 I came to this country when I was seven years old initially and then I went back for a year to Jamaica and then came back in nine. And I think my whole life in this country I've been wrestling with, what does it feel like to be a woman of Jamaican descent, an African woman of Jamaican descent living in the United States. And I feel like that condition has been one of wrestling with erasure even in the context of blackness in this country and feeling sort of outside what it means to be a citizen in this country even in the context of being black here as well. And all of that is reflected in my art. I've been wrestling with erasure of black women, black women being second class or third class citizens in this country and it's reflected in my sound as an artist. My music is melancholy, it's very much derived from the blues tradition, the African American blues tradition because I've been here for so long and love spirituals. And also, I think there's some muscle and body and spirit, memory of a blues tradition in Jamaica that I can't identify but I know that it must be in me and I must have traveled with it across the water. Creation or immigrant journey from the Caribbean in particular Trinidad and Toa and so just sharing space with him, feeling my excitement, all of the different feelings of being an immigrant in the US or in Canada but also within my work not only carrying my dad's Caribbean experience but also my experience as a person of Japanese descent and a Caribbean descent and Caribbean not only being exclusive to that geographical area, you know, I'm African, I'm Caribbean, I'm Latin American and really broadening this definition of Caribbean and black and how does that, how do I infuse that into my work not only using strictly a Caribbean influence because that's a conversation I feel like I'm often having with myself is that my work can be so many things and it can be continuously redefined based on how I'm thinking about black, female identity and that's continuously changing, it's fluid so it's not, there's not one answer to it, my art is continuously evolving based on these. But that too, like I feel like that really plays into my practice a lot too because it wasn't until I got here that I was thinking about myself as a woman who was like disallowed from certain things and then feel that pressure until I'm here and it's because of my directness of my mother and my grandmother at all times, it'd be like you want to do that thing? Okay, go do the thing. I never thought about it as like a thing that was something that I can't do because I'm a woman or a femme or anything like that, like no they would be like cool, my grandmother, I have a sugar cane tattoo because I grew up in the Cainfields, my grandfather used to work in the Cainfields but he used to work in administration and my grandmother would stay at home but she would be cutting in that yard, she would be working every minute of the day and even to this day she wakes up every morning and goes to the papers at 6am because you know why? Because I want to do this and it's just something I have to do for my family, somebody has to go get the news, somebody has to clean this house, somebody has to do the thing and it's just that, being able to identify a need and take it. What was your mom like? Absolutely, my mom and my grandma, I mean my grandmother would cut you in a second with her observations or she just wants to communicate something to you, like you have to know this but at the same time I know that there isn't another person in the world that wants to be the best for me in the way that they do and who thinks that I can be whatever I can dream and beyond so yeah, there's a certain, you're right, there's a certain resilience that that experience as hard as it may be sometimes comes to foster in us and it's a great contribution that we can make and have made just showing up really fully every day. Being a Black woman has influenced my art because through it, by it, with it, in it, I'm seeking to remind people of our humanity as Black women and girls. In addition to being inspired by life and love and spirituality, my identity as a Black woman inspires my artistic practice and the artworks that I create.