Broken Systems

in Trouble, streaming November seventeenth only on Hulu. Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wikate FP Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording Not So Live from La Folks. I want to give a round up of the bullshit that

has transpired this week. You know, I spoke about this yesterday and I said that they are a myriad of people who want us to be satisfied with incremental change, who are making pronouncements about what in fact is inside of the Build Back Better Plan and the fact that it was dramatically cut in half because of two senators who are so in the pocket of corporations and the wealthy that they don't see the needs of three hundred and thirty some odd million Americans that they don't care

about the needs of three hundred and thirty some one million Americans. I think that one of the greatest tragedies of the last I don't know, eighteen nineteen months at this point of COVID is not just the deaths. That obviously is a major tragedy. Over seven hundred thousand Americans

have perished. The other greatest tragedy that I see unfolding right now is our government's inability to use what we learned about broken systems, broken agencies and use this chance, this opportunity under the Biden administration to create massive progressive overhaul of our country. If there was nothing else that we learned during this global health pandemic, it's that our schools don't have the right infrastructure, That there are some

schools that have had hvacts from decades ago. Right, that our children across this country we're breathing in polluted air before COVID, Right that there were no air purifiers. That's just the basics. That there were children across the country who we knew didn't have access to broadband, right making it narrowly impossible to be able to keep up with

their counterparts who may be better off economically. We knew that that childcare costs in this country are out of control, forcing parents and caregivers to have to make critical decisions between whether or not they're going to be able to pay for a mortgage or their rent and also pay for childcare, which in some states like the one that I live in in New York and the one that I'm currently in right now in California, have some of the highest childcare costs in the country, where you are

looking at maybe three four five thousand dollars a month right if you have more than one child that requires care. That we've had no real investment in universal pre K and all of these things that the pandemic illuminated for us. What are some of the other things that we've seen, The historic amount of storms, the intensity of those storms, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and how they cost billions upon billions of dollars in repair.

And so to not look at these really critical times that we are living in and not look at where the opportunity lies for us to improve upon broken systems, and instead decide that either we're just going to continue to kick the can down the road or be happy

with the crumbs that we are given. You know, I was never one of those people that believed that government was broken, right, obviously, because I've spent my entire professional career working in and around the federal government, right, whether I was working on Capitol Hill or as a lobbyist, or as a advisor on policy, or working in media

speaking on the issues that are plaguing our country. But I always felt like, well, well, given more information, with more people galvanized, right, more citizens paying attention and demanding better, that we would get better. Right. So that was the whole premise behind starting woke AF in the first place. It was like, well, if more people had been conscious right to the bullshit in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen,

then maybe we wouldn't have gotten a Donald Trump. Maybe trumps m wouldn't have been able to take hold and spread like a cancer across this country in the way that it has. But the reality is is that when I sit back and I look around now, and I think about how it has been ten months since the Biden administration entered into power, and I keep asking everyone that I come into contact with from various walks of life. Do you feel better? There is not a person that

I am coming across that says yes, I do. So what does that mean about people thoughts and feelings about how our federal government is working for us. It means that more people are feeling let down, disappointed, angry with the ways in which they're seeing this political theater play

out around this legislation and others. I mean, it was just over the summer when Corey Booker was holding a microphone saying, well, after eight months of quote unquote good faith negotiations with Republican Tim Scott, we're not getting any police reform, regardless of the fact that as a country and as the world watch George Floyd have his last breath, hath his life squeezed out of his body by a

police officer. And before George Floyd, and after George Floyd, too many black and brown people have been killed by police. But over the summer, our political leaders walked in front of cameras and threw up their hands. Then it has been the same situation with voting rights, which in my opinion, should have been the first thing outside of the rollout for vaccines, should have been the first thing big initiative that this administration was taking on following the death of

fucking John Lewis. It is not enough to put people's names on legislation that you have no fucking intention or strategy to pass. Oh, the George Floyd Policing Act, Yeah, and it's as dead as George Floyd is. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act, wonderful marker, but that's dead in the water too. But at the same time that two are these important pieces of legislation that would begin to

reshape and reimagine broken systems. Then they want to turn around and pass Juneteenth legislation and then at the same time make Juneteenth a federal holiday. But guess what, you can't teach it and damn near half of the schools in this country because they now have bands on actual, real and inclusive and comprehensive American history otherwise known as critical race theory. So when I look around right now and I'm sitting back and I'm thinking to myself, is

government broken? Like? Are we just done? Because we realize just how ineffective our political leaders are because they are so bought and sold by the people who fill their political coffers. If citizens United had never happened, Right if that bullshit Supreme Court didn't decide that we could just

have an influx of money into our political system. Do you think that Kirsten's cinema would have found herself across the pond when major negotiations would happen because her constituents eyes would have been on her and what she was doing. But she's not beholden to them, so she could care less. Minnie saw her presiding over the Senate in a denim jacket, flipping her hair like she's some teenage girl trying to get the attention of some boy or girl in their class.

That's how serious she looked. So without deep accountability, and dare I say actual fear of what your constituents will do, namely voting you out, then what are you actually doing? Where is the where is your get up and go? You have none? I told you yesterday there's not one billionaire in West Virginia. But right now Joe Mansion doesn't want a billionaire tax because it's the billionaires that feed

his energy company that are his shareholders. Forty years, this man has been representing a very destitute state in this country for forty years which tells you a couple of things. Either, the people are so desperate and so unable to put food on their table to go and pick up and fill prescription drug medications because they don't have enough money. They're so busy and underwater with their day to day that they don't have the attention to wonder what is

my senator actually fucking doing for me? And I think on both Democrats and Republican sides, that that's the way they fucking want it. Keep people in despair, keep them in dysfunction, so that then they're not paying enough attention to know that you are literally picking their pockets, that you are literally doing nothing that you took an oath to do. I said yesterday it is time, I believe, for us to move away from our focus on the

presidency and on Congress, not to not vote. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying the fact is is that the federal level ain't where things are at. It

is at the state and local level. And you know who knows that fucking Republicans who are running for everything from dog catcher to school board to city council to state representatives because they know that they have no policies that anybody gives a shit about, and as a matter of fact, they know they don't need them, because when you're the party of no, no one is looking to

you to offer a damn thing. They're just looking for you to roll back the clock so that you can feel better about your racism, so that you can feel accepted in taking off your hood and letting people know how you really feel. But the question that I continue to ask is, if we know that to be true, those of us who have the ability to be tapped in, then why aren't we messaging that. How is it that our government can be so ineffectual and these people hold

jobs for fucking decades and do absolutely nothing. It's why I ask myself at the end of every week and midweek and at the beginning of every week, what am I doing? Because I want to actually be of service? Because unlike our representatives right now, federal representatives, I want to be of service. I want to help people be better, do better, think clearer, understand their power and wield it in a strategic manner. I try and inform as many

people as possible. This is one of the reasons why we're going to be doing full video of the show, but then offering the audio for free because I said, I need to reach more people. I need to do what I can do in my little corner of the universe, because our democracy is slipping away, and it's not even slipping, it's being pushed over a cliff. And the people that we call on to represent us and be our voices are the ones that are silent right now, with their

hands in their pockets, looking everywhere but at us. And it's time that we start looking at each other and ourselves and saying what is next? If this is broken and we can't reimagine where we go with this current system, then what do we do with it? Coming up next, friends, is my conversation with a brilliant, brilliant Nigerian British artist, DeCicco.

We have a deep conversation about his understanding of blackness and how he uses his understanding and his depth of knowledge and his Nigerian roots to create some of the most beautiful pieces I've ever seen. And if you are on Instagram, look up a Sicco asi Ko and look

at his work. As we get into this conversation about art, about beauty, about blackness, and about purpose, folks, I am really excited to welcome to woke f for the very first time, an artist that I came upon on Instagram when I decided that I was no longer interested in just following politicos and no longer interested in misery and wanted to fill my feed with beauty. A Sicco is an incredible artist that encapsulates the beauty of blackness and

the ordination and the spirituality and the royalty. That's what those are all of the words, uh that come to my mind when I see your work. And so I just want to start off with one appreciating you because in a time when still regardless of what part of the Black diaspora you come from, you still are not inundated with black beauty. You still are not inundated with black success um and and excellence and innovation um in a way that we should be in the in the

twenty first century. So I want to first ask you, you know, about being about the label artist and what that what that means to you and why you've chosen um the subjects that you have. Okay, thank you so much, Daniel for allowing to talk. It's always good to talk about the work and always a share ideas. So for me things, so my stories are strange. One. I so I didn't start out as an artist, and that's an

interesting word artist. I think I'm a human being navigating is the life and navigating who he is and how he fits in the world. And then art is my form of expression, my way to talk to the world, my way to talk about the things that inspire me, but also talk about the things that kissed me off and talk about the things that I love, but then the things that I want to shout about. And so artists kind of my way to express and to talk about those things. So the word artist has kind of

come with that whole. With that whole, I guess paradise. But I didn't start up as an artist. That I started out. You know, I've got a Nigerian parents, So I started out as a I have a master's degree in biotraumatics and I'm a chemist, um, you know, trained in university and I worked in the pharmacy pop industry for you know, quite a couple of years and then. But I was always interested in art and it was

something that fed my soul. You know. My dad was a collector and he had worked all around, and I was also interested in European arts. So a lot of these things kind of fed me. And then I think when it was time and when my work had developed, I took that progression to become I guess the word is full time artist. So it's been an interesting journey, but I find for me it's a way to talk about the things that I want to talk about. It

it's my journey understanding blackness. You know, I didn't just all the world blackness till I moved to the UK. It was in the UK that I found out I was black. In Nigeria, where I lived till I was about sixteen seventeen, I didn't think I was black. I just thought I was I was just a guy. And then I came to kind of found out was black.

And then so when I grew older, those other things I started to talk about through my work to celebrate my blackness, but also to um talk about the things that was there in your journey, which is so interesting, right, I think that we all enter into I'm a child of immigrants to the United States myself. My family is from Jamaica, and you know, there is always this idea that there's only certain track that you can go into, right, because your family wants you to have great success, and

great success means finance, financial stability. Right. What was the tipping point moment or was there a tipping point moment for you when you are you have your masters and you're working in pharmaceuticals and a chemist and you're just like, so, I don't want to do this anymore, or this is not allowing me to really express my full self. I

still feel like I'm shelving a part of myself. Was there a moment or a series of moments that led to you saying this is what this is who I want to be or how I want to express myself full time? So that's an interesting question. There was no definitive moment. There wasn't some sort of Eureka explosion about this is the time. And I think, you know, as as we get older, we have to be smart about the about the sort of steps we take. And for me,

it was actually a gradual thing. And I was in no rush because I actually did it once where I did quit everything and I said, you know, I'm going to be a full time market to quit my job, and you know, I'd saved some money, and it didn't. But I know why I didn't work because I wasn't the artist that I am now. I wasn't fully leaned into who I'm supposed to be as a person. I

don't fully activated that part of myself. And it was when I started, when I went through a self discovery journey of knowing that actually I just shouldn't be making the work for other people. I should be making work about my journey. And then and in some ways that was a transition from being a photographer to being an artist where the work has more meaning and it has more debt to it. So there wasn't that definitive moments, and for some people there is, but I didn't have

the luxury of that. You know, I'm married, and you know I can't just there are two people involved in that equation, so I can't just jump everything and just say, hey, you know what, We're going to go and live on somebody's couch right now and be a what what's the word, uh,

struggling artist And the Nigerian narrative. Nigerians don't do struggling, you know, um not have any money in their profits kind of art that it doesn't work in our narratives, and those are some of the things I picked from my parents, as much as it was challenging to express to them, this is what I do. I've learned a lot of things about how to take the family, of how to be responsible, of how to build a life.

And I learned that those bits from them. So I'm a balance between both of those worlds and I've learned to navigate them well over the past couple of years. What was it about moving to the UK that had you really begin to understand your blackness in the perspective

of other people's view of you? Right? Because you understood yourself in one context living in Nigeria being around people who who look like you, right, who are in all sorts of positions of power, right from prime ministers and presidents and you know, nurses and doctors and all of

these different things. How did you understand then your black or begin to understand your blackness through what I'm assuming is the white gaze, right is through white people's is through white people's eyes as a post through your own. How did that come about? So this is so late. So first, living in Nigeria, there's a lot of imports of Western culture. So from TVs to film, so you in some way do you start to see a reflection

of what other people feel black people are. Um, you know, so the narrative is a gang banger or or or drug dealer or or or he's he's the person that's always going to get killed before you know, the film gets anyway, before we get halfway through the film, you get killed, which is interesting because black people have this amazing self preservation. So if there was a real life situation, the black people are definitely not going to get killed first. So I don't understand how the how it goes like

that film. Um, but so I started to see through this influx or Western culture, you start to get an idea of how you're going to be view But it didn't prepare me for when I actually moved to be kid because I moved at about sixteen seventeen. But also in some subconscious way, I don't think I appreciate it being black. I just kind of went, you know, I'm just a human being, just I'm kids, I'm living my life. But it was because of the stuff I'd been fed.

So I moved to the UK, and then there was this whole thing of how people approached me, how people pronounced my name, how they thought that. You know, we swung from tree in Africa and we didn't have any technology. And this is always the interesting one. We speak a really good influition for a Nigerian, for an African. Oh, I've heard that one like a thousand and many times. It's not even a thing. It's actually not a thing. And sometimes I will cheekily reply, um, we speak better

English than you. You know how to use consonance, verbs and proverbs well in a sentence. I'll respond like that in a sort of cheeky way. Um. So you start to get an idea that you are different because of the color of the skin. And I didn't fully appreciate that until I started to get as I started to get older. So I lived in Brixton when I first lived to the UK. Brixton is likened to Brooklyn. It's

an area that we redeveloped. A lot of black people, you know from the Caribbean, lived in Brixton, but it's gone through a gentification and now that's not casting. Um. So I lived it, and I was surrounded by a few, quite a few black people. But once you step out of Brixton. We start to see how people view you and how they how they you know, Bucher your name and not in a I don't understand how to pronouncing him, but in a sort of derogatory way, right, I don't.

I'm not even gonna trouble myself to and extend myself because you're not deserving of even the proper pronunciation. Oh yes, exactly. And and you see these sorts of things are there's a certain sort of superiority. Um, you know, I've come to live in your country, I come to school here. I'm a British citident. You know I was born here when I was a kid. But I've come to school here and you know i'd got back. Um, but there's a certain level of superiority to how people view you,

and that comes across in the way they speak. So all of these things were things that I kind of took in and absorbed. And um, there's a certain level of being a Nigerian where I'll push back and say no, you can't talk to me like that, or you can't you can't behave like behave like that to me. But the challenges there is still a taken on with human beings and they will still be There's levels of build

up and in some ways can cause trauma. And those are the sorts of things that affect you know, me as a person and affect a lot of you know, Nigerians or Black people or Black British people who live here. Um, so that that whole thing had kind of been simmering under the surface. So for me, when I started to create, I found an avenue to speak about black people in

positive life. More so women. M I my narrative has been you know, my mother was quite a strong, powerful and Nigerian woman, and she kind of shaped my ideas of womanhood. And then my my dad's sisters as well were quite powerful. And then you know, growing up in me, I've met all these beautiful, amazing women, married to an amazing woman, and so all of these different things that kind of start to shape my my narratives of women,

and that feeds into my work. And then one of the challenges is whenever I go back to Nigeria, I see how women are treated them. Women are treats to their second part citizens and some of these things that come from colonial narratives which have fed into our culture and to women are treated, you know, unfairly. So I want to edify women with my work as well and show that women are beautiful. Black women are amazing, you know, they are the pillars of the community and of the society.

If women were gone and the sort of contributions they you know, contribute to our societies, if those weren't there, societies will crumble. And people might not fully agree with that, but it's to be able to frumble because at the grassroots women are really important, you know, holding its time together. I mean, I could not agree more. And it is always shocking to me. Women make up you know, half of the world, right I'm in I'm in the United States.

We make up over half of the population in the United States, and yet when you look at who is in power and who has power, the numbers are paltry in comparison to the actually you know, to the actual demographics of of women in this country and around the world.

And I mean, you know, there are so many campaigns that have been that have been done about letting women learn and letting women you know, lead, and doing all of these things because at the essence of it, you know, women are essential, right and not just essential in the way in how patriarchy wants to see us as essential, which is just as producers, right, we manufacture maybe's and so that is our sole purpose. Um it is so much there, It's so much more expansive than that. Um

there is. And I am not an artist, but I appreciate art. And the thing that I appreciate, particularly around some of the pieces that I've seen with you, is the way that the blackness comes through. It is the lighting, it is the depth, like the like the only thing that I can think of is richness. It is, I mean, it is I've never I've never seen anything like it.

And I want to talk to you about that, about this this richness and in the lines and the you know, there's a particular series and forgive me because the name of it is not coming to me, but it is a particular series. And the women are in a range of what looks like warrior attire and there and it is like this expression of femininity of power. But again there is it's the skin and the coloring looks like I could reach through and just grab it. Can you

speak about that? And like that, the technique and and and the and the thoughtfulness behind it yeah, of course. So for me, it's skin is important. Um, it's texture, how it reflects light. Um, those things, especially with black skins, just how that looks. It's focus riches and you know, I mean in the UK we don't get that much sun here, which is not great. But in in in or whenever I travel in a hot climate, you just see how the sun bounces off and there's a there's

a shine. You know, our skin is beautiful and it's just amazing to see. And for me, I want to photograph that. And it's not just photographing it from a from a I mean, this is how I saw it. It's also about this is how I feel about it. This is how that black skin makes me feel. It's howful, it's beautiful, it's something to do celebrate. It might not be prevalent in media, but this is how I see

black people. This is how I see black women. And I photographed there and I thought, and I try as much as I can to um show complexity, because there is a complexity there. To show strength, to show vulnerability, to show um all these different emotions that we carry as as a black race. And those for me are the ways because technique is great um in terms of showing me things, but it's more how does that make me feel? And how do I photograph that? Or how

do I make that in a photograph? And I think that's kind of how I approach when I'm photographing women. So in some cases, I want to show their strength. In some places I want to show their vulnerability. Depends

on the stories. I did a body of work called Conversations, and it was about FGM female genitalium, new relations cultural practice, which still happens in Nigeria and in parts of Africa, And for me, I wanted to show the vulnerability, but I just didn't want to show the vulnerability of what women go through with these acts of violence committed against them. I also wanted to make sure that those women or whoever I was photographing still had a level of dignity

and grace which black women exhibits. You know, they uh, you know, black women go through a lot, and you know, it's a sad thing. I think that at the bottom of fooching when you look at to raise them a gender, so they they go through all this stuff, but then they still hold their heads high and they are still powerful in the midst of how they are treated, portrayed in in in our society. So for me, I want

to be able to show aspects of that complexity. And so in that work conversations I spoke to women who've been through this, who've been cuvert in the in their teams, and I wanted to show so I used all these conversations that I had with them to make the work um And you know, the work came about because I'd

never heard of it. So as a man sitting in a place of privilege, nothing I've ever happened to me like that and hearing that, so my thought, this is not even something I thought happened in my culture and cultured something I love and I want to put most So for me, it was important to talk about that, which is something you know that should stop. You know, as cultures, as we evolved as human beings, our cultures evolved and things need to some things need to be

edited out. We need to know that happened, but those things need to be removed from our cultive society. So for me, it's it's that whole thing. I want to show the beauty and entify who we are with black people. I mean, it's just your work is so extraordinary an

a word came into my head. I kept trying to express to friends when I would send your page to them and say, look at look at this art, like look like you know, and I kept trying to like articulate what the what it reminded me of And it is the way that you create the depth of texture of skin. It's like looking at the most fertile soil that you've ever seen. It is so rich and so black and so and like where life is coming from.

It's and and that is It's like it's the it's the texturedness of of like the most fertile soil is how like is how I see it when when I when I look at your art, um you know. Last question for you is the world as a whole is in such turmoil right now, um racial reckonings happening in the United States as well as UM in the UK and just around the globe right the idea of pervasive white supremacy and how it has been how we have

been inductrinated in so many ways. How do how do you come to understand how art can help articulate that reality, that pain, that frustration, Like how do you go about thinking about encapsulating than this now that we're in in your in your work. Hmm, that's good question. Um. I think the should be a level of authenticity and that's one of the things that I try to show because I'm in this world. I'm my work is inspired by

African heritage, but also my British heritage. I've spent more my life here than when I was than when I lived in my year, so I've grown up here, thank you. But I think it's and I've seen this as a way within the black community, there is a very strong move to talk about the things that we are going through. It is very important to talk about the narrative of

who we are. And I feel people are, you know, artists are being very authentic to who they are and talking about the injustice they feel or what they see on the news or what they see in society. I created a body work called the Black Life Matters, and it was after George Floyd's passing in the summer of last year, and you know, just seeing that happened made me come front my issues as well with racism, and

you know, just hearing all the news cycles. I mean, you you are very much you watch the news and you are in the news cycles, and you understand that if you take everything on board, you can just wake up real every day and just exactly it affects. And so what I find and what I feel am blessed with is as an artist to use my work to as a form of therapy for myself, but also to be able to speak to the world about being black living in the UK or being black living from you know,

conversations that can be friends. And I think we need to be authentic and also emphatic to each other because we all have this just one plan. This is it. There's no other, there's no so we have to work together.

And as an artist, mind is to contribute who I am as an artist, to be able to talk in spaces about my journey, because I feel like the more we get to understand each other, the more we get to understand where we're coming from, then we are a bit more open to hear each other's journey, to get each other's competitions. I mean, as you know, just being online can be quite a crazy place. Um. You know, I can put up a body of work and some people just come from and you know, and they have

their opinions. But I feel I wish we were a bit more open to each other and to listen to each other and not be so fast to say, oh, your cancel or your cancel. It's we need to There's there's a lot of growing that we all need to do together people. And so for me, my work is to be able to talk about my experience, to be able to share a bit of my world, and you know, I hope in the hope that you know a bit about me and we can have conversations. We can sit

down and not fight, but have conversations. We might not agree, and we're not supposed to. All of the six seven billion people, we're not going to agree, but we do it with dignity, and we do it with great and we do it with empathy. And that's what I hope in some place, in some way my work will will bring to the world and um, you know, it will

be a legacy thing. My work is not just about me, also for people who are going through what I do or an igerency've moved here to then understand what it is and to understand the space of women in society so beautiful I can't express to you how gorgeous and powerful and honest your work is, UM, and I am just so fortunate for the opportunity that I stumbled upon it and then was able to get into conversation with you. It's it's surpassed my my expectations so much. Thank you

very much. UM. Is it will your I justum quickly for those who would love to see your your work? Does it? Will you? Do you show in the States? Do you have a show in the States coming? Or um? A virtual virtual? Oh oh and not at the moment, but people can stay stay follow me on Instagram there is I'm always announced new things. UM. I have a gallery I work with and the great so hopefully we'll

be showing some more. But I was, I was very fortunate this year we did h The images from A Black Lives Matters were moving around the US, so they showed the New York Planter somewhere I think, and this was the work about you know where I was working flum the British and American flag and it was about that period when George Floyd's cost Yeah, yeah, I felt

about the institution. So that work did move around the US during I think, Yes, it was the song earlier on some of this year it shows great um but um I there are a few things in the pipelon, so hopefully the next year they will be in. But yeah, looking forward to sharing new work. I will have my ice field because I would just love the opportunity to see the work in person um and hopefully you would be able to meet you in person as well. A SICCO thank you so very much for your time and

for your talent. Just really appreciate you. Thank you so much, thanks for your opportunity. That is it for me, dear friends today on woke a f as always Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.