00:00Kiki, what does it mean to be a black woman in Hollywood to you?
00:09A black woman in Hollywood is such a loaded question.
00:12To me, what it means to be a black woman in Hollywood, I don't know.
00:15I don't see myself necessarily any different from anyone else.
00:18I don't carry the idea that, you know, I'm not going to get more work or I'm going to get more work.
00:22I just do what I do.
00:25Has it been an experience, has that, do you feel like that experience has kind of made things,
00:30I don't want to say easier, but like moving through the world like that where you're not thinking,
00:34I'm a black woman in Hollywood, you know?
00:36I mean, I think the mind frame of knowing that other people may perceive you differently
00:41or there may be certain connotations that come with that, the awareness of that is good to know,
00:45but you shouldn't let it affect you.
00:47I mean, I remember coming to California when I was 10 and casting director,
00:51literally a black casting director even said, okay, just another talented black girl that can sing and dance.
00:56You know, what's important about that?
00:58But my mom told me those things because she wanted me to understand and have that awareness that,
01:02yes, people may say that, these may be the things that they do, but that doesn't affect you.
01:05Their perception of you doesn't have to be your perception of yourself.
01:08So despite, you know, the things that Hollywood may or may not give to me or to someone else,
01:14I don't let that affect me.
01:15You know, I create my own lane, my own vehicle for what I want to do
01:19and to send the message that I want to send.
01:21Yeah.
01:22What do you say to people who say, you know, we have the movies,
01:25we're just not getting the green light, we're not getting the funding?
01:28Well, why do you need this green light?
01:30Put this on Netflix.
01:31Quit playing.
01:32We live in a world now where the kids are online anyway.
01:34When Brotherly Love came out, no one saw it in the theaters.
01:37But when they put it on Netflix, that's where the kids are.
01:41So it actually works in your favor that way.
01:44You don't need everything to be this big, big orchestra.
01:46If you believe in what you're doing and it has a message behind it,
01:49put it on the internet.
01:50Put your web series on YouTube.
01:51See what happens to it.
01:52Drop your song on SoundCloud.
01:54No one can hold you back.
01:55The only thing that holds you back is the fear and the thought in the mind itself.
01:59Yeah, yeah.
02:00So you don't think we need to be asking Hollywood for any kind of permission?
02:02No!
02:03No more asking.
02:04Why am I asking you for something?
02:05Why do I need you to validate me?
02:07Yeah.
02:08That doesn't make any sense.
02:09If you got the funds to put something together yourself, put it together.
02:12I just wrote my first script.
02:14I'm not amazing for that.
02:15What I'm just saying is that nobody else is going to write it for me.
02:18Yeah.
02:19This is what I want to see.
02:20I want to see two females that are funny, that are African American,
02:23and that aren't trying to be too this way or too that way.
02:26I want to create a character that is me, that is my friend, that we have not seen.
02:31And if somebody else ain't going to write it, then I guess it does leave it up to me to write it.
02:34And that's what I think people have to also understand.
02:36If you're visually seeing something that's not out there, that means you're supposed to create it.
02:41Look at you, millennial.
02:43I'm here for the kids.
02:46Yeah.
02:47I'm here.
02:48I know what we want.
02:49I know what we wish to see, but we have to know that we're the ones that's got to do it.
02:52We can't keep talking.
02:53We have to take action.
02:54Yeah.
02:55And it's not about screaming.
02:56It's not about yelling.
02:57It's about living your truth.
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