Why Sustaining for Us?

Sustaining for Us is a sonic storytelling experience and a public artist gathering centering artists—of color, queer, and queer of color— and their visions for sustenance and futurity in collaboration with more-than-humans. Our goal is to amplify voices that are often marginalized and underrepresented in mainstream media. We believe in the power of storytelling to inspire and create change, and we strive to create a space where artists can come together to share their stories and visions for a better future.

​

About Me

​

My work is multidimensional. Music and writing are my first loves, and I communicate this love across mediums. Catch me spitting a verse on an experimental beat I’ve produced and performed under my hip hop alias. You might find me at a blues club riffing over a slow Mississippi Delta bassline. Sometimes stanzas call, and I embrace that rhythm of words. For two decades, I’ve sought to transcend colonial boundaries through a turntable and a mixer as a DJ, with Drum & Bass, UK Grime and 2-step, hip hop, Dancehall, and house music as my transports. I’m so in love with the selectas of the world, spinning and building communities one record, one song, and one mix at a time. At the root of my creations, is the pursuit of freedom. I’ve long centered creativity in my decades-long work in environmental advocacy and social justice. In my music writing career, I interviewed artists like Mick Jenkins, Mother Nature, Smino, Buddy, Ravyn Lenae, TT the Artist, Andrew Barber of Fake Shore Drive, Marian Hill and more to highlight their passions for contributing to the world beyond music. This work was in service of widening our imagination about artists and honoring the impacts they make toward creating a better world. My scholarship focuses on blues music, using the blues mood and logics as a way to reorient notions of environmental advocacy. Through that work, I’m trying to help welcome communities traditionally left out of mainstream environmental advocacy and to fight myths about Black people and environment. I’m the author of Starfish Blues: A Memoir due out in Spring 2024. IM A MOTHA! I play a mean riff on electric guitar. I hope that my contributions make a small dent in helping to brighten the spaces too often left dark.

​