We Want The Airwaves

In this talk-show style live podcast recording, Nia interviews Elena Rose about how Sojourner Truth NEVER said "Ain't I a woman?", Juba Kalamka about meeting Kanye when he was fifteen, Lexi Adsit about running an all trans women of color comedy program, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha about the perks of making it "big time". Read the transcription at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Black trans woman musician and performance artist Star Amerasu discusses the ups and downs of her last few years, from sex working and living in a transitional housing program/SRO to touring Europe and North America and getting paid "coins" to perform her music for international audiences. She credits her success to cheap rent, good friends, and a job with flexible hours. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Star Amerasu is a queer Black trans woman in a binary art world. In this interview, she discusses overcoming trauma through performance art, growing up in six different states, and the politics choosing to live or die. She makes art to remind herself, in the words of Miss Major, that she’s “still fucking here!” Read the transcription at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Hani and Uzma are the co-hosts of my FAVORITE podcast, The Bollywood Project. In this interview, we discuss our favorite women in Indian cinema, from actresses to directors to screenwriters and even fictional characters. We also discuss queerbaiting, colorism, and movies with missed opportunities for feminist endings. (We spoil a bunch of movies, including two of my faves: Gunday and Ishaqzaade.) Read the transcript at niaking.tumblr.com. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Mixed-race Arab trans woman poet, educator, and activist Trish Salah has a lot of work to be proud of. In this talk, she maps out her trajectory, from being part of a militant labor union in graduate school to protesting pinkwashing at the World Out Games, to becoming politicized around trans issues in a Toronto activist community that was led by sex workers and poor folks. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

East Bay Express-turned-Guardian reporter Sam Levin doesn’t consider himself an artist or an activist, but in this interview I try to convince him otherwise, while also trying to get him to teach me everything he knows about journalism. We debate whether “the truth has a liberal bias,” discuss the differences between covering the local news for an alt weekly and covering the Western US for an international publication, and talk about why people across the world should/do care about what happens in Oakland. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Sam Levin didn't chose crime. Crime chose him. The baby-faced Daily News intern-turned-Guardian reporter talks what makes a good reporter and his own journey to becoming one: talking to people on the worst day of their lives, dodging lawsuits, and running into people he's reported on at parties. Oh yeah, and that one time he chased Lindsay Lohan around a bowling alley. Read the transcript here. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Multiracial, multigender, multimedia artist Neve Be(ast) discusses sex work, #branding, and being the disabled Black punk Lana Del Rey. Read the interview here. Support the podcast here.

Sri Lankan/Irish queer disabled femme writer Leah Lakshmi and I discuss her new memoir, Dirty River, racism in the publishing industry, and whether it's better to fight your way into the mainstream or just do your own thing on the outside. Photo by Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes. Read the interview here. Support the podcast here.

Queer Black zinester and punk musician Osa Atoe discusses writing a Black punk zine (Shotgun Seamstress), touring with an all girl band (The New Bloods), and growing up Nigerian-American in D.C. in the 90s. Read the interview at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Queer Chicano/Native filmmaker Rob Fatal and I discuss how we come to understand who we are when parts of our history are denied us. We also take an in-depth look at his film Mi Familia, about the Ute/Apache side of his family, and discuss why post-apocalyptic cinema appeals to him as a Chicano/Native filmmaker. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Cuban-American lesbian novelist and journalist Achy Obejas discusses growing up in the Midwest with her dad in a mental hospital, her racially-mixed mom trying to pass as white, and Confederate flag-sporting neighbors. We also discuss racism in the arts, corruption in Chicago, and the decline of print journalism. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Comedian W. Kamau Bell discusses his past FX show (Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell), his upcoming CNN show (United Shades of America), moving his family back to the Bay Area, and teaching his daughters "in this family, we stand up". Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

In part 2 of my interview with tech activist Lynn Cyrin, we discuss anti-Black racism at Facebook, Google, Dropbox and Reddit. Lynn explains why Facebook won't change its "real names" policy and how Quirrel (the social network she is building with CollectQT) will be better/queer-friendlier. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Black trans woman tech activist Lynn Cyrin discusses being homeless in SF, crashing fancy tech events, and crowdfunding enough money to get a place her own (after moving to Portland). Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Indigenous multimedia artist Grace Rosario Perkins discusses Thin Leather, a series of paintings she collaborated with her dad on, the whiteness/maleness of the music program at Mills College, and UIUC's racist school mascot. She is part of the Black Salt Collective which has a show at SOMArts called Visions into Infinite Archives from January 14 to February 10, 2016. More info at http://www.somarts.org/blacksalt/. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

micha cárdenas has been on the cutting edge of using technology for social change since the Myspace days. In this interview she discusses virtual sit-ins, designing an app to help immigrants find water in the dessert, and being one of few trans Latinas with a PhD. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Monica Trinidad is a Chicago-born, Chicago-based artist, activist, and prison abolitionist. In part one of this interview we discuss her work with Brown and Proud Press, Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration, and her impressions of protests in Oakland versus Chicago. Part two is coming later this month. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Back in April, I had the privilege of interviewing (straight) Australian comedian Aamer Rahman while he was touring the US. Rahman is perhaps best known as part of the comedy duo Fear of a Brown Planet, and for the video that went viral of his joke about "reverse racism". In this interview, Aamer and I discuss growing up brown and Muslim in Australia pre-9/11 versus post-9/11, getting into comedy by accident, and selling out shows all over Australia. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.

Elena Rose is a mixed-race, mixed-class, trans woman of color performance poet and minister. In this interview she described how her mom's working-class values shaped her ideas of womanhood, finding out she had a trans great aunt in the The Philippines, and her own transition as death and rebirth. Read the transcript at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia.