#yca

The teaching artists corps is the heart of the organization, which E'mon is a part of. It consists of six artists that go out to different neighborhoods in the city and teach residencies in all different types of high schools from magnet schools to alternative schools, and lead the poetry clubs there to participate in Louder than a Bomb. YCA also does events in the school to alter that school’s culture.

We have a space in Wicker Park at Division in Milwaukee where we lead free workshops every Saturday, and also have the longest running youth open mic every Tuesday, Wordplay, where a lot of artists come through. We also have poetry workshops, hip hop/rap writing workshops and journalism workshops — all focused in storytelling and the idea that everyone is an expert of their own experience and should have the potential to tell their story in their own words.

I'm the Associate Artistic Director at YCA. I started out as a member of the teaching artist corps several years ago. A lot of us that work there have come through the program, and after a couple years of working as a teaching artist, I became Associate Artistic Director, which allows me to work with the teaching artists still developing, still working on professional development. 

E'mon Lauren Black: I’m a teaching artist for YCA. I'm also the Youth Poet Laureate of Chicago, titled by YCA and New York Urban Wordpress. I started coming to YCA since I was about 13, 14, but my first actual participation was Louder Than A Bomb, also in high school.

After I couldn’t compete because of high school graduation, I continued to go to the program and participate in the weekly open mic, Wordplay. I was also in Bomb Squad, which is an Internship Apprentice Program. 

After that I did more work with YCA, working as an apprentice and through internships, through various types of roles helping, organizing, being a part of the conversations of programming, and figuring out roles where I could be of assistance. I wanted to stay in that environment — the environment I grew up in. So we're here, and continuing the work, and now I'm a special teaching artist in the teaching artist corps of YCA.

Jamila: The first time I ever went to Young Chicago Authors was my senior year of high school. I went to Wordplay. It was one of the most important places that I was able to find in high school, because my high school was not a very creative environment. YCA was one of the first places where I saw people free to be themselves, and where I saw a space being run by young people, where they were listening to each other and affirming the being of who they were. Ever since then, whenever I was home, I would always come back to Wordplay, to YCA, because I felt like it was a way of rechecking in with my community. It was always my most valuable audience to share my work with, and that still is a big part of my process today as an artist in my work as a teacher and organizer.

Ace: You’ve both been in a mentor and mentee role at YCA. What do you think makes someone a good mentor?

Jamila: I think for me the mentors I've had that have been really instrumental are the ones that have really affirmed my voice as an artist. I remember the first time I performed at Louder Than a Bomb, one of my mentors afterwards said to me "What makes you sound the way you sound? You don't yell, you're not overly animated when you perform, but still you're able to captivate the audience, and you speak in a normal speaking voice, but quiet compared to other people. And I just wondered how you got that way." That was the first time I thought about the way that I performed and realized that it was different from other people in a way that could be considered really strong.

E'mon Lauren: My mentors are the people I work with now. Kevin Coval, Jamila, obviously, really helped me when I was first coming up in terms of being an attentive mentor, helping me and giving me room to explore. I feel like that was the first path — to have so many different writing topics, especially from artists who already have their artist statement organized and their artistic voice understood. As far as performance, I'm very appreciative of Jaquanda Villegas and Jacinda Bullie from Kuumba Lynx for helping me understand what it means to be censored in a performance state, to know what performance actually is. Some people like to say ball is life, or poetry is life, but what helped me was to think that every time I'm performing, the life is inside of me, and I need to give that. I'm always focused on the light of the momentum where I was writing from.

I'm also very appreciative of Kristin Franklin. She was the main person who told me to gather my artist statement. I never knew what an artist statement was. I know everyone has a style or a voice, but to be able to put all of that into one bottle...This is the artistic element of what my writing represents.

It's a very profound thought. It makes me think everyday to make sure that everything I'm doing is in pursuit of fulfilling my artist statement, and all in all still finding my purpose.

Ace: What was that process like for you, making an artist statement? How did you get to the root of what you do?

E'mon Lauren: It really took me to examine my writing. Usually I go based off of my conversations with the way I naturally talk to people, how I carry myself when I'm explaining situations, when I'm explaining scenarios that I've been through, or just in natural ways of survival. Like if I have to get home, and I know I don't have any money, finessing the bus driver. That conversation — that is poetry. That is how I survive, and poems are meant for survival. They're meant to be like manuals, and instruction, and tips. Not necessarily to say I'm the final imprint, but to say that this is how I survive.

So when I was thinking about what I want my artist statement to say, I want it to say how I plan to get through this survival as a black queer woman. What do I want my survivalship to look like? What do I want my journey to look like? And to put that into words through my poetry, I was able to figure out not the necessary labels, but the necessary terminology. It opened me up to learning the terminology and the proper vernacular of how to explain profound thoughts.

It also was about figuring out my intersections. What are my points of figuring things out? What are my triggers? What are all these necessary things that I need to know to bring it all together?

Jamila: I like what E'mon was saying about the poetry of everyday, how you talk. Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the major influences of Young Chicago Authors and how we teach Louder than a Bomb. This year we’re celebrating the centennial of her birth, and so the poetry slam was themed after her. We started this year reading her advice to young poets, and one of the main things she says is to trust the way you talk and the language you hear in your community, how that can be poetry. I think that really influences me, especially having grown up raised a lot by my grandma. I always think about the way my grandma's speech is poetry, and how she says so much with one word, with just the inflection of that word. Or how she would mix a Bible passage into telling me how messed up my hair looks, or whatever it is. She just had this amazing way of speaking, and I think that's a big inspiration for my work.

Ace: What have been some of your other influences?

Jamila:  In terms of poetry, definitely Gwendolyn Brooks and Patricia Smith. I was definitely influenced by Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez, and a lot of the Black Arts Movement poets. I still also get really inspired every year from Louder Than a Bomb. Something about youth poetry always reinvigorates me. Just seeing how people innovate on the form of spoken word is really inspiring to me.

E'mon Lauren: I'm really inspired by Nikki Giovanni, Natalie Diaz, Morgan Parker — she's pretty amazing. I really love Morgan Parker. I also stay grounded in the artists around me that are always coming out with something, like Kush Thompson, and Jamila, and Nate Marshall, and Brittiney Black Rose Kapri. As far as who I find myself most respected to or most in homage to, it would be Zora Neale Hurston. Her exploration of love, and how she manifests different forms of love, or what her love is for others, on dynamics that we often dream about, or I find myself dreaming about as a young woman, is profound to me.

I'm also inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I appreciate Chimamanda's perspective and her way of standing in forms of solidarity. Especially when I was growing up, trying to figure out what it meant to find a place, to find a place of your equality— I struggled with that a lot when it came to my identity. That's something that I think about a lot.

Ace: What is it about Chicago that spurs such talent and creative output?

Jamila: I think Chicago is unique, unlike other cities in the Midwest. Different from other cities on the coasts, because it doesn’t have as much access to industry, like music industry or film industry. There's a lot of people who have a do-it-yourself kind of attitude towards things; it makes you have to work together with people more. There’s a collaborative energy and spirit that’s here.

It's also a very working class city. It has that element of grinding, or hibernating to get your work done. I also think there are really strong programs for young people, obviously like Young Chicago Authors, Youmedia, and at times Gallery 37 . These have all been hubs for young people to view art without being segregated into genre. At Wordplay, for example, you see poets, you see musicians, you see rappers, and it's a place for people to build together. There's also a lot of DIY places too like The Dojo and Rupcore – places where people can put together shows and shape their artistic careers.

E'mon Lauren: Yeah I couldn't have said it better. I think Chicago is highly diverse, but also highly segregated. We keep an overall goal, which is to live in better. Whatever that better looks like for us, because in Chicago we all undergo things together. No matter what perspective you have on it, or what type of effect it has on you, you still undergo it as a person from Chicago. And I think that that better that everyone sets their mind to can sometimes lead to competition and a sense of rivalry — of everyone trying to get to that better, whatever it means for themselves.

When I think of the art — the renaissance that Chicago is undergoing — it’s making a turning point on what that rivalry is. I think it’s spaces like YCA and other places that allow artistic growth to start. Art makes the better. But we also have the issue of schools closing, so we have youth who don’t get to experience that, but that becomes just another natural cause for us to reach for that better.

It's very challenging to be in the renaissance – you want to help others. If you have the right perspective to help others, everything will work out.

E’mon Lauren: Jamila, you've always had a unique sound. Did you always have a unique sound, or was it something you had to mold?

Jamila: I don't know if I thought of it as a unique sound. I’ve loved so many different kinds of music. When I write I know people say, "Oh, that's R&B," or "Oh, that's neo-soul," but I don't hear a genre that I fit into. I'm sure a lot of artists feel that way.  I could also write pop songs. I could write alternative rock songs. I always look for a cohesive feel, in albums, in books that I read and in my own writing. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm more scattered cause I love so many things. My influences lead me in so many different directions. What I'm trying to do now more is to create something that sounds more cohesive so I can develop towards my sound. Sometimes you can hear a beat and be like "Oh such and such rapper would definitely be on this beat. I know because they've honed their sound that way."

Ace: What do you love in Chicago?

E'mon Lauren: There’s this one place, this vacant lot on Congress and Federal. It's an open lot, and it's by a part of the river in Chicago. You see where the river flows, it just flows naturally.

But now they have it fenced up, cause they're about to build something there. But that was the place where I would go to just figure stuff out in high school, and knew what I wanted to do but did not know how to go about it all. When you see those movies like the Goonies, or the old Goosebumps books, where they would always meet at some tree in some forest, off some road for an adventure; that was our place. To be black and brown in Chicago, to be Midwest kids, all trying to figure out what we were gonna do. There were people out there who saw us and it was like – we know what it looks like. We're dirty, rugged, cruddy kids who just want to walk down State Street all night. But we had plans. We had goals. Aside from wanting money, we wanted to do something with that money. We wanted to do something we actually liked to make our money. Those were the conversations I needed.

And it was an open Chicago. Nobody was bothering us, and when you're from Chicago, that's very rare. To just have an open space to go, where nobody was trying to take it over, nobody trying to divide it between your side of the line. We were just out here doing us.

Jamila: One of my newer favorite places is this park. It's off of Halstead, and 32nd or something like that. Palmisano Park.

E’mon Lauren: With the heads?

Jamila: Yeah with the heads. There's all these Buddha heads on a hill, an art sculpture I think. But they also have a manmade body of water. It's really beautiful. It feels kind of odd that it's just in the middle of the city, but I really like it. I like to go see the moon there.

Ace: What is the best advice that you've gotten and what advice do you give to young artists just starting out?

E'mon Lauren: The best advice I've probably ever gotten was from my mom. She always said "Stay focused and maintain, and if you cannot be true to yourself who can you be true to?" She would always tell me that. That was like the main consistent thing that I remember, and I never understood it: grammar school, elementary school, I never understood what that meant. High school, it started kind of creeping in what that meant...to be myself, when you get to the whole lunch table situation, when you get to the whole club situation, when you get to school people and majors, and faculty telling you who you needed to be in order to graduate. That's when it's time to understand what a personal goal is, that's when it's time to understand who I am as an individual with regard to making my goals. But I need to stay focused and maintain who I am to stay true to myself. And with all of that, I'm exactly where I need to be right now, because I constantly am staying focused on the goals of being me, of giving my art, of sharing myself, and by sharing myself happily, without breaking myself, without staying unfocused on myself.

It's still a learning process. That would probably be the advice I would give young people coming into this — it's a process. It's the process of constantly learning about yourself. Being an artist is more than selling records, more than getting on magazine covers. It's more than taking yourself on trips. It's about really taking care of yourself, and understanding who you're taking care of. Figuring all of that out. Figuring that process out. It takes a process, and I think that is what the hard work is in artistry, is working on that process. That's the hardest job that you could ever have, that anybody could pay you for, is working on yourself. That would probably be my advice. It's such a lifelong process too. It sounds simple to say "Trust yourself," but if you don't yet know who you are, you can't yet.

Jamila: I think about these two quotes that I heard that really helped me. One of them is by Kate Bornstein. And she said "Your life work begins when your great joy meets the world's great hunger." And when I heard that, it was kind of like this feeling that I already had, and it put words to it in a really concise way. I always want what my work to feel, kind of like what E'mon was saying before, like it has utility to it, or like it's doing something in the world.

And when that intersects with what makes me happy, then I think that's when I feel like my work is at its best. A litmus test that I use in my work is like, sometimes I write a song, and I literally just need to listen to that song for that hard week I was having. And that song helps me get through that week. And I hope that has that effect on other people. But it feels most authentic when it starts with that place of utility with me, and I feel like that's what makes it connect to other people, as opposed to if I was just trying to write something that I thought other people want to hear. So that is a really strong quote to me.

The other thing that my friend, Nico, told me — "Everyone is better than you, and you are better than everyone else. Live like like that and practice everyday." I think that as an artist, you look at someone else and compare yourself to them, or think that you should aspire to do the things that they're doing, but you can only be the best version of yourself. And someone else can only be the best version of themselves, they cannot take your place. And if someone asks me "Who's better, Lauryn Hill or Erykah Badu?" I'd say you're crazy! They're both the best, and I love them. There's space for so many people. Even if someone is amazing, they're not taking anything away from you, and you focusing on that is taking your energy away from you. I would definitely share that with young artists. What project are you working on right now, E’mon?

E'mon Lauren:  Right now I'm currently working on my first book of poems, my first chapbook of poems is called Commando. It will be released by Haymarket. I'm getting it together. It's a process. But my next book literally just came to me in a dream last night. The title literally just came to me last night. Not going to talk about that. I need to manifest that in myself a little bit more, but I'm excited about that.

Jamila Woods: What's Commando about?

E'mon Lauren: Commando is about the intersection of womanism, or to be a womanist, and to also be the hood. To be the block, to be the Southside of Chicago. When people usually think about the block or the hood, or however they identify a marginalized neighborhood, they often associate that with hyper-dominance or dominance and hyper-masculinity. They never think about the correlation of how that ties to the woman, or how that ties to a black queer woman. Aside from the fetishizing of us and our bodies, and our sexuality or the energy of that, what else do we speak on? What else do we stand on? I talk about those experiences, and try to lead a way for other black girls to say "You know what? I'm tired of this too. I want to speak up." Being called angry black women for voicing our opinions, etc. etc.,, this is where part of the energy is coming from — me responding however I need to respond to survive and tell my story, so I can be heard. It seems like all that is heard is anger, which is another side of being open or being bare. This is where Commando comes from. What about you? What are you working on?

Jamila:  Right now I'm kind of in the middle, between things. I'm more focused on my live show, so I've been trying to decide what I want the live experience of my music to be. And I'm going to be performing at Pitchfork, which is the biggest show that I will have done. So I just want that to be really awesome. I'm thinking of ways to do that.

And I'm also thinking towards my next project, how I want to be involved in the production of it.  I'm taking music lessons, and I'm learning piano, and I'm trying to get better at guitar. I used to play guitar more. So that's mostly it. And I'm still writing songs, looking for inspiration always.

Ace: Yeah, that’s an interesting thing, the performance side of it. Poetry and songwriting are such private personal things, that delve into the deepest, darkest parts of yourself. And then you have to perform them, so suddenly you're sharing your secrets with the world. I wonder how do you two find the courage to translate the private to the public?

Jamila Woods: One of my mentors, who I mentioned before, Avery R. Young, he used to talk to me a lot when I was first starting to perform my poetry about how to authentically, and also in a healthy way, connect to what I was saying, and not just read my poem. So it's a balance. Say you wrote about something that was really hard. The goal is to not go back to that exact mental and emotional place where you wrote it, but to go back to the place where it empowers you, to claim that as your story and connect to it.

Performing for me is the best when it feels good and I'm able to connect to it, not only with myself in a deeper way, but to the people that I'm performing to. And I think with music, especially when I started performing with a live band, it feels like I'm most with myself, even more than if I was just in a room by myself. I’m most in touch with myself when I'm performing my music, which is a really good feeling. It's almost how some people like to meditate or go for runs. It feels like it gives them clarity, or a sense of being present. That's how I feel when I'm performing music.

E'mon Lauren: I try to think about the oxymoron of the situation – what it means to be silent, and what the silence of that experience that I'm writing about makes me feel like. Silence is one of the biggest things that causes me anxiety, It is a trigger, and I’ve allowed it to hold me captive in a lot of situations. So a lot of my work is me saying "Listen to silence." And when I write, I know I have an opportunity to really put all that out there. That's really where it starts, just me writing it out. It doesn't really get to anybody else or anything like that until I put it in a verse first.

That's where it starts. That's healthy, that's natural, and that's safe. Words are safe when they're used for safety. We all know the power that words hold, and I think that's also something that I think about. What I want my words to transpire to. Words that cast spells. I want my words to cast spells like, “Oh my God, this is what poetry is.” Making use of my words, and making use of my healing process. And I think that's all that I think about when it comes to sharing. You never know when my words can be a medicine to somebody, but once it starts with a medicine for me, then I will be a vibe dealer to all.