Ytasha Womack Post Black

YTASHA WOMACK: INTERVIEW ON POST BLACK

YTASHA WOMACK: INTERVIEW ON POST BLACK

by DIALO ASKIA

An accurate account of a people’s history and tradition is necessary for the advancement of the people. Griots, for centuries, provided information on the land, the law, and the family. Hieroglyphics painted pictures to tell stories long before MCs wrote lyrics that projected music videos into our minds and onto the screen. Across time, such writers, illustrators, and orators are necessary to provide a voice for the generations. Author Ytasha Womack is one of today’s prominent voices, discussing African American identity in her recent book, Post Black, and giving us a glimpse into the future in her e-book, Rayla 2212.

TRIBES: What inspired you to become a writer?

YTASHA: I started off in journalism, which I didn’t really view as being a writer, in the traditional sense. Once [However], once you start telling stories, you look to tell stories in all kinds of formats whether that’s newspapers, books, film, television, etc. I just became really interested in finding the best medium to share ideas and once you get into that, I guess you become a writer.

TRIBES: What is Post Black?

YTASHA: Post Black for me takes a look at the African-American identity in the 21st century, looking at the diversity of that identity, focusing on Gen X and Gen Y for now, and then also looking at the concept of African-American identity in a post-civil rights, Obama era and the impact that it ultimately has on the personal and collective shift in identity.  It’s an exploration.

Some people might view it as a lifestyle or some may see it as a statement about the end of race as we know it. I don’t think we’re quite in that zone yet.  Post Black is not post-racial but it is a bridge to that period, I think. This exploration of identity facilitates that.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW NOW.

Visit: postblackexperience.com

YTASHA WOMACK: INTERVIEW ON POST BLACK

YTASHA WOMACK: INTERVIEW ON POST BLACK

by DIALO ASKIA

An accurate account of a people’s history and tradition is necessary for the advancement of the people. Griots, for centuries, provided information on the land, the law, and the family. Hieroglyphics painted pictures to tell stories long before MCs wrote lyrics that projected music videos into our minds and onto the screen. Across time, such writers, illustrators, and orators are necessary to provide a voice for the generations. Author Ytasha Womack is one of today’s prominent voices, discussing African American identity in her recent book, Post Black, and giving us a glimpse into the future in her e-book, Rayla 2212.

TRIBES: What inspired you to become a writer?

YTASHA: I started off in journalism, which I didn’t really view as being a writer, in the traditional sense. Once [However], once you start telling stories, you look to tell stories in all kinds of formats whether that’s newspapers, books, film, television, etc. I just became really interested in finding the best medium to share ideas and once you get into that, I guess you become a writer.

TRIBES: What is Post Black?

YTASHA: Post Black for me takes a look at the African-American identity in the 21st century, looking at the diversity of that identity, focusing on Gen X and Gen Y for now, and then also looking at the concept of African-American identity in a post-civil rights, Obama era and the impact that it ultimately has on the personal and collective shift in identity.  It’s an exploration.

Some people might view it as a lifestyle or some may see it as a statement about the end of race as we know it. I don’t think we’re quite in that zone yet.  Post Black is not post-racial but it is a bridge to that period, I think. This exploration of identity facilitates that.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW NOW.

Visit: postblackexperience.com

TRIBES Magazine Spring 2012 – Women in Hip Hop. View Now.

MY FIRST SONY 

I was seven years old when I met Salt and Pepa. My mom bought me an apple-red My First Sony and a cassette copy of their 1988 album, A Salt with A Deadly Pepa, for the sixteen-hour road trip to Georgia with my Aunt Carolyn and a bucket of cold fried chicken. That car ride with two princess pioneers of the Hip Hop movement and the hours I’ve spent in the years since, chanting their rhymes and living the word of female emcees like our winner, Lauryn Hill, and others like Lil Kim (the baddest b’ on Mobb Deep’s “Quiet Storm”), Queen Latifah (“Who you callin’ a bitch!?”), and my personal all-time favorite, Rah Digga, gave me something very special that carried me through the insecurities of adolescence, the difficult teenage years and on into the present.

As purposeful as everything my mother did for me then, that gift of audacious role models, speaking boldly from the margins was invaluable. Salt and Pepa and the women that picked up the mantle of Hip Hop and helped carry it onto worldwide popularity were in their very being progressive, political, feminist, and committed to opening doors not only closed for women in the music industry but for women and marginalized people in society-at-large.

We honor these iconic women and the artists that carry on their legacy in the Spring 2012: Women in Hip Hop edition of TRIBES Magazine,  featuring SHELLY B and TRIBES Top 5 FEMALE EMCEES to Watch, because they were groundbreakers that did things never before done (like talking about sex on MTV in frank terms to curb the epic scourge of AIDS on the nineties). They found transcendence over sexism, racism, homophobia, and social disenfranchisement through Hip Hop,  not in spite of it, and, contrary to popular notions about misogyny and rap music, they teach us that Hip Hop was never a boys club and assert that the Hip Hop community has always welcomed them and supported their art. I hope you will too.

ALANA JONES

Editor, TRIBES Magazine