Latest / Babes, how did you get here / He Escaped America to Become the Man He Was Never Allowed to Be

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He Escaped America to Become the Man He Was Never Allowed to Be · Babes, how did you get here

• 0:00
  This thirst for travel, where did that come from?
• 0:04
  Because I knew the world was bigger than New York City, especially because everyone came to New York City from elsewhere, right?
• 0:10
  So what is the elsewhere?
• 0:12
  What's going on out there?
• 0:13
  Okay.
• 0:13
  Yeah, so I started modeling at 14, here and there, and then I started traveling at 16.
• 0:21
  I would go to Canada, stuff like that, long story.
• 0:26
  Why is Canada a long story?
• 0:28
  It's just off the road.
• 0:29
  Because I eloped at 17.
• 0:32
  You did?
• 0:33
  Well, intended to.
• 0:34
  I didn't get married.
• 0:35
  Okay.
• 0:35
  But I fully intended.
• 0:37
  So I declared emancipation at 17.
• 0:40
  Okay.
• 0:41
  And then went to Canada for a modeling gig.
• 0:45
  And I made my money.
• 0:47
  And then I was like, yeah, all of that, okay.
• 0:51
  Okay.
• 0:51
  Yeah, if I go through the whole thing.
• 0:53
  What?
• 0:54
  We will not have time.
• 0:55
  Okay.
• 0:58
  We're dropping new episodes every single week.
• 1:00
  So make sure you subscribe.
• 1:01
  You don't want to miss this, babes.
• 1:03
  And leave a comment and tell me, what do you want to hear out of my next conversation?
• 1:07
  Your support really helps this community grow.
• 1:10
  And if you know someone who's quietly been thinking, should they take that next big leap?
• 1:14
  Babes, send them the podcast.
• 1:17
  Now more than ever, people are relocating, finding home far from where their lives began.
• 1:24
  I am April Jackson, traveling the world, speaking with people who have chosen a life elsewhere.
• 1:29
  Baba Siete Saudades, founder of The Myriad, born in a New York City, but shaped by life across London, Paris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Anguilla, and now here in Cape Town.
• 1:43
  His journey is one of finding true freedom, a spiritual leader, cultural thinker, and global citizen.
• 1:54
  I cannot wait for this conversation, but first I have to ask, babes, how did you get here?
• 2:01
  Okay, how did I get here?
• 2:03
  So, Cape Town has always been one of my favorite places to come to on holiday.
• 2:09
  I started visiting South Africa in 2014.
• 2:11
  Okay.
• 2:13
  And, you know, I came, thought I was going to spend two weeks, you know, a nice respectable two weeks.
• 2:20
  I spent a month and I only went back because I ran out of money.
• 2:24
  You know, I was still in my 20s and six months later I was back, you know, and that just became my thing.
• 2:32
  Like I will come every six months, spend time here and enjoy myself away from the global north.
• 2:38
  Right.
• 2:40
  Then I left America for London in 2017 and there was like a gap between then and.
• 2:46
  And when I returned on what I thought was going to be a holiday in 2019.
• 2:51
  So it was December 2019.
• 2:54
  And I was like, OK, you know, I miss Cape Town.
• 2:58
  Let me come back.
• 2:59
  And just as my visa extension was in...
• 3:05
  COVID.
• 3:06
  Right.
• 3:07
  For so many people, COVID is like the critical point.
• 3:11
  Yeah.
• 3:12
  So the borders closed and those of us who remained were given leave to remain and spent lockdown in South Africa.
• 3:23
  What was lockdown like in South Africa?
• 3:25
  For me, honestly, I had a great time.
• 3:28
  This is not what people want to hear.
• 3:30
  This is not what people want to hear when, you know, we're talking about lockdown and COVID and, but I was safe, you know, South Africa regulated COVID very well.
• 3:42
  The response was exceptional.
• 3:45
  Everybody mandated PPE.
• 3:48
  mandated, you know, cleanse protocols and all of that.
• 3:52
  And the borders were closed.
• 3:55
  So, you know, there was a reduced transmission relatively.
• 4:00
  And so being in a country where the air is clean and the water is clean and the COVID response is excellent, I felt very safe.
• 4:11
  I was very safe and comfortable.
• 4:12
  I mean, I know that...
• 4:15
  we were dealing with a global pandemic, but I think I had like the best possible positioning within it.
• 4:23
  Can you take me back to the first time you ever came to Cape Town and what your impression was?
• 4:30
  So, um, my first time to Cape Town.
• 4:34
  Now it wasn't my first time on the continent.
• 4:36
  Okay.
• 4:36
  Okay.
• 4:37
  So for my 18th birthday, I took myself to Egypt as an 18th birthday present.
• 4:42
  And I'd come to Nigeria, et cetera.
• 4:45
  So this wasn't my first trip to Africa.
• 4:50
  It wasn't like, you know, I'm doing my pilgrimage to Africa.
• 4:55
  But something was very different.
• 4:57
  Like when we landed, I was overwhelmed by the
• 5:03
  just a well of emotion.
• 5:05
  Like, and you know, as you can see, I'm big, right?
• 5:10
  So, towering over the flight crew, you know, we've landed, we're trying to get up to, you know, exit the plane, and I just broke.
• 5:20
  For some reason, I just, yeah, I just broke into tears.
• 5:24
  It was extremely alarming for me because I still had the, I would say, the dispassionate part of my mind that's recognizing that I'm having a physical reaction.
• 5:34
  Right.
• 5:35
  And then there's the me that's having it.
• 5:36
  Right.
• 5:37
  So the me that's in the back is like, what the hell are you doing?
• 5:41
  You know, yeah.
• 5:42
  This is unbecoming.
• 5:46
  And, you know, the flight crew, they just, I guess they knew, you know, this probably wasn't the first time an African-American had like broke down touching African soil.
• 5:56
  So, you know, they all just surrounded me.
• 5:59
  And then the pilot came out and, you know, and it was just a big group hug.
• 6:05
  You know, I've landed, I'm having this emotional experience on African soil and particularly here.
• 6:12
  And, you know, that was basically how that started.
• 6:16
  Before we continue, make sure that you join our community by clicking the link below.
• 6:20
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• 6:27
  I really cannot wait for you to help me shape where this podcast goes.
• 6:32
  What was different?
• 6:33
  Because you explained that you had been to Nigeria, you had been on African soil before.
• 6:38
  Do you know, looking back, what was different about landing here?
• 6:43
  I think part of me recognized the peace of home in a way that...
• 6:50
  only unfolded, you know, years later with me actually ending up here.
• 6:56
  You know, so sometimes your body recognizes something before your mind does.
• 7:02
  And so I look at it that way.
• 7:04
  Amazing.
• 7:05
  So you're here at that point, you said for a month.
• 7:08
  Yeah, I ended up staying a month and then I went back to New York.
• 7:11
  And I also like sobbed a little on the flight back, you know, because it's like, oh, no, I'm leaving and I'm leaving and I'm going back to the West and I'm going back to New York and I'm going back to the things that I have to now pick up again.
• 7:27
  You know, what is life like for you in New York City?
• 7:31
  Well, it's been a while.
• 7:34
  But it was very stressful.
• 7:37
  You know, you kind of just deal with it.
• 7:39
  You know, it's a global city.
• 7:42
  And growing up in New York was hectic.
• 7:44
  What parts of New York did you grow up in?
• 7:46
  Mostly in Brooklyn.
• 7:47
  Okay.
• 7:47
  But...
• 7:49
  You know.
• 7:49
  I love Brooklyn.
• 7:50
  Yeah, yeah, but, you know, having to grow up in New York City in the 90s, you know, was quite an ordeal.
• 7:58
  Can you paint that kind of picture for me?
• 8:01
  So it's like, you're at home in a middle-class family,
• 8:05
  in your middle class home setting, and then you go out into the trenches every day.
• 8:10
  Right.
• 8:11
  You know, so without dwelling too much on having to grow up in an urban setting like that, I had to fight for my life, like physically.
• 8:23
  Okay.
• 8:24
  All the time.
• 8:25
  And then as I grew older, I ended up having to wear glasses after a car accident.
• 8:30
  So now you're.
• 8:32
  the nerd with the glasses and the nerd with the braces.
• 8:34
  So when you say fight for your life, we're talking from a school bullying setting?
• 8:38
  School bullying, social stuff, like, you know, just everything outside.
• 8:43
  Really?
• 8:43
  Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's New York.
• 8:46
  So, I don't know, I mean, this is, yeah, like, you know, I think things were happening to everyone.
• 8:54
  Do you have siblings?
• 8:55
  Yes, I do.
• 8:56
  Yeah, I have a younger sister.
• 8:57
  Okay, so Alyssa's sister, are you having to protect your little sister?
• 9:01
  No, she was very adept at protecting herself.
• 9:03
  Okay, go on, Lucasice.
• 9:06
  Yeah, and, you know, she wasn't bullied, but, you know, jealousy, envy, you know, cattiness.
• 9:14
  And we come from a family that just doesn't tolerate that.
• 9:17
  Okay.
• 9:18
  So, you know.
• 9:19
  If you start something, we will finish it.
• 9:23
  And for me, I would escalate.
• 9:26
  Okay.
• 9:27
  I would escalate.
• 9:28
  So, you know, I didn't want to feel powerless.
• 9:32
  So I actively empowered myself through response.
• 9:35
  And so that set the tone for part of my internal rhetoric and my internal personality.
• 9:41
  positioning so that positioning is of course black sovereignty right so when you are engaging as a young black boy and a young black man in a world that hates you for existing you don't have many options you either conform and assimilate
• 10:04
  You know, live your life from a position of response.
• 10:08
  Right.
• 10:08
  So even a lot of the ways that we resist whiteness or white supremacy are from a reactionary place.
• 10:17
  You know, it's whiteness sets the terms and you respond to it.
• 10:20
  Right.
• 10:21
  Right.
• 10:22
  But with me, I learned that that would only get me so far as well.
• 10:25
  So what about who and what I am internally?
• 10:30
  Who am I as well, eventually a man, but who am I?
• 10:35
  What am I?
• 10:36
  How am I going to go about being who I am?
• 10:39
  You know, there are other factors, other layers of identity that also shaped, you know, how I arrived at what kind of man I wanted to be.
• 10:49
  Um, but I had to start with myself because the city will crush you if you don't have a strong sense of self.
• 10:58
  And I picked that up very early.
• 11:00
  I saw so many people who they're good people, you know, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,
• 11:06
  just dealing with their circumstances and the city is crushing them.
• 11:10
  And I just didn't want to be that person.
• 11:12
  So I made, I made sure that beneath the skin, there was iron, you know, when did you, or how did you come to that realization?
• 11:23
  Cause that's a deep process.
• 11:27
  I don't know that I came to it all on my own.
• 11:29
  It just arrived one day.
• 11:30
  Okay.
• 11:32
  You know, I was, I believe I was in junior high school.
• 11:37
  So young.
• 11:38
  Yeah, yeah.
• 11:40
  It's something that I've always carried.
• 11:41
  Like, you're not gonna play with me.
• 11:42
  Like, that's, you know, and it's also part of the culture of being a New Yorker.
• 11:46
  So, you know, it's like, I've absorbed that.
• 11:50
  I've seen the value in that.
• 11:52
  And now I'm going to,
• 11:54
  develop and cultivate that.
• 11:56
  Right.
• 11:56
  Yeah.
• 11:57
  So again, you don't survive in New York unless you are someone that is tough, you know?
• 12:03
  So I refuse to compromise and conform to like standardized, reductive, urban stereotypes of black masculinity.
• 12:14
  What is that?
• 12:15
  For someone that doesn't know New York and doesn't know your setting, could you describe what those stereotypes that you felt you needed to push back against?
• 12:26
  There's a few.
• 12:28
  One is the strong and silent archetype.
• 12:30
  Okay.
• 12:31
  You know, so the idea that a black man is not allowed to express himself or any range of emotion outside of what serves the interests of other people.
• 12:41
  So it's convenient for them, for a black man to not speak.
• 12:45
  often or well or with emotion um you know and you see that reiterated through a lot of the um desirability politics of present-day dating lately especially like um you confront something you're sassy and all this right right so um but then it's like
• 13:08
  do you want a man that doesn't have feelings?
• 13:10
  That's a, that's a psychopath.
• 13:13
  Like, you know, like, yeah.
• 13:15
  Don't you want to know what's going on inside him?
• 13:21
  You know?
• 13:21
  So yeah.
• 13:23
  Yeah.
• 13:23
  Stuff like that.
• 13:25
  You know, just also like being expected to be someone who is capable of great terror.
• 13:35
  But,
• 13:36
  You know, not to them, right?
• 13:39
  You know, be a demon outside, but not to me.
• 13:43
  As if that's a switch that you can turn on or off, right?
• 13:47
  Because the point is that black masculinity is something that is meant to be bent to service, right?
• 13:54
  And so we're looking at how this is also like a slavery-based rhetoric.
• 14:01
  And how black masculinity is articulated not from a position of sovereignty, but you are a workhorse.
• 14:07
  You are a stud.
• 14:09
  You are there to provide sexual virility and, you know, not much going on over there.
• 14:19
  And I was this height.
• 14:20
  I'm 6'3", at 14.
• 14:23
  Really?
• 14:24
  Yeah.
• 14:25
  So, yeah.
• 14:27
  You know, that grope spurt and I still...
• 14:30
  remember the pain of being stretched out.
• 14:32
  But also the reason why I like have that expression is because we know, or I believe most of us know, that there tends to be an adultification of black children anyway.
• 14:43
  Yes, absolutely.
• 14:44
  And then you tack on that type of height.
• 14:47
  Yeah.
• 14:47
  And I'm just like, that experience.
• 14:49
  How was I able to be a child?
• 14:50
  Yeah.
• 14:51
  So that created a dissonance between me and my mother even.
• 14:56
  Okay.
• 14:57
  Because, you know, now she's the black mom and I have to protect my son from the world.
• 15:03
  And I'm very early learning that my mother cannot protect me, not from the systems, not from my peers, not from the world, not from the expectations that even she has for me, not from societal expectations.
• 15:19
  My mother cannot protect me, so I must do it myself.
• 15:22
  And that created some resistance around even my own growing up because it's, no, my son, he's not ready for the world.
• 15:31
  And I'm like, I've never been able to be not ready.
• 15:35
  I had to essentially discard my childhood, adolescence.
• 15:42
  Because once you become aware of things, you can't unsee it.
• 15:47
  Right.
• 15:48
  You know, and I've always had an eye for systems.
• 15:50
  So how can I unsee what's unfolding in front of me?
• 15:54
  And I'm, you know, being pulled across time into something that I have no choice but to become.
• 16:01
  And then I come home.
• 16:03
  And I'm expected to perform childhood.
• 16:05
  You're a baby.
• 16:07
  Yeah.
• 16:07
  You know, I'm expected to perform, you know, submission and things like this.
• 16:13
  And, you know, not ask certain questions and not get answers.
• 16:18
  And, you know, so I had to become internally very resilient but also self-sufficient.
• 16:25
  Were you able to balance that in terms of at home, your, her baby essentially?
• 16:30
  No, I didn't like it at all.
• 16:31
  Okay.
• 16:31
  So I actively resisted.
• 16:33
  Okay.
• 16:33
  Yeah.
• 16:35
  You know, and then also being academically gifted, you know, and being tested for genius and all of that, you know, we'll file that away.
• 16:43
  You know, it's not... Why are we filing that away?
• 16:46
  You know, it's a receipt, but, you know, it's just like, how can I...
• 16:55
  I can't shape myself according to what, I guess, standard pathway is expected of me.
• 17:04
  Like where adulthood is something that is granted to you as opposed to something that you develop into.
• 17:11
  You know, and growing up where I did and when I did, innocence was gone.
• 17:18
  You know, my mother was able to have a cultivated innocence that she to this day carries with her that I never had the luxury of partly because of my maleness.
• 17:30
  You know, so, you know, you do what you have to do.
• 17:35
  Yeah.
• 17:36
  This thirst for travel.
• 17:39
  Where did that come from?
• 17:40
  Because I knew the world was bigger than New York City, especially because everyone came to New York City from elsewhere, right?
• 17:46
  So what is the elsewhere?
• 17:47
  Where – what's going on out there?
• 17:50
  Okay.
• 17:50
  Yeah.
• 17:50
  So, you know, I started modeling at 14 here and there.
• 17:55
  And then I started traveling at 16.
• 17:58
  You know, I would go to Canada, you know, stuff like that.
• 18:00
  Long story anyway.
• 18:03
  Why is Canada a long story?
• 18:04
  It's just on the road.
• 18:05
  Because I eloped at 17.
• 18:09
  You did?
• 18:09
  Well, intended to.
• 18:11
  I didn't get married.
• 18:12
  Okay.
• 18:12
  But I fully intended.
• 18:14
  So I declared emancipation at 17.
• 18:15
  Yeah.
• 18:16
  Okay.
• 18:17
  And then went to Canada for a modeling gig.
• 18:22
  And I made my money.
• 18:24
  And then I was like, yeah, all of that, okay.
• 18:27
  Okay.
• 18:29
  If I go through the whole thing.
• 18:30
  What?
• 18:30
  We will not have time.
• 18:31
  Okay.
• 18:32
  Okay.
• 18:33
  But, you know, I just knew I was a grown man and, you know, yeah.
• 18:39
  So when you say you emancipated at 17.
• 18:41
  Yes.
• 18:41
  That's an official process?
• 18:43
  I declared emancipation at 18.
• 18:44
  In the state of New York at the time, it's functional emancipation.
• 18:49
  Okay.
• 18:49
  So you, you know.
• 18:51
  You have to prove and qualify that you are essentially emancipated.
• 18:55
  Right.
• 18:56
  And then, you know, the lawyers draft you a letter and, you know, stuff like for truancy.
• 19:02
  And if you're out at a certain time and blah, blah, blah.
• 19:05
  You have the letter from the lawyers to the police.
• 19:07
  To show that you're fine to be.
• 19:09
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:11
  Because, you know.
• 19:12
  Police state.
• 19:14
  So, yeah, there are truancy cops in New York City.
• 19:17
  I don't know if they still have that.
• 19:18
  I didn't know that was a thing.
• 19:19
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:20
  If you were cutting school or, you know, out of school at a certain time and you look too young.
• 19:26
  And I was very stretched out with a baby face.
• 19:29
  So regardless of what was going on in my head, you know, they're like, what are you doing?
• 19:37
  And then I have to be like.
• 19:38
  I'm allowed.
• 19:39
  I'm grown.
• 19:42
  Here's my, you know, essentially a dom pass, if we look at it cross-culturally.
• 19:50
  Like, here's my pass that says I'm allowed to be here.
• 19:53
  Okay.
• 19:55
  And how did that affect the relationship with your mom?
• 19:58
  I mean...
• 19:59
  She wasn't happy with the fact that I was precocious.
• 20:03
  Right.
• 20:04
  You know, and I moved out formally and fully on my 18th birthday.
• 20:09
  Okay.
• 20:09
  Yeah.
• 20:10
  So, you know, yeah, I knew, like, if I'm going to become myself, like, my full self, I cannot do it with surveillance.
• 20:21
  You know, even benevolent.
• 20:25
  surveillance, you know?
• 20:26
  And I don't know that I was like fully ready or prepared for the world, but it's like, well, when will you ever be?
• 20:34
  Who are you leaning on during this time?
• 20:36
  Because there's a lot going on for anyone.
• 20:39
  I know, right?
• 20:40
  Like at that age.
• 20:41
  Yeah, yeah.
• 20:42
  There's so many layers and I'm just wondering, what does your support system look like?
• 20:46
  My grandparents back then.
• 20:48
  So my mom's
• 20:51
  I would say the way that my mother was equipped or less equipped to care for a son like me, my grandparents were a support.
• 21:00
  You know, they actively were like, you're doing too much.
• 21:06
  With my mom sometimes, you know, and also my ancestors, you know.
• 21:12
  So leaning on millennia of support.
• 21:17
  You know, because I wasn't just engaging with my own lifetime or my own timeline either.
• 21:23
  And I think that's also part of why I just never felt like a child.
• 21:28
  OK. Yeah.
• 21:29
  So even with me being able to precociously read, like I started reading it, too.
• 21:36
  Yeah, my first book was The Dictionary.
• 21:38
  I got caught with, like, you know, like they just left the Webster's Dictionary around and I knew it was a book and I just started reading it until the words made sense.
• 21:51
  And so that's the start of literacy and writing eventually and all of that.
• 21:58
  My cousins used to pick on me because I would read their textbooks, you know, and they were years older than me.
• 22:05
  So, you know,
• 22:07
  What are you doing reading a high school history book?
• 22:10
  Like, you are 10.
• 22:16
  Yeah.
• 22:18
  But as far as leaning on my ancestors, you know, we're talking about millennia upon millennia of human experience.
• 22:27
  Yeah.
• 22:28
  And anything that I could ever have been through as a human being, they had been through, regardless of continental rupture, lineage rupture, all of that stuff, they were there.
• 22:41
  You know?
• 22:42
  And they are there for everyone, right?
• 22:44
  So it's not, I don't like to position myself as, oh, you're so special and distinct and this has never happened to anyone else ever.
• 22:55
  You know, I,
• 22:57
  I guess what distinguishes me is that I never ran away from
• 23:02
  owning my power or cultivating it.
• 23:06
  I never ran away from my aptitudes or felt like I needed to shrink for people.
• 23:13
  And I think that's destabilizing for a lot of people that encounter me.
• 23:17
  Okay.
• 23:18
  Yeah.
• 23:18
  Even now?
• 23:20
  As an adult or?
• 23:21
  Yeah, as an adult.
• 23:23
  It's like, he's 6'3".
• 23:25
  He's big and muscular.
• 23:27
  He has a commanding voice.
• 23:28
  But why?
• 23:29
  It's a lovely voice.
• 23:30
  Why?
• 23:30
  Why?
• 23:31
  Why?
• 23:31
  Why him?
• 23:33
  You know?
• 23:34
  So they like to test.
• 23:35
  Okay.
• 23:36
  And because I spend a lot of time in the online streets of social media and the social justice discourse and...
• 23:47
  You know, just like, yeah, those pockets of debate and so on.
• 23:55
  I've been able to sharpen my arguments very, very well.
• 24:00
  So people often, they're arriving at an opinion and it's new for them.
• 24:07
  They are encountering whatever it is.
• 24:11
  And it's new for them.
• 24:12
  And so, you know, whether that be something that they've actually, excuse me, fully thought about, or it's a half-baked theory, I've already argued against it.
• 24:22
  Right.
• 24:22
  Like in 2012, you know, like those, especially on Facebook, those social media streets, you will polish your argument because you will have to engage what you believe in why hundreds of times.
• 24:41
  in the comments.
• 24:42
  Right.
• 24:43
  You know?
• 24:43
  When you describe beautifully that you are able to connect with those who have been through this path before, how are we tapping into our support of ancestors?
• 24:56
  So firstly, I think that we all do it on some level.
• 25:00
  There is instinct and instinct is founded on not just, you know, your personal experience, but genetically embedded imperatives.
• 25:11
  So I don't look at the spiritual as something that's separate from our material biological existence.
• 25:18
  You know, we talk about epigenetics,
• 25:21
  et cetera.
• 25:22
  So these memories are literally what we're made out of.
• 25:25
  From our cellular memory, where the very cells of our body are built in the body of our mother, and how, for instance, the egg that became you was carried by your grandmother.
• 25:39
  At some point, you know, that continuity is something that we all have and we all experience.
• 25:48
  You know, we all have moments of knowing that.
• 25:52
  Where did this come from?
• 25:53
  But it's correct.
• 25:54
  You know, so I don't like this notion that, you know, I'm so different or this is so sensational.
• 26:05
  You know, it's a very everyday thing to be able to lean on what has come before.
• 26:12
  And, you know, I think when we sensationalize it, it leads to pathologizing it.
• 26:20
  Because people are busy pointing outward instead of looking at where they're experiencing it within.
• 26:27
  So these are things that precede culture, precede your religion.
• 26:32
  We all have ancestors.
• 26:35
  So to think that there's no residue of the past is insane.
• 26:40
  To think that you are just you and that's it.
• 26:47
  That doesn't make sense to me.
• 26:50
  In your childhood, is it fair to say that because you were having a deep sense of self quite early, right, that this isolated you in ways from your immediate community?
• 27:03
  Very much.
• 27:04
  Okay.
• 27:04
  Yeah.
• 27:05
  Um...
• 27:06
  You know, people have always said that, you know, they can feel me before they see me.
• 27:12
  You know, so I guess, you know, when you know who you are, that radiates outward in a way that, you know, people who are avoiding who they are or whatever, you know, it brushes up against them.
• 27:26
  And then they don't know what to do with that.
• 27:28
  Yeah.
• 27:30
  Being a nerd, a lanky nerd with braces and glasses.
• 27:36
  Aesthetically, that isolated me.
• 27:39
  And then navigating everything from color.
• 27:44
  I used to be a lot lighter back in the day.
• 27:46
  Before Africa.
• 27:47
  That African sun dance.
• 27:50
  So then you have to deal with the politics of being a lighter skinned black man.
• 27:53
  Okay.
• 27:55
  And how that also forces you to
• 27:58
  um engage with your masculinity in specific ways right because of you know how lighter skin is stereotyped as more feminine i didn't know that oh that is very much a thing really yeah i mean you know see what they you know it's always like um fairer skinned men are considered to be more feminine because of colorism so colorism works where i thought you were just going to talk about a privilege i didn't think that it had anything to do oh absolutely
• 28:26
  Okay.
• 28:27
  Yeah.
• 28:27
  So it's an inverse relationship, right?
• 28:30
  So where colorism privileges lighter skinned black women, right?
• 28:37
  It is the color that is seen as feminine and soft, right?
• 28:42
  So when that is applied to black men, right?
• 28:45
  it pushes black men to overcompensate masculinity to override the social perception of their skin.
• 28:53
  So this is why you see toxic masculinity in figures like Drake and Chris Brown because they are automatically read as softer.
• 29:01
  So they both have been compelled to compensate for that with womanizing, look at Common, Common, you know,
• 29:12
  has dated every woman in Hollywood.
• 29:16
  And I can't speak to the nature of those relationships, but just the frequency and the perception of being, I am a black man that gets women.
• 29:28
  You know, I am a black man that's desirable.
• 29:32
  And, you know, how proximity to women and the P word is seen as affirming of masculinity.
• 29:42
  And since you have to apologize for your color, you compensate in money, money.
• 29:48
  Aesthetic proximity to women proximity to desirability, etc.
• 29:55
  Okay.
• 29:56
  And the capacity to be violent, you know, so I know punk.
• 30:02
  Right.
• 30:04
  You know, so these are things that are embedded in black culture, unfortunately.
• 30:09
  And we've only really started to look at those things.
• 30:14
  And generally and often, you know, the male perspective around this is shut down.
• 30:20
  So we acknowledge colorism as far as how it affects women.
• 30:25
  There's a huge discourse about colorism regarding black women.
• 30:29
  And it's valid and it's true and it's demonstrable, you know, but we don't look at how colorism affects black men.
• 30:38
  Even dark skin men have to engage with colorism from being animalized because the dark skin is pathologized.
• 30:48
  Right.
• 30:49
  So people wrap it as privilege, but everybody's being wounded.
• 30:54
  Right.
• 30:55
  All the black people are being wounded by colorism.
• 30:58
  I swear to you, before you have said what you have said, I never thought about colorism from a male perspective.
• 31:04
  Yeah, because we are looked at as the perpetrators and perpetuators of colorism, right?
• 31:10
  Right.
• 31:11
  From a position of selection, right?
• 31:14
  But colorism is rooted in slavery.
• 31:19
  You know, the notion that a black man, especially like even where it becomes featurism or relating to the size of a black man, where, you know, if you are a big black man, there is seen to be an inverse relationship between your size and your intelligence.
• 31:39
  Right.
• 31:40
  So, you know, why am I as a big black man so smart and smarter than them?
• 31:45
  That's something that deeply destabilizes people.
• 31:49
  And so then they try to assert dominance in other ways in the conversation.
• 31:54
  And I don't allow that.
• 31:56
  So then I end up crushing them.
• 31:57
  And then they take that with them and so on and so on.
• 32:01
  Sure.
• 32:03
  But yeah, it's a thing.
• 32:05
  It's a foundational thing, actually, with regards to our desirability politics.
• 32:13
  Do you think that having had those isolating experiences early on, it made moving abroad easier?
• 32:21
  No, no, no.
• 32:23
  So traveling, you know, I traveled as much as I could and as much as I could afford to do.
• 32:30
  Right.
• 32:30
  I enjoyed being out there.
• 32:32
  Right.
• 32:33
  But moving across the Atlantic was a tremendously difficult decision because
• 32:41
  I had built a community, I had built friendships, family, you know, my NATO family, my mother, what are they all gonna do without me and my physical presence, you know?
• 32:55
  And a lot of people arrest their destinies
• 32:59
  out of consideration of other people over themselves.
• 33:03
  You know, so many people, you know, oh, but my my parent is sick.
• 33:08
  I'll wait for them to die before I leave or I'll, you know, stuff like that.
• 33:14
  And I think also with the expectation that we have unlimited time, when time is actually a resource that you can never recover, time spent is that's it.
• 33:26
  It's done.
• 33:27
  It's done.
• 33:27
  Yeah.
• 33:28
  And your first move was Europe?
• 33:30
  Yeah, my first move was to London.
• 33:32
  Okay.
• 33:33
  And having said all of those things that you appreciate what other considerations you had, what made you make that first move?
• 33:41
  A few reasons.
• 33:44
  But one of them was a divination consultation that I received.
• 33:49
  So I'm a diviner.
• 33:51
  So I do consult with the ancestors and other spiritual forces to resolve people's issues.
• 33:58
  Right?
• 33:59
  OK.
• 33:59
  But the doctor has to see a doctor.
• 34:02
  So I went to the doctor.
• 34:05
  And, you know, there were some very key parts of my own life that I wanted.
• 34:10
  Right.
• 34:12
  And essentially the elder said that you won't have those things in New York or even on this side of the Atlantic.
• 34:19
  So if you want to live a fully fulfilled life, you must leave.
• 34:26
  OK. And eight weeks later, I was out.
• 34:29
  You don't have to tell me twice.
• 34:31
  Eight weeks.
• 34:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 34:34
  I was like, okay, because there had been a buildup for so many years where I was wondering, you know, even with regards to my personal life, like I didn't want to be a Luther Vandross or you know how so many- What does being a Luther Vandross mean?
• 34:53
  He died single and unloved.
• 34:56
  Really?
• 34:57
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:58
  So, you know, that was a specific fear of mine to be a nurturer and a giver, a carer of people, someone who carries people.
• 35:11
  And then there's no room for my own personal happiness because I've martyred myself.
• 35:17
  Right.
• 35:18
  You know, so what is mine?
• 35:20
  Right.
• 35:22
  You know, how do I balance being able to have for myself and also be there for other people?
• 35:30
  You know, why am I living in a too small apartment, a too expensive apartment?
• 35:37
  You know, so there is an economic angle to it as well.
• 35:43
  You know, I was still in my 20s and, you know, I was told that I was lucky for living in that too small overpriced apartment because I could afford to live there solely for my work.
• 35:54
  Right.
• 35:54
  So, you know, it's like, do I have to be here in order to have what I need?
• 36:02
  And, you know, I'd been being called out, you know.
• 36:08
  And so, you know, when you just find that it's easier to go with the flow of the water than to resist the waves, then you do it.
• 36:22
  What are you doing for work at this point to be able to leave in eight weeks?
• 36:25
  Yeah.
• 36:26
  So I was a diviner, a full-time diviner.
• 36:28
  Okay.
• 36:29
  Yeah.
• 36:29
  So, yeah.
• 36:30
  How does one become a full-time diviner?
• 36:32
  Years of training.
• 36:34
  But here's my thing.
• 36:36
  I didn't just do it all alone.
• 36:38
  I had help.
• 36:39
  Okay.
• 36:40
  So a friend of mine was a flight attendant and gave me a buddy pass.
• 36:43
  Okay.
• 36:44
  I had a body pass in college, babes.
• 36:50
  Yeah, so I keyed the flight so that I wouldn't have to compete with people.
• 36:57
  Because with the body pass system, you are non-rev, and then there are other people who are of priority above you and so on.
• 37:06
  So I made sure that flight
• 37:09
  was the right flight so that I could get to London business class.
• 37:13
  Check you out, babes.
• 37:15
  You know, so I think I paid $125 for that flight.
• 37:18
  Yeah, because you just paired the airport tax.
• 37:20
  Yeah, and I sat there in business class.
• 37:24
  Amazing.
• 37:25
  So you get to London.
• 37:27
  Do you have a plan for that?
• 37:28
  So I had a loose plan that I was going to get myself together and, you know, essentially be a digital nomad.
• 37:37
  Okay.
• 37:37
  And that's what I did.
• 37:38
  Why did you choose London?
• 37:40
  Well, because I could be back to New York in the same day.
• 37:44
  Five and a half hours.
• 37:45
  Yeah.
• 37:46
  If needed.
• 37:46
  Yeah.
• 37:47
  Six, you know.
• 37:48
  So I was like, okay, like I need to cross the ocean.
• 37:53
  Right.
• 37:54
  But there's so many places that...
• 37:57
  that are, you know, on the other side of the Atlantic.
• 38:00
  Right.
• 38:01
  And, you know, it was easier to secure the visa and all that.
• 38:05
  So, you know, visa exemption, actually.
• 38:10
  So I was like, okay, I can do my little six months in London and then...
• 38:15
  You know, so I had an apartment ready.
• 38:18
  A friend of mine had been helping me apartment hunt.
• 38:22
  So like I crossed the ocean.
• 38:24
  He got me from the airport and, you know, I moved into my apartment, you know, so.
• 38:29
  You wasted no time.
• 38:32
  You know, but I'd spent so much time not doing it.
• 38:36
  So like, it's like, if you feel the urge to leave, and you're 20, and then you leave seven or so years later, the act of actually packing up, giving things away, having a go away party, you know, that time feels compressed.
• 39:01
  Because it was so long in the making.
• 39:02
  Yes.
• 39:04
  Yeah.
• 39:05
  So you get to London.
• 39:06
  Had you been before?
• 39:06
  Had you gifted?
• 39:07
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:08
  I've been a few times.
• 39:09
  Okay, so there's no culture shocks.
• 39:11
  No culture shock.
• 39:12
  I had friends there already.
• 39:14
  Great.
• 39:15
  You know, and London in a lot of ways is like New York.
• 39:18
  I always say that.
• 39:19
  So, yeah.
• 39:19
  So it's, you know, it's British New York.
• 39:22
  So it's like... What ways do you find it different?
• 39:28
  Food.
• 39:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:30
  Yeah.
• 39:32
  There were some things that were different.
• 39:33
  Like the Chinese takeout in London is very different than New York City or East Coast Chinese takeout.
• 39:42
  You know, so I had to actively make things.
• 39:45
  Okay.
• 39:46
  Yeah.
• 39:46
  So, like, as you know, I cook.
• 39:49
  And things that I really wanted from back home, I had to cook myself.
• 39:54
  Like?
• 39:56
  If I wanted...
• 39:59
  If I wanted a curry, see, I like a Trini curry.
• 40:02
  Okay.
• 40:03
  You know?
• 40:04
  But if I'm going to get curry in London, it's either going to be an Indian curry or Jamaican curry.
• 40:09
  Right.
• 40:10
  But I want a Trini curry.
• 40:11
  And how does Trini curry differ?
• 40:13
  I mean, there's a different way that you cook the spices.
• 40:16
  You know, like, you know, like, you know, curry is curry, but everybody has their way of doing curry.
• 40:23
  So if I want...
• 40:26
  a nice Trini curry, then I'm going to have to do it myself.
• 40:30
  Okay.
• 40:30
  You know?
• 40:32
  And there were ways, even with cuisines that were actively in London, I would still cook it myself.
• 40:42
  Um, so being abroad and wanting like the same flavor as a thing that I had in New York, as opposed to just the item being the same.
• 40:51
  Right.
• 40:52
  I still had to make it myself to reproduce those flavors.
• 40:55
  So, um...
• 40:57
  You know, being even now further away from New York and the US, I've really leaned into cooking my cultural foods.
• 41:08
  So my mom's family, we're African-American of Creole and Geechee descent.
• 41:13
  You know, so that's coastal South, interior South.
• 41:17
  But, you know, I'm a third generation New Yorker.
• 41:21
  So I cook a lot of Creole food, a lot of Geechee food.
• 41:25
  My dad's family, they're of Caribbean descent, so that's Puerto Rico and Trinidad.
• 41:29
  Okay.
• 41:30
  So Latin America is now down here.
• 41:35
  Right.
• 41:36
  Is that where your name comes from?
• 41:38
  Siete, yes.
• 41:39
  Okay.
• 41:39
  Yeah.
• 41:40
  Very cool.
• 41:40
  Yeah.
• 41:41
  Are you able to get all your spices and ingredients out here?
• 41:45
  So we have a wonderful thing called Bring It In Your Suitcase.
• 41:48
  Ha!
• 41:52
  And, yeah, so, like, I have everything.
• 41:56
  Most of the spices are here already.
• 41:58
  Okay.
• 41:59
  But, you know, there's certain things you really can't get, like the anato and stuff.
• 42:03
  Right.
• 42:04
  Yeah, so.
• 42:05
  So life in London, six months you stay and then you leave?
• 42:08
  And then I was in Paris.
• 42:10
  What pulled you to Paris?
• 42:11
  It was next.
• 42:13
  Okay.
• 42:13
  So it actually, it was almost like a circuit in terms of my travels in Europe.
• 42:22
  And then later,
• 42:25
  When I was here, I started to look at the map of my travel and how it made sense with my own spiritual journey.
• 42:32
  So being from New York, moving to London, then from London to Paris, then from Paris to Antwerp, and then Amsterdam, then Anguilla.
• 42:45
  Where did the Anguilla ting?
• 42:46
  Out of all the Caribbean islands.
• 42:48
  Yeah.
• 42:49
  Right.
• 42:49
  Well, one of my former students was in Anguilla and I went to Anguilla to initiate her into the mysteries of the water spirits.
• 42:58
  So what does that mean?
• 43:00
  So to make her a priestess in the line of the water spirits.
• 43:05
  So representing the water spirits as a spiritual authority, like a human spiritual authority, like an interface.
• 43:17
  So priesthood in African spiritual traditions is embodying divinity as opposed to speaking for divinity from the perspective of a text.
• 43:27
  Right.
• 43:28
  So...
• 43:30
  you are now a face and not just an anchor of continuity and culture and scripture.
• 43:38
  Right.
• 43:40
  So that resolves some cultural or internal conflicts of religion.
• 43:46
  Right.
• 43:47
  Where now you're fighting over interpretation.
• 43:49
  Right.
• 43:50
  With the scripture.
• 43:51
  Like, what does this mean?
• 43:53
  And, you know, people ignoring that some scriptures have been, you know, distorted across languages.
• 44:01
  Right.
• 44:02
  But what happens when the divinity that is an emissary of the creator can look you in your face and be like, stop cheating on your wife?
• 44:13
  You know, like or I told you about that drinking, you know, um, yeah.
• 44:20
  Yeah.
• 44:21
  What happens when there's no distance?
• 44:25
  So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:29
  So what script do you use?
• 44:33
  So our traditions are oral for the most part.
• 44:36
  Okay.
• 44:37
  But I've partly resolved one of those...
• 44:44
  internal challenges with regards to hoodoo.
• 44:47
  So, um, I wrote a scripture for hoodoo.
• 44:50
  Um, you know, last year I published the book of 121 prayers, which is a treatise on prayer.
• 44:57
  And I also provide 121 plus prayers, right?
• 45:02
  Um, because as the tradition of hoodoo, which is an African American spiritual tradition, um,
• 45:09
  I've never heard of hoodoo.
• 45:11
  Yeah.
• 45:12
  No.
• 45:12
  Well, it's everywhere.
• 45:13
  It's all over and under and through Afro-American culture.
• 45:19
  How did you come to connect with hoodoo culture?
• 45:22
  I mean, it's ancestral.
• 45:23
  So nearly all African-Americans that engage in...
• 45:28
  African-American culture.
• 45:29
  And I'm very deliberately saying African-American as opposed to just black American.
• 45:34
  Sure.
• 45:35
  One, because black is a racial demonym.
• 45:38
  And because the term African-American doesn't just originate with Jesse Jackson.
• 45:43
  Right.
• 45:43
  People think, oh, you know, during the 90s, he just made it like popular and broader in scale.
• 45:50
  But the term is from the 1780s.
• 45:53
  So the concept of being African in America is something that our ancestors have always carried across all those centuries of being enslaved.
• 46:05
  And then after chattel slavery, sharecropping and so on and so on, there was always a sense of we are displaced Africans.
• 46:14
  So in using my specific experience
• 46:20
  ethnic demonym as African American, right?
• 46:24
  And then, of course, you know, sub-ethnicities, because people look at African American or Black American as... Homogenous.
• 46:32
  Yes.
• 46:33
  Yeah.
• 46:33
  And how are 50 million people homogenous?
• 46:36
  Homogenous.
• 46:38
  spread across a huge country, right?
• 46:41
  As if there's no unique flavors, even within our language, even within AVE regionally, you know?
• 46:50
  There are features and words that exist in our language that don't exist elsewhere.
• 46:57
  Okay.
• 46:57
  Yeah.
• 46:58
  You know?
• 47:00
  And also the Africans that were taken to the United States and to these different parts of the United States were from different tribes, right?
• 47:08
  You know, and so during the great migration is how you start to see a kind of, um, stirring, you know, people coming from different parts of the U S in the South to the North, which is, you know, part of how my grandparents met, um, you know, coming from South Carolina and Louisiana, St. Louis.
• 47:32
  Um, you know, they were, they didn't have the same culture.
• 47:37
  you know, and they were both African American.
• 47:40
  So, you know, with regards to that, where were we going with that?
• 47:45
  We were going Anguilla because I thought it was very random.
• 47:48
  Oh, okay.
• 47:48
  And you explained that you had a student.
• 47:50
  Yeah, yeah, so I ended up in Anguilla.
• 47:54
  Anguilla's a beautiful island, you know, it has some of the best beaches I've ever encountered in my life.
• 48:01
  And it is also a small island.
• 48:03
  So it was very different for me as a New Yorker and as someone who would, you know, come to Anguilla straight from like other metropolized.
• 48:15
  So adjusting and slowing down and enforced celibacy.
• 48:27
  You know, yeah, you know, it's a small island.
• 48:31
  Yeah.
• 48:32
  Did you appreciate those changes at the time?
• 48:34
  Or is this appreciation more reflective?
• 48:37
  Oh, I was...
• 48:40
  I was fighting for my life.
• 48:47
  If that spiritual daughter ever encounters this interview...
• 48:52
  Yeah.
• 48:54
  Thank you for not beating me over the head with a cutlass over my complaints.
• 49:01
  Okay.
• 49:02
  I was screaming.
• 49:02
  There were times I'm like, why?
• 49:06
  How long were you there for?
• 49:08
  It was three months.
• 49:09
  Okay.
• 49:10
  Yeah.
• 49:11
  And then I went to Puerto Rico after before.
• 49:14
  Yeah.
• 49:14
  So, but yeah, that was...
• 49:19
  It was a beautiful backdrop for the things that I needed to do while I was there.
• 49:23
  And everyone thought I was Anguillian.
• 49:26
  Oh, really?
• 49:27
  Yeah, it was bad.
• 49:28
  So there's a family of musicians on the island that is also very popular within the Eastern Caribbean.
• 49:35
  And unilaterally, I mean, every time I got on the ferry to go to St. Martin or on the ferry to come back to Anguilla, are you so-and-so's child?
• 49:48
  And...
• 49:49
  The crazy part is that I actually do look like them.
• 49:53
  So they weren't just making it up.
• 49:54
  No, it wasn't just, you know, it was not like a conflation of like, you know, like, yeah.
• 50:00
  So the members of that family that I did know, they look like my siblings.
• 50:04
  Okay.
• 50:05
  Like we had the same face, the same slanted, like same cheekbones.
• 50:09
  Like it's the same face.
• 50:11
  So I could see it.
• 50:13
  And so when they would walk up to me, I'd be like, I'm not.
• 50:16
  You know it's coming.
• 50:17
  I know it's coming.
• 50:19
  You know?
• 50:21
  And who knows?
• 50:21
  Maybe we are related somehow, some way, you know?
• 50:28
  A lot of people seem to think that the US and the Caribbean are mutually exclusive from each other.
• 50:34
  Okay.
• 50:37
  As if our enslaved ancestors were not
• 50:41
  broken and processed in islands like Barbados, as if Gullah Geechee doesn't have continuity with Bajan Creole, like, you know, linguistically.
• 50:53
  Yeah.
• 50:54
  So all of this experience also embedded within me, you know, even growing up in New York, but to be in the Caribbean, right, embedded within me that the Black Atlantic is connected.
• 51:12
  You know, you can't avoid it.
• 51:15
  You know, you can avoid it online when you're having diaspora wars, but you can't do that in person.
• 51:21
  Right.
• 51:22
  And it also betrays a specific type of ignorance when I see those kind of things online that, oh, I know you've never been anywhere.
• 51:32
  And then, you know, they want to say, oh, you're being classist.
• 51:35
  You're being classist.
• 51:36
  And I'm like, well.
• 51:38
  Good luck with that because I actually have a title and a rank.
• 51:43
  A big bougie one too.
• 51:46
  Would you say that that time spent in Anguilla changed you most just because you're coming from city life?
• 51:53
  I learned how to drive there.
• 51:54
  You did?
• 51:54
  Yeah.
• 51:55
  Yeah, because New Yorkers don't really drive.
• 51:58
  No.
• 51:58
  So I drove a car.
• 52:00
  Okay.
• 52:01
  For the properly... And it wasn't a significant distance, but...
• 52:07
  Yeah, like I actually was behind the wheel and I cried for hours after that, like out of joy.
• 52:16
  You know, like for me to have gotten that far in my life without actually properly driving a car, I was calling everyone like, oh, my God, I did it.
• 52:27
  I drove a car and I turned into the lot and I parked.
• 52:30
  Did you parallel park?
• 52:32
  No.
• 52:32
  So I just, I just.
• 52:34
  Slotted in.
• 52:34
  Yeah, slotted in.
• 52:35
  Right.
• 52:37
  And it wasn't crooked.
• 52:38
  Right.
• 52:39
  You know, so it's one of those kind of things where it's like, let's say you play a game for the first time and you win and you're like, I did it and I'm not doing it again.
• 52:48
  Right.
• 52:49
  Because if I do it again, I might not win it next time.
• 52:51
  Right.
• 52:53
  Yeah, yeah.
• 52:54
  So that's where I learned how to actually drive a car.
• 52:57
  Yeah.
• 52:58
  And in terms of your character and definition of self, did a different pace do anything?
• 53:04
  Um, I resisted that pace.
• 53:08
  Okay.
• 53:09
  I learned that I do need city.
• 53:12
  Okay.
• 53:12
  Yeah, I'm not one of those people who...
• 53:16
  want to live on a farm and you know that's um it's completely counter to a lot of the expectations that people have for like a spiritual person right um you know like oh i live in the bush oh i gather all of my own herbs i'm a city man okay yeah and living in anguilla
• 53:40
  really anchored that within me.
• 53:41
  Like I really learned, you know, I appreciate nature, I'm part of nature.
• 53:48
  Even in New York, I would look for nature to be in, but I do need social engagement.
• 53:58
  I'm an extrovert, I do need people.
• 54:02
  I need noise, yeah.
• 54:05
  Even though I live in a neighborhood in Cape Town that
• 54:08
  It's very quiet, you know, upmarket.
• 54:13
  There's still cars that, you know, but there are neighborhoods in Cape Town where once it's dark, there's nothing.
• 54:20
  Right.
• 54:21
  Yeah.
• 54:23
  So I'm happy to live where I live and I can see the city, you know, from where I live.
• 54:29
  And, you know, my view is also Lion's Head and Table Mountain.
• 54:34
  Yeah, you know, well-positioned.