bienvenue to words with real bishes. the antidote to rainbow brite (we ain't about that life!). are you a black or brown beauty holding it down daily? doing things big or small? then email me here and let's chat. because you, baby are a star!
today we welcome the eye catcher, ramdasha. she's an etsy diva by day and DJ designer imposter by night. another interesting fact about her is that she was a 3rd wave black girl punker in the 1990s.
hey girl!
hey! i'm making dinner, but i can talk.
mslisa: so tell me how we met?
ramdasha: well... we met in person in oakland through honeychild coleman via facebook. you two were homies in new york in the 1980s.
mslisa: where were you born?
ramdasha : i was born in morristown, new jersey. i also spent parts of my childhood in colorado and arizona. i would go back to new jersey during school breaks.
mslisa: when you were in high school what attracted you to punk? particularly being a black girl?
ramdasha: well, i didn't go to school with a lot of black kids; mostly upper middle class white kids. i gravitated towards the working class kids. i was a bit of an outsider, that's why i was attracted to punk. my older sister was friends with punks and i kind of copied her. there was a punk band in my high school called the bouncing souls. at that time punk was still going strong. i didn't fit in with school anyway and i didn't like being programmed. punk was different and that was where i wanted to put my energy.
mslisa : what bands did you like back then?
ramdasha : i got my hands on the basic things. i'd go to the mall and get the sex pistols on cassette. a friend in oregon sent me bikini kill tapes as well. my friend bethany moved to brooklyn and she was living with thea from the lunachicks and that's how i learned about them.
mslisa: tell me about gunk?
ramdasha: gunk was a zine i started when i was 15 and living in new jersey. i got into zines because i liked bikini kill's. there was another zine that inspired me called jigsaw. originally gunk started as a zine about skateboarding, then it became about bands. then race politics and my experiences as a black girl in the scene. i would reprint letters that i wrote to people and their responses. i had punk pen pals! i was making photocopies of photocopies. i'd run scams at kinko's. (laughs).
mslisa: and what happened to gunk?
ramdasha: i went to college and then i got into other things. then eventually DJing and experimenting with different kinds of music.
mslisa: you and i are both mixed race and identify as women of african descent. when did that self-realization in you hit?
ramdasha: i think from a very early age i knew i was a colored girl. i remember being little and wanting to belong. a kid would say, ' but, you don't look like me'. i mean, we were doing a play - peter pan or whatever and i remember this little girl said to me, ' i've never heard of a black tinker bell.' i was like what?! i know i have some privilege being lighter-skinned maybe in certain situations, but i was often the only black kid around. there was a time i didn't like my hair, i didn't like my body. at a time (as a kid) when you're supposed to be free, it's hard having that bullshit laid on you.
mslisa: how did klub kid vintage evolve?
ramdasha: i've always liked playing dress up and putting things together. i was obsessed with elvis and the beatles and the 1950s. it's true - elvis! i have pictures of me trying to dress up like a greaser. i've always loved clothes and performance. i like the art form of clothes. that's where my collecting started. i started selling on ebay and then etsy and it just took off. if it wasn't for etsy i'd be a crazy lady with a lot of stuff in her house.
mslisa: i was listening to some of your mixes on soundcloud. tres excellent! how did you get into DJing.
ramdasha: that happened organically. i'm kind of obsessive about things including music. i've always felt separate from everyone else. i was such a music nerd. i had a big CD and tape collection and when i dropped out of college an artist i knew was selling his turntables and i bought them. my boyfriend at the time was not supportive at all. mostly because i was a girl. back then i was DJ-ing jungle and drum and bass. i would also mix in hip hop.
mslisa : recently you traveled to austrailia tell me about that?
ramdasha: australia was a trip! i had a lot of reservations about going there. a friend bought me a ticket and i was like okay, go! it's a very racially polarized country. the brown people are economically depressed. there was an intentional white supremacist agenda to wipe out the native population there.
but that aside, syndey was a very ethnically diverse city. there were people from africa, southeast asia, pacific islander, and india. the food was really delicious! i met a lot of cool people. there's an interesting radical queer community there. i did some DJ gigs in sydney and in melbourne. i wouldn't want to live there, but it was a great experience. people are obsessed with americans and fetishize black people. the queer community is mostly white, but i also met a lot of mixed people; pacific islanders and africans.
i remember driving from sydney to melbourne and going to the grocery store and getting those stares. people couldn't identify me. plus i have a tattoo on my face. i was protected by a lot of friends though, so it was cool. there was one town where black people have these curfews imposed on them and restrictions on drinking. the municipality thinks they don't know how to handle alcohol.
i said to my friend, ' well, wouldn't you want to be drunk living under white supremacy?
mslisa: you mentioned the radical queer community in sydney. when did you come out?
ramdasha: i never really came out. my family was never homophobic. my father is basically a lesbian hag. he always had gay people around. i had a consciousness of being gay, but no one wanted to date me in high school because i was the black girl - i was like gender-less. i didn't even have a boyfriend until i was 24. loving women just came to me naturally as i got older.
mslisa : tell me about #fagzlikeus and #thereareblackpeopleinthefuture?
ramdasha: those are just hash tags really, but they could be names for my dream band. i also use #femaletofemale. gender to me is often a performance or some form of power. gay men in new york have a lot of power. i like the idea of erasing gender. men can do whatever they want and create any space they want and i want the same freedom for us.
#thereareblackpeopleinthefuture is taken from an artist. it was written on a piece of paper i came across at the studio museum in harlem. that hash tag started because i thought about how black people are perceived through history. we're slaves, we're prisoners, we're oppressed, or we're victimized. there's rarely stories of us being happy, alive, and living. i want people to know that we'll go on living and we'll be there in the future. i think the same is true for native american people. another context of that tag is who are we as african people? where will we be in the future?
mslisa: things in america are very difficult for us right now. how do you cope with that?
ramdasha: i've gotten into meditation. i've been working on issues around police brutality. the world it seems, is in a constant state of chaos. for me personally, i think, what mark do i want to leave on a one to one basis? there are very oppressive and violent powers we exist with and it's causing people to lose their humanity. (i'll take off) and go upstate to the woods and i won't talk to anyone for 10 days.
i just try to give out and emanate love as much as possible. i know that sounds hella cheesy. i don't see racism or sexism ending. i think information gets lost and history gets erased.
mslisa: what do you mean by history gets erased?
ramdasha: the stories that we're told as little kids. i never knew african history in school except slavery. it was as if we didn't exist before slavery. my father was an educator and he told me everything you learn in school is a lie.
mslisa: where are you at now?
ramdasha: i've been thinking i want to put out a book. i'm not sure how that's going to materialize, maybe words and photographs. but i would like to make it a tactile thing, not just something that exists in the cloud.
mslisa: are you going to afropunk this year?
ramdasha: i don't know. it cost like $ 80.00 - i'm not paying $ 80.00 to get in. my girl adee and i were talking about setting up a renegade show out front.
mslisa: what would you call the band?
ramdasha: adee was in the new bloods - a black girl punk band. we thought it would be fun to call ourselves black new order.
mslisa: thank you so much for talking with me.
ramdasha: no problem! thank you.
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