Poets Marsha Music and T. Miller and filmmaker Julia Yezbick discuss their respective projects "The Detroitist," "Raising Carlito," and "marratein, marratein" and the role of storytelling and personal narrative to speak to and elevate under-represented voices and people. The Living X podcast is hosted by Ryan Myers-Johnson, executive director of Sidewalk Detroit, and edited/mixed by Wayne Ramocan of Red Carpet Lounge. This episode features music by Pamela Wise. The Living X podcast is a product of rootoftwo and made possible with support from The Kresge Foundation.
This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and before the August 4, 2020 tragedy in Beirut, Lebanon.
About "The Detroitist"
The Detroitist is a new anthology of Marsha Music's essays and lyric poems, focused on Detroit's history, mid-century transition, and contemporary changes. This anthology brings together the personal and the historical through writings on John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, and Detroit techno - as well as the 1967 Rebellion, and her years as an activist and labor leader. The Detroitist features “Requiem for a Record Shop Man,” Marsha’s narrative about her father Joe Von Battle’s record shop, Black Bottom; Hastings Street; 12th Street; and the Black experience in Detroit.
About Marsha Music
Marsha Music was born in Detroit and grew up in Highland Park, Michigan. She is the daughter of legendary pre-Motown record producer Joe Von Battle and West Side Detroit beauty and music lover Shirley Battle. Marsha is a former activist and labor leader and a noted speaker. She has contributed to significant Detroit narratives, including Untold Tales, Unsung Heroes: An Oral History of Detroit’s African American Community, University of Michigan’s Living Music oral history project, and Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit, as well as an HBO documentary on the Detroit Tigers. In 2015, she was commissioned to create a poem about Detroit for Tod Machover’s acclaimed Symphony in D, which she read in performances with Detroit Symphony Orchestra. A Detroit cultural luminary, Marsha was the opening speaker for the July 2016 launch of the Detroit '67 project at the Detroit Historical Museum and was commissioned to create a poem for the Belle Isle Conservancy. Music received a 2015 Knight Arts Challenge award and was a 2015 New Museum IdeasCity Detroit fellow. In 2018, she lost her husband, the artist David Philpot, and she feels his supportive spirit in this project.
About "Raising Carlito"
Raising Carlito is a documentary that highlights the challenges of imprisoned women of color raising their children. The film follows 10-year-old Carlito as he is being raised in Detroit by his paternal aunt, maternal grandmother, and imprisoned mother. The documentary takes a deep and personal look at the challenges he and his caregivers navigate both inside and outside of prison walls. Raising Carlito gives voice to the children and families navigating the complex circumstances and relationships stemming from incarceration.
About T. Miller
Natasha T. Miller is a performance poet, writer, LGBTQ activist, film producer, and founder of Artists’ Inn Detroit, a bed and breakfast for artists. Natasha is a three-time Women of the World Poetry Slam finalist and has been part of four national slam teams. In 2010, she starred in a national Sprite commercial and started her publishing company All I Wanna Say Publishing. Since then, she has published two books, Dreams of a Beginner and Coming Out of Nowhere, a social networking memoir about homosexuality, religion, and cyberbullying. Natasha has been on three national tours and performed at renowned venues across the country. She believes her purpose is to create change and peace like so many great leaders before her.
About "marratein, marratein"
marratein, marratein is a film about two cities: Detroit and Beirut. It is a film about belonging, diasporas, and the uncertainty of returning to a place to which one has never actually been. Shot on Super 8 to evoke the feeling of home movies, with voice-over excerpts from Lebanese American poet Etel Adnan, the film comments on the performance of tradition and the struggle of finding or creating one’s own sense of identity and cultural belonging at a time when such things have taken on renewed political and social significance.
About Julia Yezbick
Julia Yezbick is a filmmaker, artist, and anthropologist. She received her PhD in media anthropology and critical media practice from Harvard University and an MA in visual anthropology from the University of Manchester. Her artistic work is grounded in long-term engagements with people and places and is often a critical part of her academic pursuits exploring labor and the body, the materiality of postindustrial urban landscapes, the senses, processes of creative knowledge production, and housing and the built environment. Her audio and video work has shown at the Berlinale Forum Expanded, MoMA PS1, the New York Library for Performing Arts, Pravo Ljudski Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Mostra Internacional do Filme Etnográfico, The International Ethnographic Film Festival of Quebec, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. She is a recipient of a Dan David Prize for plastic arts. Yezbick is the founding Editor of Sensate, an online journal for experiments in critical media practice, and co-directs Mothlight Microcinema. She lives and works in Detroit.
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INTRO (00:04):
In this episode, Ryan explores the power of storytelling with writers and filmmakers Marsh and music team Miller and Julia aspect. They discuss the way personal narrative can elevate the voices of underrepresented people together. They detail the intricate relationships. Their works have to people at the place. This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 had dinner. Today we are joined by Marsha music teacher, quite luminary historian, literary artist, and overall amazing creative individual, as well as Tee Miller performance poet, LGBTQ activists and film producer, and last but not least Julia Yezbick, film maker artists and anthropologist. Welcome everyone.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (01:03):
So I'm really excited to hear about the things that you were working on for Art X Detroit. So we'll just dive right in. Marsha, can you tell us a bit about your Art X Detroit project in yourself as a creative person? Well, my project for Art X was originally a project highlighting a book, however in the process of working through the project, I ended up changing the focus of the book itself and doing another book than what I had originally intended. And so my Art X project became the, the creation of the book and the launch events of the book, which were very, very gratifying to me. This is my first book, although I have been published in over a dozen anthologies about Detroit, but this was my first book on my own. And I'm very proud of it. It is called the Detroit.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (02:16):
Can you tell us a little bit more about the Detroit is the book that is a really captivating title?
New Speaker (02:22):
Well, I have a, for some time self identified as the Detroit is I've called myself that because of my really singular focus on the city of Detroit. And of course on my hometown that is just within the city of Detroit, which is Highland park, which is of course essential to the development of Detroit, but I call myself the Detroit is, and when it came time to name my first book that was the natural choice, the Detroit, because I established myself as a writer who is focused on the city and focused on stories that I tell about my life and my family's life in the city. So I was looking at how I could bring together some of the writings that I have done down through the last years.
Marsha Music (03:27):
And I made the decision to pull together up five pieces of mine, two essays and three points that I have written over the last few years. And I am very pleased because I always wanted to have kind of a pocket book just for a very convenient portable kind of book that you could just stick in a purse or stick in a backpack. And it has these stories that I've been writing about Detroit that have been very highly acclaimed, very well received pieces that I've done.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (04:09):
Wow. I can't wait to be able to dive into some of those stories and kind of learn more from Detroit is not a Detroit it's by the detritus. So Julia, your work is also exploring some of your history and background within the city. Have you tried in Beirut as well? Correct. Can you just tell us about your creative practice and also what you were exploring with artists Detroit?
Julia Yezbick (04:39):
Yes. so my project was called Meritain Meritain, which is Arabic for twice and I, the redundancy is deliberate. And it was a project that initially kind of grew out of a response I had to taking my first trip to Beirut, which was September in the, in September of 2018. I had never been before. It was my first time there and I've been wanting to go for a very long time. My dad's family is from Beirut, but I'm a fourth generation Lebanese Americans. So it's so I was really kind of interested in thinking about identity and this kind of very long in the kind of longterm game of it. You know, we, we certainly talk a lot and hear a lot about first and second generation immigrants and and they have very real struggles, no doubt.
Julia Yezbick (05:35):
But I was kind of interested in sort of like what happens at, like, at that kind of longer end of the spectrum in terms of our relationship to these places that we have very little connection to, but yet are a part of who we think we are or how we identify ourselves. And and so for me, it was really interesting because my trip to Beirut was marked by a sort of odd sense of just sort of ambiguity. Like I didn't I didn't have like a super romanticized, you know, like, Oh, this is mine, my motherland, you know, and this is my home. I have returned kind of feeling. But it felt familiar in a way that was less romantic than just sort of familiar in a, in a kind of dull way. I mean, I hate to use that word because it was still a great experience, but so what I was interested in playing with or exploring in this piece was romanticization as a concept and how it relates to nostalgia and to memory and to the ways that we think of former places or places as they used to be.
Julia Yezbick (06:38):
And so I was kind of took as a jumping point for the film project. It was it's all shot on super eight. I think in the end it's still a work in progress, but I think in the end it will probably be around 20 minutes or so. So a short, but the jumping off point was also, I was interested in the idea that both Detroit and Beirut have at one times called themselves the Paris of the like fill in the blank, the Paris of the middle East or the Paris of the Midwest. And so I was interested in thinking about what it meant to have this kind of backward looking way of, of thinking about a place and it's sort of glorified times, you know, whatever that might mean in relation to this third, very kind of stereotypical romantic place. And I've never been to Paris, so it's all the better.
Julia Yezbick (07:27):
But when I started working on the project, actually, I kind of ended up once I did a rough cut and did a rough cut screening in December at the Arab American national museum that, that kind of cut of the piece really ended up being a little bit more about motherhood as well. And thinking about the relationships between even sort of metaphorically between motherhood and motherland and kind of trying to get at some of those, the kind of more nuanced spaces in there that have to do with the ways that both are romanticized, but also the complicated relationships that we have to these ideas, I guess. So that's kind of where it sits. I, yeah, it's still a work in progress though. So I'm still kind of like curious to see where it lands when it's all done.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (08:17):
Right. That's amazing. Thinking about do you trade, you know, you do hear about this history of Detroit looking at itself as the Paris of the Midwest, and that does a really interesting parallel between Beirut and I was dropping your stories. So T you're also exploring life in Detroit in some really unique ways through filmmaking. Can you tell us about the work that you're have been exploring with Art X Detroit in your practice? Of course. So my project was the trailer to a film that I'm directing and producing called raising Carlito. And I'm
T. Miller (08:56):
Carlito though is my nephew. If anybody follows me, you know, he's kind of very prominent in my life. His, his father was murdered a few years ago in Detroit. And after that his mother is now serving an eight year prison sentence, which is it's kinda ironic that we're doing this today because we were actually here writing a character reference letters to try to get her release from prison early. But something that we were exploring with the trailer and with the film is what is it like to coparent with women who are behind bars? What is it like for women of color to raise children and from behind bars, you know, we know how hard it is for you to actually present when you're raising a black boy in America. So to think about what it's like to not be able to physically be here and, and have to raise your kid with somebody else behind bars.
T. Miller (09:53):
So we were kind of exploring like a lot of the conflicts with that, you know Carlito was being raised between me being raised between his grandmother. And then also with his mother, you know, sometimes all three of us have these very vastly different ways of parenting. So we wanted the film to kind of explore what that relationship look like, but to also to highlight what is like for the children that are in these situations. I don't think that we have enough film that focused on, you know what are Carlito feelings in you know, what is it like for him on a day to day basis? So it's a film that pretty much follows his life follows his, his mother's life in prison, but we're also bringing in different children who were raised in similar environments. And we're also dealing with women who have been to prison, been in prison, been released.
T. Miller (10:44):
Example of that is a woman who's in the film. She lost her five year old son while she was in prison. He had a heart transplant and he passed away and she was not able to attend the funeral. And she had to go and say, I think the words office, and basically be on like a zoom funeral. And she's telling a story in the film of like how insensitive the warden is, like filing papers and answering phone calls and doing all of this normal stuff by her whole life has been shaken and, and has ultimately been changed. So for me, raising Carlito was just about exploring, you know, those relationships. So you'll see a lot of personal narrative, lot of my story, a lot of Carlito's story, but again a lot of other mothers in the film as well, also, it was just about, you know, that relationship to coherence and, and being in prison.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (11:32):
Wow. Yeah. That's so the work was a trailer and you're still in the process of creating a documentary. Yeah. So this is really you were all exploring these deep sort of complicated relationships with Detroit and with place. And so I would just like to ask you
Marsha Music (11:55):
What is the impact on the landscape that you're living in, in Detroit, on your creative practice? Well, for me, the current landscape is highly impacted by the COVID 19 crisis. And the way that that has affected the work that I do as a writer is that I found myself just as a way of self comfort first. I began writing about the first people that I had heard that had died. And I knew personally, I was very distressed about the characterization of the victims, those who have succumbed as just statistical examples, you know, I would hear on the news, you have these numbers of people dying and you had these statistics and you had all of these tropes about poverty and lack of care and all these kind of things impacting this. But I was seeing a group of Detroiters or Detroit area people whose roots were in Detroit.
Marsha Music (13:34):
I was seeing them succumbing to this, and these were very accomplished middle class to upper middle class, even affluent Detroiters who had been very active in the city, active in the arts. I was very educated. I became dedicated to wanting to tell their stories, to put a face on the dumps of the virus. I couldn't write about everybody, but I could write about goals whom I knew. Unfortunately I happen to know a lot of them. And so gradually I began to write about them one by one, and it was something that I was unaccustomed to writing about people who had died. And I had to be very cautious about how I wrote maintain the utmost respect utmost somberness what are the same time celebrating the lives of these individuals? And so I would say that it has
New Speaker (14:52):
The, the atmosphere here in Detroit has truly changed a trajectory of my work at least for this period of time. Well, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. It is this sort of unprecedented attack, almost, it feels like on, on people and in Detroit it's more than just, you know, a virus or a flu, but it's something that's like it's unfathomable, I guess, to, to be able to capture the amount of loss and grief and anger and economic fallout as well, that's going on. So I'm really, I'm glad that you're actually calling out that, you know, there is this element sometime that comes up when you're looking at any kind of covert news of either statistics or even this element of blame that somehow someone had a preexisting condition or someone didn't obey quarantine or something like that, that is if somehow, you know, these beautiful people could be held accountable for something that was completely out of all of our controls in some way. So commend you on that work of commemorating their lives. And so, you know, since we are talking about, you know, now the pandemic COVID this situation now we're in Julia, T. How has this affected your creative practice and and your trajectory, the trajectory of your work?
T. Miller (16:25):
I mean, for me personally, aside from me being able to let's say, go out and physically film, right? And to just continue that part of the practice I think that the film will probably be a little different than it would have been before this pandemic. You know, now when I talk about writing knows those reference letters, you know, I'm in a state of panic of, you know, this film initially was about my nephew and about the relationship we have with his mother and her parents. And, but now I have to think, you know, what if she doesn't make it home? What if my nephew's mother gets sick? What, you know, what's happening in prison. So now I'm also thinking about, again, how many other people, like my nephew, who are in Detroit right now who are losing those parents and how am I going to have to explore a, probably a different story when, when this is all said and done I'm not, I'm not writing much, I'm not filming much. I'm not doing a lot with raising Carlito. Because I think I'm feeling the same grief. Everybody here in Detroit is feeling It was very personal to me. So a lot of my creativity, I feel like has been, been put on pause, but I will say that it, it, it has incited a different type of fear int me thinking about what is the end of raising Carlito going to look like if something is to happen, you know, to his mother.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (17:44):
Yeah, it's really important work you're doing because as, as, as like Detroit as a, the prison population has been disproportionately affected by COVID and it still seems that there haven't been precautions or care put in place to protect, you know these people. And so how are you, how are you managing the fear that comes in with this sort of uncertainty as you continue to try to tell the story of Carlito and in your family? As a hard, hard question to answer. Right, right. Because it's, I don't know if I am managing the fear, you know, I think it exists. And I'm kind of in a, in a moment where I'm just how I feel is how I feel and I'm allowing it to kinda run through me, but at the same time, making sure that, you know, my nephew was here, you know, at the same time, making sure that, you know, I'm still functional and I'm still providing him with some sort of hope something that Marshall hasn't been a part of in the past that I just did.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (18:48):
I think two weeks ago I did a global program called science of grief. And we did it online and we did it with our galleries out in Dublin and in Atlanta. And I just wanted to make sure that if I was doing anything, that it was providing people with space to come and talk about the grief that they're experiencing, and that's a fear that they're managing. So that part of my creative process has been turning a little bit, but for me, I'm just, I don't really know the right answer to mention a fear I'm just living day to day and taking it you know, one hour at a time like everybody else, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think there is a right answer. I think we're all in it where, you know, every, especially if you're on social media every day, you know, there's a different report and something different going on. But even in the midst of this, you're still facilitating these conversations to at least talk about these things and to document the stories as it happens. How about you Julia?
Julia Yezbick (19:49):
Oh, yeah. It's a hard, hard one to answer. I, I mean, yeah, a lot of this film was originally going to be shot, like in spaces in the city. Like, I was very interested in a very kind of tactile engagement with this, with the city both Beirut and Detroit and and I was still planning and still am planning on shooting a bit more in Detroit, but, you know, can't do that so easily right now. Part of the issue for me has been that because of COVID-19, I no longer have childcare, so I have two young ones at home, a four year old and a two year old who, you know, need, need me for good part of the day. And it's, it's been very interesting because you know, on the one hand spending a lot of time with my kids offers like this incredible way to just be with them in this and, and just not, you know use it as a way to not get kind of overwhelmed by fear, because that is, I think something, everyone who is paying attention at all is dealing with, and I think grief is absolutely the right way that we're all dealing with this in some grieving way.
Julia Yezbick (21:07):
And you know, I mean, I'm a, I'm an academic as well. So I, you know, get all kinds of emails and other types of proddings and from the academic world that are all like pushing you to be stay and be, and maintain some levels of productivity. And I just kind of, to be honest, I just can't do right now. And I think that's okay. And I've been really trying to add in a lot of ways, just be I'm okay with not being really productive at the moment. And just sitting with my kids and sitting with my thoughts and sitting with, you know, like this, you know, as much as we can sit with other people, sit with our loved ones and hear them and be with them in whatever ways we can because yeah, for me, I mean, like the way I work, I work really slowly and it takes me a lot of time to kind of process stuff.
Julia Yezbick (21:55):
So I don't know if the pandemic will work its way into this film project in some way, but I might eventually do something a short, another short piece otherwise, but I don't know. I mean, I kind of in a lot of ways feel like everything we do after this, it will have affected in some way. Right. so yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting to think about, you know, these kinds of artistic practices that are very inherently collaborative, like filmmaking or music or things like that, where they're sort of dependent upon engagement with other people or places and that not having that be a possibility, you know, there's certainly ways you can make films that don't do that. You can do found footage films, or you can do whatever, but I don't know. I just felt like you know, at a certain moment during the lockdown, I thought, I know I should just be shooting at home right now all the time. We should just be documenting all this. And I just thought, no, I can't. I just need to like, like take a pause, you know? And, and I don't know, I just, I think it's processing is the right word. I think T said that like processing just kind of processing is I think all I can really manage right now. Cause I don't think I'm actually even processing enough right
Ryan Myers-Johnson (23:14):
In the midst of it. So yeah, taking time to be human and to just, you know, reflect on where we are and to just be where we are.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (23:34):
In looking at all of the works. In general, I see just a lot of bravery and looking at these sometimes really tricky stories from looking back on the rebellion and kind of our own personal lineages, as well as looking at the complexities of raising children, we're funding this inequitable system, you know, as well as looking at, you know, kind of economic fallout from the past. So I just like to dive a little bit more into some of that work. So Marsha you've long been called upon as sort of a historian of Detroit and kind of keep her of these Detroit stories. And I personally associate a lot of your work and kind of taking off out of the the rebellion in Detroit.
New Speaker (24:18):
Well, I grew up in that era and my father was a record store owner. His name was Joe Von battle and he had a record store that had moved from the old Hasting street that was demolished in order to build a freeway. And he, and the other storekeepers shopkeepers that could survive such a move ended up moving to what we know as the West side of Detroit and centered in a area of the city called the 12th street community. His store was located on 12th street and I can remember being there as a young person. I was about 13 years old when I could feel the tension in the air, but it was driven by a vortex of social turmoil. That was the days of the anti Vietnam war movement of the women's burgeoning movement of the sixties, the black power movement that was emerging. It was a time full of social upheaval. And so you could, you could feel a certain kind of prosperous Detroit energy, but you could also feel an undercurrent of social unrest up underneath all of it. And I could tell that even at my age, that young age, I remember being there. And my, I remember experiencing my dad getting a call on the night of July 23rd and being told that there was something going on on 12th street.
Marsha Music (26:15):
This was in the middle of the night. So from that point on our lives at home changed, and of course Detroit itself changed because the destruction that was rot was so great. And the Tommo of that time was so great that it really changed the face of Detroit forever because it was, it was a, you know, when you have a cork that blows out of a, a bottle of some kind, because of the internal pressure, that pressure had been building in Detroit for many years. So I began to recount my personal story about growing up in and around my dad's record store. I have been writing like this for some time and growing up in Highland park, which was a completely different atmosphere. Then on 12th street, Highland park, a very middle-class green lush community, a couple of miles away from the 12th street community.
Marsha Music (27:21):
The 12th street community was from my dad's record store was, was a lot of hustle and bustle and street, life and music and bars and restaurants. It was very commercial area and it was right around the corner a five minute walk from Motown in Barry Gordy's emerging empire. So I began writing about these elements of the city and, and bearing witness to what I experienced witnessing my father's decline after the destruction of his store. Also seeing the emergence of another era of Detroit during that period of time, while at the same time. I think that some of my witness saying dispels certain notions that came up about the city because the catastrophe in Detroit was so great that I think that myths grew up around what happened in Detroit. And they are tropes that simply are not true. And there were things that developed out of it.
Marsha Music (28:34):
Like people would say all the white people left Detroit after 1967, but that's just not true. The driving of whites away from the city. That's how I prefer to look at it, not just flight, but being driven from the city by a number of interesting elements that began right after world war II in 1945 to some degree that 67 was the combination of a period of leaving, not the beginning of it's surely there was a lot of change that accompanied the 67 rebellion and it continues to be explored. And so I, I was very grateful to have been asked to play a part in the Detroit 67 project of the historical museum. And out of that emerged a book called Detroit 67, and which is a very in depth look at the rebellion 1967,
Ryan Myers-Johnson (29:42):
Which the very Detroit voices also I was pleased to have been asked to be a narrator in the film that emerged from the Detroit 67 project called 12th and Claremont, those two streets converged to be the epicenter of the Detroit rebellion back in 67, 12th and Claremont. And so there's a wonderful movie documentary film that was made as a result of the Detroit 67 project of the museum. So I was very glad to be a part of those projects.
Ryan Myers-Johnson (30:34):
So thank you for giving us that history. Whenever, whenever you speak, I feel like I learned something new. So T. I just, I think that I'm going to make an assumption. I think that you and I are of a generation that came after some of the fallout from 67 rebellion. And I'm a kid of the eighties and nineties, but you know, we experienced a very different kind of Detroit, not just Paris of the West, you know, and we didn't get to grow up in this kind of bustling urban sort of Oasis. And so I think that your work is really addressing some of those systemic issues that have persistent since then. Can you talk a bit about some of the social issues that you're exploring as a, as an artist, as a filmmaker?
T. Miller (31:26):
Honestly, a lot of the work that I was doing before my brother died in 13 was not nearly as important as the work I've been doing since my brother died. I think that growing up in the inner city the, the, the bad people, the drug dealers that like, like these were my family members, these were my friends. These were people who I always saw as human beings. Right. And I the reason I talk about my brother so much is because after his death destroyed, a lot of people were trying to convince me that I, I basically, he wasn't worthy of my grief because of his life. Right. So I kind of went on this journey as an artist to help people understand the humanity in all of us, you know, my brother and ran with it. I think with this resurgence of Detroit, there's so much humanity being lost very specifically for black Detroiters.
T. Miller (32:34):
So I just always wanted it to be, or now I've kind of stepped in a role of media is saying like, no, you know, much like Marsha, like these people, they have stories. And I'm going to tell those stories. I, I live in bridge thing apart and I'm on my block. There's all of these white people who get up and running and jogging and walk their dogs and all of that. And then directly around the corner, those white people won't walk to where all of the black people are, the ones still like stay up late, hanging out at the park, drink out of the Brown bags, you know, and, and to them that's so scary. But to me that makes me comfortable cause that's like, that's what I remember when I was growing up. That's the Detroit that I know. So for me, my work has taken, taken on this role of I just don't want you to forget about the Detroit that has always existed.
T. Miller (33:27):
I want you to know what my Detroit looks like, but I also want you to know that like your Detroit is not better than my Detroit. My, my Detroit is human, my Detroit, you know, belong here. So I think just, I think my role is that that's kind of what my role as an artist has evolved into since the death of my brother, just going into these different communities and, and really just kind of putting the story with what a face and I'm proud of it. And I've worked in a lot of high schools as well. You know, teaching poetry. And I remember I would go into these high schools and I would be so frustrated when students wouldn't show up to class. And then I had to, to realize a lot of these students aren't coming to my poetry class. Not because they hate school, not because they hate poems, but because their fathers have been taken away from them because their mothers have been taken away from them because they don't have the resources to come to school, feeling comfortable and feeling clean.
T. Miller (34:21):
And so then that got me thinking about how to tie that into my nephew's story of his teachers don't know what he's going through when he goes to school, his teacher does, you know, like everybody has their own story. And I know that there are so many Detroiters with their own stories. So I think as an artist, it's, it's my duty to make sure that we keep those stories alive in Detroit. You're not for like Marsha. I won't say it will pass any of the time because I think Marsha can cover every Detroit forever. I hope that I can be you know, one of those artists who, who come in and, and, you know, when Marsha decides that she don't want to be the gatekeeper, tell the stories about Detroit, that is artists like myself who come and give an honest lens that, you know, people like her were always able to do. So I'm, I'm, I'm about the honest story. I have a, a line in a poem where I talk about it. You guys know teary, who was the guy who's always dancing in bright colors. Okay. He's a home. Well, I assume that he's homeless. He's always on Seldon. And second in my Detroit poem, I say there's a, there's a homeless man on the corner of Seldon. And second always dancing. Like his imaginary check had more money on it than he expected. And like, every time somebody hears
T. Miller (35:38):
That lie, they're like, Oh yeah. Right. And it gives Terria story. You know, it makes him more than just as far as then you kind of ride back here and there he's a staple of Detroit. Like, you know, if he wasn't here, I would miss him. You know, when I don't see Terry, I remember I put a picture of, on faith on Instagram, the other day of Terry at KFC and Taylor, Taylor Audra. She came into my inbox like, Oh my God, I had just saw him too. I was missing him so much. So to think about like, that's my Detroit, you know, that's the Detroit that I grew up in. That's the tree that's under my belt. So I think that I've just, you know, I've, I've always had this desire to be like, yo, we exist and I'm gonna give us, I'm a, I'm gonna put a name to the faces and I'm gonna keep telling those stories. So I can only say what the question that you're asking me. I always have to go back to thank you, Marsha, because you carry the lot of it. And now a storytellers are coming in and say, how do we keep up with the sincerity and the humanity of your work?
New Speaker (36:33):
Yeah, this is, this is, that was quite amazing. And you really gave me a different perspective in thinking about Terry, I didn't know his name, but he has been a part of, you know, a joyful experience that we can, that we've probably all had, you know, in that area of town. So I, as you were talking about like capturing these stories, I, I thought about your work, Julia, as you referred to yourself also as an anthropologist, and I'm thinking about all of these kind of false identities that we have around Detroit or these sort of misunderstandings around Detroit history. I'm thinking that there's a lot, there's probably a lot of parallels in Beirut, which, you know, has been no stranger to, you know, conflict and probably some, some, some misidentification in terms of like what the identity of that city is. And so you're in an interesting position and being, you know, having a lineage from this complicated place and then also being rooted in such a complicated places, Detroit.
Julia Yezbick (37:38):
Yeah. I might, yeah, I, gosh, where to start, I feel like I have a lot of things to say right now and don't know how to say any of it. I'm not the word Smiths of my, my T and Marsha here. I actually, I just first want to say that I am totally honored to be able to even have this conversation with you guys. I have such admiration for, for your work, all of you Ryan included and, and the two who we can't see who I'm still learning and getting to know. But I mean, I really just want to say that you know, I think that my own identity to the city of my own kind of place in the city has been something that I've been exploring with this piece in some ways, because, you know, I'm, I'm not African-American for those of you can't see me.
Julia Yezbick (38:19):
I moved to Detroit about eight years ago, but it's been an interesting journey because I, for awhile, you know, there's you know, there's a lot of complicated and, and overlapping and conflicting emotions that come with being a white Detroiter and trying to figure out how to be in this place in a respectful way. But I also, like, I, I learned some things that I didn't know about my own roots in this place actually. And that was also very interesting. Like I learned that I didn't know before, until I started doing some research on this project and looking into some, my own family history, like my, my grandfather on my dad's side, my, my Lebanese grandfather, he actually grew up in Ferndale, not too far from where I live now. I live on like the Northwest side. And and my mom's mom grew up on Hanna street, like also kind of on North side.
Julia Yezbick (39:15):
And so I'm very much, you know, I, I actually, I think of Marshall has worked on a lot too, because I know she's written about that kind of generation of white flight, as some people call it, you know, my I'm very much a product of that. My, you know, my parents, they, their generation moved out and I grew up in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area, and then moved back to the city in 2012. And my parents actually moved back at that time too. So now we're all here, but but yeah, it's an interesting kind of, you know, it's funny because when I think about the kind of conceptual basis of, of the Meritain project the idea of twice also has to do with like a doubling or a return. And so in some ways I feel like I'm returned. I was returning to Detroit, even though I wasn't born here because my family was from here, you know, like they were and for several generations and my mom was born here.
Julia Yezbick (40:08):
And when I think about Beirut, I also was really interested in that kind of complicated relationship of the idea of returning to a place that I had never been to and what that might mean and how I might have some sort of a sense of return to it, even though I had not been there before. But yeah, in terms of, of thinking about all of this, you know, I think it's interesting because Detroit, like, yeah, there's, I mean, as you asked me about being an anthropologist, so another complicated thing, I mean, not the apology has a lot of, like, it's, it's, it's comes out of this very colonialist history. There's lots of root ways in which I would often be like, Oh, please don't call me an anthropologist. It's so problematic. But you know, at the same time, like there are, you know, I wrote my, my dissertation, my PhD dissertation on Detroit.
Julia Yezbick (40:57):
And so I did delve a lot into the history and, you know, looked at work like Marsha's writing and many others who've told these very rich stories and it's fascinating. And I mean, that is part of like my artistic practice is you know, I wouldn't say a gross necessarily out of anthropology, but if there's anything that I take from that, it's an interest in histories and in stories. And, and just trying to be respectful and to listen, really, I think listening is like a big, big part of what I try to do with my work. And I think I, I take that from the anthropology side, you know, it's, it's obviously like, you know, as a lot of academic disciplines, are like rooted in horrible things of, you know, genocides and colonialism and there's traces of that in them today, you know, for sure.
Julia Yezbick (41:42):
And so there's, there's problems with that, but I think that with anthropology, there are some useful methodologies that I kind of have adapted to my own creative practice, like really kind of deep listening, like just listening to people when you get to a place and trying to like, not show up and be like, Hey, I'm here and I'm going to fix whatever's wrong, but to just sit and really listen to what pe ople have to say and to kind of, you know be a part of things that are already going on and rather than just sort of coming in and saying like, I'm going to start this, or I'm going to do that. So I mean, I guess, like having said all of that yeah, I mean, I think it's Detroit is so it's such a fascinating place. I love, I love being here.
Julia Yezbick (42:29):
I love learning more and more about it. I don't think it ever I'll ever get tired of learning about the city and about the amazing people here. And yeah, I don't know. I think that my work, a lot of my work deals with a lot of my artistic work deals with the city, and I don't feel in any way, like that's drying up, you know, I feel like there's so much here to spark my creative interest as well. And yeah, so I, you know, I think that it's through conversations like these, where I can learn more about other's work as well, that, you know, inspires me and, and, and opens up the kind of great conversations that can come out of this type of thing. So, yeah. So thanks for bringing us all together too
Ryan Myers-Johnson (43:13):
Happy to be able to be in conversation with all of you in this time and kind of, as we, as we start to bring our conversation to the close, I'm curious if there's any words that you'd like to put out there for the audience, for artists who may be listening or people who aren't as familiar with Detroit, we're wanting again in the news a lot for things that might not be the full story. So if any of you'd like to give us a final, final thought on the state of the arts in Detroit and our future.
T. Miller (43:47):
Um I would like to end with, you know, during this time in his time has not ended, obviously we've lost a lot of good Detroiters, you know, impactful Detroit or storytellers in Detroit. You know, the Marlo staff, the Meyers, the Brenda Perry, when this is over, you know, they won't be here. So I think that as artists, it's important for us to become familiar with their work, become familiar with, you know, what they've done and what they were hoping to accomplish. And we probably will never be able to fill those footsteps, but at least carry on the integrity and the storytelling of their work, Detroit will forever be changed by this. So I think it's our responsibility now to say, you know, what, what are we going to step Into? And what we should be stepping into is picking up where all of these other amazing storytellers in Detroit unfortunately left off at. So for me that that's kind of what I'm stepping into. And I hope that every other artist kind of picks up and takes that call as, as well, and make sure, you know, we're representing the city. Well, we're not letting the changes of Detroit change us, you know, like be who you are be, who you, you know, like, like you talked about, like, this is my district, this is Marsha's Detroit, the nineties, the eighties, the seventies, like become familiar with it and they keep, keep, keep talking about it. But don't change. What all, it's the changing around us for me?
Marsha Music (45:14):
Well, I, I feel that I was honored to have been asked by Drew Philp on behalf of the Metro times to write a piece about what's facing us in Detroit regarding the coronavirus and hope. And I wrote a piece called Detroit is another name for hope, because I have pondered for some time. The fact that hope is really the driving energy in this city. Even as much as it's famed creativity here, that hope has driven a great deal of the impulses here in Detroit. The very idea of having dreams to be physically realized to be able to attempt to live in situations that are very, very challenging yet to hold on in hopes that tomorrow is going to bring something better. Detroit is the city of hope, and I believe that for some time. So my hope right now in the arts community is the expansion of our concept of the arts to include ever deeper layers of the city as the arts community.
Marsha Music (47:13):
You see, we, we, for some time have had it kind of caste system of arts of the arts, and you have arts community of which I am a part that has congregated itself in the new development of the city in the Midtown downtown access of the city. And we are a very vibrant community, but deep in the outer layers of the city are people who have been functioning in the arts for years. There's a tendency in Detroit. Detroit is one of the most creative cities in the world, and it has literally bought the world music, the music to move to the Motown music, the techno music, new areas of hip hop music. However, within the, the core arts Ash alarms, I will say there's a tendency to view this type of music as just entertainment and not the arcs personify.
Marsha Music (48:34):
And so I believe that the crisis may bring forth more attention to what was lost in this crisis. You had a number, a large number of ballroom dancers, and these black ballroom dancers, they're mostly black. There are a few whites. And in fact, one of the very first prominent victims from the ballroom community was Robinson the state representative Robinson I forgetting his first name and he was a white guy, and he was a fixture in the black ballroom community of these Barbra dancers that do bought what's called Detroit ballroom and stepping. And this is a true art form of Detroit, yet it is never acknowledged or know or recognize within the inner sanctum of the arts. But the loss is there were so great. And so soon I think that even the fact that it had these losses will bring some attention to their very existence.
Marsha Music (50:07):
So I think that what is going to happen might be a reef formation of the arts community mr. Donna fade Collins, who was another one of the very first prominent Detroiters who died as a result of the virus. He a commander of the Wayne County Sheriff's department. However, he was one of the most recognized figures in the DJ world, deejaying Detroit soul music on the radio. So the very fact that this virus has taken from us, some of the voices of the city, these musical voices, Brenda Paramin was a playwright that put on and who wrote and produced some of the most significant works we've seen in the city. Naveli one about the Osteon speak case. These are very real works, and this is from this deep bitch of gifts that existed in the city. And I am hopeful as I should be as a Detroiter, but we are the people of hope that we will have a greater amalgamation of the worlds apart that exists here in this city. That's all I got to say about that. Thinking of Detroit
Ryan Myers-Johnson (51:44):
As the meaning of help Detroit, as hoping, uncovering those mini mini layers of creativity all across our city. I am going to close our conversation with that beautiful word of hope and that vision of the future. I'm Ryan Myers-Johnson, happy to be talking with you here from the Northwest side of Detroit, I'm a Marsha Music, and I am coming from the Palmer park, Tasha T Miller. And I am coming from the store area of Virginia Park in I'm Julia Yazbek. And I'm coming also from the Palmer Park area of Detroit. And thank you all again, Marsha, you always have such a way of putting it so beautifully. So I love that we'll that will end with your beautiful message of hope there.
OUTRO (52:44):
Thank you for listening. XD living X podcast is a production of root of two and made possible with support from the Husky foundation mixed and edited by red carpet lounge. Music for the series is by Pamela wives to find out more about the projects and artists visit Artex detroit.com and download the companion living X catalog featuring all 22 commissioned XD works.