To start, please tell us a little bit about you.

My artist statement says I’m a cultural crusader. I try to create work that speaks to emotions that impact me, how people impact me, and bringing it together to give people something more. I want to create work that anybody and everybody can look at and see themselves in one way, shape, or form, and grow from it. I just really want us to all get as free as we can.

What would you call the style of art that you do?

I’m calling it urban abstract or urban abstract expressionism. I’m not a graffiti artist, but I give an ode to that, and to comic books, graphic novels, and books more generally. Since I’m a graphic designer by training, I love text, I love the written word. Sometimes I don’t look at the words as much as I look at the actual literal text – I’m looking at a structure.

You wrote in your statement that you want to create things that reflect “the motivating forces of humanity.” You recently have connected this to Terror Management Theory (TMT). What were your initial reactions to learning about TMT?

I was so amazed at how succinct it was. I had been reading different philosophers at the time and then reading about TMT it was like, “well, yeah, this makes sense.” From my vantage point, this is correct. When you see how humans interact, regardless of what we want to say about race or whatever, human beings tend to do the same thing. Maybe it’s a little swayed to their particular culture. But we’re all trying to survive.

Looking at all this has given me a wider purview. It’s that moment where you say, “okay, I get it.” It’s not that I didn’t get it before; I’ve never felt like some white racist was more important or better than me, I always think, “okay, he’s got an issue that I don’t.” But now I have a deeper understanding that someone’s actions are often out of fear, angst, and all these other things. We’re all just trying to figure it out, we’re all trying to survive. We’re all worried about our future, what’s going to be, where is our tomorrow; it’s the human experience. So when I’m creating, I’m in that mindset, and hopefully creating things that other people recognize. When I step into the work, I have that purpose. And I know it’s not always gonna land the exact way I want it to unless I literally spell out, “this is what this means,” and I can’t do that. But I can put that kind of energy into it and try to evoke that kind of emotion. So it’s very important for me to focus that energy, and put it on the canvas.

What we really want is to be remembered. We want to be loved. That’s about it. And love doesn’t always show up for everybody the same exact way. But overall, we’re all just trying to make it. At the end of the day you’re trying to survive, and you’re trying to build a legacy – even me creating art, even if I don’t admit to it. I’m trying to create something because I want people to see it, and maybe it lasts after I’m gone.

We’re all worried about our future, what’s going to be, where is our tomorrow; it’s the human experience. So when I’m creating, I’m in that mindset, and hopefully creating things that other people recognize.

How do death and impermanence show up in your work?

One of my pieces is literally called Impermanence. I was reading Buddha is What Buddha Does, and it’s this idea that nothing is forever. I’m trying to let you know that this is not me forever. This is not us forever. This is moving, this is ongoing, this is changing. I went through this whole series of silhouetted figures, trying to show our evolution and how we have to grow, how we have to learn, how we have to let go of things, which is death. We have to remove fear, we have to remove all these things that we believe we have to be in order for us to actually live more fully.

When I started doing these pieces I was going through images of little African American kids, but silhouettes. We have these preconceived notions of what it is to be an African American male, but what if he’s not those things? Can he grow without those things? These preconceived notions are silly, and once you let go of that, and shed that skin, then you can be what you want to be, can go where you want to go, let go of these proverbial chains of some sort, and not be beholden to anybody. It’s not about what people think you’re supposed to be and what the world tells you that you have to be, it’s about growing and learning and being around other people so that you actually grow into a full human being. You should feel comfortable sitting at any table. I got this one piece, it’s called Fuckit. It’s a kid jumping off of a ledge and other kids watching him. And I put these terms like fear and hate and all this stuff, and it’s about him letting go and shedding these other things in order to live a fuller life.

I dislike the reaction every time somebody in hip hop dies, it’s a whole thing of us holding on to them, and I’m like, we have got to let them breathe, let them go. Their time has passed, someone else’s time is here. I don’t want to be a part of a death cult. Because that is not shedding in order to continue to grow. It feels like we’re always trying to hold onto people as part of a denial mechanism. When DMX passed recently, there was this whole denial, and people saying, “oh it wasn’t because of this, it was because of that.” But it doesn’t matter; our time, it’s inevitable. To actually love him more, you have to let that go. You have to be able to let people go to a degree, otherwise they become something else. They become a narrative of some myth that they weren’t and then that destroys what they really were.

What’s behind your website name, “Mbilishaka?”

It’s taken from H. Rap Brown, who was a member of the Black Panthers, and he used to say that in his speeches, he would say Lasima Tushinde Mbilishaka, “We shall conquer without a doubt.” So we took off the “we shall” part and it’s just “without a doubt.” Without a doubt is really just doing your best and being your best. And that applies to all of us. It’s about moving to that next thing.