Friday, Apr 22, 2022 • 1h, 1min
Universal Mother: JusMoni’s Love In Practice
Play Episode
JusMoni is not just a musical artist, but the embodiment of her city and a vessel for her ancestral spirits. She’s a mother, a poet, an organizer, a bereaved, and a light. Her music and performance is where these many facets of herself intersect. While she may be the youngest member of the Constellation, her wisdom exceeds her age and finds the ears of the rest of the constellation.
On this episode, Moni shares her story – and by extension, a deeper story about Seattle. Moni and her peers reflect on the Eritrean restaurant Hidmo that became a hub for local hip-hop, the intersecting identities with her family that she channels through her performance, motherhood, and her community and social justice work.
Listen to a playlist of music from the episode and read the transcript on KEXP.org https://kexp.org/podcasts/fresh-off-the-spaceship/2022/4/22/universal-mother-jusmonis-love-practice/
Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/fresh https://www.kexp.org/fresh Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/fresh https://www.kexp.org/fresh See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Read more
Talking about
Speakers
(14)
JusMoni
Larry Mizell Jr
Gabriel Teodros
Show more
Transcript
Verified
Sharlese
00:02
I wanted to start out with Black Constellation. I thought that maybe you could tell people what it is who don't know about it. I've never heard about it.
Share
JusMoni
00:12
Black Constellation is the gang!
Share
00:29
The things that we talked about out of this world.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
00:42
[JusMoni - Reckoning]
Share
00:50
Welcome back to Fresh Off The Spaceship. I'm Larry Mizell Jr, your guide in this podcast. In this series, we're illuminating the different stars of the Black Constellation, the artist collective that's transmitted revolutionary sounds, sights and ideas through space and time.
Share
01:07
If you're just joining us, make sure you check out the previous episode. On this episode though, we're focusing on the life and work singer writer organizer: JusMoni.
Share
JusMoni
01:20
When I go into a space of making music, I'm really, I'm asking my ancestors, I'm asking the universe. I'm asking different things to work through me and work out things through me and just letting my body be the vessel for that.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
01:56
JusMoni, aka Moni is a singer poet, mother, DJ, organizer who's been releasing music since 2010. She works closely with the Constellation family, like Stas THEE Boss and Porter Ray. Her roots like many in the Constellation are in
Seattle's
Central District where she learned the streets at an early age.Share
02:22
Moni is town that is to say
Seattle
as it gets and really invested in her community in a way that few can claim, she doesn't just live here or claim here she builds here. She's loved here.Share
JusMoni
02:36
She invests in the community that raised her up and still holds her down through her art, her poetry and her long history of work with the plethora of local organizations.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
02:48
The deeper we get into this podcast and the stories within the Black Constellation, you maybe started to see a pattern.
Share
02:56
These are stories about music and art and people create them. But what's also been emerging is a story about
Seattle
a city that's undergoing major change, to be sure.Share
03:09
But also the under heard histories of neighborhoods like the Central District, it's way deeper than hip hop. Y'All. It's a community of people with intersecting identities, manifestations of generations of artists and groundbreakers. I mean I love
Seattle
, I have a deep love affair with the city.Share
JusMoni
03:28
I have the space needle tattooed on my ring finger because I'm very much married to this game and taught me everything that I know about how to move through life. It has felt really special being from here to be so connected to water to be surrounded by water. You know, like it's, we're not on an island, but we were touching water on all sides. It really feels like, and to be from a place that has such good weed. It's like really important. It's a really important part of my practice.
Share
03:58
But also as we've touched on in other interviews with the rest of the collective members. Like it's a good workspace and it allows you space to be weird and be as authentically as you are and genuine as you are and to find your tribe to find community and like-minded people who are aligned with you.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
04:20
Moni may be the youngest member of the Constellation, but her old soul is unmistakable and accordingly, she carries lifetimes of wisdom. She's already lived several lives as an artist. A mother. There's a spiritual vessel for ancestors.
Share
JusMoni
04:35
[JusMoni - Tender in Practice]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
04:49
Getting the Moni story means knowing your family.
Share
JusMoni
04:52
So, I come from a family that looked like the United Nations and so everybody who you can imagine is in my family, is in my family. We got Ethiopians, Cambodians, Laotians, Thais, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans. Mexicans like just everybody from everywhere.
Share
05:15
My grandmother immigrated to the
United States
in the 70s with her three children escaped a genocide in Cambodia
. I didn't know no english across the river in the middle of the night, escaped from a killing uh, one of the killing fields camps, you feel me three kids on her and went to a refugee camp in Thailand
. And my grandpa found her moans.Share
Larry Mizell Jr
05:38
Primary guardian and guidance was a grandmother who in many's words always had her tucked under her arm or on her hip. She was a Central constructive figure in Moni's life in many ways. Moni is a shining reflection of her grandmother following her loving example, caring for the people around her.
Share
JusMoni
05:59
Everybody called me my grandma mom. So that was just you know, she was just to everyone and then here I was her little, her little black and Cambodian baby that she's speaking, climbed to and running around behind her with really long curly nappy hair and you know what I'm saying, very black, very Cambodian, but always with just a gang of black friends, everybody was at my grandmother's house on Beacon like everybody and she fed you and you could sleep there and she would take care of you and she was just like a really just a really strong like strong as such, that's not even a profound enough description.
Share
06:47
Just magnetic and powerful and love that can feel hard but that is really good for you and I ran, I ran my, I mean I ran my whole family like just ragged, but my grandmother and living in her home, I really ran her ragged and I know she was scared for me so many times in my life and she just never, she never didn't have a place for me ever. I could never... she would never not have a meal for me. It didn't matter.
Share
07:25
My grandfather was what people I guess would call like a medicine man or shaman for the greater like Seattle
Tacoma
community of Cambodian folks who immigrated here in the 70's and the 80's.Share
Larry Mizell Jr
07:39
Within her family Moni also began exploring her spirituality and adopting numerous traditions, leaning into the aspects that spoke to her as I got older.
Share
JusMoni
07:51
I was a practicing Buddhist, I went to the temple with my grandparents, I still have altars in my home that resemble the ones that I have had growing up. And then I got into church, I got into a black church and I let spirit roll over me and got to experience what that was,
Jesus
ain't my cup, but spirit, you can't stop spirit as my friend Bashone would say.Share
08:17
And so when they talk about Holy Spirit and what it means to be in communion with folks in a space, like in a concentrated space the way the Holy Spirit moves this different than anything that I've ever learned about
Jesus
.Share
Larry Mizell Jr
08:33
The kind of spirited communion Moni found in these spaces wasn't just limited to houses of worship as a budding poet and singer Moni soon found herself right in the mix at hid moe.
Share
08:46
The
Eritrean
restaurant performance space and community hub and the CD incubated and inspired a new generation of artists in Seattle
.Share
08:57
[Last Night at Hidmo - OCNotes]
Share
09:16
Take me back to Hidmo.
Share
JusMoni
09:19
Ohhh... Alright, it's dark, it's a rainy night in
Seattle
. We on the corner of 20th and Jackson, you know what I'm saying, lights is blaring from the street lights, it's kind of windy, you gotta sign on the side of the building and says "Hidmo", Eritrean
restaurant did it, did it just say original restaurant.Share
09:38
I think so, yeah, okay then you walk in right, the floor is a kind of dusty because it's like kind of really unfinished summit, some parts are finished, some parts are not. It's like a kind of more slender hallway leading into a big room. But you walk in there and it feels like, okay, I could maybe be in a rich heir right now, we might be outside about to eat some in Jeddah, right, he walked in and then there's Rahwa Habte: big smile, big hair, big laugh, big voice, open arms, loving body, pure heart, just warm.
Share
10:20
And then there's Asmeret, who is a lot more serious, who is still pure love and you know, open arms and all of that, but really it's really a like the balance to rob and I'm watching these sisters not only have amazing
Eritrean
food at the him, oh, like really good green chicken Y'All and lentils with potatoes and everything just crazy.Share
10:50
I'm not only seeing that happen and them being able to like run a business like that, but I'm also seeing this camaraderie and this relationship between sisters that I hadn't really experienced sisters who were like dedicated to their mission of bringing community into their space and cultivating that, but like also like how do we get this bread and how do we stay here and like could create sustainability for the communities that we love.
Share
11:17
So I was witnessing something to me at the time that felt trailblazing and that failed, earth shattering and that felt remarkable. Hidmo was and will always be home.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
11:34
How did you discover Hidmo?
Share
JusMoni
11:35
Oh, I wish I could tell you, I wish I could tell you, I don't know, I can't remember what the exact link was. Maybe it was
Gabriel
, like maybe it was Gabriel
.Share
Gabriel Teodros
12:00
[The World is a Hidmo - Gabriel Teodros]
Share
12:13
I met Moni as a young, as a youth organizer and I met her there kind of, you know, saw her young spirit just like just you know, just fire.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
12:26
Gabriel Teodros
is the DJ and host of KEXP
show early I've known him for like two decades as an MC poet and deeply entrenched community organizer that's rightfully beloved for bringing his heart into everything he does.Share
Gabriel Teodros
12:40
And I saw her do the same move that I made when I was a part of
Seattle
young people's project, which is to dip over to CARA which is another community organization that was down the street led by black women communities against rape and abuse.Share
12:56
CARA is a very important organization in the history of
Seattle
in the history nationwide of conversations about prison abolition and keeping communities safe when there's interpersonal harm Without calling the cops and Moni was a young organizer there, I think she probably was 16 when she made the move over to CARA.Share
13:19
You know, and I would say Moni became a part of my everyday life when Rahwa Habte, may she rest in peace, opened up the Hidmo and uh car would have meetings there regularly. They also held a monthly event, they're called Ladies First, which I believe Moni organized for as well.
Share
13:39
Moni was also part of Youth Speak Seattle and I was an adult mentor for Youth Speaks Seattle. So it's kind of like almost everywhere I was there was a young Moni right there, you know, So I absolutely still think of her like as my little sister.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
13:54
Moni has always struck me by how much just like what a powerful personality she is. When you hear her speak saying you hear poetry. It's raw, it's gripping, pulls people in what, where do you think that comes from?
Share
Gabriel Teodros
14:10
I think it comes from a lot of places, man, obviously the family, influences big. I think trauma is a lot of it to Moni went through a lot at an early age and that's kind of why I paused when you asked that because I was like, I don't know how much of this is my story to tell, you know, but she speaks about it in her music, you know what I mean? She talks about in her art man.
Share
14:34
Moni came up in a really hard time in
Seattle
. I would say, you know, you and me came up in an era where it was almost like the first south end cd beef really first popped off when you and me were in high school, you know? And I feel like Moni came up in the second wave of that, that was just as deadly and she had friends and she had family and people that she loved on both sides and through her high school years.Share
15:03
Like those years that she was that hit more like it wasn't all good. Like there was many times when she came in in tears. You know what I mean?
Share
JusMoni
15:20
[Sunrise - Porter Ray feat. JusMoni]
Share
15:45
I think that's why I work from spirit because I'm so sad all the time about all of the people that I've lost since I was a really young person actually, like maybe maybe I was 11 or 12. The first time that I was impacted by somebody who died due to gun violence.
Share
16:05
There there was a certain point probably when I was, I don't know, 18, 19 something where I was just like, I'm not going to funerals for real anymore. This is really, it's just traumatic over and over and over again, none of it is fun also have lost like, people close to me that I like, have loved intimately.
Share
16:27
Moni's grounding and deep spiritual practices have helped her heal from Los given her strength and kept her in community with loved ones who've passed on when I talk about ancestral work.
Share
16:38
I mean, like literally the relationship with those who have passed on. So, you know, talking a little bit about what my spirituality is rooted in and the things that I learned from my grandfather, like, there's really no disconnection that happens when someone dies just that their vessel, they're not operating in that same vessel.
Share
16:59
And us as people who are still here in this realm or experiencing our body in this way. It's our responsibility to make sure that we are staying in constant relationship with those who have passed on.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
17:12
So like, we're not scared of dead people and talking to them is not weird and feeding them is regular and lighting a candle so that they can see is regular and you know, talking to them and being in conversation is that's like, that's like breath for me and for my family.
Share
JusMoni
17:57
[Sunrise - Porter Ray feat. JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
18:02
Sometimes it is hard to accept that two things can exist at the same time and be true. That joy and pain are not mutually exclusive that our experiences have made us, but do not predetermine what it is that we are becoming.
Share
18:24
Moni's creative practices have honed her expressive capabilities, such that even in conversation you can't help but feel her words deeply. They've also given her solace and comfort in times that have tested her poetry.
Share
JusMoni
18:39
It was a really good outlet of expression for me at first, like, I was so mad and so sad at life as a young person, like, you know, I'm talking about my family and all the things that I love and like, how I came up and what has been really good about it, but she it ain't always been really sweet, you feel me. And so I as a young person, was also really angry and upset and just really sad about life in a lot of ways.
Share
19:07
And some of that was teenage angst, but a lot of it was like trauma, you know? And so I started writing as a way to, like, get just get it out and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna get it this, alright.
Share
19:21
... illustrated to you clearly, this is my dedication to the coiceless and those whose thoughts are constantly moving generations of diversities and mothers who bear communities.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
19:32
The title of Ready For Life, Moni's debut album was more intentional than I realized at the time of its release back when I first wrote it up in the pages of Seattle's all weekly, The Stranger, of course, it's a play on the
Notorious BIG's
debut album title Ready To Die
and represents Moni's newfound dedication to her own life and that of her son, Ezekiel born that same year when Moni was 16 years old.Share
JusMoni
19:58
Eze is my now 12 year old son. I had him when I was 16 the day before my 17th birthday. So I spent all of 16 pregnant. You're just young and hello pregnant.
Share
20:17
Just changed my whole life. You know, I'm heavily influenced by my grandmother. So yes, like I have always been very motherly, like even from when I was like a little kid, have always been really motherly to those who are like older than me and also those who are younger than me.
Share
20:33
But when I became a mom, wow, when I had my own person that I was responsible for like his whole life what he eats, where is all of it. I wasn't good at it at first, it's just what it didn't.
Share
20:50
I knew that I loved, I knew that I loved my kid and I knew that I loved being a mom and I was, but I was resolving the choice that I had made and I don't think enough moms talk about that about how when you have a kid is such a shock to your world, not only your body is like going through some crazy stuff. Your body also doesn't belong to you anymore.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
21:12
Of course, Moni is reflected on all this through her poetry and writing In 2021, she was asked to write a piece for the
Wing Luke Museum
in Seattle
.Share
JusMoni
21:21
Ultimately it evolved into writing this letter to my son which I felt really on time, especially like digging into myself and recognizing my own traumas and realizing all the ways that that's affecting my parenting.
Share
21:36
And I wanted to to touch on themes without being super explicit around what the experience has been like for me to be black and Asian, I wanted to lay out what continuum really looks like and what that looks like in our lives. So when I talk about the things that he will know are the things because I knew through my bloods memory right?
Share
22:03
Like there were lessons that I was that I was taught and that I learned not through some direct experience, but rather because of my lineage because of my bloods memory because of the things that I carry in my body genetically that I have had to come to discover on my own. So that that was important for me to lay out for easy.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
22:27
My bloods memory had known genocide and escape. It had already known refugee camp and carcass and gunfire execution. My body at 16 had already been an ocean with a body count as black people.
Share
JusMoni
22:43
We know that our bodies and I'm sure as for all people, but I can only speak from my black experience. You know our bodies carry memory in our blood, it carries memory. There's things that we are navigating right now in this day and time that our ancestors had experienced or experienced to some degree many, many, many, many, many years ago.
Share
23:08
So when I talk about my my body being an ocean with a body count, I'm like very specifically talking about the middle passage in that moment. You know, I come from black slaves who were brought over here without choice, who I'm part of a lineage of people who have literally died in the oceans, whether they took their own lives because they knew they did not want to be enslaved or they were tossed overboard, you know.
Share
23:40
And so I think about paying honor and reverence to all of those lives lost and also all of those lives lived, you know that are part of my lineage.
Share
23:50
Yeah, I think I think a lot of that piece is a lot about just bloods memory, you know. The things, the things that come to us in our visions, the things that come to us when we're being creative, when we're making new work is really and honestly like remembrance for me.
Share
24:08
[L8ter - JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
24:08
How has it been balancing a life as an artist and as a mom?
Share
JusMoni
24:36
Hard as fat if anybody tells you differently there fucking lying because this ship is tiring really and I'm saying that today because I'm a little tired and there are some days where I get more adequate rest and I'm feeling a little bit better about it.
Share
24:51
But it still is like tough, have very limited support. I mean I have a community that loves me and I love my kids at the end of the day, Easy is like a grown person with his own life and on schedule and baby, I'm a grown person with my own life and my own schedule and we'll be having to work it out a lot. It's hard, but it's the most beautiful thing that I've ever had the opportunity of doing.
Share
25:19
I proved to myself every single day when I can get this kid to school. I'm lying alright, I'm doing it. Some people had given up on doing this. Like we're pushing through, I think what's key though and probably what sustains me the most is that I do not pour, I don't pour from a cup that's not full.
Share
25:42
There you go. I'm at the point in my life where I don't even have the luxury of expending what I cannot. We'll talk about how all these facets of his life have culminated into a rich musical career after a short break.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
26:28
When you bring all these aspects of Moni together, her poetry, motherhood, the spiritual practices that live in her, and her personal history. It's only natural that it all crystallizes in her music and particularly in her performances.
Share
Negarra Kudumu
26:46
Through the multiple ways in which she presents herself really to me has been a joy to watch because just sort of, you know, thinking about individuals who are considered musicians versus individuals who are considered entertainers and the few individuals who are able to put together a whole concept and deliver at a high level every time. And Moni is that.
Share
JusMoni
27:26
When people see me performing... And not, and even before the performing, when I'm making music, when I think about when I'm recording and or when I'm writing or when I'm just like, you know, listening to a beat on loop, I'm like I'm asking spirit to move through me.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
27:44
Like I don't, I feel like my work is my work of course, like I have some ownership over it, but really with all of the work that I produced, I'm asking spirit to move through me and most of the times that's not me, like it's really like using me as a vessel, you know, and I'm I'm in practice of also like being so much at my altar that I'm able to create really good boundaries about what spirits I want to roll, you know what I'm saying?
Share
JusMoni
28:15
Because all spirits ain't your spirits and all spirits and good spirits. And we got a lot of unsettled things, especially on this land.
Share
28:22
So like it takes spiritual discernment, it takes being in practice to have spiritual discernment so that you can still be in some kind of consciousness to decide what you're gonna let role and what you what you're not gonna let roll.
Share
28:39
[Sweet to Me - JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
28:46
She brings a lived-in authenticity to every work of music she touches including collaborations with fellow BC members.
Share
Stas Thee Boss
28:56
We've been at it for a while at one point she was my older sister because she's got all the wisdom and knowledge. She's young but she's very, very old and she's been here for quite some time. So I always like to talk to her about things come to her for advice.
Share
Porter Ray
29:12
When Moni comes around, she inspires those around her and she really can bring a lot of joy to any environment or any atmosphere that she's president. And I got a lot of love for her, I love her.
Share
Bruce Leroy
29:27
When you hear Moni to visualize her like You would think she was in her 30s or something, you know what I'm saying? Like I was thinking she was like my age bracket you dig and just hearing the confidence like she's super well polished and creatively. She's just in a different space than a lot of the R&B or soul singers that you're hearing, you know what I mean? Like her choice and production, you know, and her style, she has a really distinct style, you know, it's Moni when you hear it, you know? Yeah, anything I heard her on, she was adding to it and or making it why the ship was filthy, you know, I'm assuming that's why they called Moni.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
30:21
Music isn't a new outlet for her. It's something she's practiced nearly her whole life, something she comes by as with anything else, authentically.
Share
JusMoni
30:28
There's always like those funny memes or when the holidays come around and they're like the mom makes the kids perform like the kid, the one entertainer kid, you know what I'm saying? So it was always like when I was younger, I was like, "Moni seeing, I'm Going Down"
Mary J. Blige
like do your thing, do you know what I'm saying in front of everybody? Like what the hell?Share
Mary J. Blige
30:47
[I’m Goin’ Down -
Mary J Blige
]Share
JusMoni
31:02
Also, I would come to learn like later on, like my dad was like rapping, you know, and into music and my grandfather played the congo's on my biological father's side. So there's things that I'm coming to learn in my adult life that I didn't know when I was younger.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
31:19
That of course makes sense as to why I was so inclined to make music or why it meant so much to me because my mama don't see my grandparents don't sing, but my uncle also exposed me when I was really young, a kid to his punk rock Cambodian funk band called Khmer Express.
Share
JusMoni
31:42
Okay, this is like eight of them, eight of them, my uncles, my Cambodian uncles and they would jam, they would jam be singing all these Cambodian songs perform at all the halls and like perform at like New Year's and different, different Cambodian parties and things.
Share
32:01
So I got to see that and like you know, be out the way as a really little kid but also like to see it all and like these were punks, they were rockers, they were yeah living rock star lifestyles a little bit, you know?
Share
Sinn Sisamouth
32:17
[Voy Ho (Maok Pi Naok) -
Sinn Sisamouth
]Share
JusMoni
32:34
And then yes church and the technicality and learning what a soprano and alto and antennas and you know having that type of training. But also I could not ever talk about like my origin story with music without mentioning like star spasm. Okay?
Share
32:52
Deshaun man, it was me, Deshaun, Okoiye, Sharmin, Joseph and some other and other people, okay, we would hang out, we would hang out on Yes sir right There on 27th of Gessler I think that's where exactly either there or off the main and 28th.
Share
33:31
[From the Block - Starr Spazzin]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
33:34
Having dipped her toes in the recording Moni embarked on her debut album, Ready For Life in 2010.
Share
JusMoni
33:41
[Ready For Life Intro - JusMoni]
Share
33:53
Ready For Life debut Album, 17 years old. Whoa! that was... And I still listen to that project sometimes because people will play it and they'll be like girl you remember? And I'm like damn, I didn't remember but let me go listen now and it's a really quality piece of work.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
34:13
I was 16, 17 years old when I made it.
Share
JusMoni
34:17
I had just dropped my first baby in here. I was dropping my other baby same year touching on themes of love and life and struggle and heartache and talking some real ship release that and had a great response.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
34:34
Here's Moni interviewed outside of her album release show at Chop Suey in
Seattle
.Share
JusMoni
34:38
And I would just like to just say that I'm so thankful for those who came before me to allow this to be able to happen tonight. I'm thankful for every single experience that I've been through for me to be able to make my music. This really is a proclamation stating that I am ready for life, ready to celebrate, ready to live, ready to die, ready to dance, ready to sing, all of it. Here we go.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
35:01
Moni just got a way of bringing people out, not just on some promoter ship, but in a way that really speaks to how her community loves her and sees her and how she carries them wherever she goes. Since the first time I saw her perform, she's been magnetic able to bring people out and compel them in a way that is truly rare.
Share
JusMoni
35:21
Packed it out, packed it out. That was crazy! I think about that now and I'm like, I don't know, I mean there were obviously there were things in place, right? Like marketing and posters and I don't know what we're, we're posting to them. Like wasn't my space. Like I have no idea.
Share
35:41
Facebook
, you know, like, like obviously moving things around, but I was really getting my music in front of people. Like Vitamin D played my listening party. This is when people would have like a listening party. That was really intentional listening and it was at Hidmo and Vitamin DJ'edShare
Larry Mizell Jr
36:05
After the glowing reception to ready for life, Moni took a brief step away from music.
Share
JusMoni
36:10
And then I feel like I honestly took a little bit of time off probably being a mom. Me and mama have always you know, even in the time in which I felt like I was taking time off, I was just working on it, until I was ready to pop back out again.
Share
36:26
[Jewelry - Porter Ray]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
36:37
It wouldn't be too long until Moni pop back out return to music though. And she's been prolific ever since. In 2012 she released the EP Queen Feel with producer WD4D, a more electronic minded release which received the luxury issue complete with remixes including this one by OCnotes.
Share
JusMoni
37:13
[Take All Night Again (OCnotes Remix) - JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
37:13
She was on a couple of tracks on
THEESatisfaction’s
and That's Your Time, including the posse cut “Queens County”.Share
JusMoni
37:18
[Queens County -
THEESatisfaction
]Share
Larry Mizell Jr
38:14
Naturally Moni worked closely with the Constellation family frequently collaborating with Stas THEE Boss and Porter Ray. she was on Porter's 2014 released Fundamentals.
Share
JusMoni
38:25
[Dice Game Diagrams - Porter Ray]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
38:30
As well as his 2016 album Electric Rain.
Share
JusMoni
38:40
[Cognac Aphrodisiac - Porter Ray]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
39:07
That same year brought the album JusMoni as Saffroniaa. Sophfronia, of course, being a reference to
Nina Simone's
classic, Four Women.Share
JusMoni
39:27
[Axela - JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
40:29
In 2017 Moni. Memorably appeared on Stas’ S’women album on the song "No Service", which they performed live here at
KEXP
.Share
41:08
[No Service (Live at
KEXP)
- Stas THEE Boss]Share
41:37
Then there was 2018 Sweet To Me, featuring one of my favorite Moni songs: the sultry 10.4 Rog-produced, "Got It On Tape", a duet with starts the boss featuring Moni debris easiest and most conversational.
Share
41:50
[Got It On Tape - JusMoni]
Share
JusMoni
42:13
Three track project Ease and Mercy followed in 2019.
Share
42:22
[No Names - JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
42:25
And most recently she's released the singles "Reckoning" and "Tender in Practice".
Share
JusMoni
42:42
[Tender in Practice - JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
42:59
For Moni linking up with the Black Constellation wasn't an opportunity, it was an inevitability doing part to the omnipresence of cats like
Ishmael Butler.
Share
JusMoni
43:16
I mean coming up around the Central District, it's really hard to not be in contact with or come across or be in community with
Ishmael Butler
. You know, Butterfly right? Like town legend, right? So you know, I feel like you're born into the Seattle shit. Can you cuss out here?Share
Larry Mizell Jr
43:35
Go for it.
Share
JusMoni
43:36
I feel like when you're born into the
Seattle
shit. you know like Butterfly, Ish, that's just that's just ingrained in you. You know that's just part of you if this music thing is what you want to be a part of.Share
43:51
But so yes that's my like real first introduction but you know Black Constellation as an entity as a thing even at that time was something that was probably imagined, but you know, not fully like realized with bodies, for me.
Share
44:08
Probably around 2008-09 right? Is when I like started producing work and I was super young and hanging out at the head mama and doing lots of things, lots of like fun music things with the OGs.
Share
44:28
And I think I really think how it happened like
THEESatisfaction
I had like booked them for the real first show for real at the Hidmo, crazy. And by way of stars and cat, you know, intertwining with Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes and Ishmael Butler
and you obviously Larry Mizell.Share
Larry Mizell Jr
44:53
Fine artists and Constellation member Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes though years her senior takes inspiration from Moni.
Share
Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes
45:01
You know, I guess we have multiple generations within our crew. She represents, you know, you know, other than our offspring, she represents kind of the youngest, some of the youngest faction thereof, and as you know, subsequently brought a whole set of younger peers and created so much more, you know, of this circle in a way kind of, you know, the work that she has done subsequently as a musician has just been awesome.
Share
45:32
But as a, you know, as an organizer and a member of community, it's just, it's been a joy to watch really inspirational. She runs circles around most of us just in her level of activity and how capable she is and doing what she's doing.
Share
JusMoni
45:50
Knowing that these who are my older brothers now, like all had eyes on me at different points of time, right? And new whatever I was doing in the world.
Share
46:03
But being in such such awe of like blackness and it's in what felt like to me and what feels like to me it's most real life for, you know, to BC be outside when people, you know, people see us, it's the gang is, people know it's Black Constellation, you know what I'm saying, like it feels like you're part of a powerhouse because you are. You are, it's powerful. It's energy.
Share
46:32
Don't get us all in the room one because everybody's getting clowned for real. Either within... either within the collective or outside of it. But also like it's just like crazy energy.
Share
46:45
Whoa! Like almost have goose bumps right now thinking about how electric could be when all of us get together.
Share
46:51
[Cookies - JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
46:52
Outside of the Constellation, Moni treats her love of
Seattle
as a verb building community around her. She currently serves as the education director for the local nonprofit Creative Justice. Creative Justice executive director Nikkita Oliver
explains here what they do.Share
Nikkita Oliver
47:15
Yes. Creative Justice is an art space, healing engaged space that is informed by young people who have been impacted by various systems.
Share
47:29
When we first started uh in a lot of ways we were a diversion program. So mostly young people impacted by the juvenile criminal punishment system. But young people were real quick to tell us that they needed something more. They wanted more and they wanted to bring their friends to an expanded space that really focused on healing and art.
Share
47:48
And we also came to the realization as abolitionists, We don't want to be another arm connected to the system. We want to be building the spaces that we hope will be our future. Restorative and transformative justice spaces.
Share
48:03
You know, my first memory is actually getting to know JusMoni at Saffronia and hearing her do the piece from for colored girls and she was on stage with you speaks, which is, you know, it's it is emblematic of the type of organization we strive to be where the young folks that we are Building these spaces within four ultimately become the ones who become the next arts organizers of these spaces.
Share
48:36
And so I kind of love that my first memory of Moni also ties to Moni coming in and becoming the next steward, the new the next organizer of Creative Justices are education director.
Share
JusMoni
48:50
I helped design and implement our educational programs that look like teaching artists, working with a group of young people within their discipline. And you know, I always tell people like this is my life's work like working with young people and providing opportunities for them to feel safe within themselves to come home to themselves in a world that doesn't necessarily want that to happen for you.
Share
49:17
Recreating systems, you know? Different systems that benefit us that are not at our expense. And I think that young people know how to do that. I mean, I think that we're all part of this collaborative process, but I do think that young people are all right on it about what type of world we should be living in.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
49:38
Moni's work with Creative Justice. Those systems that she speaks of mirror the kind of love and caring she was grateful to find in
Seattle
when she was growing up and needed it as she described it DJ Sharlese in his 2018 KEXP
in-studio session.Share
DJ Sharlese
49:52
So I was raggedy running the trees when I was a youth, a young youth them, you know, I was just out here, had it not been for a couple of key, select older folks in my life, young adults that were in my life, I don't honestly don't even know, you know, I was blessed to be like bestowed upon a community of artists, but I think it was like, it was super organic, like quite literally like walking up and down Jackson or having spaces like Hidmo that were super important to, to me making music.
Share
50:30
I find myself supporting a lot of young people in my life. Who are you, I mean who are younger than me, who I see a lot of potential and some potential that nobody else sees because I understand the importance of knowing that somebody cares about you, you know, So like, I don't care if it's community activism, if you decide that you wanna go show up to a protest or make some signs with some youth or whatever, but like talking to young people, like seeing them on the street and be like, "What's up?" It's like, yeah, somebody cares about you in this neighborhood, we're gonna talk to you, you know, and being seen as a young person was super important for me.
Share
JusMoni
51:16
[Not By Chance - High Pulp feat. JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
51:42
Moni's been a parent and a mentor and an example. She's been big sis to a community of young folks, even the people older than her, her organic connection to community has connected her to tons of dope young creatives such as the
Seattle
production company Hrvst House who provide creative consulting, graphic design, music, production, space activation last year when she brought me and Maikoiyo oh to their Mead Street studio on Rainier
, it was clear that they were the real thing.Share
JusMoni
52:09
Hrvst House is creative agency based in
Seattle
Washington that is really doing some fun stuff, acquiring space, throwing late night DJ sets of house music where you can dance all night and they'd be safe, don't matter how you come, come however you come.Share
52:31
A media company, right? They, they shoot a lot of my media, like a lot of my media output, whether it's music videos, directing short films, pieces, whatever incredible group of producers and directors, designers, young cats who got flavor and are offering different ways of doing what we've been doing in the city and it feels really authentic, right?
Share
52:58
It feels really like they love what they're doing and they're just really bright and so I'm so happy to be big sis because I know that I have a lot have a lot of things to offer them, but they also have a lot of things to offer me. So we are in exchange of one another really.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
53:17
It was the Moni that I met Hrvst houses Paco a very dope deejay and MC in his own right; here he is speaking on Moni.
Share
Paco
53:24
I think she stands very firm on who she is, but she's also very open to learning. There's a lot of people that know who they are and just stand on that, but she, she's really a person that like if someone knew was in the vicinity and they connect like you best believe that like they're gonna have a conversation, she's gonna learn from that conversation and she's going to apply it in her life, you know? She's a consistent learner even though she's very true to herself and her family and where she comes from, you know?
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
54:04
Moni like paco, like anybody that tries to be their best self remains a student, which oddly can be tough for some artists.
Share
Paco
54:12
Especially artists who are so prideful and like their own work and and their growth and sensitive about their growth. Like she, I think she's pretty open about learning and I work with her with youth and she she learns and is open to saying that she's learning from youth on a consistent basis, you know, it's not, it's not just from adults, it's not just from OGs, it's not just from mentors, it's it's really from the people that her people, you know?
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
54:43
Moni helps cultivate real
Seattle
community also with Sway & Swoon and all-women DJ collective whose events represent an evolution of the Black Weirdo parties previously organized by THEESatisfaction
and they never fail to draw a devoted crowd. A beautiful black and brown folks, creating space for everybody to be themselves without any bullshit. It's a breath of fresh air in this city.Share
JusMoni
55:07
So Sway & Swoon consists of currently consists of stars, the boss
KEXP
legend as well, Seattle
legend as well. And then actually DJ, yeah, who runs street sounds on some Fridays like KEXP
, which is really cool. So we are as far as I know the only all black, all queer, all women DJ collective in Seattle.
Share
55:35
So Sway & Swoon started with sauce and I playing around with some stuff and you know, she is the, the Swoon and I am this way, and that's kind of how we move in our lives.
Share
55:48
You know, a lot of people in
Seattle
and beyond are familiar with the Black Weirdo parties that used to happen back in the day where it cultivated spaces for many of our communities to intersect with each other and just party and have a good time. There's always a live performance, there was always a different component of art being shared in those spaces.Share
56:08
A couple of years later Stasi and I decided let's do a $5 party and let's see who comes right, we're gonna throw it at a house in the city and we're gonna invite a guest performer and we're gonna invite a visual artist to come show and hopefully sell some of the work.
Share
56:27
So we were like, all right, let's try this. And it was a hit, it was a hit, a hit! And like we prioritize our queer communities that were a part of and what is really fun about our parties too is that many of the communities that intersect with our queer community and our black community all just come through and have a good time and are hell of respectful of each other and just you know, just wanna party.
Share
56:53
I don't know if Sway & Swoon will always be us or if it will expand or if we'll just, you know, be providing more mentorship for other young folks coming in, trying to DJ trying to get immersed into the, to the cultural scene in
Seattle
.Share
57:10
[Watching Planes - JusMoni]
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
57:22
Moni exemplifies a Central concept that the
Constellation
revolves around. She honors and communes with her ancestors while investing her energy into young people and building welcoming spaces, ones that will protect and inspire new expression, paying forward. All that was given to her.Share
JusMoni
57:42
One thing that is Central to our work is continuum. So recognizing and understanding that our our iterations of the art that we are producing in this current moment, our reiterations of things that have happened before that have been passed down to us, through our bloods memory through our visions through our touching of the ground through our ancestral practices are spiritual practices. Right? So we're creating work that is only in this moment a continuum of those things.
Share
Larry Mizell Jr
58:13
Within that Moni always remains grounded and distinctly herself tender, hilarious and deeply ambitious. She's a brilliant artist, a great mom and speaking from experience, just a real last friend, the kind worth their weight in gold. He's a CD Seattle original and an essential part of the constellations, social spiritual dimension.
Share
JusMoni
58:37
We are, we're connected because of our understanding and we would have been connected to each other no matter what because I truly feel like it was designed for us to be together in this way and so I could go on and on you know about that Constellation.
Share
58:56
But essentially yeah we all believe in a thing and we're all making things within that belief and you know, can't nobody really touch Black Constellation if you're asking me.
Share
Add podcast
🇮🇹 Made with love & passion in Italy. 🌎 Enjoyed everywhere
Build n. 1.38.1
Sharlese
JusMoni
Larry Mizell Jr
Gabriel Teodros
Negarra Kudumu
Stas Thee Boss
Porter Ray
Bruce Leroy
Mary J. Blige
Sinn Sisamouth