Black Unlimited Blog

Where are you from?
I was born in Houston, but we moved to Tyler, TX when I was five. So I would say Tyler…the Rose Capital of the World! Every now and then a decent artist comes out of there.

What kind of artistic things did you do growing up?
Well, I would draw any and everything. Often when I rode with my parents on long trips, I would draw the back of the cars in front of us and save it in a box and hope I could help the police solve a crime by hearing about a crime and a description of the vehicle. Then I could say “Oh…no problem…I have a complete drawing of the vehicle! License number and all!” Then I would be famous and get this huge reward! Then I would just try to go to the mall and I would be mobbed by people who just loved me and I would have to say, “Sorry, no autographs… I only sign my art!” I had it all planned out… Then I grew up and found out that most people don’t commit crimes big enough to make someone who gave a tip rich and famous. So then I started spending more time drawing people, because I figured that most people like themselves.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
At first, I wanted to be a Biologist because I liked playing in the dirt. I soon found out that they did quite a bit more than that. I then focused on sports and decided I would play professional baseball and open an art store called “Drew’s Drawings”. It ended up being “Androo’s Art” instead.

What made you interested in art?
My parents. They told me that one of my drawings was really good when I was like 5 years old and I believed them. I saw the drawing a couple of years ago and it was horrible! At least to me, but I’m glad they told me it was great! From then on, I was always drawing or something.

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Where are you from?
I am from Lafayete, Al

When and how did you first become interested in music?
I became interested in music at a very early age. From the time I could walk and talk I’ve been drawn to music (lol). I made my first appearance in church at age 5, but before then I would always sing around the house at home. I come from singing families. Both my mom and dad families sing. I was surrounded by it so that helped to nurture the gift and desire that I possessed within.

What genre is your music? Who are your musical influences?
My genre of music is Gospel, Inspirational, Christian, Traditional, and Contemporary. I am influenced by some of the greatest singers and musicians alive; John Legend, Kim Burrell, Beyonce, KiKi Sheard, Mali Music, Anthony Hamilton, Pastor Tim Rogers, Lisa Knowles, Corvious Scott, my great grandmother Maudie Sue Green (greatest influence), Sam Cooke, India Arie, Dorinda Clark, Jasmine Sullivan, and Randall Nunn. I was raised on the old school so it plays a major part in my repertoire.

Are you pursuing music professionally? When did you start?
I started pursuing music professionally in 2007 as a freshman Music Education Major (Applied Instrument-Voice) at Jacksonville State University.

What has been you journey (in music) to where you are right now?
This journey has been quite interesting, fun, edifying and Blessed. I’ve definitely come a long way, vocally, spiritually, and as a person as a whole. I’ve grown as a musician and vocalist. God has expanded my territory. I’ve seen and done things I never dreamed I would and it’s all because of God.

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Where are you from?
First of all, thank you for inviting me to this interview. My producer name is Zero Beats, 20, I am from Croatia. For those who don’t know where is Croatia, it’s across from Italy, Europe.

When and how did you first become interested in music?
I went to music school 6 years and played guitar. I started to listen to Hip-Hop when I was 12 years old, I got Eminem’s CD “The Eminem Show”, and after that I was Hip-Hop. I was also very interested in how these guys were making that kind of music, so I tried….

What genre is your music?  Who are your musical influences?
I produce Hip-Hop and RnB beats. My musical influences are Dr.Dre, Ryan Leslie, Scott Storch, Timbaland, Eminem, T.I., Raptile.

When did you first start working music professionally?
Well I still don’t earn money from my beats, because I am not signed to any label yet. But I got some plans for future. I started making beats when I was 17 years old.

What has been you journey (in music) to where you are right now?
As I already said, I started when I was 17. In the beginning, it was hard to learn music software, keys and similar stuff, but nothing in life is easy. I had a lot of haters on hip-hop forums and I wanna thank them because they made me stronger. I think also that I made big progress in my music production and in my promotion over the internet.

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This topic was triggered by recent events that are not directly related, but in the same realm of thought. This is also something I have never understood since undergrad. Why do people think that white people cannot be a part of our organizations? Our organizations were created because in the early 1900s white people would not let us into their organizations.

Especially regarding my organization, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. where one of our founders, Viola Tyler Goings was quoted as saying “[In the ideal collegiate situation] there is a Zeta in a girl regardless of race, creed, or color, who has high standards and principles, a good scholarly average and an active interest in all things that she undertakes to accomplish” and our brother fraternity where “Inclusion, rather than exclusion, was the ethical foundation of Sigma’s membership.” Even though those ideas are a part of our history, there are still members in both  organizations whose thoughts are not aligned.

Maybe it’s because I was initiated in the state of New York where if you are worried about having someone who is not Black in your organization, you are going to have an endless amount of sleepless nights. New York City is basically the mecca of cultural diversity and people from there disperse all of over the state of New York to attend different colleges and universities. In New York, all of the NPHC organizations have members that are Black (African, Caribbean, etc.), Latino, White, Asian, Indian and any other group that I left out. I am so glad I was a Zeta in New York because I have had an opportunity to meet and work with many people who are not Black but add many great things to their historically Black organizations.

I have been in online forums/message boards where members of my organization have called the white people they see in pictures, “Beckys” and talked bad about them. I’m sure it doesn’t end at my organization. I have heard members of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. say that a white member could never be a Nupe. I couldn’t care less what a Nupe is and maybe if I actually knew what one was, I would be able to understand it, but from my perspective (being that it’s on the surface and lacks all the facts) it sounds ignorant. Note: I’m not saying that these views are the views of all members of these organizations.

If you think about what our founders had to go through and you think about people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, and Hosea Williams (who were part of different Black Greek Letter Organizations)…why would they fight so hard for equal rights and do the same exact thing to white people. To me, it makes no sense at all. So I’m here to say to the close-minded NPHC Greeks…It’s 2010. You really need to get over yourselves. I think that by not accepting different people who join your organization, you are saying that your founders didn’t know what they were talking about and you are questioning what they thought was best for your respective organizations.

There is probably more that can be said about this subject, but I want to hear other opinions. What do you think about whites (or any other people) in NPHC organizations?

Please comment below!!!

Please comment below!!!

Where are you from?
I live in New York City.

What kind of artistic things did you do growing up?
I tried a lot of things…from dancing to drawing, painting, and sculpting. I enjoyed exploring different forms of art to see what would really strike my interest.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I never really gave much thought to what I wanted to be. However, I always knew I would choose a career in art. Art ran in my family and I’ve always been blessed to be around artists and learn from them.

What made you interested in art?
I’ve always been drawn to art. However, I feel it was in middle school, after I began to take art classes that my interest in art reached a new level. I began to discover my own unique style. I started creating strange designs that no one could decipher. A few years later, in high school, I discovered Adobe Photoshop. I began using it as an art tool for myself. The more I explored Photoshop, the more my interest in art grew.

How do you pick the topics of your projects? What inspires you?
I just let the topics come to me. I start with an image and play around with it, allowing the story to unfold. As soon as I begin to see the concept, I then determine whether I like the direction, or I continue to play with it. I find inspiration in many ways. I like looking at my older work, seeing what I could have done differently, then taking those ideas and applying them to a new piece.

What has been your journey to where you are right now?
My journey has been an adventure, a roller coaster ride that I feel now is lifting off. It all began when I made my first art piece, “The Red Eye”. Because of this picture I discovered the talent within me. I experimented further and spent a lot of time widening my horizons with different techniques in Photoshop. As I became more confident with my work, I decided to show my art teacher. This immediately caused a stir and opened my eyes to what others thought of my work. I began to challenge myself and take my work to higher levels. The positive feedback motivated me to apply to one of the top art schools in the nation, The Fashion Institute of Technology. To my excitement, I was accepted and was now involved in an intense curriculum for art and design. Being surrounded daily by serious and driven artists has kept me constantly on my toes and eager to learn more. I was recently recognized by The New York Times, which I am very grateful for. Being highlighted by such a worldwide read newspaper has opened many doors for me and has truly helped in showcasing my work. I believe my journey has now truly began. [You can view the article here.]

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Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Buffalo, NY.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to own my own barber shop. Growing up, I always thought being in the barber shop was the coolest place in the world.

How did you decide you wanted to be a comedian?
Some people were born to be preachers, some were born to be educators, others to be athletes, there was no decision for me to make I was born to do comedy.

How long have you been doing comedy?
Professionally, 6 years.

What jobs did you have before and/or during your comedic career?
I worked for IBM and I was a sales manager for MCI world com.

Who were your favorite comedians growing up, and who are your favorite comedians now?
When I was a child, I would sneak and play my mother’s records with Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and Dr. Bill Cosby. Listening to those records and watching them on television and in movies made them instant favorites of mine. My favorite comedians right now are Drew Thomas from Harlem, NY. He is one of the reasons I wanted to start doing stand up. Comedian Rodney Perry For his physical comedy and the Blacktop Improv Group.

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Where are you from?
I am from Skandia, Michigan. It’s about as rural as you can get with a township population of 900. It’s the type of place where half of your neighbors are relatives and the nearest McDonald’s is a 25 minute drive away.

What kind of artistic things did you do growing up?
My mother is a fantastic watercolor artist and a great creative artist in general. So growing up she always had my two sisters and I doing art projects and crafts. It wasn’t really until middle school I started taking my artwork more seriously when I saw I had a talent for it.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I think when I was really little, it was a veterinarian. So cliche! Then later I wanted to be a Herpetologist (the study of amphibians and reptiles.)

What made you interested in animation/art/filmmaking?
Well, I had always been involved with art through my mom, but really it was probably the influence of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that pushed me to art as career. I know, sounds crazy. It was when I discovered the Ninja Turtles were originally comic book characters and were more than pizza-eating jokers that I really became focused on art. The art in the comic books was fantastic and the stories were fun, intense, and great to read. I was hooked. As college was nearing I was planning on going into comic books as a career, but after emailing a few people in the business they actually advised me against it saying, “It’s more of a hobby than a career.” It’s sad but comic books are a dying art. I re-evaluated what I should major in. And considering I still woke up for Saturday morning cartoons to watch Ninja Turtles (plus a few other cartoons…) at the age of 17, animation seemed like a great idea.

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When did you first become interested in fashion design?
I’ve always been interested in fashion. I started making/designing pieces in high school and when people started to take notice I
thought…ok…maybe I’m good at this. After enrolling at WSU I began to sell t-shirts on campus and began networking and participating in fashion shows around the city of Detroit & other college campuses.

Do you have a demographic that you design for?
Majority of my customers are college students/18-24 year old women in the Detroit area. Most of the time my customer contacts me with a theme or idea, and together we brain storm to polish it. My designs are always sexy and chic.

Do you have any people you admire in the fashion industry?
A few of my favorite designers are Zac Posen, Valentino, and Viktor & Rolf. Mariel Haan is a genius! She’s Rihanna stylist, so that explains enough itself.

What has been your journey in fashion design up to this point?
What an amazing journey it has been! I’ve participated in over 20 fashion shows throughout the state of Michigan. Magazine features, photo shoots, styling jobs…and this is still the beginning.

Do you have any formal education is fashion design?
No. I taught myself.

What are your inspirations for the clothes you produce?
I love fashion because inspiration can come from anywhere. There was a time time when I saw a roll of black duct tape and immediately thought of a outfit that could be created from using it. When I’m working I HAVE to listen to music. I listen to a lot of indie pop, pop, and top 40 music when working.

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How did the idea for your store come about?
In 2005, I had a small design/web development studio here in New Orleans. With access to a few talented designers and illustrators and the capability to produce an e-commerce site, I thought launching a small online t-shirt shop would be a safe bet. I was simply going to model my approach after the sites I liked such as Defunker and Busted Tees. I had a list of copy ideas ready for the first run of designs. Each poked fun at and celebrated our local culture and identity.

I needed a name for the new company that would speak to the region, but not be cliche. One day while driving around town I thought about the West Coast, the East Coast, the Gulf Coast, the Dirty South . . . and I had my name. I went home immediately (my Treo at the time had no Internet, ha) and looked up DirtyCoast.com and it was available.

We worked on about 10 designs in my office with me designing some and others I farmed out to designers working locally I respected like Mitch Paone, Erik Kiesewetter and Vance Kelly. Once all 10 were ready, it was the summer of 2005. And everyone knows what happened next.

After the Federal Levee Failures put the City’s future in serious doubt, everyone became a potential customer for the niche product I was about to launch. Ironically, the destruction of a great deal of my home town, the place that was the inspiration for the t-shirt designs, was the best thing that could have happened for the brand. It was a strange place to find myself. Launching a company after Katrina like Dirty Coast looked like self-serving opportunism. But that stigma and criticism was soon drowned out by the enormous appreciation we received from customers. We were offering them something they could wear with great pride all over the United States where they had been forced to move to after the levee failures. I suddenly had a brand that was much bigger then me and everyone involved in its day to day operations.

What does it mean to be a New Orleanian?
America is referred to as a melting pot of cultures, but it is more of a TV dinner of cultures. Everyone is usually subdivided and at times fearful of each “other.” New Orleans, like NYC, is a true melting pot. The area has been influenced by so many different nationalities in cuisine, architecture, language and sound that there doesn’t exist an easy way to define what it means to be a New Orleanian. If anything, the closest you can get to defining a New Orleanian is how they interact with those around them. Being a New Orleanian means having the freedom to be yourself. Sometimes the more eccentric you are the better. We might be more free than anywhere else in America. By letting people be themselves, the people who live here become the characters and define the identity in their own ways.

Dirty Coast’s strongest one liner is the sticker we have printed and distributed 500,000 times over that says “Be a New Orleanian, wherever you are.” My intention was for folks who found themselves in Ohio, Florida or Texas to remember to be true to their values of living the best life they can, love of family and friends and helping the squares elsewhere round their corners. That easy going lifestyle is all around you when you live here.

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Where are you from?
I was born in Bloomington, IN, and have more recently lived in NYC and Italy.

What kind of artistic things did you do growing up?
Art was like breathing in my house, I was constantly creating new things in my environment at all times. We had minimal TV allowance so I had to come up with my own projects. I started collaging at a young age, and also did theatre, lots of voice (primarily vocal jazz), ceramics, poetry, drawing/painting…you name it.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I always knew art had to be the main focus of my career. I always believed that if I could identify the gifts and talents God had given – figure out how to nurture, develop and utilize them, that I would be led to the right career path by staying true to myself.

What made you interested in design and photography?
I was never a technical person and I loved art, design, etc. because it allowed me to have a vision that was never greeted with a “right” or “wrong”. It provided a platform for self-expression which I then developed into a business, so that I might help others express themselves as well. I love design and photography because they can give a solid and tangible outcome to any thought or vision you might have going through your mind.

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