2023
Perspex, cotton tank top, wood, monitor, speaker, cables, iPhone, inkjet prints on photo paper
A single channel video assemblage installation, playing a cycle of 3 rap videos by artists from my home county, Prince George’s County
The piece is a reference to the kids who would walk around my highschools, like many other schools, with a speaker in their hand or bag blasting music.
The work exists in conversation with other pieces spread throughout the gallery in the exhibition to create a loose representation of a body that occupies the entire space. A body that resembles young black men in the hood.
As I like to say “since art people like the term black bodies so much I went ahead and made some”
One of the videos on the monitor that played during the exhibition, was “30 Day Barred Notice” by Lil Dude. The significance of this choice is because when Lil Dude was in a beef with rapper Trill Sammy, he dropped that track as a diss record and being that Lil Dude was from the same neighborhood I went to highschool in, many people in my school knew him, his crew, or his music. So when the song came out kids in my class jumped on the table blasting the song full volume.
The plexi glass in the work alludes to spaces engineered to serve the less than savory habits of the ghettos of America, that disengage from interacting with the inhabitants of the community outside of a transactional context. Not allowing congregation of niggas cuz of what “trouble” they might bring.
Being served fried food, cigarettes and alcohol from behind bulletproof glass by people that don’t know you and don’t look like you, with no seating so you won’t be encouraged to gather.
With signs inside like “don’t beat on the counter” like kids would do while waiting for their food, because it’s “disruptive”
I remember how I used to be annoyed when other kids would walk around with a speaker on full volume but looking back I have a new found appreciation for this assertion of presence, this disruption to the norms and standards of that space, which then creates new norms and new standards.