{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/q23qv3fc1g/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Oral history interview with Benny Starr"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2022-03-18"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eBenny Starr, born Fitzgerald Wiggins in Pineville, South Carolina, is a musician and community activist.  \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright © Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Note"]},"value":{"en":["For more information contact the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, 125 Bull Street, Charleston, SC 29424."]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Statement"]},"value":{"en":["All rights reserved."]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewee"]},"value":{"en":["Starr, Benny"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewer"]},"value":{"en":["Brown, Millicent E., 1948-"]}},{"label":{"en":["Contributing Institution"]},"value":{"en":["Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston"]}},{"label":{"en":["Resource Locator"]},"value":{"en":["AMN 1168.001.005"]}},{"label":{"en":["Digitization Specifications"]},"value":{"en":["Mp4 derivative audio and video created using Davinci Resolve. 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The name I was given when I was born is\n\nFitzgerald Wiggins.   ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=0.0,8.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nAnd what is your place of origin? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=8.0,12.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nPineville, South Carolina. It's in Berkeley County, very rural, small town in Berkeley County. It sits right between where Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie merge, in the northern part of Berkeley County. That's what I call. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=12.0,28.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nAnd how do you define yourself or describe yourself? Do you have a position? Are you working somewhere? What's your label? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=28.0,37.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nI would definitely describe myself as an artist. Currently I'm the artist in residence for US Water Alliance, a nonprofit organization who works to push forward this idea of water equity, that everybody should have access to safe, clean drinking water, potable water, waste water, and not only should they have access to it, but that they should all be able to reap the benefits of it as well. I'm finishing up my final month of my residency. It's been about 18 months. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=37.0,71.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nVery interesting. The fact that you said artist in residency was something that I would not have necessarily associated with water. Can you tell us a little bit about what that job entails? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=71.0,91.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nDefinitely. I think I became the artist in residence in October of 2020, and honestly, I was a little worried at the time because I'm a hip-hop artist, and so my practice relies heavily on me being able to convene and commune with other artists, musicians, being in the studio, creating the performance aspect of it, so that exchange between myself and the audience. And in October 2020, all of that was basically null and void because of the pandemic, so I was wondering, what am I possibly going to do, when I found out that I was... I did become the artist in residence, but it gave me time to really be introspective and really reflective about my work in a way that I hadn't given myself before, because when you are an artist, and you're a working artist, you're always on to the next thing. You're always working. You're always on to the next thing. \n\nAnd so it gave me time to be introspective about my practice, and what I essentially developed was these seven artistic elements that I found present in my career and in all of my work since I began. It's sort of like a North Star for me, and the correlation with art and water for me is water touches everything. So many different utilities, wastewater treatment plants... Just people, period. We look at the makeup of our planet, and water is life. It's essential to our lives, and as far as we can go back... You can go and track migration patterns, stories, commerce and everything, civilizations thriving based on water, wars being fought, conflict, of course, the complications of water and our relationship to it and our relationship to each other. But I also think art is similar in a way. We go back throughout our history as human beings, and people were telling stories and making hieroglyphs. They were telling the stories of love, telling the stories of life, commerce, of religion and theology, how they related to one another. \n\nAnd I think what has happened from my perspective is that the water sector as a whole is very white. It's very white and it's very male. And if we are going to be able to talk about making sure water's a human right for everybody, safe drinking water, wastewater, all these different things, because we know the effects of things like lead in the water, the effects that they have on young people and people for the rest of their lives, there's so many different ways that water impacts all of our lives. But art tethers us to our humanity. \n\nSo it's not so much about the product that I'm creating in my residency. We have enough product in the world, but what we don't have enough of, I believe, is a value of process. So this residency was more so about, what is it about the artistic process that could come into this organization, into this sector, and radically shift things, pull us away from the things that aren't working, tear them down, but also build something new, a new way of relating, a new way of understanding equity, a new way of understanding justice, a new way that makes room for culture? Because oftentimes the first thing I think that— one of the first things that white supremacy will do is they will tell us that our cultural expression, our cultural, the vastness of our culture, the way we commune, the way we relate, what we eat, where we live, our relationship with the land, with the environment, with water, it'll tell us, \"That's frivolous. This is real business over here. We ain't got no place for that.\" \n\nAnd so my residency has basically been trying to usurp that and affect processes, because even in organizations and institutions, the culture that exists in the processes are still kind of, for me, remnants of white supremacy. I say remnants like white supremacy's not thriving anymore. It's still thriving in many ways. But how can art open in the door? How can our practice, how can our processes, how can the richness of our history, our critical examination of it, and the way we collaborate, the way we build synergy with each other, the way we leave room for improvisation, getting rid of either/or thinking... And the way we bring in people who were previously shut out, not just as people to mine for information or to extract things from, but people that were honoring the knowing that they have, we're bringing them in in a leadership position, and we're then making sure that we are focusing on transference of power. \n\nThree things specifically built around my focus project is about power, purpose, and joy, so tying in art and water and how both of those two things have a long history and a very specific importance in our existence as human beings. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=91.0,398.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nYou done said a mouthful, brother. We got to unpack some of that. I really would love just a moment of understanding how you got picked up and sponsored by this Water Alliance. It's a nonprofit based in- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=398.0,419.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nBased in Washington, DC and Oakland, California. Interestingly enough, after I did a water album, I had a friend who worked at Columbia Museum of Art, and one day she sent me a message, and she said, \"Hey, I saw this interesting thing about this one water summit.\" It was a one water summit that was going to be happening in Austin, Texas, 2019, and she said there was an organization. I think it was called ArtPlace America. They're looking for art and culture delegates for anybody who's doing anything in the arts creatively around water. And she was like, \"I love your albums. You should apply. You should apply for this.\" And I- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=419.0,462.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nKind of had your name on it. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=462.0,465.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nSo I applied for it, and they reached back out and they said, \"We select you as one of our arts and culture delegates.\" I think it was that maybe July of 2019, or maybe August. I can't remember, but flew out to Austin, and this one water summer was basically a convening of utility leaders, wastewater, people who work in all the varying degrees of the water sector coming together for different plenaries, coming together for different dialogues, coming together for different discussions about this idea of one water and this idea of really proliferating water equity for people. And so we kept the relationship going. I was able to meet their CEO. Radhika Fox at the time was their CEO. She now leads the Office of Water for the EPA, and she was the CEO for Water Alliance at the time when I became the artist in residence for the Water Alliance. So when the positioned open up, they sourced from the different communities in the water sector. I think it was about maybe upward of... I believe it probably was 20 or so artists who were invited to apply. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=465.0,545.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nFrom around the country. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=545.0,546.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nFrom around the country. And I applied, had my interview virtually via Zoom, because the pandemic was happening, and in October I got the news that they had selected me to be the artist in residence. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=546.0,561.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nCongratulations.  BENNY STARR\n\nThank you. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=561.0,562.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nThank you. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=562.0,562.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nThank you.  MILLICENT BROWN \n\nIt sounds like a wonderful experience, which then leads us back to Pineville. Would that Water Alliance experience be your first time being involved in something as broad and as grand as you described? How does the little boy out Pineville even get to making the water album, I guess? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=562.0,595.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nThat's a great question. I would say I... People say this a lot, but art, creativity, imagination and all those things I think really saved my life. I grew up in Pineville, so water— just being in a Lowcountry, period, water has always been a thing, a big thing. I grew up by these two lakes, going fishing, going down to what the older folks down there called the old river at my church. If you wanted to go to the river when you get baptized, they would take you down there. My mom was a social worker growing up for Department of Social Services, and it's hurricane season, of course, June through November every year. And because she worked at Department of Social Services, the social workers were assigned to man the shelters for people who couldn't leave. So there was a few storms I remember me and my older sister being in the shelters with her because she was assigned to man those shelters. They turned middle schools or elementary schools into these shelters. \n\nAnd so water had always had a big impact on me, but when you're in a place like Pineville, it's really rural, it's peaceful, and I love the people there. I love the community. My imagination gave me a purpose. I would always lean into my head and write and read, because out in the country you have a lot of time to write and read. My grandmom, her home sat on like three acres, and she had all these— every different kind of flower, and these bushes, gardenia bushes, magnolia trees, crabapple trees, pear trees in the front yard. And she was just let me go out there, and I would be like an inquisitive child. \n\nIronically, I think it's more of a full circle moment which brought me back to the Lowcountry after I had gone off to school and stayed away from the Lowcountry, just probably running from childhood traumas and stuff. But when I came back is when I wrote the water album, when I moved back to the Lowcountry. But so many of those things during the writing of that project, and even since, you begin to connect with that young child you once were and realize that all those things that were being put into you at a very young age is now ready to bloom, in a way, and direct my life. And I think it has had a profound impact on my life in that way. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=595.0,759.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nFor the record, where did you go? You went off to school you said. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=759.0,762.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nI went to the upstate of South Carolina, so I went to USC Upstate in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and graduated in 2006 from high school. Wanted to get as far away as I could, but not too far that I wouldn't be able to just come back and see my folks, my mom. A year and a half before I graduated, my sister was killed in a car accident on Christmas Eve. Drunk driver. And a year and a half before that, my grandmother had passed away who helped raise me. And just… drug addiction impacted my family, in the household, harshly. I graduated high school. The house burned down a year after. It was just like a series of a young person not necessarily having the tools to work their way through all of that in a healthy way. \n\nSo I went off to school, and I just stayed up there. I didn't stay in school long. I stayed in school for maybe about two years, and I realized this really isn't for me, and I stopped school. And that's when, when I stopped school was when I started going into the studio a lot. So I think in ways, for me, what I'm learning now, as I'm talking to my— I have a therapist. I recently found a Black male therapist. He's also from the Lowcountry. He's great. He's helped me understand Fitzgerald had to create, I guess,  to safely navigate some of those memories or childhood experiences and losses and all those things. So I leaned all the way into my art with it, not even realizing maybe at the time as much as I realize now, but it gave me a means to talk about a lot of things that I didn't know how to talk about just as being Fitzgerald. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=762.0,883.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nAnd our support and sympathies go with you for the kinds of experiences as a young man that you were going through, not unlike a lot of other people. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=883.0,896.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nThat's right. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=896.0,899.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nAnd the support system that you described, did you think it was available to your peers, or are you an exception with that? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=899.0,915.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nI don't think so. I don't think it was. I think back then, as a teenager, as a young person... It shocks me now how quickly things move. 15 years ago, 17 years ago, therapy wasn’t— nobody talked about that. Nobody talked about what healing meant. Very few people were able, around me at least, to be able to conceptualize the practice of what it took to heal, what it took to radically forgive or radically accept things. And so I did what a lot of people that I grew up seeing— I grew up seeing a lot of people lean into something in order to just keep going, and I think subconsciously I probably committed myself to that same type of practice, and I was like, I got to do some... I, I have stuff inside of me I have to get out. \n\nAnd so I'd always been writing since I was a kid, and finally my friends convinced me, they were like, \"Yo, these poems that you're writing, these things that you're writing, it's that, but it could be so much more than that too.\" And they really pushed to... They took me in the studio. They took me around to studios in the upstate, and they were like, \"Look, if you don't want to do this, you don't have to do this, but if you want to do this, we got you, and let's figure out what this looks like, and let's... because we want to see you just thrive.\" So my support system ended up looking like a group of friends, and just a lot of people over the course of life who have contributed and supported me. But my core group of friends that I met in college ended up being a big support system for me, and even to this day. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=915.0,1040.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nI wonder if you credit your mother's experiences as a social worker, in terms of the idea of service. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1040.0,1052.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nDefinitely. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1052.0,1053.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nCould you talk a little bit about that? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1053.0,1055.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nYeah. My mother as a social worker, and my grandmother, who was... My grandmother quit school because she had to, in the third grade I believe, to help her family, went back after raising like nine kids, went back, got her GED, became a teacher's aide in the Berkeley County school system for like 25, 30 years. So very early on— when I actually got to college, I was a secondary education major. I wanted to teach kids. But definitely just the approach that they have, the stories that they would tell... And they would never... Interestingly enough, now that I think back, they would never emphasize, \"You have to serve in order to live a life of purpose.\" \n\nI gleaned so much just from how they lived. They were definitely service-oriented, committed to community, committed to the family, planning how I'm going to... I just remember my mom working so many jobs when I was a kid. Single mom. I remember her working for DSS. I remember her being a substitute teacher. I remember working at the Callen-Lacey Shelter for a while. Sometimes we wouldn't see her from the moment we got up till it was almost time to go back to bed because she would just be working to make sure she took care of us, and she had a passion for it. She would come home and tell us stories sometimes about things that she had seen that's like hard to process, things that you see happen to kids that shouldn't be happening to them. And even the failings of the system that is supposed to be put in place to protect them, even those failings. \n\nSo I definitely credit her. I credit my grandmother with this idea of service, and all the music they played and the books that they allowed me to get lost into. It all came together in this very interesting way for me. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1055.0,1181.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nYou mentioned the word \"system\". It sounds like these personal experiences are leading you into some kind of a political understanding. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1181.0,1193.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nYeah. I would like to think that— yes, very different than the one I used to have. I remember being in second grade at J. K. Gourdin Elementary School. My teacher, her name was Ms. Kirby. I think she still might be teaching. Ms. Amanda Kirby. She used to write on the back of my report cards to my mom every nine weeks. She would be like, \"Fitzgerald says he wants to be the first Black president of the United States, and I believe he can do it.\" And now as an adult, I feel like I've developed another level of political awareness that... Whereas my trajectory isn't really leading me to necessarily want to be an elected official- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1193.0,1235.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nAn elected official. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1235.0,1237.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nRight. It's not leading me to want to be an elected official, but more reconnecting me with people and the needs of people and their condition and understanding that their condition didn't arrive out of osmosis, and it's not being maintained out of osmosis. It's by design. But also how to... the understanding of that, while also I want... Especially young people, I want them to be able to have more tools than I had at my disposal. Now, art ended up saving me, but we're drifting. I think, very personally, we're drifting into a world where we are really, really, really concerned with product all the time. Everything is about product, and everything is about product, but none of us are a finished product. I'll be a finished product when I'm gone. We're constantly in process, and we're constantly on this journey, writing our own stories. \n\nSo how do I take everything that I can gain from my work, my practice, my art, and shift that power and shift those resources to people who look just like me, who grew up where I grew up, and people who didn't of where I grew up, to give them some semblance of power, purpose, and joy so that we can then collectively go out with a heightened level of political awareness and take power? Because I don't believe power is going to be given to us. I don't know that we'll be able to necessarily bargain for it in some form or another. Collectively, we will have to take it and demand it, and I don't always know what that looks like. It could look a myriad of ways, but that's my life's purpose at this point. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1237.0,1346.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nLet's bring you into the Charleston community at the timeframe, again, even for this study, of... Lots going on. There's the Walter Scott murder. There are demonstrations. There are some street protests. Can you tell us the extent to which you were involved directly in any of that? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1346.0,1377.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nOkay. Around the time of, I think Trayvon... I remember when Trayvon Martin was shot. I was still in the upstate. These shootings were all on TV. Remember when Michael Brown got shot, and I was actually recording an album called Free Lunch. It was my first album. That was recorded around 2015. We had set a release date for 2015, Juneteenth, and although I was still living in the upstate, because I had Lowcountry ties, my first show that I ever did was in Charleston. It was at Music Farm. So I would come down periodically with a lot of my musical friends who were living here, and we would do performances all the time. So the majority of my fan base were split between the Lowcountry and the Charleston area and the upstate. \n\nAnd I remember when we decided to release the album on Juneteenth, we reached out to so many different venue owners to do a release event. No one would let us do a release event because it was hip-hop. We got one place at the time to allow us to do a release event. It was a place on King called King Dusko at the time, and we made the agreement we were doing a release event there. This was 2015, Juneteenth. Two days before the release event, Mother Emanuel happened, so we changed the release party into a release event for young people, because there was a reality we knew that they didn't like Black people downtown like that. \n\nSo the fact that we had this one venue who had let us... who were ready to let us do a hip-hop show, we converted it into this release party for people to come and just have their emotions, to be able to commune with one another, a lot of young people, some of them who became my friends and are still my friends to this day. And we all came that night, and it was a lot of tears and a lot of anger and a lot of... It was just a lot, but I remember that moment because it was the moment when I decided that I was going to move back down to the Lowcountry, and I said that in my mind. I was like, \"Something's pulling me back here, and I don't know what it is.\" But it took me another maybe two years to come down here and to move back to the Lowcountry was, which was 2017. \n\nBut a few of those protests I can definitely remember being at. It was also just a— it was also a tough time for me, because I was just seeing a lot of Black people being shot on TV. It was just hard. And I tried to lean more into music and connecting with people that I knew were involved in the movement in different ways, finding out what ways I could be supportive, or they would reach out and find out any way they could be supportive. But it was just a... I just remember it being a very, very difficult, emotional, difficult, emotional time. \n\nAnd then moving back to Charleston and seeing how white it was, was very, very, very difficult. I would always wear a “X” hat, for Malcolm X. I would always just wear the X hat, and I would— it was just always a stark difference, sometimes when I would be in Charleston, and Black folk would see me, and they'd be like, \"I like that hat.\" And then white folks would see the hat, and they'd be like, \"Did you go to Xavier?\" And I'm like... And it was just a constant reminder, all these micro-aggressions, but some of them not even micro, you walking into some place, and white security guard asking you why you're there, or could you take off your hat in here, or things like that. \n\nJust seeing the displacement, seeing people get pushed out, seeing the way Black people were being made to occupy only positions of service, it really was... It really was just... It was a real tough time. It was a real tough time. I remember that period very well, but it's also kind of a blur. But I remember the protests. I remember many conversations amongst friends. I remember many songs being recorded, some that got released, some that didn't. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1377.0,1685.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nWho are some of the people that you're talking about, that you're talking to?  BENNY STARR\n\nWe have Matt Monday, a good friend of mine, hip-hop artist from Charleston. A friend in Denver... I think she's in Texas at this point, Mika Gaston, Daron, Claire- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1685.0,1690.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nWe have Matt Monday, a good friend of mine, hip-hop artist from Charleston. A friend in Denver... I think she's in Texas at this point, Mika Gaston, Daron, Claire- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1690.0,1690.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nWe have Matt Monday, a good friend of mine, hip-hop artist from Charleston. A friend in Denver... I think she's in Texas at this point, Mika Gaston, Daron, Claire-  MILLICENT BROWN \n\nCalhoun? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1690.0,1710.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nCalhoun. Daron Calhoun. Claire Benson, a few conversations with Muhiyidin. So many. There are a lot of names. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1710.0,1738.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nBut you seem to have connected with the folks that were making the most noise and raising most of the public issues. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1738.0,1750.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nDefinitely. Definitely. And it was just not an easy time, and it was... The more you learn about what was going on behind the scenes and how tough it was even for those people... Whenever you're speaking out very outright, very directly, it's just a very different thing. And I begin to be conscious of it sometimes when I'm on stage, because when you're a working artist, you go on these stages, and you'll say these things. You call yourself speaking truth to power, but you walk up on stage, you don't have security, necessarily, and you see seas of white faces, and you can tell sometimes that everybody does not agree with what you say. So it was just thinking—","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1750.0,1803.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nDid you have any incidents that you remember of that kind of pushback?  BENNY STARR\n\nI've had incidences where people would come up after shows. They weren't overtly violent, but people would come up after shows, when you're trying to be in your space, and they'll be like, \"Hey, man, I love your songs, but I think there's another perspective that you're...\" The varying degrees of that. There were also varying degrees of... Something that I don't really talk, I haven't really talked about, but that I had to really be reflective about, is the way in which... And it never made me feel comfortable... the way in which sometimes white women would engage me, going as far as to sometimes the way white women would try to touch me off of stage. If I come off of a performance or if I... just this idea that they had access somehow to my body. And some people may not think... It's like sex, drugs, rock and roll. But for me, it's not necessarily that. \n\nAnd I would notice it would be a very, very particular thing, because when you're an independent artist, sometimes in these spaces, intimate venues and places, and just the idea that you have the ability to touch me in a specific way or touch me at all is something that is very…It was just— There was this culture that I— It just never really made me feel comfortable, and then it made me start to think about what shows I don't need to be doing, where I don't need to be performing at, and just making sure I always retain my dignity as a Black man. So there was so many... I'm saying all this to say, just all of these things happening at one time, during the course of several years, and you're just having to sit with it while you're in it, not necessarily having the resources to figure it out or to get the type of support you need to figure it out. But it was a challenging time in a lot of ways. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1803.0,1809.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nI've had incidences where people would come up after shows. They weren't overtly violent, but people would come up after shows, when you're trying to be in your space, and they'll be like, \"Hey, man, I love your songs, but I think there's another perspective that you're...\" The varying degrees of that. There were also varying degrees of... Something that I don't really talk, I haven't really talked about, but that I had to really be reflective about, is the way in which... And it never made me feel comfortable... the way in which sometimes white women would engage me, going as far as to sometimes the way white women would try to touch me off of stage. If I come off of a performance or if I... just this idea that they had access somehow to my body. And some people may not think... It's like sex, drugs, rock and roll. But for me, it's not necessarily that. \n\nAnd I would notice it would be a very, very particular thing, because when you're an independent artist, sometimes in these spaces, intimate venues and places, and just the idea that you have the ability to touch me in a specific way or touch me at all is something that is very…It was just— There was this culture that I— It just never really made me feel comfortable, and then it made me start to think about what shows I don't need to be doing, where I don't need to be performing at, and just making sure I always retain my dignity as a Black man. So there was so many... I'm saying all this to say, just all of these things happening at one time, during the course of several years, and you're just having to sit with it while you're in it, not necessarily having the resources to figure it out or to get the type of support you need to figure it out. But it was a challenging time in a lot of ways. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1809.0,1809.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nI've had incidences where people would come up after shows. They weren't overtly violent, but people would come up after shows, when you're trying to be in your space, and they'll be like, \"Hey, man, I love your songs, but I think there's another perspective that you're...\" The varying degrees of that. There were also varying degrees of... Something that I don't really talk, I haven't really talked about, but that I had to really be reflective about, is the way in which... And it never made me feel comfortable... the way in which sometimes white women would engage me, going as far as to sometimes the way white women would try to touch me off of stage. If I come off of a performance or if I... just this idea that they had access somehow to my body. And some people may not think... It's like sex, drugs, rock and roll. But for me, it's not necessarily that. \n\nAnd I would notice it would be a very, very particular thing, because when you're an independent artist, sometimes in these spaces, intimate venues and places, and just the idea that you have the ability to touch me in a specific way or touch me at all is something that is very…It was just— There was this culture that I— It just never really made me feel comfortable, and then it made me start to think about what shows I don't need to be doing, where I don't need to be performing at, and just making sure I always retain my dignity as a Black man. So there was so many... I'm saying all this to say, just all of these things happening at one time, during the course of several years, and you're just having to sit with it while you're in it, not necessarily having the resources to figure it out or to get the type of support you need to figure it out. But it was a challenging time in a lot of ways.  MILLICENT BROWN \n\nMore than just music. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1809.0,1948.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nMore than just music. Definitely. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1948.0,1952.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nTake us back for a minute to that event right after Emanuel, that release party. Can you just share with us, how did the word get out about it? How did all these young people know to turn up, and what did you see happening that night? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1952.0,1971.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nAt that time, I had already had a good underground following who had been following a lot out of my earlier projects. And we let them know that we were releasing this first official album, and the whole album was basically about— The concept of the album was looking at my own life through the lens of sixties, the Black liberation movement throughout the Sixties. So there all these touch-points in different songs on the album. So we had been... We had announced that we were going to release the album maybe months in advance on Juneteenth. We worked with a local... At that time, she was an event planner here, and Von planned the event. King Dusko was the only place that let us have it. \n\nAnd so everyone— the word was spreading, like we're going to this Juneteenth. It was on Juneteenth. It was the first of many projects I was dropping on Juneteenth, and everybody was excited because consciousness for our generation was being raised at that point. This is 2015. Everybody's ready to celebrate Juneteenth. What is Juneteenth for a lot of people? And we love that, and we were going to be Juneteenth, we were going to be downtown, and we were going to be celebrating a new album from Benny. And when it happened Wednesday, all the calls amongst everyone just started in Texas, just started to circulate. Everybody was posting on their social medias about it, calling each other, asking if each other is okay. \n\nSomeone who was lost in Emanuel, I hung out with him twice, and this is how small the world is, Tywanza. So we were all in Charlotte one time, like maybe a year or so prior, and we were doing this— it was this rap competition thing that one of my homeboys got me to sign up for. I didn't necessarily want to do it, but they wanted me to do it. It was something to do. Got up there, totally bombed. It was terrible. Totally bombed, and it was terrible. And I'm just looking over in the corner at my friends, and Tywanza and some other friends I went to college with, and they was like, \"It's all right, man. We good.\" And I still have that picture that all of us took there. Then we came back up to Charlotte maybe a couple months later, hung out with them again. Just a good time. And then finding out that he was there. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=1971.0,2142.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nNot only was he there. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2142.0,2146.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nNot only was he there. Right. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2146.0,2151.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nFinish it for us. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2151.0,2152.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nHe was killed, and it was— I just remember lots of friends texting each other, calling each other, calling people from our hometown communities, and it was just like a— it was a surreal thing, like, is this really happening? This can't really be happening. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2152.0,2180.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nThis happened someplace else. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2180.0,2181.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nThis happened someplace else. This couldn't have happened here. And people needed that place that night. I think we had, I think, maybe 200 or something people ended up coming through that night and just being there and talking with each other and laughing, some tears, some performances on the microphone. It was just a space where people could literally release, and we needed that. And I didn't even realize how much everyone needed it. I needed it. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2181.0,2212.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nWas there any publicity about that? Did anybody ever-  BENNY STARR\n\nA news- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2212.0,2216.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nA news- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2216.0,2216.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nA news-  MILLICENT BROWN \n\n... write that up in the paper, that this was a thing? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2216.0,2219.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nNo, nobody. A news camera did come by there that night, a reporter. I can't remember her name, but she was a young Black reporter, female reporter for a local news station. She did have a chance... She did come by with a camera. I can't remember if the story actually ever ran, but she did come. Some of the folks inside did come outside and talk to her, talked to her about the event, what it was supposed to be originally and what it ended up turning into, but I don't think the story... I don't remember the story running. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2219.0,2262.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nSomeone has mentioned you in connection with the slave baby incident. Can you tell us about that? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2262.0,2273.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nYeah.  MILLICENT BROWN \n\nI think it was 2016. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2273.0,2275.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nI think it was 2016. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2275.0,2275.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nI think it was 2016.  BENNY STARR\n\nIt was 2016. So in 2016, I'm still in the Upstate, but I'm coming back and forth, doing shows. A lot of my fan base is here, about a year before I moved back here to the Lowcountry. It was some venue... I want to say it was the Commodore. Maybe someone had a show that night, and they were- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2275.0,2299.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nThe Commodore is a club? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2299.0,2301.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nThe Commodore is a club, formerly a club called Touch of Class, A Touch of Class. So the Commodore is a club that a band was performing at, and somehow, someone from the band or something, I believe they drew an image or a word. They were trying to... I don't know if they were trying to be quirky. I don't know what it was, but that's not quirky for me. And it was called slave baby or whatever it was. It was a image, or it was calligraphy or something. And then they posted it, I believe, somewhere online, and there's all this backlash that happens because of it, because of how offensive it was. \n\nAnd I remember getting calls from friends who were artists and activists down here, and I remember some of the conversations that we had, and the direction that the conversations began to take was the drawing is... The words are terrible, the drawings are terrible, but there's an even bigger problem. There's an even bigger issue. The fact that you could be that comfortable in a space, in this club that don't allow Black people really, don't allow hip-hop, don't allow Black people... When I say hip-hop, I specifically say hip-hop because the practitioners of hip-hop are often Black and brown people. It's direct from here to the microphone to the people. And there's also some type— there’s a class analysis there for what the society of Charleston deems as high art. But there's a bigger conversation to be had about why Black people don't have access to these venues, but Black people can come there and spend their money, but they can't perform. They can't make a living. They can't build their brands and do the things that they do. \n\nAnd so during that time, that incident began to be linked to the issue of, if you feel that comfortable in this venue that you can do that, what does it say about the culture of this venue, the type of culture that you allow here? Also with the fact that several venues across Charleston just refuse to allowed Black acts to play, and that ended up leading to this community forum that we had at the old Redux on a Sunday afternoon in 2016. And we invited... It was open to the public, open to the community. Myself, I think KJ Kearney, Von Postma, Matt Monday, Wolfgang Zimmerman was there, just a lot of different artists from the artist community. And we invited all these venue owners to say, so what's the issue, and the public was there. And we had that conversation. \n\nIt got heated, of course, because people were tired. People were fed up. It was like, y'all are here in this very Black place, but you all don't love Black people. You love the money we spend with you, but you don't respect our creations. You don't respect our culture, etc., etc. And it got very heated. Only about three venue owners showed up that day. I remember specifically one was the owner of the Commodore, who got at that time... And I don't know if he's still the owner of the Commodore. White guy, but he got held accountable pretty hard by the audience, by the people in there who said, \"Now, you know you don't let Black people perform. You know you don't let hip-hop play here. Tell the truth.\" John Kenny, who owns the Royal American, he came. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2301.0,2536.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nWhite or Black? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2536.0,2537.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nWhite guy. Charles, the director of Charleston Music Hall came, and I think at the time Eclectic Cafe and maybe Tin Roof, they were watching... They were live on the livestream. We had a livestream, and they were live at the livestream. And it was tough. It was some hard conversations that had to be had. It wasn't hard for us, but I think it was hard for a lot of those venue owners, because they had to be accountable, and they had to really say, \"Okay, I was— maybe I wasn't letting...\" \n\nBut I remember getting a call from John Kenny, the owner of Royal American, after the forum, and John ends up being one of my friends to this day. But he called me, and I remember him saying... because we told... We sent inquiries about performing at Royal American, myself, Matt Monday, other artists that we know, and the excuse would always be, \"Well, you have to be good to play this stage. This is a player's stage. You got to be able to play to be on the stage.\" And we had a long conversation when he called me after the forum a few days, maybe a week later. He said, \"That was hard. The forum was hard.\" And he admitted, he was like, \"I was uncomfortable, but instead of just burying myself in that, I went back and looked through those emails, and yeah, you did send... You and several artists have sent inquiries, and your music is good.\" And he was like, \"I want to make a change.\" \n\nAnd since then, so many artists that I know have been able to perform, not only perform on that stage, book those venues have festivals there. Matt Monday's Cultural Festival has been there. Same thing with Charles. We recorded a water album at the Music Hall, but prior to that, there were no indie hip-hop artists. I think I might have been the first, and I'm tired of being first. I think I might have been the first independent local act to be… Black hip-hop artist to be on the stage of the Music Hall. \n\nAnd so I think it was one example of the way art as a form of activism... because people would just tell us, \"Just perform, just write songs,\" but we- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2537.0,2685.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nJust play ball. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2685.0,2686.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nJust play ball. Just shut up and dribble. Right. But we were a part of the community. The work that we create aims to honor the community, honor the culture of the community and the legacy of the community, and we can't just think about ourselves. So what we were trying to do was bring people together and show the power of the collective, of the public, because people didn't have to come that Sunday, but they filled up the room, and they held people with power to account to say, \"No, that ain't right, and you know what you're doing is not right. And either you're going to change it, or we're not going to... we're just going to... and let you figure it out.\" And I think... So it was a lot of people involved. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2686.0,2734.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nEncouraging to you? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2734.0,2737.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nIt was encouraging. It was encouraging, but at the same time, it's like, you try to strive for these particular moments of success, like a small win. You have to grab onto those, because when you turn around— and I think to myself, where are the venues Black folk own? Where's our ownership? You have that small win, and then you turn around and look at how systematically Black people have been squeezed of ownership in places like here, of their land, squeezed out of entrepreneurship, not given the resources. \n\nWhen I did a water album, we crowd-sourced the funding for it. I remember going, having a meeting with the city, and saying, \"Look, just give me three grand,\" which wasn't even 30% of the budget. This full band, it's just a production, recording it live. But what we want to do, I wanted to make it free for tri-county area students and educators, because I wanted kids to be able to see something in their backyard that I wish I was able to see. And we ended up having students from Moncks Corner, Goose Creek, Burke— teachers bringing their students, parents bringing the kids. The city was like, \"Well, no. We'll give you 1,500.\" \n\nAnd after, what ended up happening was— maybe they didn't think it was going to be very successful, and then afterward, they asked, \"We would love to send— do a MOJA interview with you about the water album.\" I was like, \"No, thank you. I don't want the mayor on stage playing a piano.\" Yeah. It was just an interesting time. It was very interesting. Time was hard. It was hard. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2737.0,2871.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nOne of the things that this project wants to be remembered for is that we don't know who is going to be listening to you five, 10, 20 years from now. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2871.0,2884.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nThat's right. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2884.0,2885.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nYeah. And knowing that some people, researchers, schoolchildren, who knows, is going to pull up this interview, what is it that you think you want to say, that you're saying to them? Because they may not be around to see you in person, perhaps, but what is it that you want on your record? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2885.0,2919.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nI want... ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2919.0,2921.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nAnd I say records. I keep using... I don't mean vinyl records. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2921.0,2925.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nI understand. No. Yeah. I understand. Yes, ma'am. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2925.0,2927.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nThe historic record. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2927.0,2928.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nHistoric record. I want them to understand that there's so much richness and beauty to being Black, and the things that we have created and the things that we continue to create, our culture, the way we talk with each other, the way we relate to one another. We have history that has been opposed at every turn, and even in a place like... Especially in a place like South Carolina, in a place like the Lowcountry, in a place like Charleston, I don't want it to ever be twisted that we didn't have to fight for the things that we got, for the small gains even that we sometimes get. We had to fight for coverage in newspapers. We had to fight to have a newspaper, fight to keep a newspaper, fight to be seriously engaged as Black artists, for our work to be seriously reviewed and seriously critiqued by people who were charged with covering the news, covering events. We were often given very little resources. I've watched white artists squander a lot of resources, and they get chance after chance after chance. \n\nI want whoever watches this after me just to know that it was very difficult, and it remains very difficult in Charleston, as an institution has a way of squeezing you when you do not do exactly what they want you to do. When you do not comply with a narrative that they often want you to comply with or adopt, they have a way of squeezing you. But I want young people to know that there is strength, there is power and purpose and joy in honoring the traditions that Black folk who have fought before us left behind. We have to fight for everything. Get together with your colleagues and your contemporaries and your friends and find community there. Lean into your craft. Study your history, because it's not going to come easy. \n\nI really want them to know that I personally, as an artist, my work is made with Black people in mind. Anybody could enjoy it if they have taste, I believe, but my work is made and directed towards Black people. It is an exchange with Black people, because that's the community that I come from. And sometimes your journey might pull you away from a place that you call home, and you'll find your way back. Allow yourself to go on that journey, but always keep in mind, not just yourself. I'm never just thinking about myself. I want them to think about others who will come after them, others who may not have the name recognition that they may have. It's about resources, and it's about the pride that we have in being who we are, and that's always under attack. \n\nSo fortify yourself, whatever that is, spiritual fortification, cultural fortification. Whatever it is, whatever your practice may be or your theology may be, fortify yourself, because it's always going to be a struggle, but there's beauty still in the struggle. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=2928.0,3172.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN \n\nThank you so much, Benny. We appreciate it. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=3172.0,3175.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029/transcript/93104/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENNY STARR\n\nThank y'all for having me. \n\n ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/169443/file/308029#t=3175.0,3179.0"}]}]}]}