00:00All right, here we go. I am entering into a conversation that I don't even know if my heart could have dreamed this up. And here we are. I'm so excited to be talking to Nikki Giovanni and to Rhapsody, both women who I have learned deep lessons from and who I'm so excited to hear their thoughts and their heart in this conversation, especially in times like this.
00:25So I'm going to get started centering the thing that I center in my work personally as an activist in a public lecture, Black women. And so I would love to hear from either Nikki or Rhapsody. What is the power of Black women's voices right now in this both in this specific movement and overall in the work that we do for Black liberation?
00:50I would like to thank Essence magazine. I remember when Essence was born and my good friend Ida Lewis was one of the was the first editor. And the idea of being back with Essence is like being with my big sister.
01:07So I want to thank Essence very, very much for inviting me to speak to one of my people that I love so much to Rhapsody. And I think that in a day and age, it's easy to be a coward, if not a Judas.
01:23So I want to thank Rhapsody for having the courage to talk to somebody like me, because a lot of people won't. A lot of people back down. A lot of people take bribes. A lot of people do ugly things.
01:35So I just want to thank Rhapsody for having the courage to be a Black woman with a voice. And I'm so I'm so pleased to be here to be able to talk with her.
01:43Wow. I don't know who wouldn't want to speak to Nikki. I've studied her since I was in my early teens. And I've learned so much from her. She's inspired my writing.
02:00I'm the writer I am today, partly because of artists and women like her. And she's the reason why I even have the courage and, you know, the confidence to know my place and my assignment and, you know, being a voice and not being a coward, you know, for, you know, fame, for money, for notoriety, you know.
02:22So thank you, Nikki, for opening so many doors and inspiring and teaching so many of us. You know, when I think about Black women's voices during the movement, you know, I just think, you know, Black women especially, we've been glued to a lot of families, communities, villages, you know, we're there for our men.
02:45And, you know, we're at the teachers and the mothers and, you know, everything for our communities, for the children. And so, you know, our voices carry a lot of weight. You know, we have so much power and feelings, no matter how much we've gone through.
02:58So, you know, I enjoy seeing the women, you know, step up in so many different spaces, whether it be in the political realm and the artist space, you know, in education.
03:09And Rachel, I follow you and I see how much your voice carries and how much you've inspired me. So, you know, women just have this courage and willingness because we've had to be that for so long.
03:23I'm so inspired by both of your work as writers, as a poet, as a rapper. And for me to be a writer, I exist in a very interesting space within the movement in general.
03:36And I've been considering, you know, what does my work mean now to whoever's listening to it?
03:43Nikki, just for context, I have my followers are a lot of white women who listen to me teach on race.
03:51And Rhapsody, your audience is very, very multicultural. People listen to you, but the black communities who can feel you based on, obviously, you relating your experience.
04:01And so as all of us as being creatives, all of us as being artists, Rhapsody and Nikki, with your arts, with your words, what role do you feel that we creatives play in a movement like this?
04:15Whether it's from Nikki, your generation, whether, you know, Rhapsody, we consider the children we may have and what roles they'll be playing on their rung of Jacob's Ladder, as we've been discussing.
04:26What do you feel like our work as writers, as people who are putting thoughts to paper and then it being consumed by the world?
04:33What is our role in a movement like this?
04:35Well, you know, you have to remember particularly that writers usually don't know that they've done good work.
04:45I think that James Baldwin, and I'm mentioning him just because we've talked about him, even Jimmy would not know the impact.
04:54He wrote what he saw was the truth, and he hoped that it worked, but he was, he knew that he was not going to, he didn't think, oh, I need to be read 200 years from now.
05:07I don't have to be Plato. I don't have to be Socrates. I don't have to be in anything.
05:12I just have to write the truth as I see it.
05:14I think the same way. I would hope, you know, that there's a poem of mine that some child will read, you know, 20 years from now and say, oh, you know, look at what they wrote 200 years ago.
05:26But you can't think like that. You just have to write for now. You have to be in the now.
05:33And again, you have to, you have to allow yourself to be yourself.
05:37And this, this is a profession, as you all know, both, all three, all of us know, this is a profession that you have no control over.
05:47And so if you try to please, you know, your, what, your current audience is going to make you crazy.
05:53What you're going to do is write and remember that you are your first audience.
05:59You're the first person that reads you. You're the first person that hears you.
06:02And you want to please yourself. You want to say, well, I've done my best.
06:08And I think that's all any of us can do. I really do.
06:12I love that. Thank you.
06:14Ra, where do you, what, what space do you feel like you as a creative holds in, in a time like this?
06:20Man, I mean, Nikki hit it right on the head, but just to piggyback, you know, I was going to say, you know, that that's it to, to speak your truth, to reflect the time.
06:27And whatever that time is, that time may be, you know, whatever you're dealing with in yourself, personal, whatever you look out into the world and see that affects you, that inspires you to pick up the pen and write.
06:37You just have to be, whatever flows, let it flow out.
06:41And, you know, hopefully that it speaks to somebody.
06:43You know, when I think about my art, you know, I'll make an album.
06:48I'll be like, I don't know if it's good, but, you know, it's honest.
06:51And everybody will be like, are you crazy?
06:52Like, you don't, you're not, you don't even see how much it's going to impact people and it's like, I never do, you know, it's just like, this is where I am.
06:59These are the stories that I wanted to tell.
07:01This is how I was feeling, you know, this is, this is what I wanted to talk about, you know, this is what I wanted to record, you know, for people.
07:08And I think that's the best that you can do.
07:10And when you have so many artists that see the world in so many different ways and have so many different creative ways of telling that story,
07:16and you get a beautiful full picture, you know, different layers, different multitudes of colors, you know,
07:22and everybody has a piece and story to tell.
07:24So it's just like, what is your piece?
07:26How do you want to say it?
07:27How is the world from your perspective?
07:29What are you going through in your life that somebody else, maybe on the other side of the world can relate to?
07:35They may not even speak your language, but can feel you, you know, and I think that's what it's all about.
07:41You know, just, just being yourself and letting that light come out, you know.
07:45I love that in the ways that in all of our truth, which is the truth is what we write.
07:50It's all we can write, you know, and it spills out of us.
07:54And then it's like, okay, am I going to share this?
07:56Or is this something to keep to myself?
07:58But when it comes out and we're like, this has to be heard, this has to be, like you said, rap,
08:02a shared experience where I often say sharing our stories is a collective therapy session for black women in particular.
08:09But anyone to say, I'm not the only person who has experienced this.
08:12I'm not the only person who has to go do this particular experience.
08:16So I deeply value both of you giving this session to us of therapy, of being seen, of being heard,
08:24of being understood by women who offer their arts, their creativity to relate in the love letters
08:33and the hope and all of the ways that you just existing and you saying your truth pours into so many in so many ways.
08:41And I, I personally am so grateful to both of you.
08:44Rap, I love you so much.
08:45And I feel wildly grateful to call you friends.
08:49Nikki, I, it's so much in my heart.
08:54Nikki, I have to tell you, I signed for my first book deal and I have so much written about you in my book
09:02and so much written about the ways that your work has given me a place to rest in and feel safe in doing this work
09:10because I know you have done it and you have done it well and you have given me so many tools to continue.
09:16I always say, activist work, I am not the first.
09:19I will not be the last.
09:20It's just my turn and I appreciate you for stepping into your turn and giving me the space,
09:25wrap the space and so many of the space to have our turns and showing up and doing meaningful work.
09:30Thank you to Essence for building.
09:36I want to thank you.
09:38And when you get to be my age, when you, when we flip sides,
09:43there'll be some little girl who want to talk to you.
09:46And I hope that you have the courage, as you showed today, to talk to me.
09:50I really appreciate it.
09:52And I want to thank you very, very much for being a part of this.
09:56Oh, no, thank you so much, Nikki.
09:58I don't, I don't even know how many words I can say to you,
10:02how much I appreciate you and everything that you poured into me,
10:05my lifetime, but especially today, that really resonated.
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