In my earliest work I sought to document the black experience in America through performance. Belonging to a culture with such a rich oral tradition—stemming from the griots of western Africa to the Gullah-speaking people of the United States Low Country region—I grew fascinated with the “oral-storytellers” of today: emcees, singers and spoken word performers. I photographed in spaces where these contemporary griots share and captured scenes of rap battles, b-boy battles, DJs, soloists and the masses they spoke to.
More recently, I have begun working through larger questions of identity, origin, place, belonging and representation, especially as they pertain to gender, race and sexuality. Language fascinates me, as do the conjectures, myths and assumptions ascribed to queer black men and the black masculine body. I work with men who are black and queer to explore these identities and challenge and deconstruct the ideals associated with our being.
I constantly find pieces of my own story.
