BACK TO READING CREDITS - EPISODE 5 - Lachi
PUB: 12.12.24
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
[MUSIC BED: Slow, heavy beat]
[INTRO]
[VO] Wes Jackson (WJ): Welcome to Back To Reading Credits – a new, 6-part audio-visual podcast from BRIC Radio celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop, and the people behind the curtain who drive the culture. I’m your host, BRIC President Wes Jackson.
[FADE OUT MUSIC]
WJ: For episode three of Back To Reading Credits, we have Lachi in the studio – Like Versace as I was told [laughter]. Lachi is a globally touring recording artist, award winning social entrepreneur, GRAMMY Chapter Board Governor, and host of PBS’ American Masters series ‘Renegades’. Born legally blind, Lachi uses her platform in music, storytelling and fashion to amplify identity pride and Disability Culture. Her U.N.-recognized organization RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities) has collaborated on disability-inclusive solutions with the GRAMMYs, Netflix, Tidal, SONY Pictures Entertainment and more. Her recent song “Lift Me Up” in homage to Judy Heumann peaked at #29 on U.S. Adult Contemporary radio, with airplay on MTV.com and BETSoul.
[MUSIC BREAK: “Lift Me Up” by Lachi]
Lachi: When the world got my head spinning
Feeling stuck here on the ground
You lift me up
You lift me up. [FADE OUT CLIP]
WJ: Named a USA Today Woman of the Year, a “new champion in advocacy” by Billboard, and "a foot soldier for Disability Pride'' by Forbes, her cultural activism has landed her spots on national ads and TEDx stages, discussions with the White House, BBC, Good Morning America and the New York Times, and her bejeweled glam canes – her bejeweled glam canes, didn’t I point those out when you walked in there? [laughter] I seen ‘em.Them canes are lit. – have popped up everywhere from New York Fashion Week to major LA movie premieres.…welcome, Lachi!
[LACHI INTERVIEW]
Lachi: Oh man, who did you just – who was that about?
WJ: That was you!
Lachi: She seems kinda dope.
WJ: That was you sis! You know, you read these things and be like, "Who you talking about?
Lachi: I was like, "When's she coming?"
WJ: I would like to meet her as well.
Lachi: Oh my God, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you so much for that beautiful introduction and for having me on this podcast.
WJ: You know this, as I said, we started this podcast as a part of our celebration of Hip-Hop 50th. We have a great exhibition here right outside the window for those who may be listening and not looking called "to hold a we" which all was curated with artists with disabilities.
Lachi: Sure.
WJ: I was like, "Well, I don't want to do like one energy here for the podcast and the exhibition is a different thread." And people are like, "What are you all doing at BRIC?" [laughter] So we were like "How can we find someone who can bring all this together and push the conversation forward?" So that's why you are here!
Lachi: Absolutely, absolutely. I am absolutely here for it. I love that you folks are looking to really amplify disability here at the museum and then to also pair it with voice. I mean, we're not seeing enough of that. And so I'm glad that you all are taking the initiative to make sure that that disability is included.
WJ: Yeah, exactly. And we'll talk more about the little -- I kind of have some really aggressive thoughts.
Lachi: Let's do it. Let's get it.
WJ: But I want to do this, let's do this episode. Talk to me about you.
Lachi: Sure.
WJ: So, you know, so you're a singer, song writer. Talk to me about your your evolution, your story, kind of maybe from before, and how you got here.
Lachi: So I was always into music. My mom said that while other babies were kicking, I was playing the keys in her womb. [laughter] I don't know how she got a keyboard in there, but you know what? I -- She's not a liar. [laughter] But so music has always been in my heart. And, you know, as a person who was blind but not totally blind, I didn't fit in like the blind box or the not blind box. And so I didn't really have a lot -- I was a bit of a outcast, a bit of a like freethinker, outside the box. And I would always turn to music to kind of express myself, to understand the world and to get the world to understand me. So music was just always at my side. You know, my parents, I told them I wanted to be an artist and they were like, "Is that how you spell doctor?" And I was like...
WJ: [Laughter] Girl, I think you misspelled a couple of words.
Lachi: Exactly. I was like, "Ooh." So, you know, I got a straight and narrow job, but I was definitely like -- I went to school, got a job, and I was living a double life at that job. I knew I had to make music like it was my calling. And so I ended up just jumping out the job and just going for the music. I recognized like while I was working, I didn't know that I was experiencing ableism because I just didn't have that word yet. In the teens, you know, 20 teens. It just wasn't a popular word yet. And something was different and something was wrong. So I jumped out and I said, "I need to really just pursue the real passion that is me and say this thing in my heart." I didn't even know -- I didn't know what it was I wanted to say yet, but I knew I had to say something. It was there. It was like boiling and bubbling. So left a job, jumped headfirst, no health care, you know, that thing just jumped out.
WJ: So this was like as an adult. This is after college... Because we were talking about you moving around.
Lachi: This is after. Yes, this was -- so I studied management and business in USC. Then I went to NYU to study music because I got that calling. I was like, "I need to do music." But even after I graduated, you know, my parents was like, "Let's make sure you have a back, you know, something to fall back on.".
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: So I started working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I know that's, like, a pretty heavy job to get as like a kid coming out of school.
WJ: Oh what? Damn. Building bridges, and saving...
Lachi: Yeah, exactly, exactly [laughter]
WJ: That's dope.
Lachi: But the problem with that is, is that they kind of have your life planned for you. They're like, "Okay, two years here, you're going to get this raise. Two years that, then you get this." You know what I mean? It's all set up. And I saw the rest of my life and I was like, "Is that what I want?" And I realized it was not what I wanted. What I really wanted was just to, I don't know, jump in the deep end and do music. That's what we wanted.
WJ: So did you just like wake up one day and be like, "Yo, I'm out of here, I'm going to the studio."?
Lachi: Almost, almost. I started doing music on the side. I was touring on my PTO, I was running around and it was so funny because a friend of mine and I -- a guitar player and I -- we went to South by, South by Southwest down to Texas. We didn't have a gig or anything. We were just going to play at some like empty, you know, just whatever, who would take us so we could be a part of the fun.
WJ: Right.
Lachi: Before I left, I wrote to a bunch of, like, you know, label heads?
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: I just got emails. I don't know where I got their emails from, but I wrote to a bunch. And, you know, this isn't how it works, right? [laughter] I just wrote a bunch of cold emails. I was like, "I'm gonna be at South by if you're there, like, hit me up somehow." So we ended up going down there. We play this hole in the wall with like seven people. And one of the A&Rs showed up.
WJ: Oh really? [laughter] What year? So what year are we at right now? Give me like the time stamp.
Lachi: So this is 2010.
WJ: 2010. Okay. So it's been a minute.
Lachi: Yeah. So one of this was one of the A&Rs showed up. And then I, um, we ended up getting signed to EMI. Now they're kind of consolidated with Universal, but before that they were their own label. Did that for a while. Ended up not loving it because I was just a kid. Like, I didn't know what I was doing and I just signed my life away and they were making decisions about my disability that I didn't like.
WJ: Like in terms of marketing you?
Lachi: In terms of marketing.
WJ: In a real, like wack kind of way?
Lachi: In a real wack... You know, it's so funny you said "Wack." I said whack to somebody the other day.
WJ: Am I showing my age?
Lachi: Yeah. They were like, "Who says wack?" I was like, "I don't know. They need to bring it back because this is wack." [laughter] But, you know, it's so funny because I didn't like that they were calling me like a blind, you know, it almost felt like a shtick, right? Blind musician, blind this, blind that. And it's so funny because when I tell people this, they're like, "But Lachi. That's what you say now. Like, you're like, 'Oh, I'm a musician. I'm blind.' You're so open about it. Why weren't you cool when they were doing it?" And I'm like, "Because I'm doing it now from a place of power. It is my declaration. And they were not." I was not empowered when they were doing it.
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: But, you know, so I ended up stepping back from the music industry for a while and then coming back.
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: I came back in like 2017, 2016. I got signed to a major management company that did dance music, and then it kind of just blew up from there. Like I got with the right people.
WJ: That's kind of a cool story. I know it didn't quite work out, but it's kind of a whole story of the A&R pulling up.
Lachi: Sure, yeah.
WJ: You know, was, were they just, like, blown away? Or did you feel like the -- what am I trying to say? Did the shtick come in...
Lachi: The shtick came in later?
WJ: Later, ok.
Lachi: I mean, I think he thought it was kind of cool that we were -- because the guitar player was also blind. And so we just happened to both be friends, right? I think he thought it was kind of cool, but I don't think he had in his mind like, "Oh my God, this is like, I'm going to -- she's the new Stevie Wonder. Like it wasn't anything like that. I mean, we weren't doing good, like really fun songs. We were having such a great time. We didn't care who saw us or not. We were just playing our hearts out.
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: And I think he liked it. It was so funny because he gave us his card and we just it took us forever to figure out, like, "What the fuck? We're blind. What is this card say?!" [laughter]
WJ: Know, your audience, bro. You know, you need to meet me where I'm at. [laughter]
Lachi: That was a lot of fun. But I mean, I'm still actually friends with the A&R that had originally signed me. So, you know. No, no love lost there.
WJ: No, no. I can see, you know, no sort of energy there. So that sort of going around EMI and you know, I remember with the consolidations and I mean getting ground through those gears is a pretty typical artist story, you know, probably any genre. So now, so that ends and then you kind of go independent with this management?
Lachi: Yeah. So I go independent. I've been relatively independent since. So when I got signed to that management company, I started songwriting. So I was songwriting for like major artists.
WJ: Oh I see. Yeah.
Lachi: And then also, you know, doing my own like, sort of stuff on the side. But the real money was coming in, the songwriting for other artists. And then about 2018, I landed a song 2018, 2019, I landed a song called "Far" with a big DJ out of -- I think he's in Florida? -- Named Marcus Schulz.
WJ: Okay.
Lachi: And then I landed as the vocalist.
[MUSIC BREAK: “Far” by Marcus Schulz & Lachi]
Lachi: We're facing the wrong way
We're replacing the wrong things
And the only world we know is wrong
And the road we walk is dark and long
'Cause no one's ever got this far
And no one's ever got this far… [FADE OUT CLIP]
WJ: And this is like EDM, House.
Lachi: It's like dance. Yeah, electronic dance, electronic. And so I started kind of blowing up in that space and then I started getting a ton of work -- people wanting to hire me and bring me on as the vocalist and the artist, not just songwriter.
WJ: Nice. Nice.
Lachi: And so, you know how that goes. So I started singing and songwriting and not just being in the background, songwriting. Covid hits, and at this point I have a ton of confidence now, right? I have my own home studio because I was done trying to navigate, you know, all these studios and, you know, them not being able to accommodate a blind person. And, you know, I started... I had realized I want to have my own very accessible studio. So I started building my own studio. I started getting real confident. I was like, became the top line queen. So a top line is -- you should probably know -- but a top line is essentially, when you write a song to a track that's already made. And so I was just banging them out, banging them out, banging them out. Covid hits, and, you know, everybody else kind of slows down. And I'm still banging them out because I already have my home studio setup.
WJ: Oh, Interesting. So in a way, you built it in response to, I don't know, the the insensitivity…
Lachi: The inaccessibility.
WJ: …Inaccessibility. And then you wind up having the advantage over the whole market.
Lachi: Right there.
WJ: There it is. That's the whole rub.
Lachi: That's the whole --- and it kind of is like from that point forward, the story of my life where the disability that I have ends up being an advantage because of how hard I had to lean into something, to overcompensate. And then all of a sudden I'm like this expert in, like, a whole bunch of stuff.
WJ: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's exactly the rubber. That’s why we wanted you here.
Lachi: Sure.
WJ: You know, looking at this, these are the people we should really be following.
Lachi: Yes.
WJ: Right? Because you have to stay ahead of the curve. Because the curve is not respecting you.
Lachi: Exactly.
WJ: Before I get into it -- because then I'm going to get into RAMPD and the work -- but before that, I just want to take a quick detour. The song writing. This sort of, now you were writing your own songs and you came in here and then you kind of fell back. Just for our artists out there. What was that like? Is that like a humble pie you got to eat of like, "These are my words. And I feel a little frustrated that I'm not getting full shine"? Or are you happy just to be?
Lachi: No. It depends. Honestly, at the end of the day, because I know both camps, like I know a lot of artists that they're a songwriter, but they're an artist at heart. For me, first of all, I was just felt really honored to have been signed to that management company, right? I already felt privileged and it's like my songs were getting out there. They were getting tons of spins. I was getting royalties. Like I saw it as a job where I was making money in the way where I've been wanting to make money at, like, working at the court. Right? Working at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I started making as much money there as I was making at the day job. So I was like, "I don't want to mess this up!" [laughter]. And it was so cool to, like, have artists out -- you know, we were pretty global because, you know, we were doing electronic dance music. So, so cool to see like major artists out in like the UK and like Germany and stuff like that, singing my songs. I think that the pride comes when people call you. Like when somebody says, "I want a song written and I want Lachi to write it." Then you feel you still feel the shine. You still feel that, "Oh, wow. Okay. I'm an expert here." You know what I'm saying? And then sometimes, you know, if you don't have, like, the. What's the word? What's the word I'm looking for? Like, clout is not the right word. But if you don't have your ish together as an artist, it is so easy to get played. I mean, I got played when I was signed the first time, and so I liked actually being on the other side of being like, "Oh, yeah, okay, Artist. Sure. Let me get you to song. Let me get you set up, my baby little artist." [laughter] And until an artist gets their stuff together and recognize that they're actually a whole business and stop getting themselves played, then they start demanding respect. And so that's why I was okay to kind of cross over to the other side since I saw the back years and how to really do it for real.
WJ: Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to get there of understanding, you just said it, you're business.
Lachi: Yes.
WJ: Right? And there's I mean, it's rough because it's your art, it's your passion, it's your love. But yeah anyway, I just wanted to, I'm glad you said it. I wanted to get that out to young artists of like "Listen, sitting writing these songs, getting these checks ain't the worst thing in the world!" Right? And then it helps set you up to do your real work. So talk to me about RAMPD.
Lachi: Okay.
WJ: And does RAMPD, in terms of our timeline, RAMPD starts sort of post-COVID as you're kind of ahead of the industry?
Lachi: So RAMPD essentially started when I -- So it's post-COVID. And I'm out here doing, you know, my music and all of that. And what ends up happening is I needed community. Everybody did during Covid. I mean, we had George Floyd. I was just feeling really alone. I was feeling very Black. [laugher] You know?
WJ: Amen. I know what you mean.
Lachi: I started wanting to just build community. I wanted to build Black disabled community. I wanted to build this and build that, but I wasn't hearing it anywhere. So I started going to these webinars and seminars and all of that stuff, and I noticed they weren't talking about disability, they were talking about women, they were talking about LGBTQ, they were talking about Black Lives Matter, they were talking about Latina stuff, but they weren't talking about disability. So I started getting frustrated and I started doing stuff like posting in the chats and like doing chat takeovers where I, like... I would say so much stuff in the chat about disability -- I'd be posting like pictures. I would be posting like whole Wikipedia articles -- that everybody would just stop talking and be like, "Okay, she got the chat." [laughter]
WJ: And then, now the webinars talk about your notes?
Lachi: No, the webinars never acknowledged it.
WJ: Oh what?!
Lachi: Until finally one day I did it so hard that I got a phone call, it was Women In Music, women in music dot org. I did it so hard, I got a phone call and they were like, "Look, do you want to do a disability webinar?" [laughter]
WJ: Um, yes. [laughter]
Lachi: So I did my first disability webinar. It ends up doing really well. I joined the Recording Academy just as a member, just the Grammys as a member, and I ended up in some room for advocacy. They were trying to talk about advocacy and they were like, "So what's your name?" I was like, "My name is Lachi and I feel like we need to be doing more about disability and accessibility in the music industry. So what are you all doing about it?" And they were like, "Oh, yeah, you know...."
WJ: Just giving you the run around? Like, nothing...
Lachi: They weren't being negative or anything. At the end of the day is so new and nobody's talking about it, especially in music. Maybe they're talking about it in the corporate world and maybe even Hollywood, but not music. And so they were like, "Oh, you know, ain't it just you and Stevie Wonder?" I'm like, "Okay, that can't be right." [laughter]
WJ: Oh, come on. Don't say that. Don't say that. [laughter]
Lachi: "That can't be right!" So what ended up happening was they ended up asking me to do a webinar. Now, this is the Grammys.
WJ: Yeah. Yeah.
Lachi: And remember, everybody's starved for content at this time. So I ended up putting, like -- I started getting some people together be like, "Hey!" Just a couple of disabled musicians I knew around and I was like, "Do you want to be on this webinar with me? Because I don't really know what I'm doing." And and they were like, "Yeah, sure!" And finally it got kicked up to the top at the Grammys, and the national leadership was like, "We want to be a part of this webinar. We want to make this a national program. We want you to moderate." And I was like, "Oh, snap." I went and bought me a little suit jacket. [laughter] And so we did the webinar and it was really good. We had Siedah Garrett, who is background singer for Quincy Jones, R.I.P., you know, Michael Jackson, etc. We had this singer violinist named Gaelynn Lea. She had won the NPR Tiny Desk one year. We had this really great rapper, Hip-Hop activist, named Namel Norris, gun violence survivor. And so we had a really great panel. We sat apposite the leadership of the Grammys. And then at the end of it, you know, we talked about disability inclusion, all that stuff. At the end of it, the Grammys was like, "Okay, we hear you and you know, we're going to come back to y'all with, you know, we took notes. We're going to come back to you all with some of the things we want to put in place." And I was just like, "Come back to who? Us?"
WJ: Oh, were you like, "I have no infrastructure to accept this"?
Lachi: I was like, "Who is going to hold these people to account?" That was day one. So I started getting flooded with DMs, emails, this, that like, "Oh, Lachi, I want to be a part of your movement. Oh, Lachi, I want to be a part of your organization." And I was like, "What movement? What organization?" And I didn't want to do it. Because my manager had actually like just earlier that year, or like within a year prior to that had passed away to Covid. I was trying to get my -- because he had just broken me. I was just getting on the radio and stuff and like when you're in that, you know how as an artist you pray to like get there.
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: When you get there is like so much harder. [laughter]
WJ: Like, "I want to go back!”
Lachi: Yeah, I was like, "What happened to me waking up late, you know?" And so my career was just like, I didn't know what was going on. But then I went to sleep. I woke up and I had the acronym Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities -- RAMPD. And I was like, "Oh, this is just God telling me I gotta do it."
WJ: Time to go, time to get to work.
[AUDIO CLIP: RAMPD Promotional Video]
[MUSIC BED: Violin] Precious Perez: Hello everyone. My name is Precious Perez and I am a classically trained pop and Latin vocalist. I am a member of RAMPD. For too long, recording artists and music professionals with disabilities have been excluded from opportunities, events and experiences due to both lack of accessibility and lack of consideration. In the mainstream society, disability is viewed as something that is broken and those of us with disabilities are seen as less than. It's time for that narrative to change and those of us in RAMPD will be the ones to change it to ensure that people with disabilities are not only viewed as equal, but as qualified, competent and respectable. [FADE OUT MUSIC] [FADE OUT CLIP]
Lachi: So I went in, we did it. I started talking individually to all music people, not just artists, but behind the scenes, music professionals with a disability or a neurodivergence that I could find anywhere, whether it was Clubhouse, which was big back then, whether it was just people giving me, you know, "Hey, I know this person." So I went around 1 to 1 to 1 to 1. I think I spoke to like 50 people and everybody had the same thing to say. People saying like, "Oh, yeah, you know, the music is inaccessible", "It's hard to get to studios", or "there's not enough representation". But the main thing everybody had in common was isolation. Everybody felt so isolated that they were the only one doing this. Yeah. And I was like, There can't be 50 only ones. [laughter]
WJ: Yeah, by definition then we got a community. We just got to get it together.
Lachi: We came together. It was really energetic. We started having Zoom meetings. We were having bi weekly -- do you know how much screen time gthat biweekly Zoom meetings... Ain't and nobody being paid for this!
WJ: Exactly. Exactly. You get flashbacks of those times. That's a lot. Yeah.
Lachi: But we were so energized and then the recording academy, like, knew we were doing it. So they were like, "Oh, let us know. You know, we would love to, like, come in and meet with you guys while you're having one of your Zoom meetings." Women In Music found out about it. The National Independent Venue Association. People were joining us. We were growing. And then, just things started taking off. We did a listening session with the Recording Academy. We spoke with Harvey Mason Junior, the CEO at that time. He still CEO. And all this stuff is happening. People are starting to donate and give us money. We don't have a bank account!
WJ: And you're talking about... What are we talkin' like 3 months? 6 months?
Lachi: The panel was April of 2021. By the time we officially launched as RAMPD it was January 2022.
WJ: Yeah. So that's not a lot of time.
Lachi: And we had officially launched, I mean, we were already pretty much RAMPD and our first client was the Recording Academy. We went and we did accessibility for the Grammys, and we, you know, consulted and did all that stuff. They ended up being a part of our launch. So they allowed us to use the Prudential Center, like the Grammy Museum, to do our launch party. And then it got covered in Billboard, it got covered in New York Times. And then it was over. Like because of that, we just kind of blew up. And we were we were like this big thing to everybody else. But we recognized we were just a bunch of, like, kids just trying to figure out what we're doing. But it was beautiful because when we started getting a big influx of members, of partners, of donations, of all of this stuff, and so we just had to quickly put the thing together. But I mean, it has just been a beautiful blessing ever since.
WJ: That's a great story. So by this time, so we're talking about that January, are you now getting 501 C3, bank accounts, mission statements. You're doing all of this on the fly.
Lachi: We're doing all of it on the fly. We end up getting a fiscal sponsor. So we remain an LLC, but we get a fiscal sponsor so we can get donations. We remain an LLC because we're doing business. I mean, we're taking in consultants and we're consulting on accessibility, on disability and inclusion, and we're keeping the lane music.
WJ: Got you.
Lachi: Because we don't want to, we don't got time to be fighting with other people's pots, but we also are music professionals. So we are saying this from a place of power.
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: There are two parts to the RAMPD pie. RAMPD is a community. It's like a professional affinity network for music professionals with disabilities and neurodivergences, and I mean throughout the entire ecology of the music system. And in order to become a professional member of RAMPD, you are peer-vetted to become a professional member. So you do actually have to apply to become a member, a professional member of RAMPD. We also have community membership as well, right? Which has its own perks and things like that. But we help professional members get career opportunities, paid gigs. We help support them for, let's say, for instance, somebody has a gig and they can't get there. They can put in to get support, to be able to fly out, to perform at their gig with no strings attached. We also are a really great vehicle for visibility. Everybody gets a little profile and those profiles can be public or they can be private if you want to join and not have to tell nobody, which is cool too. But also it's a network, right? Essentially the isolation was the biggest thing. But on the forward facing side, we're also a consultancy, so we do trainings on how places can be more accessible, accommodating and disability friendly, whether it is like the workplace. So let's say for instance, somebody works at a publishing house or a record label, right? We want to make sure that anybody in that work culture that has a disability feels welcome, whether they say they have a disability or not. We also work with artists and tour groups. So let's say, for instance, there's a lot of artists that have -- like even me as an artist, I'm a pretty small artist and I have 20 people on my team, you know what I'm saying? So there are some artists like that have like, you know, like Coldplay has a couple of hundred. So, we work with artist teams as well to "How can I be more inclusive and, you know, disabled-inclusive and accessible to my fans, to my staff and to my opening acts, and make sure I'm booking the right folks." And then we also do it for venues and festivals. Same sort of thing with the idea that there is no checklist, right? There's never going to be a checklist that gets everything right. Really, what you got to do, honestly, is be empathetic and willing to accommodate at the end of the day. So we give you all the tools to be able to do that effectively.
WJ: This is almost like 360 -- from the customer experience or the user experience, to a little professional development for the practitioners and almost like a new way of thinking about it, right? I mean it's a pretty, like provocative business model. And it's been well-received, obviously.
Lachi: Yes.
WJ: And can you, I have a couple of things, I have many questions. But give me like an example, because you're saying the publishing house. What is something that you walked into that publishing house and said, "This thing right here, you're not looking at empathetically", to use your words. Maybe something that a regular cat off the street is not thinking about. Because I want to say this one thing: Like, RAMPD. I mean, I get the joke, right? Not the joke, but it's like, "Oh, we have a ramp"...
Lachi: The pun. The play on words.
WJ: The pun. The play on words. And we say the same thing of like, "Oh, we have a ramp. Yay, us!" Like, "We're doing so great!" like, that's not enough, right? You're not thinking about a whole. Like, what about the elevator? What about the lift? And what about stimulation? So if you can give me an example of like, "Oh, I thought I was winning because I had a, you know, a ramp. But you had this blind spot."
Lachi: Here's a great one. So there was one one question that I thought was really great. In fact, we said we do policy and comms consultation and somebody said -- and I don't want to name any names because everybody's amazing and beautiful and I'm not trying to throw nobody under the bus. But there was one communication thing where the client said, "We want our artists to write more about disability." And "Showcase people with disabilities in your songs." Right? And so we came back and we were like, "Instead of saying, 'Let's showcase people with disabilities in your song', why don't you showcase your own disability experience? Why don't you recognize your own disability identity?" You know, at the end of the day, disability is not just blindness, deafness, Neurodivergence, or a wheelchair. Disability can be your struggles with ADHD. It can be your addiction. It can be OCD. It can be mental health conditions. It can just be chronic pain. It can be the fact that, you know, you had this person maybe that was your whole life for so long and they broke up with you in such a way that now you are going through PTSD, you're going through some sort of trauma. You can talk about that and how you're lifting yourself up out of that. Like I give examples of like Kesha, people who take their vulnerability and turn it into something beautiful so that fans across the world can also relate. So that's like one example or another example would be like, you know, I remember we we were talking to a club, and they were like, "You know, how can we be more accessible to blind folks?" So first and foremost, they were like, "Okay, we have lighting on our stairs. We have like, large signs and we have Braille on our elevators. But people still feel like they don't know what's going on. We had a blind artist and they weren't able to navigate." And I was like, "At the end of the day -- have somebody who can answer the artist's questions at the end of the day." This is why we keep saying you'll never have the bullet points and checklists to check everything because somebody is always going to come in with something new. So really, what if you know that a blind person is coming? A) respect the writer, right? So if they tell you that they're blind and they need this in that, respect the writer. But secondarily, have someone for them to reach out to. I've found that with a lot of these venues, especially larger festivals, the actual issue is just communication.
WJ: That there's no one there.
Lachi: This hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing. So then the performer is, like, doesn't even know who to ask. And then they ask this person, they get scared and they don't know what to do. This person, they don't know what to do. Meanwhile, the gig is about to happen and the artist is not, you know, safe. And so we tell people, "Let's get your actual policy in place so that the right hand can know what the left hand is doing. And let's make sure that forward facing perhaps on your website that there's a phone number or an email that says 'call this for accommodation'." That way the artist already feels welcome or the performer or the passerby or the patron, right? Feels welcome at your venue, that you're taking care to think about these things.
WJ: Yeah. Right, no, I think that's that's a perfect thing and makes sense... Some awareness. So let me ask you this: How has this work, the RAMPD work, influenced Lachi's work as a creative and maybe vice versa.
Lachi: That's a really good question that no one has asked me before. [laughter]
WJ: Okay.
Lachi: So RAMPD has heavily influenced myself. Number one, I was also going through isolation, honestly. At the end of the day, RAMPD was just me trying to make some friends. You know what I'm saying?
WJ: Name it. Absolutely. Yes, indeed.
Lachi: And it's been super empowering to be able to talk to professionals at, you know, my level and stuff. You know, a lot of times when people think about disabled and music, they think maybe it's parents trying to get like instruments for their kids or maybe they'll think like music therapy. And I was like, No, I want people who are out here navigating to play and doing pop, jazz, Hip-Hop. And they're out here navigating by themself because there's nobody to talk to.
WJ: Right.
Lachi: So it's just been so good to feel empowered because I now have people at my level that are doing what I'm doing that I can compare wins and woes with. It's also been really good because it has upped my own confidence as a speaker about disability culture and disability identity, which, I mean, quite literally opened up my keynote career. And so now I'm a keynote everywhere. I'm just everywhere. I'm just like, "Yes!" I'm a very yes person, especially when there's a dollar sign attached to that. [laughter] So so we've been traveling the globe. We've been doing a lot of stuff with like the State Department, with universities, with cultural centers, with corporate America going around doing these talks about disability identity, about disability culture, about being able to come out and disclose. You know, when I'm talking more in like Black areas and Hip-Hop areas, I'm talking literally about how difficult it is to have this conversation and allowing people the safe space to ask the questions and have it. Sometimes I'm in the more corporate spaces where it looks very different and we're still having really the same conversation of like, you know, "As CEOs, you guys can be open. You have the freedom to be open about your vulnerability and not be afraid." And you know, what that does is it allows other people to feel the security to be open. And when people feel secure and open about themselves, they bring better creativity to the workplace. So we get to talk a lot about that. It has also opened up so many friendships with very powerful people. Like, for instance, I met Day Al-Mohamed, who is a amazing blind director. She used to work at the White House. Now she's a director, so she knows what it's like to jump out and then do something creative.
WJ: Right.
Lachi: She ended up bringing me on to be the host of her PBS special Renegades, which you mentioned earlier.
[AUDIO CLIP: “Renegades” Trailer]
[MUSIC BED: Pop] Lachi: 1 in 4 American adults have a disability, and I'm one of them. I'm LACHI. I'm a recording artist and disability culture advocate, and I'm here to introduce you to Disabled Renegades.
Speaker 1: Judy Lynn Del Rey is one of the unsung heroes of modern fantasy publishing. She was both a genius at marketing and also had a really fine, keen editorial eye.
Speaker 2: To be able to rise up in stature in the Senate to the point that he is the president pro tem, which is third in line to the president, only in America is that possible.
Speaker 3: The Department of Public Welfare declared me unfit to be a mother because of my disability. But they failed to realize my mental capacity.
Speaker 5: Thomas Wiggins was one of the major musical figures of the 19th century. He wrote his first composition at the age of five. But he was black, blind and enslaved. Otherwise he might be considered like Mozart.
Speaker 6: Brad Lomax was dedicated to the work and not the limelight. He was the beginning of disability justice intersecting blackness with disability.
[sung] I face each day as a renegade. [FADE OUT MUSIC] [FADE OUT CLIP]
Lachi: Renegades is a five part series on PBS. You can find it now. It has gone throughout October and you can find it on pbs.com. You can find it on the American Masters YouTube as well. But what we do is we navigate through American heroes who are unsung rebels, revolutionaries and renegades who have contributed to the fabric of America, who have disabilities. I myself am the host. We've gone through some of the most amazing stories, everyone from Judy Lynn Del Rey, who really put sci-fi, science fiction, on the map. Everyone from Brad Lomax, who is actually the real father of disability justice and disability rights. Not enough people know the name Brad Lomax. He was a Black Panther. And he's the whole reason that we have all of our disability rights today. So I encourage people to watch his episode. We talk about Celeste Herrington. She was a young woman who was on the Atlantic Strip who had no arms and no legs, but she was out here making so much money that she sent her kids to private school. And so we talk about some amazing rebels, revolutionaries and stuff like that. The beauty of Renegades is that, well, I'm the host or so but also the creator was Day Al-Mohamed, who was a blind director and, you know, series creator. Each episode was directed, produced and written by a different team of folks with disabilities. So it was almost kind of like a theater program model to get a ton of work to a bunch of folks. So from behind the scenes to in front of the scenes to the subject matter. It is all disability told.
WJ: Interesting.
Lachi: Because, well, you know, we don't want to have the outsider view telling our stories. We want to tell them ourselves so that we can get that richness and we can get the language right.
WJ: Yeah, that's great. And that's up now, we can check it out? All the all of the episodes in there?
Lachi: All of the episodes are out now. You can check it out again at pbs.com. You can check it out everywhere. It's such a beautiful series and I'm so proud of it and so grateful to have been a part of it. And I always like to say "A Day Al-Mohamed behind the camera puts a Lachi in front of the camera."
WJ: No doubt.
Lachi: And this is all through this work. I had the opportunity to be friends with the amazing Judy Heumann…
[AUDIO CLIP: Documentary about the 504 Sit-In]
Judy Heumann: We will no longer allow the government to oppress disabled individuals. We want the law enforced. We want no more segregation. We will accept no more discussion of segregation. And I would appreciate it if you would stop shaking your head in agreement when I don't think you understand what we are talking about. [FADE OUT CLIP]
Lachi: Who is like the mother of the Disability Rights Movement, essentially, and I got to be friends with her before she passed and she just hooked me up with everybody she knew. And it has just been great. And then vice versa, the thing that I love about it is that, you know, for me, I am like...Joy. I'm joy and energy. That's the two things. I don't know if -- sometimes it's a bad thing. I'll be joyful at a funeral, you know. [laughter] But I love, because a lot of the disability community -- you know, a lot of people look at disability and they think like sad, boring, compliance, you know?
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: Or grievance, "What do I have to do?" And I love that I get to inject my energy of joy and, you know, just perseverance to this new group of friends that I'm building. And then they're running around and taking that joy with them too.
WJ: So I think that's a great segway to two things I want to talk about. And without getting too meta-philosophical, where does that come from? [laughter] Right? I mean, you must have this sense of like, "Oh, poor, woe, look at the poor, you know, the poor kid in the wheelchair." And you're like, "Yeah, no."
Lachi: Nah bra.
WJ: And I'm feeling your energy here right now. You're happier about your life than most people I know, disability visible, invisible or not? ...How? [laughter] We get that? Where you get that energy from and how can you give me some?
Lachi: Here's a bowl of energy right here. [laughter]
WJ: Yeah exactly. Bottle that up and make it a shot. But no, real talk though. Where you getting all this oomph from?
Lachi: You know, it's so funny because somebody just asked me this recently and I was like, "Damn, that's a really good question." I think is two things. One, you know, when I was young, so I'm a daughter of immigrants, my parents are from Nigeria, this and that. So I grew up not celebrating myself because, you know, you got to be humble, you know, "sit down", you know, the whole thing. And it was just my whole life. And I also grew up very, "You don't need to be heard." So, "We don't need to hear what you have to say." So I had so much to say, but I grew up, not even just my family, but just, you know, I was a shy, quiet girl. I didn't have a lot of friends and so I just never had a lot... I never had a lot of places to say all of the 1 million things I wanted to say. And then also, again, like I said, immigrant family, so self-celebration is not really something that you do.
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: And now all I do is celebrate myself and have like a bullhorn to the high heavens. People are coming in, and they're calling me like, "The go-to voice on disability in music." And so... really I just, I'm finally being my inner child.
WJ: Yeah. [laughter] Amen. Finally letting it out. I've been quiet too long growing up.
Lachi: That's, like, the real -- cause people have asked me, like, different iterations of that question, and I always kind of stumble through an answer, but I think that's really what it is. Like, I'm finally allowing my inner child to come out and I'm feeling that purpose and that energy. And like I told you, I didn't want to do RAMPD, but somebody out there wanted me to do it, scooped me up, and now I'm just walking the path.
WJ: Yeah, no, I think that tapping into that inner child is something we should all do. As you teach this about, you know, professionally, the creativity, the willingness to learn, willingnesss to make mistakes, it makes you a better executive. So let me ask you this, pivoting to the actual things, you talked a little bit about how you built a studio pre-COVID. So you had seemingly some functionalities that became very helpful during Covid. Can you give me a little bit more, like, let's get into specifics. Like, what are some of the things that you've done that you see have positioned you and RAMPD's work as a leader in the field.
Lachi: Well, specifically about studio access and accessibility: so before Covid, I would go to studios and I'd be tripping over wires and I would not know where the booth is. I would need somebody to help me get to the bathroom. And I'm like, I'm a whole woman, [laughter] you know what I mean? Or it'll be like the, the engineer -- you know, you got the big television screen up there, or not television screen, but just like the computer screen up there?
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: And then the guy will be like, "Do I cut here? Here?" And I'll just be like, "Uh, Yeah?" I don't know! Because I'm trying to hide that I have a disability, right? So I wouldn't confess it. So I started realizing like, "Well, first of all, I'm going to have to be open about my disability." Right? So I started using my cane and I started being more confident and telling people like, the things I needed in the studio. And in doing that, I realized what I needed in a studio. So in my own studio, obviously I know where my bathroom is. [laughter]
WJ: Right right, that's a plus.
Lachi: That's a plus! But as a blind person, I use keyboard shortcuts, first of all, for like, pretty much everything.
WJ: Okay.
Lachi: So I'll just be keyboarding. And as a songwriter, I would bring people to my studio and they'd be like, "How are you doing this?"
WJ: Wow.
Lachi: So I would be using keyboard shortcuts. And I found that when I tell my producer friends about all the keyboard shortcuts, they start using them and they're like, "Yo, I'm doing stuff way faster!"
WJ: Yeah, right, right. I could see!
Lachi: And then for me, I use a combination of Zoom text and screen readers if I do have to navigate a screen. I use a lot of speech to text and text to speech.
WJ: Okay.
Lachi: But I got to say, one of the biggest advantages that I found in my music career, honestly, was the cane. And it's because I would go to like dark parties, right? A lot of these parties are at nightclubs and they start at 11pm or whatever, and I would go there and I'd be a wallflower. People would wave at me and I wouldn't wave back and I would miss a record deal. You know?
WJ: Oh! So almost back to a little bit of the isolation and not having community. You're not participating.
Lachi: Exactly. I'm not participating. So with the cane, people would start walking up to me! Because they knew, too, you know what I'm saying?
WJ: Smart.
Lachi: So I started, you know, bejeweling them and just being fly and stuff. One of the big things we do at RAMPD is we have like -- I think it's bi monthly? -- We have bi monthly town halls and we talk about what's going on and we have updates. But there's an opportunity for members to get to know other members and get to exchange their tips and tricks to not only navigate the studio or navigate their workplace, but just to navigate society in general. And that's been one of the hugest benefits of RAMPD to be like, you know, "How do I navigate my keyboard?" And I could just give somebody tips. Or like, "If somebody like says, 'you poor thing', what do I say back? Because I know I make more money than them." [laughter] Just little questions like that, you know, because it's so... It's such a niche thing. It's not something that anyone else would know except for our community.
WJ: Yeah. You're funny. Like, "I'm actually doing great." Well, I knew what I was going to say. It makes me think about -- the keyboard shortcuts make a lot of sense. Right? You, not have to have them, but maybe the motivation is higher with you. But then everyone else is coming behind you like, "I too would like shortcuts!" And I think about, we talked in our pre-interview about, like, subtitles on movies, right? Which are meant for specific audience. But now my eyes are a little slow. Like, I can't hear real well if I'm not reading subtitles. And not everybody loves subtitles.
Lachi: Well, everybody loves subtitles, everybody loves captioning, you know?
WJ: Closed captioning, I mean!
Lachi: Exactly. Well, like, let's say, for instance, Tik Tok. Right? You know, everybody's just at work on Tik Tok. Period. So they have the captioning on so they can read the jokes because half of it is not safe for work. [laughter] Everyone benefits. It's called universal design
WJ: Boom.
Lachi: When you create something just for people with disabilities, or it can be called the curb cut effect, you know, when you see those curb cuts -- people with strollers, people with heavy machinery, everybody benefits from these things that were originally made for a person with a disability. And a lot of them are actually innovated by people with disabilities.
WJ: I mean, this is why it makes so much sense for people with disabilities in the community to be leaders.
Lachi: Yes!
WJ: I'm thinking about things that you're not thinking about, but you will! Your eyes -- I got glasses, right? So everybody knows your eyes are falling apart. So you're like, Yeah, I'm already there.
Lachi: I'm already -- it's like I'm a time traveler. I'm in the future. [laughter]
WJ: Exactly! I Really, you know, Have you? -- I really think you are. Have you ever thought about that very specifically? Because you have to stay ahead of technology, you have to stay ahead of even thinking, there is a futurist aspect.
Lachi: Yeah! Well, you know, I think we are, people with disabilities are like natural problem solvers. We have to be natural creative thinkers. If I have to like go through this heavy process just to get from my bedroom to the bathroom every day. Like, imagine the simpler things, you know? So we have this muscle that is like jacked for for creative thinking, for problem solving. And and the only thing that I think that's really holding people with disabilities, Neurodivergences, all of this stuff, the only thing really holding us back is the social aspect.
WJ: Yeah.
Lachi: That's what's weighing it down. That's what's weighing down the beauty of this ability to be super creative, innovative, resilient. All of those things are only really held back by social barriers. Because I was talking to my friend, there's this guy named Halli out in Iceland. He spent his own money, because he's like a millionaire, he spent his own money ramping the entirety of Iceland.
WJ: My goodness.
Lachi: "Ok, come here for a second? Like, do this in America real quick?"
WJ: Exactly! Be my friend?
Lachi: Exactly. I was talking to him and we came to this consensus: It is -- the disability itself is like, "Eh", you know, it's not the funnest thing every day. But it's the social part that's actually hard.
WJ: Yeah. Yeah.
Lachi: It's the social part, it's the feeling that maybe you don't belong there. It's the inability to just go to a bar and get a beer real quick. You know what I'm saying?
WJ: Yeah, yeah.. Without people looking at the cane. Leave me alone.
Lachi: Without people looking at you and this and that. Or maybe you got to wait outside because you're a wheelchair user. Maybe your kid can go in, but you can't. Just imagine being a man with some pride and your kid can go in, but you can't. You know what I'm saying? That kind of stuff wears and tears? These are the kinds of things we want to change with RAMPD, because we believe music is one of the strongest pushers of culture. And so this is why we're in this specific discipline.
WJ: No, I think it makes total sense. So powerful. To talk a little bit about Hip-Hop: The different ways of communicating the disabilities -- and here in my notes, we were talking like Prodigy, Charlemagne. And I remember somebody talking to me about Prodigy from Mobb Deep, RIP, that he would talk with such passion, you know, cause he thought he was going to die any day from sickle cell.
[AUDIO CLIP: Breakfast Club Interview with Prodigy]
Host: Is it difficult to write those hardcore Mobb Deep records when you may not be living like that no more?
Prodigy: Nah, nah. It's not difficult for me because it's just, it's just embedded in me, man. You know what I'm saying? It ain't difficult. For me it's like a lot of -- I don't mean to cut you off -- for me, it's like a lot of the pain that comes out of me is from, you know, having, growing up with sickle cell and just feeling like I'm almost dying and really almost dying all my life. Like, you know what I mean? So it's like... I just got a lot of anger built up in me. So it's real easy for me to, you know, express my anger through the music.
Host: I see you've got the sickle cell tattoo.
Prodigy: Yeah, you know.
Host: A lot of people wouldn't want to think that, you know what I mean?
Prodigy: That's my medical badge, emergency badge. You know what I mean?
Host: Now, speaking of sickle cell, I didn't know how serious sickle cell was until an aunt of mine came and visited and she stayed with me a couple of days. And, you know, one day she'd be great. Like, good to go. We at the beach, everything is good, she's playing with the kids. And the next day, she's effed up where she can't move.
Prodigy: Yeah, it's serious like that.
Host: Is that how serious sickle cell is?
Prodigy: You know, one time we was on tour with Big Pun. And It was us, Pun, and I think Fat Joe was there. And we had just did a show. After the show, I get back to the hotel and all of a sudden the pain just came out of nowhere. It hit me crazy. I couldn't even move. And like my boys had to carry me to the car, I couldn't even walk or nothing! My boys had to carry me to the car, take me to the emergency room. And Pun see how much pain I was in. I was, like, screaming in pain. Pun start crying like... That was crazy, Yo. I see Pun crying, word. [FADE OUT CLIP]
WJ: So it almost... he had a fire that he didn't have. And even, you know, and then I'm thinking about Charlamagne talking about mental health. Which, you know, I've struggled with anxiety and depression. I think it's great. Because once it's out there, everybody's like, "Yo, me too." You know what I mean?
Lachi: Yeah, exactly. Period.
WJ: You get that sort of feeling of like, "Yo, I didn't want to say nothing, but I also have..." But I don't know if you think of sickle cell and depression as a disability, like we see you rockin' the bejeweled cane.
Lachi: Yeah, no, that's the thing. so two things, two responses to that. First of all, I love that this discussion of Prodigy because when I first got my diagnosis -- so I've always had low vision, but not until about 2016 did I actually start going on like the journey to blindness. Like, I had the same low vision prognosis up until about 2016 and then now my vision is going dim.
WJ: Okay.
Lachi: And so when I got that diagnosis, you would think that I'd be like, "Oh crap." But actually I was like, "No, let me go turn this into money somehow." [laughter] I was like, "Let me get a bucket list started." So I started jumping out of airplanes, scuba diving, spelunking, started meeting up with celebrities. And then I was like, "Well, why should I stop?"
WJ: No doubt.
Lachi: So, I mean, putting the fire under your butt is like, is the best way to respond because you got to live, right? So but to your second point, this is one of my, like, personal things that I'm trying to really get out there.
WJ: Okay.
Lachi: Disability identity is such a large umbrella.
WJ: Speak on it, yes.
Lachi: It's when you have a condition within your mind or body that is different from the others around you and makes it more difficult to navigate, whether it's emotional navigation, social navigation, you know, physical navigation. For me, my blindness makes it more difficult to navigate physically, sure. But I'm also OCD. I'm also ADHD. I also have general anxiety. And those things also make it difficult to navigate emotionally or, you know, socially sometimes. Those are part of my disability identity. I include chronic pain, I include mental health conditions -- everything from depression to, like I said, addiction to other forms of mental health conditions, let me see, like anxiety! General anxiety, social anxiety. I will include, you know, god, bipolar. I will include sensory disabilities. Like if you have light sensitivity to the point where, you know what I mean? So I keep trying to tell people... and like EDS, things that are specific to women, right? I would include sickle cell. What I'm trying to say, though, is that the umbrella is so big, but we try so hard to be, what I call, as close as we can be to the "reference man".
WJ: Mmm. To the reference man?
Lachi: Yeah. You ever see, you ever go into those chemistry classrooms and they have like, a cut out of a person's body?
WJ: Yeah, Yeah.
Lachi: Like that. We're all trying to be whatever that is. It's really like a 20 to 30 year old straight white male. [laughter] You know what I'm saying.
WJ: Yeah. It's like, it ain't it! There's more to it.
Lachi: And everyone's trying so hard to be that. That's the defnition of success. That's the definiteion of powerful. That's the definition of this. And you want to know what I found out? I found out that all of the gillionaires, all of the people that's really out here doing real stuff are trying to be as far away from that reference man as possible. And I was just recently up in, like, a really big room with the Recording Academy. So, I mean, I've been able to kind of rise through the ranks and meet some really cool people. And I was in that room and I was walking around and at first I was a little afraid. I was like, "Okay, people will see the cane, and be like, 'Oh, how she get in here?' I be like, 'I got in here with the the accessible door, so shut up!'" [laugher] But you know what's so funny is I get in there and, first of all, I knew half the people in there, so I'm just like, "Hey, what's up? How are you doing?" And I was just navigating and like, you know, I was touching the chairs to know where my seat was. I was using the cane. Of course, I was looking dope, blinged out. And people were just saying "Hello". I went to the coffee machine. I didn't know what I was doing because I can't see. And so a couple of people came around and they didn't know what to say because, you know, they were like, "Do we help her do it?" And I was like, "You know what? Somebody needs to help me with this coffee because it's going to be everywhere but the cup." [laugher]
WJ: Yeah, exactly. So you break the seal!
Lachi: I'm breaking the ice, I'm having a good time. And the beauty of it is that the first real interaction that everybody in the room had with disability, I mean, one on one, was with joy.
WJ: No doubt.
Lachi: And then I start getting people... Like I started having one on one conversations with people and then all of a sudden they like, "Well, I got, um..." you know? "I got this, I got that." And it's the first time that they're actually talking about it because there's no stigma.
WJ: Yeah, I think that gives you such power in that room. Because everyone doesn't know, and you're like "I know." And then now they're going to follow your lead. And I think, yeah, opening those floodgates of being like, "Oh, we talk about this now?"
Lachi: Yeah.
WJ: It's so exciting about how wide the tent goes because I wouldn't have thought like... Sickle Cell seems to me like a physical, like sickness, you know, it runs in my wife's side of the family. But I love how you have such a wide definition.
Lachi: Sickle Cell, Lupus, you know? You know what I'm saying? Because at the end of the day, like, we all have something. And I don't just mean we all have something like, "Oh, my girlfriend broke up with me." I mean, like, we all have a condition within our body or mind that is different and makes it more difficult to navigate in some way or form. You don't have to identify as disabled to have some form of disability identity within you. And that's okay.
WJ: Yeah. You know, doing my research on you and looking at "to hold a we" this is the unifying thought, right? Because we're all -- if we don't have it, God willing, we will have some disability. We're all working towards living long enough for something to break down.
Lachi: Exactly, to join the club.
WJ: To join the club.
Lacchi: To wear the t-shirt.
WJ: So why don't we just re-imagine it now? Right? And come at it with power? Which to me -- and this is supposed to be about Hip-Hop, but you're way too interesting. I just want to hear your story. [laughter] But that's my whole thought about Hip-Hop, is that Hip-Hop was, we're taking away creative writing, we're taking away art, we're taking away dance. We're not giving you, you know, technology in the school system. And that repression actually caused the whole culture to explode. When I'm listening to you, I hear that same thing of like, "You keep ignoring me. But I -- You can't get away from this!"
Lachi: Yes.
WJ: "And once you lean into me, it's going to be better for you."
Lachi: Period. Exactly, exactly. That's a really good juxtaposition.
WJ: Yeah, so anyway, Do you think about that? I mean, let me just, because I want to talk about the PBS series before I let you go, do a little self-promotion. Because I love the hustler sitting across from me right now.
Lachi: Yesss. Right?
WJ: Make that money, get yours. But what is the juxtaposition between the disability -- what did you call it? -- Disability Identity Movement that your in, and the Hip-Hop Movement? How do you see it?
Lachi: You know, it's so funny. So there's so many different movements in the disability community. And one of the really big, most powerful ones that I really ascribe to is the Disability Culture Movement.
WJ: Mmm. Okay.
Lachi: And so disability culture, you know, so... Another shameless plug. I'm writing a book. I can't talk too much about it quite yet because we just got, you know, the deal and we're trying to figure it all out. But essentially I'm doing some interviews. The book is about disability identity, and I was doing some interviews and I was like, "How do you define disability culture?" And I was asking people that don't have anything to do with disability. And they were like, "Oh, you know, compliance and making sure that things are set up. Maybe, you know, some grievance plans and stuff like that." And that was kind of disheartening to know that -- and they were trying to be nice! Right? Didn't want to say anything wrong or mean, but to hear them say that disability culture is "compliance" and "grievance", I think of Black culture is like swag, dance language, you know, the food, you know, the cook outs, you know?
WJ: Yeah, yeah.
Lachi: I think of Latin culture: I think of the food, I think of the dancing, I think of the tequila. I think of gay culture: I think of the "Yasss, Queen!" You know what I'm saying.
WJ: Yeah, yeah. So much happiness.
Lachi: So much power, so much happiness and so much of the things that are created in the contributions. So why is disability culture "grievance" and "compliance"? So I'm like, "Let's flip this around!" What is the music we create? What is the the words we use? What is our language? What is our poetry? Who are our heroes? What are our contributions? What are our histories? How do we put this all together to be disability culture? And so that's like one of the really big seeds for RAMPD is that we are students of disability culture. We're doing it through music, but we're hoping that it permeates this kind of discussion of like, you know, we have accessible fashion. Adaptive fashion is a different type of fashion that folks with disabilities have to wear to still look dope, but also accommodate for... Like for me, so like this! This is adaptive fashion, the cane.
WJ: Yes, yes.
Lachi: Etc. This is all part of disability culture. How we navigate the erasure and exclusion of disability through our art, through our music, and through our style. And so that's kind of the juxtaposition there with Hip-Hop. Of like, you know, Hip-Hop is the same thing. It's this outcry of who we are right? Through our art, through our music, through what we wear and how we talk.
WJ: Yeah. My last question for you is -- I always, like, it's the corny little question is...
Lachi: Uh oh.
WJ: No is just, what is the advice? Because I think I was saying part of what I want to do is have the 14 year old version of me, right? Who would have died to be connected to a place like BRIC and all of that, to give them a little bit of a boost.
Lachi: Yeah.
WJ: So what do you say to the person who's going to be watching, listening to this. Whether it be a singer, songwriter, dancer, disability arts, immigration rights, whatever, all of the wonderful things you touched on. What's the gem? Give me one gem you give to them to give them a boost.
Lachi: I got so many gems. You see?
WJ: Exactly, and they're all on the cane!
Lachi: I would say, you know, trust yourself. People are going to take your shoulders and make you go left. They're going to take your shoulders and make you go right. Until you take your own shoulders and go the direction you want to go, your life will truly begin then. So trusting yourself is a lifelong journey. I'm still working on trusting myself, but the more you trust yourself, the better, the happier you're going to be, because you will be able to tap into that authenticity, that real true power that is you.
WJ: Amen. You got real, real with that. The volume came down. I was like, "I gotta pay attention to what's coming next." But amen to that. Last last question!
Lachi: It's the last, last, last, last question [laughter] No, I'm just kidding with you.
WJ: The White House or the Grammys.
Lachi: No, don't do that to me!
WJ: Pick one. No wiggling out of this.
Lachi: Well, first of all, it's November 6th while we're taping this. So it depends on which White House you're talking about! [laughter]
WJ: That part! [laughter]
Lachi: And I will probably say... I like to do the work at the Grammys and I like to get cute at the White House.
WJ: That's no see! No!
Lachi: And I like to get cute at the White House ayyyyyy!
WJ: Stop violating the rules, Lachi! You violating the rules. You had to pick one.
Lachi: You know what's so crazy. I've lived my whole life violating rules, girl. That's why I'm here right now! [laughter]
WJ: And on that, I shall not pressure you any longer less I get into trouble. So I'll give you the final word. Anything that we didn't get to that you want to drop on the people, make sure we don't lose.
Lachi: You know what? I want to thank you all so much for having me. This has been such a beautiful and engaging conversation. Y'all know where to find me, L. A. C. H. I. M. U. S. I. C. on all the socials. But listen, if you yourself are a music professional or you know someone who is and they have a disability, neurodivergence or a chronic condition, or they’re disability curious, hit up RAMPD our R. A. M. P. D. dot org. Thank you all so much for this space.
[CREDITS]
[VO] WJ: This episode of Back To Reading Credits was produced by Khyriel Palmer, Emily Boghossian, Chris Torres, Gabrielle Davenport, and Antoine Hardy with help from Elyse Rodriguez Aleman, Jonathan Ortiz, Jamie Martinez and Shirin Barghi. Our audio engineer was Zak Sherzad, and our videographer was Raynita Vaughn.
[VO] WJ: Back To Reading Credits is hosted by me, Wes Jackson. The show is taped at BRIC House in Downtown Brooklyn. Check the show notes for links to Lachi’s work.
[VO] WJ: If you like what you hear or think we missed something, comment, like, share and subscribe, and follow [at] BRIC TV on twitter and instagram, for updates.
[VO] WJ: For more information on this and all BRIC Radio podcasts, visit www.bricartsmedia.org/podcasts