words with real bishes : honeychild

welcome to the current install of words with real bishes! are you a beauty of color with a fierce mind and creative spirit? are you doing things big or small? go-getter? jet-setter? artist? avec les enfants ou sans? please email me here and let's chat. unleash yourself! 

today it is with great joy i introduce honeychild coleman aka DJ suga-free, an avant-garde musician and artist. we go way back to the poppin and rockin punk days of 1980s NYC. we were comrades and sisters. at shows we'd play a game called count the black girls.

mslisa: to begin, let's reminisce a bit and tell me how we met?

honeychild: we met in 1987.  we were both working at pearl paint on canal street (that's gone now). we were the two quirky and punky women of color there. i feel like i ran into you at a party, then we connected at work. it might have been at one of those clubs - the tunnel or the world maybe?

mslisa: the world and the tunnel! (laughs). oh yeah, all the beautiful freaks. what have you been up to these days?

honeychild: right now i've been on an artistic hiatus since i last went on tour. i'm working on a new solo record with a new producer. the music is somewhere between dance and post punk. i'm also working on a 7" with criterion thornton (brooklyn beats records). i play guitar and bass. it's kind of a noise punk project. i collaborated with DJ olive on THWIS, too.

mslisa: do you have a name for the band?

honeychild: no, we don't have a name yet. we're just experimenting at the moment. one of my longest collaborators is raz. we did the bedouin soundclash together. i'm the cultural mentor of the underground producers alliance. i'm doing an interactive tour of pre-2000 underground NYC.  i did about 20 sketches of old LES bars and clubs from back in the day. i also did one of the old condemned school on rivington that was hotel amazon. the whole idea is to preserve that time and place.

mslisa: i remember that shooting at hotel amazon one night!

honeychild: right? the lower east side was hardcore back then.

mslisa:  what else are you working on?

honeychild: i have a bunch of videos in the can and i'm learning how to edit. ramsey jones from funk face  and the rza, plays drums in my post punk band bachslider.

mslisa: tell me about the authentic black weirdo?

honeychild: so, here's something that came up a bit in afropunk. there's two kinds of alternative black people in my opinion.  i came to NY knowing i would find others like me and i'd be less lonely. i'm here and i'm black but i'm not here to be black; i just am. the other is showing out their weirdo blackness as a kind of fashion. you and i are the former, i think particularly of our generation. that's what attracted us to new york. we'd watch diana ross in mahogany together, eat fried chicken from the corner, then go to a punk show. we knew who we were.

now it's different with the advent of the blipster. there's more weird young black folks, but i'm not in any particular clique. we're from a different time. who knew there was black heavy metal in kansas? in the 1980s and 90s that was unreal.

mslisa: so true! do you feel that we often had to explain ourselves coming up?

honeychild: oh yeah. my family in kentucky are very conservative so i had to explain a lot of my choices and personal style. we weren't following tradition or conformity. we're at the age of our co-workers parents at this point. they can see the rift, but they can't really put it together. girl, we've been black weirdos a long time!

mslisa: who influenced you in your weirdness as a young girl?

honeychild: well, my aunts were like mod supremes with the beehives, skirts, and boots. i loved that. i grew up reading essence, and always saw lot of brown skinned models. i had an uncle who was an artist. he was full of stories and had a colorful personality. he made a strong impression on me to become an artist.

(as a kid) i probably watched four disco shows on saturday mornings. i would try to copy the clothes. grace jones came on soap factory disco in a cut-off tank top, satin shorts, and a robe. she looked like a super hero singing disco!  and then annabella - forget it. i was always drawn to punk, but she blew my mind. she wasn't trying to be white. she was just being herself; a woman of color and the lead singer of a punk pop band. she's still holding it down, touring with a young band doing old bow wow wow and solo stuff.

mslisa: i think she's in the realm of polystyrene and pauline black. sheroes!

honeychild: totally. pauline had a book that came out two years ago. it's so good.

mslisa:  you mentioned that you'll be touring in september? where do you plan to go?

honeychild: well, i want to play in france for sure, but the dates aren't set. i also want to play in louisville.  i composed a song for the climate change event that i think now is going into a competition, so i think i'll play for that.

mslisa: tell me something about your experiences touring and recording in europe?

honeychild: i was singing with the band here and there were two other americans in the group. one song called 'apart' became a hit and was in rotation in italy. we did a tour for several weeks and we opened for morcheeba and sonic youth. i was like this is the polar opposite of my life in new york! it was amazing. i really learned during that time how to be a performer. all the DJs i work with, we're always behind a mountain of gear. i learned to be a bit more free being out front. i had to be more serious about my voice and not damage my vocal cords

i worked with here for almost three years. then i started to meet other people during that time. seven years later i was touring europe again with apollo heights. after that i went back to my DIY style. it was a flip! i've seen both sides of it now. it was learning curve for me, but it was awesome. now i have a stamp in my passport that says i'm a professional musician. here was the most disciplined band i worked with. we'd pack our own food and rehearsed 6 days a week.

when i went on my first solo tour in italy, we stayed in this punk house in valvasone with no hot water or gas, but let me tell you the rehearsal studio was immaculate and it had internet. the other tour that we did when my record came out, we rented a house with tre allegre ragazzi morti  (three happy dead kids).  they have a huge garage they converted into a studio. we had to learn the whole album before we could start the tour. we did that for 10 days. we did vienna, berlin, and denmark. with the slits tour i left early. they had to show me a lot of stuff.

mslisa: how did you end up playing with the slits?

honeychild: ari was good friends with my friend dunia, who was in a big ska band. remember when i worked at canal jeans and i left to work for dierdre who had that dress shop on 5th street?  dierdre did a fashion show and ari came to that. she was there with her sons, pablo and pedro. i was like, who is this woman in these colorful clothes? i didn't know who she was because the only picture i ever saw of the slits they were covered in mud.

fast forward to 2008 and i'm playing with apollo heights. ari comes backstage and i remembered she's the german woman i met 20 years ago at that fashion show. she remembered me and her guitarist had pulled out of the tour. dunia emailed me and said ' ari called me in a panic and they need a guitarist. do you want to go on tour with the slits? ' 

at first i got immediately depressed because i was already working with apollo heights. i was told ari didn't believe in computers so you have to play everything in real time. i went home and studied all their videos, learned three songs, and went to audition for ari. most of her music was on cassette and i loved that.  it was not easy though. it really kicked my ass. i had to re-learn all these chords and i don't read music - that shit was really hard. i had two weeks to get it. the first gigs we did were in ireland and england. by the time we got to barcelona we were really tight. the whole tour was about four weeks.

mslisa: what was it like working with ari?

honeychild: she was amazing. ari didn't read music either, so her way of explaining how to play a song helped me out a lot. she said she's not intimated by other strong women. to her, the band is like a collective -  a girl gang against the world. everyone had a say. we all swapped around on songs, which was really cool. i instantly felt like i was part of the group. one thing she did the entire tour, she was very clear about protecting the band and its legacy. she spoke of the slits as a unit. she was a champion for the underdog. the real deal.

mslisa: so there was no competition between hollie, ari, and the band?

honeychild: none at all. they weren't jaded or on a diva trip on any level. i loved being around that kind of energy.

mslisa: tell me about your involvement in afropunk: the rock n roll nigger experience?

honeychild: i was involved in the beginning when james (spooner) was asking people around the scene about black punk and rock. to me the hardcore scene in new york peaked around 1990 - 92. i didn't get into the black rock coalition until later. i met james through friends who reached out. he started interviewing me and going to my shows. there was a camaraderie starting to evolve. i was also in the sistagrrls collective at the time. there were early screenings where i played with apollo heights and one in louisville at this deco theater downtown.  my entire family came to see afropunk!  if you could only imagine! my dad said, ' i get it now. you're not trying to be white. this is who you are.'  exactly!

i remember at that screening in louisville there was this sister who had a cute macy gray afro; like wild and cinnamon. she was with another woman who was white who was one of my fans. my brother came with his wife, who is also white. she said to that sister, 'your hair is so pretty can i touch it?' and she just did it.  sister got real upset at that. it got a bit hectic. i had to intervene with my sister-in-law, but also not try to shame her. i had to explain to her why it's not okay to touch a black person's hair even though she's married to a black man. this sort of thing happens in my world.

after afropunk evolved into a festival james got out of it. he was never interested in corporate sponsorship. if you take the title away, it is an amazing black music festival and i totally support that. i would love to play on one of the big stages, but it has become something else. it's crazy to me that the new york times does a fashion spread on it now. this is the first year in maybe 6 years that you have to pay, but you can also volunteer to get in.  you used to pay a sliding scale donation.  that's done now. it's become something like coachella, but for grace jones to me, it's worth it. i'm also looking forward to seeing suicidal tendencies.  afropunk also embraces underground and it's open to everyone. the death grips are playing which is crazy.

mslisa: who are the death grips?

honeychild: they're an underground hip hop group that got signed to a major label. they broke up and got back together. they're on a sold out tour now. last year, i saw d'angelo at afropunk. he was great! he had a few dudes from the roots backing him up for that show. have you heard his new album?

mslisa: yes. i would describe it as...abstract funk?  it's very cool.

honeychild: that's a good description!

mslisa: who do you enjoy listening to these days?

honeychild : i have big soft spot for best coast. they're from california. they sound like a 60s girl group. i enjoy a lot of old stuff.  i listen to jean grae, a local hip hop MC. you would love her! i love electro-funk and freestyle. i bought the new king britt record awhile ago -  it's very ambient. skepta i also really like him. he's a grime MC from london.

mslisa: what's grime?

honeychild: grime is dirty british hip hop. dizzy rascal is another. do you listen to big freedia?

mslisa: i love big freedia!

honeychild: grime is sort of in that genre. i also like lady sovereign; she's kind of grime. i'm basking in the glory of her first two records. i think she's really funny!

mslisa: one thing i always loved about you is that you often made or recycled your own clothes. are you still doing that?

honeychild: i've been getting back into sewing a little. i don't see much these days that inspires me.
a lot of what's going on now just isn't cut right for us. i spend my money on shoes. that's where i'll drop a dollar!

mslisa: what do you think of the series empire?

honeychild: i saw one episode and i thought it was so funny!

mslisa: it is! it was interesting to me how white folks had all these issues with it; that to them it was offensive, but black folks love it.

honeychild: because that's how we talk to each other.

mslisa: exactly! even with all the flash and glam; the language and dialogue are authentic. what do you think about rihanna and beyonce's impact on culture? i call it the black girl empire. 

honeychild: i don't consider rihanna or beyonce in the same category. for a young black woman, rihanna is a fierce, independent woman. i don't get a feminist vibe from beyonce because she flaunts the man half too much. whereas rihanna does this whole ' fuck it! i'm rihanna!' '.  she doesn't give a shit and there's no dude in the background.  from beyonce i get a little bit of a puppet feeling. she grew up in a church family. i grew up like that and i know what that's about. i sometimes feel that a lot of her music and image are contrived; to be purposely provocative and sell downloads to a mainstream audience. i just don't get authentic from beyonce. i'm not a rihanna fan, but she comes across to me as more genuine.

mslisa: girl, thank you for talking with me. you're such an amazing woman.

honeychild: thank you!