How Creators Are Reframing Southern Identity

0:02 Southern storytelling to me is the cornerstone of southern culture.

0:07 I think every southern person is a great storyteller.

0:10 It's handed down from our parents, our grandparents,

0:13 it just makes me feel so much closer to home.

0:17 To me, it's culture sharing.

0:19 It's highlighting America and it's kind

0:23 of multi-fabric that seems to weave together, but also every now and then break.

0:28 And so maybe it's even a glue.

0:31 I look at storytelling just in general

0:33 as a way that history is kind of preserved.

0:37 It could be done in many ways.

0:39 Music.

0:40 Movies.

0:41 Photography.

0:42 it's a way to kind of pass along information, ideas.

0:46 Preserve the times.

0:57 I got my start doing digital content when

1:01 I got laid off from my funeral home job.

1:05 People ask me often, like, how did you start work in the funeral home?

1:08 There was a career day when I was in middle school,

1:11 and the local funeral home brought the hearse,

1:13 and I was the first goth kid in line

1:16 and asked the guy if I could lay in the casket.

1:22 I made this video called “Conway Twitty’s Cause

1:25 of Death” for the pathology for mortuary science class.

1:29 I think just because I was listening to a lot of Conway at the time.

1:33 And it was meant for the 12 people who were in that class.

1:36 The funeral home that I worked for, pretty much everybody got laid off.

1:40 It was somewhere during that transition where I

1:43 went back to YouTube and I was like, ho- This video has 300,000 views?

1:48 Maybe I'm on to something here.

1:50 Let's, let's try some more.

1:55 Even before I created online, I think I always attempted to connect in some way.

2:00 I always like sharing, what I was learning.

2:04 I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

2:06 And I think a lot of what I do is obviously share Louisiana.

2:12 culture.

2:12 But also I like to put a spotlight on the African presence in the Americas.

2:19 I've always been a Doubting Thomas.

2:21 Somebody who needed proof.

2:22 I'd heard a lot of, kind of, oral history,

2:26 and I need to find out if that were true.

2:28 So I was able to kind of verify what my family was saying.

2:33 For the most part.

2:34 And I wanted just to kind of strengthen that oral history with, visual proof.

2:42 I always look at photos as a way of, like, time traveling.

2:45 You can take a slice of time, and it's there.

2:51 That’s, like, fascinates me.

2:53 I feel it’s like, an artist duty, just as Nina Simone said,

2:59 for us as creatives and artists to document the times.

3:06 I'm from Memphis, Tennessee.

3:08 I consider myself, a multi-hyphenate creative.

3:13 You can create the things that you want to see,

3:16 create your own space to put your work out.

3:19 I think my first time being cognitive of black people

3:23 not being represented in a creative space- I used to go

3:27 to these, art crawls in Nashville and you'd walk around

3:30 and I didn't really see a lot of us represented,

3:32 in the work or as the artist presenting the work.

3:36 And then I remember, when I first started doing photography and I was

3:39 a big fan of magazines like Complex, Double XL.

3:43 And I remember, like, alright I’m gonna submit some work,

3:47 and, of course, I never heard anything back.

3:50 And that’s what kind of, fueled me stepping

3:51 into the light of, of create my own spaces.

3:59 Appalachia is the perfect setting for storytelling because most

4:02 of our stories come from sheer survival so many

4:06 local characters that had these just far out lives

4:10 that a Hollywood writer could never come up with.

4:15 My uncle he goes and pans for gold in the rivers and creeks and streams

4:20 of Appalachia and I find that he's steeped

4:24 in Civil War history and these handed down stories.

4:28 As a child, these tales that would incite me to want to go

4:33 explore and go adventure into the woods and find things that have been lost.

4:37 Treasures or loot or gold Most of my content

4:42 is built around growing up with my grandparents.

4:46 My meemaw, my nanny, my grannies.

4:49 I was bounced around between all of them.

4:52 I've discovered that there were more people that grew up like me

4:56 than I realized and we can all meet on a common ground.

5:01 It’s a full moon tonight, and that can only mean one thing:

5:03 the haints will be walking in the holler.

5:06 There's certainly a lot of misconceptions about Appalachia.

5:09 Because of the way we talk, we're uneducated or, what has been portrayed

5:14 in the media even like the original Mountain Dew commercial.

5:19 Yahoo, Mountain Dew!

5:22 There's been a lot of jokes made at the expense of southern Appalachian people.

5:28 One of my goals is to discredit a lot

5:31 of those stereotypes and we can we can laugh

5:34 at ourselves but when it comes to other people

5:37 pointing the finger That’s not allowed on my watch.

5:41 There's a lot of people moving to Appalachia

5:44 from rude places in the United States,

5:46 so just be sure to set that attitude out on the street before you come here.

5:53 Louisiana is more than red beans and rice and jazz.

5:57 It's deeper than that.

5:59 Culinary enjoyments, music, the culture,

6:02 the culture is defined by the struggle and survival.

6:07 I try to approach things, especially delicate subjects, with reverence,

6:12 but also it can't just be a dark, somber day, right?

6:16 if you just dwell on them, it's going to deluminate.

6:21 This helps.

6:22 Sorry for the microphone.

6:25 By the time you’re like, why is this guy wearing a top hat?

6:28 You've hopefully invested a little bit of time

6:32 to where you're interested in seeing what I'm talking about.

6:36 Let me show you something you're not going to see in a museum I

6:41 found a painting of my ancestor and he

6:43 was languishing in a basement in California.

6:45 A free man of color, born in 1760, New Orleans.

6:49 And, it was in a basement in California with cousins

6:53 who had had only just recently discovered their past.

6:57 The free people of color were a force to be reckoned with.

7:00 People just believe or think of just slaves arriving- unskilled workers.

7:05 But that's actually not the case.

7:06 We had people who of course knew mathematics and mean look at the architecture.

7:11 also a lot of these large plantations, you see, were built by free men of color.

7:16 The refinement, of sugar production is made by a man named Norbet Rillieux..

7:22 They accounted for a fifth of the population.

7:24 They own a third of the buildings in the French Quarter.

7:28 I mean, so they affected every aspect of this culture.

7:31 Because of historians in the past and because of archivists of the past,

7:36 a lot of the truth, I think, was never preserved.

7:39 So thus not put into something where it

7:41 would be safeguarded and protected and then shared.

7:48 I have been posting this image of this little boy for years.

7:54 the New Orleans Museum for.

7:56 They had decided to do session the work which is common in museums.

8:00 They look around, they say, look, these pieces are no longer relevant.

8:04 I was able to find a crucial clue of where the painting was from Instagram.

8:09 And a person I met once at an antique fair said,

8:12 oh, I remember where that painting was.

8:15 So you remember where it was?

8:17 What?

8:17 So he gave me the name of the dealer.

8:20 Well, you know, I kept calling.

8:22 Eventually he put me in contact with the owner in Washington, D.C..

8:26 She always said that she was holding that painting for something.

8:30 I said hey, I’m that something.

8:34 so she agreed, to allow me to purchase the painting.

8:38 So I placed it with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

8:42 Now, I think 4 million people have access to it a year or so.

8:46 I think it's a remarkable new world we have where we can

8:49 now safeguard this by sharing it and so where this won't happen again.

8:54 Everything in our past kind of defines our future,

8:56 and I think a lot of that that causes us to heal is that, the bad things.

9:02 the not so great things, the scratches, the scars, and we all have that.

9:07 I think we're all after the same thing.

9:10 Largely.

9:11 And people call it different things, but I think it's healing.

9:13 I think it's unique unity.

9:15 I think it's a community.

9:17 All right.

9:18 History is a full time job.

9:24 All right, guys, welcome to the very

9:26 first installment of Conversations with Creatives.

9:28 I'm here with Miss Jayla Slater.

9:31 My inspiration for creating these spaces is more so from a regional standpoint,

9:36 I think we have a lot of talented people here

9:39 And everyone doesn't get their shine on a major platform.

9:44 So I figure, can still share these stories.

9:48 I want people to, to realize like

9:50 that, you can create from a space of authenticity

9:53 You can create in the pocket that you want to create in, So these are my babies.

10:00 My magazine issues.

10:01 The latest piece features the work of various photographers around Memphis.

10:06 Just documenting, like, the culture, the music scene.

10:11 The work that I've put out online

10:14 has somewhat shaped people's narrative of Memphis.

10:18 When people think of Memphis,

10:19 especially when you talk to people outside of Memphis: Elvis.

10:22 Beale Street.

10:23 They think about the legacy aspects of Memphis.

10:26 My content has kind of shared a side

10:29 of Memphis that people didn't know existed here.

10:32 And just the south in general.

10:33 Alright y’all.

10:34 Today we're here at Stax Museum.

10:37 telling stories about Memphis.

10:39 When you think about traditional media, only so many people can get in.

10:42 But I think digital space has opened it up.

10:45 You're able to create, from your perspective, from your voice.

10:51 It's important to me to keep the stories of Appalachia alive,

10:55 because a lot of the older generation,

10:57 where the stories come from are passing away.

11:01 When I look at collectors of the past a lot

11:04 of what was acquired was for a novelty and also for showmanship.

11:10 And I don't think you can come into this world with that attitude.

11:15 The history is bigger than me.

11:17 It's a responsibility.

11:19 The South remains a force to be reckoned with.

11:22 Good and bad.

11:23 I don't think the digital age has necessarily changed the south per se.

11:27 I think it's, made it more accessible.

11:29 It's just not one sided.

11:31 You get to hear voices that you probably wouldn't have heard.

11:36 It’s been a goal to just preserve as many

11:40 of these stories in the digital realm as I possibly can.