BOYtalk w/ Srch Engn

Interviewed by Rukiya Colvin

photo courtesy: Rukiya Colvin, illustration by Kamau Jawara

R: So I’m here with Kamau Jawara. Kamau, who are you? 

K: So I’m a born and raised East side Detroiter.  I'm a community organizer, specifically in the base-building and environmental justice space. But also a musician, creator, and artist under the alias, Srch Engn

R: So you recently had an album come out last year titled BOY. Can you explain the title of your album?

K: There was a little bit of a short poem that was a compilation of projects that I've worked on over the years. BOY, which stands for Burden of Youth, is the fourth album of a series – starting with Prom, then Pink, then After Party at Yo Momma’s House. I believe the last line of the poem was, ‘After the after party, there's just the boy.’ And so it's been a name that I've had for some years – probably about five years or so. I think it really encapsulates exactly that for myself.

R: I'm wondering what inspired the vulnerability displayed in BOY. What I heard on previous projects seemed more fun, pop-py, and more instrumental. So what made you take a change in tempo?

K: I think the decision to be vulnerable comes from a lot of stories that were happening over the years.  I’d say 2018 was a period of high competition and scrutiny in my particular art scene and this wired me to seek dominance/capital [rather] than community. 

I had lost 2 friends very dear to me that supported a lot of my development. I had lost my maternal grandmother. And I was flunking out of multiple classes because I was too sad to get out of bed and go to class.

[I realized] I’d spent so much time gaming the community that I wasn’t building it; lost friendships just made sense after I understood that.

And so I think about the specific experiences that I was having at that time. It was almost that burden, that thing that folk won't understand until you of course, actually open up and share a little bit of what that was. And so I definitely wanted to be able to give people that context as well.

I would say it was probably the most challenging part of determining who I wanted to be.. whatever that even means.

photo courtesy: Rukiya Colvin, srch engn performing at the BOY album release party

R: So what does that mean for you? And who have you determined to be at this point in your life?

K:I think I’m allowed multiplicity. I’m allowed to pushback on coercion and binaries that are given to Black kids. I’ve learned that my effort to be perfect for everyone, made me really bad at being me. Kamau is analytical, dreamy, and curious about where every facet of our lived and unloved existences might converge.

R: How has your art practices intersected with your organizing work, if at all?

K:  I think there's a lot of overlap; even before I was in the organizing space that I'm in now. We were doing shows and creating in collectives and crews and thinking about how music presents itself in the form of community, beyond just personally releasing something into the ether.

So I think there's a lot of overlap in terms of how I make space for people: in how I build containers for my art in my work or for organizing to make sense for people. 

R: Going back to you mentioning vulnerability: that's not something that people, especially Black Detroiters own very well. So how do you see creativity – whatever outlet that could be for people – how do you see that helping people foster that vulnerability?

K: It's pretty similar to organizing. We love to use storytelling: folks like to give speeches, or they like to share their personal testimony, or how they got into the work. That's something that inspires others to get into the work. It gets them to start thinking about the existing challenges they have.

R: Thoughts on creativity + organizing as cohabitation in the future of organizing? 

K: Sometimes we think of artists as if they are separate from organizing. Like, ‘oh we need to make art make sense for organizing or organizing make sense for artists.’ Artists are constantly organizing because they're using their abilities; using their resources to build power –  by power I mean narrative and story.

R: Who are some of the ancestors or inspirations you turn to in your organizing and/or artistry? 

K: Ken Cochrel, Sr. on the organizing side just for the level of sharpness around narrative. Definitely Dwele who is still living now, as a creator and musician. Other folk I would include are David Byrne and Talking heads. They were a creative mind that was thinking about how to push music farther; what it meant for folk who were different and allowing that to be a context that makes sense for people. But also Stevie Wonder. Those are folks that I think I definitely create in the spirit of.

Kamau is the Southeast MI Lead Organizer at We The People MI. He’s passionately and actively mobilizing folks while fighting against DTE [FUCK DTE!]. Shoot an email to talk organizing with Kamau here: kamau@wethepeoplemi.org  Connect musically + otherwise w/ Srch Engn on Spotify, Apple, Tidal, or YouTube or visit kamaujclark.com