not about playing differently. It’s about learning more information by going back in time. What were the geniuses listening to?” Moses says.

“Even with voice,” he adds. “You don’t have to find your voice. It’s already there. You have to just learn how to use it.”

Moses also credits Wiggins, who retired in 2021, for emphasizing the importance of playing within an orchestra.

“Learn your role. It’s not about you. It’s the group as a whole,” Moses says. “It’s about the music, but also playing with a section.”

Helm Hammonds, in a voice beaming

with pride, says the same thing.

“When the focus is not on self but as a steward of the music, that will humble you,” she says.

Senior student Brandon Seaforth was awarded outstanding trombone solo for his work on “The Ponderous Pachyderm of the Planks” by Sherman Irby. Seaforth, who grew up in Maryland, says Trowers has been his number one influence.

“He’s given me a whole lot of tools and ways to go about soloing exercises,” Seaforth says. “I listen to a whole lot of music from the 1930s and 1940s, during the swing era. Tyree Glenn was a beast. Quentin Jackson. They were trombone players from Duke Ellington’s band.”

Muldrow recently presented a paper at an academic conference that considered whether alto saxophone pioneer Charlie Parker may have gotten some of creative ideas from one of his peers, Don Byas. He says acknowledging the tradition means coming from a very humble place.

“It was exciting,” says Muldrow—who won outstanding solo on tenor saxophone for the second year in a row—of the ensemble winning first prize. “But also for me it was a time for reflection. I still wish he was here. It’s like—I don’t want to sound cliché—I still want my teacher. I wanna hear him. I wanna hang, and see him at the sessions, like at Kingfisher.” W

NCCU big band director Robert Trowers leads a rehearsal for a Valentine’s Day concert. PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Love at First Sight

A photography exhibit at Bright Black Candles explores the nuance and beauty of Black love.

BY SARAH INNES arts@indyweek.com

Tiffany Griffin of Durham’s Bright Black Candles describes Black love as an “extraordinary phenomenon.”

When she and her husband, Dariel Heron, opened their business in 2019, they did so with a strong sense of purpose. Sharing positive narratives about the Black experience is central to Griffin and Heron’s mission— and every aspect of their studio and showroom pays tribute to that. This includes a zero-commission gallery wall that acts as a canvas for artwork that showcases Black stories. This is where No Ordinary Love will be on display through July.

When Griffin began visualizing the concept for the exhibit, she approached Cornell Watson and Samantha Everette, two local photographers whose work often showcases the complexity and nuance of the Black experience, about a potential collaboration. A reference to the Sade song of the same name, the exhibit is a celebration of Black love in all of its many forms.

Everette has a background in shoe design, having worked with brands like Vince Camuto, Jessica Simpson, and Nordstrom. During a business trip, she began a travel blog to document her adventures. When her company was sold during the pandemic, she leaned into her passion for photography and decided to create a business entirely on her own.

Watson’s photography journey began after a nearly decade-long career in the HR world and was inspired by his desire to document moments in his newborn daughter’s life. What began as an outlet for capturing family memories soon inspired him to record snapshots of his community as a whole. His unique ability to document the beauty of Black culture in the most everyday moments shines

through his work. His series “Tarred Healing” is currently on display as a solo exhibition at the National Civil Rights Museum.

Griffin initially approached the two separately, unaware that Watson and Everette have a professional connection. “There’s definitely a strong community in the Durham area of photographers, but there’s not a very large community of Black photographers here,” Watson says. “I thought that it was really important to have this relationship with Samantha so that we could both navigate this world together.”

Watson believes that the conditions that Black love has to overcome make it particularly powerful.

“Love within the Black community is always a love that happens ‘in spite of,’” Watson says. “As I read [Griffin’s] vision, I thought of all that Black people have endured and achieved in spite of. I think about how many systems have been put in place to deny love to Black people—but that love just happens regardless.”

One of the many pieces that showcase enduring love in spite of the unimaginable is Watson’s “Egg Shells,” shot in his hometown of Weldon, North Carolina.

“The photo of the queer couple standing next to the Confederate monument was really powerful to me—especially because Black love is such a tool of liberation,” he says. “That love is almost an act of defiance in the face of white supremacy. And with their kid being in that shot with that Confederate monument—it’s reclaiming the power of those tools that have been used against us.”

The 12 displayed photos are powerful tributes to the various dimensions of the exhibit’s theme, from the divine to the everyday. Everette’s ethereal portrayals of

Black womanhood, motherhood, and sisterhood sit beautifully alongside Watson’s intimate shots of community and fatherhood.

“You have all of these different facets,” Griffin explains. “You have this tribute to the ancestor through the hoodoo pieces, this tribute to sisterhood through the ‘Crowning Glory’ piece. There’s also this honoring of self-love, a love of culture, and the beauty that exists in the everyday.”

Much like the photos themselves, Bright Black’s candles are poignant tributes to the Black experience. Each one tells a story, whether by honoring the Black diaspora or musical genres spearheaded by Black artists.

Crafted with a blend of vegan coconut and soy waxes and featuring scents custom-designed by Griffin, every detail of a Bright Black candle is rooted in “the intention of love and positivity,” she explains.

Located in Durham’s Lakewood Shopping Center, their brick-and-mortar storefront opened in 2022 after the couple outgrew their at-home studio. Situated among mission-driven neighbors like El Futuro, a bilingual mental health nonprofit, and the Durham Scrap Exchange, Griffin and Heron say they have experienced the power of community firsthand.

“A lot of people will come in and say, ‘Oh, I was driving by after visiting the Scrap Exchange, read your mission state-

ment in the window, and decided to stop in because I felt like I’d be welcome here,’” Griffin says. “We’ve actually experienced that a few times.”

A testament to Griffin and Heron’s community-centric vision is the inclusion of a “mini makers” table at the exhibit’s opening reception. The table is front and center within the space and features a number of hands-on sensory activities that children can engage in. Griffin and Heron are parents to a six-year-old daughter, which influences their business philosophy.

“Bright Black is this space where a lot of different people can come together,” Griffin says. “We want to communicate with children in a very welcoming and egalitarian way, not just a ‘be over there in the corner’ way.”

Exhibitions like No Ordinary Love form a symbiotic relationship with the business and speak to Griffin’s love of community. She hopes that the No Ordinary Love exhibit is just one of many that showcase work featuring a common vision at Bright Black.

“People stopping in to see an exhibit can stumble upon Bright Black and discover our products. Not everything has to optimize profit to the detriment of community and connection. That model has benefited us and is why a lot of our customers resonate with what we’re doing.” W

Left: “Egg Shells” PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON

Right: “Crowning Glory”

PHOTO BY SAMANTHA EVERETTE

SAMANTHA EVERETTE AND CORNELL WATSON: NO ORDINARY LOVE On display through July 1 | Bright Black Candles, Durham

Upwards and Onwards

Time is tender and waits for no one in Michael McFee’s newest poetry collection.

BY KATIE MGONGOLWA arts@indyweek.com

Life is full of everyday wonders, and Michael McFee seemingly notices them all.

It’s apt that A Long Time to Be Gone, the title of his newsest collection, centers on time, a topic the book explores in both serious and playful ways. Part philosophy, part tongue-in-cheek, McFee’s writing tends to the humanity of the ways that time humbles us as we age. In a comically titled poem called “Hnnnh,” he details “an involuntary exasperation geezer noise” coming from “an old man’s mouth,” only to realize, in the end, “wait: that’s my grunting now.” Aging walks hand in hand with nostalgia; as one’s body changes, one can’t help but remember how “I mortified my body for half a century / by simply ignoring it / taking a strong back and endurance for granted.”

McFee is an Asheville native, a Durham resident, and a longtime writing professor at UNC-Chapel Hill; his newest collection of poetry is his 12th. His signature voice finds

new ways to introduce us to the delights of everyday life and living in North Carolina. Published in late 2022, and divided into four mostly unnamed sections, McFee ponders topics that have felt particularly acute the last few years: aging, mortality, and how to contemplate the world and community around us in new ways.

The first section delves into family and aging, with a wry sense of humor that reminds readers how as life passes, sometimes you barely recognize yourself in the mirror. McFee compares his own hair’s “disappearing act” to his neighbor’s balding Maltese and remembers a youth defined, in some ways, by the “nonchalant ability to make his body / do exactly what he wants.”

But aging, for all its humorous quirks, is irrevocably tied to mortality, and McFee aptly weaves the two together, laying bare the stress of aging and ill parents while pondering what comes next, with language rich with referenc-

es to ghosts, angels, the afterlife, and heaven. He details his experience in a parking deck after visiting his father in the hospital with lines that toe the balance of beauty and grief: “ghosts of exhaust and rubber, of piss and cigarettes / haunt the tiered cave.”

Later, McFee’s survey of the early pandemic takes root in Durham. He explores the loneliness of isolation and how the little things mattered so much when the world shut down. He reflects on memories of crowded restaurants before the pandemic, describing companionship as a “much needed relief from loneliness.”

The poem “Festival” offers a nod to the collection’s namesake, remembering a festival from before the pandemic and what community meant in that space, ending with the line “Got a short time to stay here. And a long time to be gone.” Living is bound up in the small things, and so it is the small things that McFee finds himself missing.

North Carolina’s past and present play an ever-present character as well, including memories of his childhood home and a dream of being buried in Appalachia. McFee taps into our state’s diverse history and geography in these ruminations, and Durhamites may particularly appreciate timely references to Parrish Street as Black Wall Street, the tobacco warehouses “gone or gone to condos,” and the historical stature of the North Carolina Mutual building.

Sometimes, time isn’t kind, like when we see parts of our cultures disappearing or when our bodies don’t behave like we’d want them to. Many of us became increasingly aware of our mortality during the pandemic, though embedded within that reckoning is the subtle reminder that it’s the quotidian things, sometimes, that make life more worthwhile.

McFee finds art in the everyday experiences that many of us overlook, and A Long Time to Be Gone is an invitation to slow down and notice too, to take in moments like our dogs drinking from their bowls and apples that are like “a sunset yellow / glowing beneath ruddy skin … waiting for me.” McFee also recalls childhood in vivid detail, and ponders what comes after death—but it’s in the in-between, the everyday, where McFee’s magic blooms best. And it’s an invitation we should all accept. W

The poet Michael McFee. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT

MICHAEL MCFEE: A LONG TIME TO BE GONE Carnegie Mellon University Press | December 2022

MICHAEL MCFEE READING Wednesday, April 5, 6:30 p.m. | Letters Bookshop, Durham

Crowning Glory

With Heart of Wilson, Troya Pope returns to her hometown with a hip-hop love letter to it.

BY KYESHA JENNINGS music@indyweek.com

In high school, Troya Pope was voted most likely to be on television.

A native of Wilson, Pope—who performs as Troya—was a star athlete whose charisma and warm spirit inspired her peers to root for her success. Her North Carolina roots fuel a specific kind of hospitality one could only get in the South. Her caring attitude is reflected in her community-first music, and she’s equally humble and hungry—and it’s no surprise that others want her to win, too.

On February 25, Troya will be performing for the very first time in her hometown, a show that she and her team put together as a love letter to the 252.

Her debut project, Heart of Wilson, was released in February of 2022—and, as suggested by the title, is an ode to her city and the people she cares about most and is inspired by both personal experiences and those of her family and friends.

“[My goal] is to show the ‘real,’ because we’re real people who have really gone through things,” Troya says. “We’ve learned and are still learning life lessons. I wanted it to be uplifting. The vibe is really hopeful.” On “Black Boy,” she directly addresses police brutality and its impact on all families while reminding young Black boys of their value and brilliance.

Track four, “Collect Call,” narrates a story about Troya’s cousin, who has been forced to navigate life with her son’s father in prison.

“She’s raising a son,” Troya says, “and I’m watching her figure out being a single mom.”

“My baby daddy won’t be participating,” Troya raps in her melodic voice. “How he gon’ raise these kids at visitation? / How these boys gon’ be a man without no demonstration? / Clearly you ain’t give a damn.”

According to Prison Policy Initiative, “Half of the people in prison are parents to minors, leaving 1.25 million kids struggling to cope. Nearly half (47%) of the approximately 1.25 million people in state prison are parents of minor children, and about 1 in 5 (19%) of those children is age 4 or younger.”

In “Collect Call,” Troya’s tone and cadence create space for listeners to both hear and feel her pain.

While recording Heart of Wilson, Troya revealed she was suffering from depression. After graduating from Gardner-Webb University in 2012 with a degree in chemistry while on a full-ride basketball scholarship, she returned home to live with her mother in public housing.

“When my mom downsized from HUD housing to the projects, I didn’t like where we were staying,” Troya says. “I was upset about having to be there. It was really a wake-up call for me. I knew either I was going to be really depressed or create something that could change my life. I believe that energy is real, and I feel like our apartment had bad energy. I’d literally rather sit in my car than walk inside the house. In poverty-stricken neighborhoods, they don’t really do much to the area.”

But even in discomfort, Troya found inspiration. She turned her small bedroom closet into a makeshift home studio by adding a red light and a few comfortable pillows.

“Ain’t no carpet in the projects,” Troya says. “It’s that cold tile … that lunchroom-floor tile. Once I put some pillows on the floor, I just locked in and began working on my project—that was my space.”

She credits her mother for instilling a makesomething-from-nothing attitude in her.

“My mom always made ends meet,” Troya says. “Whether she had to rob Peter

to pay Paul, she figured it out. So we didn’t have it super rough because of the sacrifices she made.”

These days, things are much brighter for the hip-hop artist. She’s based in Raleigh, works for a pharmaceutical company, and is not navigating the music world in isolation anymore. Her team consists of a producer, a DJ, a manager, and a stylist, all of whom have invested in her rap dreams. Troya first heard about her producer Swim Harder (Samuel Scott) through mutual friends, and eventually the two connected on Instagram.

“[Swim] reached out and was like, ‘Hey superstar, you want to come work?’” Troya says. “I was super nervous because I had never worked in that way before. You know, where I’m working in front of somebody. I’m really private about my words. I like to sit with my music.”

This new process entailed collaboratively creating music from scratch and challenged Troya to step outside her comfort zone and do something different.

“Swim and I just meshed well,” she says of her musical relationship with the producer. “It’s like we already knew each other.”

Professor X (Xavier Skinner)—who has built a reputation, over the past two years, as one of the hottest producers and DJs in the Triangle—is Troya’s DJ. After seeing the Wilson native perform at a show where he

was DJ-ing for another artist, Professor X told himself he was going to work with her; the two then met and have been a dynamic duo ever since. Then there’s Benard Allen (also known as just B, or Back End B, as Troya has nicknamed him), whose role is to help Troya come up with innovative ideas to generate revenue and to make sure her money is right. The final member of the crew is Troya’s stylist, Simone Bey, who is also her girlfriend.

Nowadays Troya’s only job is to focus on being an artist.

“I feel like God kind of places people in your life when it’s time to wake up,” Troya says, adding, in regards to Bey’s influence in her life, “She’s the one who taught me a lot of things about myself and who I am.”

Guided by Bey’s impressive fashion sense, Troya’s comfortable androgynous looks are always paired with some dope kicks and can be described as simple yet swaggy. Her aesthetic is inspired by the pride she has in being a Black Southerner, a theme also embedded in her music. And more often than not, she is supporting a Black-owned clothing brand. A staple in Troya’s looks are crown headband pieces from Raleigh designer Santina Brown’s Beyond Me Apparel collection.

“I look at the headband as my crown,” says Troya. “I didn’t want to wait for someone to crown me. I wanted to crown myself.” W

Troya

PHOTO BY CARDIAC VISUALS

Best Triangle 2023 of the

Wake County

The most recognized award throughout the Triangle is back for 2023—

STARTING WITH WAKE COUNTY!

Nominate your favorite Wake County bar, veterinarian, bookshop, museum—whatever it may be, there are over 100 categories in which you can profess your favorite Wake County treasures. Have no fear: Durham and Orange/Chatham Counties will have their own nominations soon.

music

George Garzone with Steve Haines, Ernest Turner, and Brevan Hampden

$25+. Feb. 15 and 17, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham. Rockstead $10. Wed, Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Artspace

Unplugged featuring Kamara Thomas $15. Thurs, Feb. 16, 7 p.m. Artspace, Raleigh.

August Burns Red: 20th Anniversary Tour $50+. Thurs, Feb. 16, 7:30 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Lou Hazel / Libby Rodenbough Thurs, Feb. 16, 8:30 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

UNC Faculty Jazz with Pharez Whitted $20+. Thurs, Feb. 16, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.

NC Symphony: Dvorák Symphony No. 7 $50+. Feb. 17 and 18, 8 p.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Adam Melchor $22. Fri, Feb. 17, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Amy Ray Band $25. Fri, Feb. 17, 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

The Criticals $12. Fri, Feb. 17, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Duke Jazz Ensemble with Ashlin Parker Fri, Feb. 17, 8 p.m.

Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

The Floor with 50 FT Shadows $5. Fri, Feb. 17, 10 p.m.

Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Hootie and the Blowfish Live In Concert $29+. Fri, Feb. 17, 8 p.m.

PNC Arena, Raleigh.

Mean Jesus $15. Fri, Feb. 17, 7:30 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Riz La Vie $16.

Fri, Feb. 17, 8 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Blab School / Three Body Problem / Deacon Orb Weaver Sat, Feb. 18, 7 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.

Carnaval of All Rhythms $20+. Sat, Feb. 18, 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Ciompi Quartet: “Black Angels” Sat, Feb. 18, 8 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

Clem Snide $15. Sat, Feb. 18, 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Ella Jane SOLD OUT. Sat, Feb. 18, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

GAG! A Queer Dance Party $25. Sat, Feb. 18, 9 p.m. Junction West, Raleigh.

Mall Will Tear Us Apart: Goth Dance Party $5. Sat, Feb. 18, 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Scott Sawyer/Keith Waters Duo $25. Sat, Feb. 18, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.

Shana Tucker: ChamberSoul™

Cello & Songs $5. Sat, Feb. 18, 11 a.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Taxicab Preacher Sat, Feb. 18, 4 p.m. Durty Bull Brewing Co., Durham.

Queer Agenda

Dance Party Sat, Feb. 18, 10 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Cardiel $12. Sun, Feb. 19, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Eliza Edens $10. Sun, Feb. 19, 7:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Gallery Talk and Book Signing with Artist Beverly McIver and Author Liza Roberts Wed, Feb. 15, 6 p.m. Craven Allen Gallery, Durham.

Mimi Herman: The Kudzu Queen Thurs, Feb. 16, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Jim Sonefeld: Swimming with the Blowfish Sat, Feb. 18, 2 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Will Warasila: Quicker Than Coal Ash Sat, Feb. 18, 2 p.m. Super G Print Lab, Durham.

Isa Watson: Life beyond Likes Mon, Feb. 20, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. Adam Rubin: The Human Kaboom Tues, Feb. 21, 6:30 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Fright Night and The Company of Wolves $10. Fri, Feb. 17, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Movie Loft Presents HalfCocked Fri, Feb. 17, 7:30 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Brunch $12. Feb. 18 and 19, 11:20 a.m. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.

Carolina Ballet: Grieg Concerto $40+. Feb. 2-19, various times. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Best of Enemies $23. Feb. 10-26, various times. Umstead Park UCC, Raleigh.

The Book of Mormon $50+. Feb. 14-19, various times. DPAC, Durham.

My Name Is Asher Lev $25. Feb. 16-19, various times. Jewish For Good, Durham.

Comedy Night with Lee Hardin and Andrew Ledbetter $15. Fri, Feb. 17, 8 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

The History of Gospel Music $25+. Fri, Feb. 17, 7 p.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Valentine’s Day Improv Musical $10+. Fri, Feb. 17, 8 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. The Monti GrandSLAM Sat, Feb. 18, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Adam Melchor performs at Cat’s Cradle on Friday, February 17. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAT’S CRADLE.

P U Z Z L E S

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzles page” at the bottom of our webpage.

In-Store Shopping Curbside Pick Up

720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705

su | do | ku

© Puzzles by Pappocom

this week’s puzzle level:

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click

“puzzles page”.

Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com

C L A S S I F I E D S

EMPLOYMENT

919-416-0675

Scientist

Catalent Pharma Solutions (Morrisville, NC)- Must have proof of legal authorization to work in U.S. Apply online at https://www.catalent.com (under Job Title). To view full information about the job opportunities including the full job description, related occupation, education and experience requirements please refer to the internet posting at https://www.catalent.com

IT Manager

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings in Durham, NC seeks an IT Manager to provide IT functional & Technical support & solution for PeopleSoft Finance Modules (Accts Payable, Gen Ledger, Expense, Purchasing, eProcurement, Asset Mgmt, Treasury, Project Costing, Security). Reqs BS+8yrs exp., To apply, send resume to: labcorphold@labcorp.com; Ref #230130.

Senior UI Developer

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings in Durham, NC seeks a Senior UI Developer / Web Analyst to provide modern & fast single page applications & address unique challenges in interaction w/ various devices & input preferences. Reqs BS+5yrs exp.; To apply, send resume to: Labcorphold@labcorp.com ; Ref #20230201.

IT Technical Specialist

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings in Durham, NC seeks an IT Technical Specialist to implement Golden Gate data movement across data fabric, specifically connecting legacy relational transactional databases, & transporting / ingesting data into new analytic framework on Hadoop & Hana. Reqs MS+3yrs or BS+5yrs exp., 10% domestic travel; To apply, send resume to: labcorphold@ labcorp.com; Ref #230127.

Sr. Salesforce.com Developer

Teleflex LLC seeks a Sr. Salesforce.com Developer (SSDSM) in Morrisville, NC. Perform batch uploads & updates of master data records, complex data migrations, data transformations, & data integrations. Telecommuting allowed from anywhere in the US. Req MS+1/BS+3. Email resume to tfxjobs@teleflex.com. Must ref job title & code SSD-SM in subj line.

Automation Engineer II

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feature a pet for adoption, adver tising@indyweek.com

RECYCLE THIS PAPER

KBI Biopharma, Inc. seeks an Automation Engineer II in Durham, NC to utilize technology to improve, streamline, and automate the manufacturing processes throughout KBI Biopharma. BS & 5 years. For full req’s and to apply visit https://www.kbibiopharma.com/careers Job

Reference Number: R00004648

LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

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Durham | Chapel Hill February 15, 2023

a bItTeRsWeEt vIcToRy

NC Central’s jazz ensemble took first place at a national competition, but the memory of director Brian Horton, who died last year, looms large.

By Thomasi McDonald, p.10