VOLUME IV | ISSUE 2 WWW.ONEFOKUS.ORG/INSIGHT
F.O.K.U.S. uses the arts to unite, inspire and empower diverse communities. This is accomplished through the production of events, workshops and the publication of INSIGHT, our quarterly arts magazine. F.O.K.U.S. is an organization led by young adults that highlights the importance of and need for the arts and creativity in life. We believe the arts enable people to rise above barriers in society by creating new ways of thinking, communicating, and interacting.
CONTENTS
Volume IV | Issue 2 02 04 06 08 16 18 24 29 30 33 34
Letter From the Editor Street Style a weaponized DREAM SWANS' SONG DRAGNYC aka mr, reed EMOTICONS PSYCHO I AM (I AM FROM) THE BEATBOYS INFINTE PLAYLIST
Street Style
Art
articles / Q&A
Photograpy
poetry
F.O.K.U.S. CRU
Infinite Playlist
PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / LAYOUT & DESIGN: ATIBA T. EDWARDS Atiba is a perpetual visionary that likes to do art in the dark since it is easier to see the true light.
EDITOR: ALLISON MARITZA LASKY
Allison believes that children are the best artists—they are individual universes of infinite creativity.
EDITOR: ANDREW MILENIUS
Andrew has always been on the fortunate side of the fence thinking about how the people on the other side of the fence feel, and he wants to break down that fence.
CONTRIBUTORS: DIANA DODGE / ATIBA T. EDWARDS / HILlARY SCOTT / ADENIKE HUGGINS / ALLISON MARTIZA LASKY / MARJA LANKINEN / ANDREW MILENIUS / JOHANNA TREFFEY / KYLE TWADELLE www.onefokus.org/insight Questions and comments can be directed to info@onefokus.org Submission inquiries can be sent to insightsubmit@gmail.com All advertising inquiries can be directed to ads@onefokus.org INSIGHT is published by F.O.K.U.S. Inc. All rights reserved on entire contents. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Opinions expressed in articles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of F.O.K.U.S., Inc. or INSIGHT.
letter from the editor:
VOLUME IV | ISSUE 2
I'd love to go back to when we played as kids but things changed, and that's the way it is.
~Tupac
Atiba T. Edwards 2 | INSIGHT
INSIGHT | 3
Street Style: BEAUTY.STYLE.SUBSTANCE.
Photo by Atiba T. Edwards at Jared WIliams and LaKethia White's Bahamas Wedding
a weaponized DREAM an interview by ANDREW MILENiUS dream hampton was the first female editor of The Source magazine in the early 1990s and has written for Vibe, The Village Voice, and other publications. She recently finished “Black August: A Hip-Hop Benefit Concert,” her film about the annual concert of the same name in support of political prisoners and exiles. The event has hosted Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Common, and many others in venues such as New York City, Cuba, and South Africa. I recently had the chance to sit down with her and talk about the film. Andrew Milenius: What is your art? dream hampton: I’m a filmmaker and a writer. (laughs) I guess I should elaborate, my art is my life. But for me this film is obviously about where art and activism intersect. AM: As the first female editor of The Source, what was journalism, particularly regarding Hip-Hop, like for women when you first entered the field? dh: The early 90s certainly were about identity politics. I’m happy to have graduated from that. I still call myself 6 | INSIGHT
pre-post-racial, like I don’t believe in “post-racial” “post-feminist” and all that stuff, I think some of it is very needed but I certainly have graduated the identity politics that I had in my undergrad years. I was 19 years old and just moved to New York from Detroit. I landed in Brooklyn in what I didn’t realize was a hotbed of what would be 90s hip-hop. Biggie lived around the corner, Digable Planets lived a couple blocks away, Chuck Rock lived down the street, Daddy-O from Stetsasonic lived another block over. It was just weird. I was the only woman in the office and I was just a teenage girl. We didn’t even have a receptionist at that time- she came later. It was like a locker room, I had never heard white kids use the n-word so liberally. And being from Detroit I said “what the fuck?” and I was about ready to fight. So there was that whole adjustment. AM: What experience most influenced your decision to make this movie? dh: Well we were tired of organizing the concert; the big concert in New York is the master-shot. That was the 2007 show and that was the tenth year and every year it was the same people. I still haven’t seen them replaced.
A WEAPONIZED DREAM
I hate to be from that 90s generation still holding on but I don’t see who’s see who’s replaced Mos Def, or Dead Prez. So we ended up always looking for the next generation so we didn’t have to book the same dudes again and again and it just never happened. And it was also a fundraising tool. It was definitely a point of view documentary. AM: When it was finished, what did you learn about yourself from making the film? How did it help you grow?
AM: What has changed politically, either positively or negatively, since before these political exiles were first imprisoned? How has the environment changed? dh: So many of them have died. Leonard Peltier is in terrible health. We’ve lost two or three of our political prisoners just from old age and what passes for health care in the prisons. When I see what's happening in (the Egyptian Revolution) and America’s enthusiasm for revolution in other places, but we still struggle here.
dh: Well I’m always really hard on certain kinds of films. Like when I see something like “Soul Plane” and I’m like … (makes a face). But it takes garbage like that getting made to make films with a cause huge. I also learned that I’m gangster (laughs). I lost both my editors, people were quitting on me left and right, cause I said to them it would three months, and it didn’t. It took sixth months to log and capture the footage.
The time that a revolution was attempted in this country, during the late sixties early seventies, it was met with this country’s might. It was completely shut down, people were murdered. And I’m disappointed in this younger generation, I hate to do that but there are two wars going on and there is such a docile response to some epic war and some epic occupations. But I am hopeful, skeptical but hopeful.
So they were done with me, it was like living on their couch. But I had to see it through. So that’s what I learned about myself, and also I learned that with any documentary, there’s so many different films that can be made.
AM: Complete this sentence, “art is…” dh: Art is what you make it. I think that art can be a weapon.
Andrew has always been on the fortunate side of the fence thinking about how the people on the other side of the fence feel, and he wants to break down that fence.
SWANS' SONG photography and words by DIANA DODGE These swan shots were taken on two different occasions in Cambridge and Windsor, England. Swans are everywhere in England, and they aren't afraid to come close to the banks where people can get a better look at them. I had never been so close to swans before, so I became fascinated with trying to capture instances that reflected their clean, simple beauty. Something about the curvature of their necks speaks to me, for the slightest change in its orientation seems to reflect the emotions that humans express with their faces. A straight neck reveals a swan's determination and strength. A curved neck, however, emits a vulnerable and sullen feeling. A swan can turn its neck so its head lies against itself, just as a person can curl up their legs and be in the fetal position. They can look lonely and isolated with a slight inward bend of the head and neck, and look playful by contorting their bodies into unorthodox formations. Swans are never tiring to watch. All photographs were taken in the summer of 2009. Diana Dodge is a student at the University of Michigan and has a great admiration for photography. She just started taking photos as a hobby last year and soon became intent on finding special things in the world around her. 8 | INSIGHT
12 | INSIGHT
DRAGnyc words by Hillary Scott
‘Bitchy,’ ‘diva,’ ‘lip-synching’ and ‘tucking’ are just a few terms often associated with drag queens and the drag community. Many New Yorkers have experienced a night at a drag bar with pop music, over-the-top wigs and costumes, and endless penis jokes. One may begin to wonder, ‘Is there anything else to drag than what we see on stage?’ It was this question that led me to go backstage with some of the queens of NYC to find out more about this subculture. Through my interviews, research and documentation I discovered that there is a huge difference between how drag is currently used as a vehicle versus how it was used over 20 years ago. Drag, for many, involved female impersonation (very often influenced by a celebrity or a real woman) and lip-synching with music. Undoubtedly, the first queens used drag as a vehicle for creativity, but today drag is more often described as a vehicle for performance art. The queens I met and interviewed felt that drag provided them with an opportunity to express themselves artistically through music, dance, costume design and theatrical performances. Of all the performers I interviewed, Thorgy stood out in a very special way. Thorgy is a 26-year-old drag performance artist living in Brooklyn. When she’s not on stage in drag she is a classically trained musician giving private lessons in violin, viola and cello out of her apartment. However, this artist does much more than lip-synch; her performances involve music, dance, acting and full on skits that she creates herself. She has been known to host trivia games (for which she creates the questions single handedly), competed in the Miss G Train pageant of Brooklyn and is constantly brainstorming how she can include her many talents and inspirations into new and fresh performances week after week. Drag is not just about entertaining an audience and impersonating a famous movie star; performing drag for many is actually a huge creative outlet much like a blank canvas is for a painter. The drag performer uses the stage as her canvas and if she’s really creative, uses plenty of color to fill it. Thorgy put it best when she said, “I kind of make my coo-coo crazy fantasies a reality on the stage world.”
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You can see Thorgy perform at the following venues: Tues – The Ritz Lounge and Bar (New York, NY) Wed – Sugarland (Williamsburg, NY) Fri – Splash Bar (New York, NY)
Hillary Scott is a graduate student at Pratt Institute, pursuing a Masters in Communucations Design. For more work, please visit: www.behance.net/backinstolaf or email hillaryjscott@gmail.com
aka mr. reed words by adenike HuGGINs CMJ 2009 and 2010. Sharing the stage with Lupe Fiasco and Lifehouse. Still on the come up. But whether solo artist or front man to the band SoundHouse, he has every right to be feeling himself; just a little. He doesn’t though, a man who is much too disciplined to be wanton with self-praise. He is Jesse Nathaniel Reed aka Mr. Reed aka Slash because he's a composer/vocalist/writer/percussionist/orator/designer/humble soul. One of one. Mr. Reed's style is flavor, but you wouldn't know it by talking to him. Bookish and deliberate with his words, you might expect to find Mr. Reed's mind somewhere in academia, or maybe at the pulpit. His oratory is clear and inflected. Look at him though, and you might expect to find him in the throes of the fashion industry. His look is bold with a refined underpinning. Mr. Reed and SoundHouse are a cold fusion of funk, soul, rock and jazz; or better yet genreless. A live show will make you a believer. He has no time for the labels and titles that people apply to him or SoundHouse. The first thing you notice are his threads. In fact, it's the only whiff I caught of his playful side. He gladly acknowledges he loves fashion but demurs on how fly he actually looks. "I'll let my clothes be conceited," he said. Today he’s channeling an older man in Spanish Harlem. Neat and comfortable, he has a bit of a theatrical flair. Wearing a brown leather coat, grey slacks with a pumpkin-colored pinstripe, cardigan, a pumpkin sweater that picks up his pants’ stripe, glossy brown oxford shoes, and a hat. There is no hint of “extra” or his being motivated by the need to be seen. His look does not conjure an association to hip-hop but his address is East New York, and he’s proud of it. With the calm demeanor of a pastor addressing the congregation at homily, Mr. Reed's warm and familial greeting of "sister" or "brother" immediately puts you at ease. Instantly you are transported into another world. A vintage world of bespoke suiting, gentleman's etiquette, vast knowledge, shrewd business, and above all, passion. This world is a mixture of Harlem circa 1920s and Brooklyn 1990s, with ancestral Gullah from the Carolinas. This unique blend can't be pinpointed on a map nor traced in an almanac. In fact, this world is nowhere to be found because it resides in the mind of Mr. Reed. It's what you might expect if Malcolm X and Mahalia Jackson had a baby that came of age in the 1990s with a 1950s manner about him. Raw soul on stage, and composed eloquence off stage. But who is he? 18 | INSIGHT
We sit in the control room and over a string-heavy rendition, the melody of Kanye West's "All of the Lights," plays in the adjacent studio. I perch and peck at Mr. Reed's mind. The layers are thick and exquisite - but he's not one to let you in just so. Maybe it's the East New York in him, garrulous yet guarded. A place he talks about as if it were on a "best places to live" list. First kiss, bystander in a bodega robbery, the patchwork stories flow together as a seamless quilt. He tells me a beautiful story about a man in the neighborhood who he respected. This man was a musician, community activist, and was always known to defend the people. A three-dimensional portrait of someone who might otherwise be discarded as a person with a rap sheet. His eternal optimism draws you in. Maybe it’s his southern heritage. A son of the Great Migration, Mr. Reed speaks fondly of his grandparents who made the trek from North and South Carolina to South Jamaica, Queens. And how they eventually moved back to their low country Gullah roots. Mr. Reed’s hospitality is decidedly southern in all the stereotypical ways – his style, his cadence. On SoundHouse’s “Things Will Get Better”, Mr. Reed sings: “the weather gets better/no season lasts forever/So first there comes the pain/then there comes the rain.” Sounds very much like an elder’s saying to a petulant youth. 20 | INSIGHT
So he grew up in the hood and was born to a mother who traveled often as a bishop. She provided nuggets of knowledge that he carries around as keepsakes and recites often. So his father wasn't active in his upbringing. He has a deep love and appreciation for his father that is palpable. Babysat by the streets, having witnessed unspeakable crimes, his story could end right there. Just another case about the wrong path. But Mr. Reed is forging his own trail. A product of his environment? Yes, but a product of his whole world. The world outside of his block in East New York, Brooklyn. As his song goes, his greatest talent may lie in the ability to see and capture the silver lining. He refuses to be written of as just another singer. Talking to him, you get the sense that he belongs exactly where he is now. As a young boy he used to aspire to owning a business in a midtown high rise. Even the moniker Mr. Reed, came as a child. He commanded attention through his mature style of dress and his precocious persona. Going to school in church suits, people were keenly aware of his presence. He confides that at 16, he had a full beard and was walking into jazz clubs, without being carded. Mr. Reed is building an empire and squarely rejecting the starving artist motif. On, “925”, Mr. Reed sings: “I bet you wonder why I’m nothing like those other guys/because the riches that I got, you can’t afford to buy.” Indeed he is unlike many of his peers. While his music grounds him and is an avenue of outlet it does not limit his artistic expression. In this way, his sights are set far beyond music.
aka Mr. Reed
The music in the studio is still going. We compete to hear each other over the electrified din of the bass line. Wordspit is rehearsing with his live band for an upcoming performance. Each instrument is clear and yearning to be heard they are all of the sounds that make up "All of the Lights" violin, drums, keyboards. Like the instruments, Mr. Reed is yearning to be heard with the full understanding that he's a part of something great. On SoundHouse’s “Ur Song, My Song, Our Song,” the lyrics go, “I hope you listen to my song, I wrote these words for you, remember me when you’re gone.”
Adenike is a Brooklyn girl who loves conversation and despises time; her goal is to be limitless.
Millinery Resuscitation
INSIGHT | 23
emoticons johanna treffy My true joy of photography is capturing that moment of exploding emotion that transpires through the lens and paper. Here are pictures that I took of a local man in Egypt and local tribe people in Thailand. I made them laugh and they will, forever, make us laugh through their beautiful crow's feet and perfect smiles.
Johanna Treffy is an independent photographer and world traveler. Her photographs have captured local people, old and young, and the unique landscapes of over 60 countries. She is also a tri-athlete and linguist. Johanna works and lives in New York. 24 | INSIGHT
Bathroom, Vine Street (above) This home has been uninhabited for some time now, with no sign of the owners, except for their abandoned or forgotten belongings. I revisited this home several times since October, 2009 and the only signs of change are the passing light and the gradual increase in mold. C-print 20" x 24" 2009
26 | INSIGHT
Bedroom, State Route 534 (above) It was a strange experience to see so many homes that (at least superficially) were completely inhabitable. This highlighted the tension of their slow, quiet takeover by nature. C-print 20" x 24" 2009
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28 | INSIGHT
PSYCHO
Kyle Twadelle Your suspicions are there. But
The next day
the mask is thick, preventing the face
you try to find the normal. The mask
beneath from being seen. Laughs are had,
is back, but the crack is there.
secrets shared. Doubt remains while
It becomes the past, but I know.
the friendship is grown.
You try to stop the knowing, shoving it back under the surface, and it refuses to drown.
Then the smell
The farce continues, for the sake of
of alcohol tenses the room and
politeness. Everything moves on,
something snaps. The mask slips
slowly returning to what it once was.
off, and the grotesque face exposes
The hatred is there, the trust
itself. An explosion.
is gone. It will not be repaired
Nausea. Confusion. The tension is now replaced with madness. But the moment is over too soon, the evidence hidden away, the door closed behind you.
Kyle Twadelle is a sophomore at the University of Michigan in The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and never touched poetry before English 223. He loves Stephen King and stills doesn’t know a thing about poetry. INSIGHT | 29
i am (i am from) marja lankinen from the city of trees
bell isle, and to a city coughing
where people either smoke them or save
"detroit is not dying,
people and cities
"she's just catching her breath"
ann arbor is obsessed with the question of appropriation, privilege, and education and while my coming up came outside detroit's city limits the poets who raised me taught me how to read in punctuation "i am obsessed with the question of whiteness" of white privilege, pervasive and invisible adam knew the quotations surrounding "white man/ inner city school" and so he broke the pedagogy as he quoted every first day saying "i am not hear to teach you but to learn with you": chapter one cypher two: molly the first poet i ever saw on stage it's been seven summers since i felt her sun but i still remember body glowing as she shone me into the shadows of junebugs, 30 | INSIGHT
chapter three: now that i stand outside her pregnant body, i can see detroit's womb lined with broken homes and project buildings art on walls, ignored in alley ways the only difference is zip code(d) addition of the gross and gaping gross pointe has the most capital per capita in the nation but won't say hello to its neighbor if suburb is the body detroit is its soul and if you don't know invincible, buff1, elzi, or dilla you don't know detroit like they do the city didn't profit on the superbowl but is rich with prophets who who can't spell urban renewal go to the sphinx at night for classical jazz
i am (i am from)
the DIA en la dia to see diego
arms
rivera is the only water running through detroit
patting down the flame
she cried her last tears with the spray and hiss of fire hydrants turned on black boys during the riots or rebellion depending on who you question my family fled when they saw gratiot in flames grandmother scoped husband and daughters from looters just getting what was theirs my grandmother got hers
or igniting it who am i? i don't know maybe i'm the flame soaking itself in the kerosine of education or maybe i'm the match searching for the right city to strike until then, i'll be a gypsy with an agenda sleep on concrete
and ran
on couches, in corners, pack my things in drawers that are not my own
with the loot of children in her purse
clothes from the lost and found
she suitcased an entire family into the suburbs first generation to flee second generation to stay away third to come home detroit
i'll find myself when i find my people to wage war the world is too big for complacency or ignorance i may be innocent
where wisdom is measured
but i understand that the world works in contradiction
in the success of your grassroots hustle
struggle and triumph are synonyms
not how big the care of your heart is
beauty and ugly are a two-headed coin
but how much you're willing to wear it
rolled in the hands of children playing with phonology
open sleeve, elbows deep detroit already has too many talking heads it doesn't need words anymore, it needs
and, to fully live, is to fully fall flat face smashed into failure INSIGHT | 31
i am (i am from)
general motors knows, kwame kilpatrick learned the hard way, rosa parks did it the right way but claudette colvin who did it the first way
who won't sleep because there's still too much work 80 hours, we will keep the flames burning chicago once lit, some said detroit should burn, too
will never be remembered, made into a blvd, but if its people are fire themselves or memorialized for us and by us laissez-faire, se la vi we will burn these cities ourselves we are all built from the same salt and dirt bombing everything profound of smokestacks and junebugs and bell isle
churches are sacred, but so are backyards
i am where i am from
eminem is profane, but so is the pope
malcolm, motown, slum village,
detroit will rise again, chicago still burns
victory garden, common, kanye, great
i am where i'm from
lakes, lincoln, rock city, detroit river,
fingers, matches, burn.
woodward, howard, hoffa, henry ford, the field museum, the uaw and wpa, 826 and 85th, red line and the ren cen, people mover, moving cocaine, crack game, grocery, vacancy, detroit and the heidleburg project, ann arbor and the heidleburg restaurant where the klan once met, or still does in howell or hell history doesn't dissipate, the ash still lingers we are all dreamers 32 | INSIGHT
Marja Lankinen is an every day hustle trying to make it as a dancer, teacher and solid human being in Chicago. Homegrown in Michigan, Marja reps the mitten, and, while nomadic in nature, her heart and her tribe will always be Ann Arbor.
the BEATBOYS
Allison Maritza Lasky A sample of the DECODED class ciphering outside of the Urban Assembly Academy of Arts & Letters in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. DECODED is an afterschool apprenticeship led by Heather Day and myself supported by the Citizen Schools organization. *Citizen Schools partners with middle schools to expand the learning day for children in low-income communities across the country. Find out more at www.citizenschools.org. Allison believes that children are the best artists—they are individual universes of infinite creativity.
INSIGHT | 33
Infinite Playlist: Chapter 8 battle for supremacy
Curated by Atiba T. Edwards The annual battle between Spring and Summer is in full swing as the duel it out to decide if Summer can end Spring early or shall Spring trump Summer to continue its showers and sun. This is the time where you reconnect with your love for outdoors and late nights. So cue up the playlist, put on your sunglasses and enjoy the wind blowing through your hair as your ride, drive, run or walk through the battlegrounds. rockers revenge ft donnie calvin - walking on the sunshine The OCTOPUS PROJECT - Truck (Hello, Avalanche) klaxons - gravity's rainbow (myths of the near future) Blackbird blackbird - float on (summer heart) Javelin - vibrations tyler the creator - yonkers (goblin) skrillex - scary monsters and nice sprites (scary monsters and nice sprites) lykke li - a little bit (youth novels) st. germain - so flute (tourist) wilson pickett - land of 1000 dances (The Exciting Wilson Pickett) homework - i got two gold panda - you (lucky shiner) parliament - give up the funk the killers - a crippling blow (Day & Age) frank ocean - u got it white lies - farewell to the fairground (to lose my life) Incredible bongo band - let there be drums (bongo rock) adele - crazy in the deep (TM version) curtis mayfield - superfly (superfly: the original sound track) 34 | INSIGHT
COVER ART: swans on a lake Volume IV | Issue 2 Diana dodge This image is one of my favorites because of the way the two swans seem to work together in harmony. The opposing angles and directions of their faces evokes a mirror-like image that creates unity between them, through both the beauty of their curved necks and the relaxation and shyness they evoke. When swans appear in black-and white photos, we sometimes forget that color exists at all--the black-and-white world seems to be the world swans were made to reside in, since it emphasizes their drama, their grace, and their classic aesthetic appeal through form and shape alone. I'm a student at the University of Michigan who simply has a great admiration for photography, though I would say that I, myself, am a complete amateur. I started taking photos as a hobby last year after I took my first photo class, and I soon became intent on finding the special things in the world around me. I look for clashing colors, and I'm most interested in the "boring" aspects of everyday life that I attempt to capture in a new light and meaning through lighting and angles. I've only taken two legitimate art classes in my life, but I love to admire the work of others and I hope that my photo "hobby" will continue to grow and mature. As of now, I'm still taking photos on a small digital camera, but I do what I can with it to produce eye-catching photos. INSIGHT | 35