The Institute of Black Imagination.

Today’s episode is with conceptual artist, Hank Willis Thomas. Hailing from the mean streets of Plainfield, NJ… That’s a joke, by the way,. Hank’s body of work  explores themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture, Hank is one of the most celebrated artists of his generation.   The son of musician and physicist Hank Thomas, and artist, photographer, his...

Today’s episode is with artist and graphic designer, Brandon Breaux. Hailing from Chicago’s South Side, Brandon is one of those rare artists whose body of work  sits comfortably at both the personal and at commercial scale.  If you don’t know Brandon by name, that’s ok because we’re sure you’ve seen his work with brands like Bud Light, Alia Seltzer,  most likely on all 3 of Chance t...

Todays episode is with former chairman and the first and only woman to lead the Black Panther Party, Sister Elaine Brown. Elaine is a activist, writer, speaker, and songwriter known for her sharp wit and sheer intellectual voracity, but we all began somewhere, and Elaine is no exception. Hailing from the streets of North Philadelphia, Elaine had a bit of trouble finding herself early on, some woul...

Today’s episode is with fencer and  three-time Olympian, Daryl Homer. Hailing from the U.s. virgin islands, Daryl, along with  his mother and sister relocated to the Gun Hill section of the Bronx when he was five.  His interest in fencing began at a early age, after encountering the word “Fencing”” in a pictorial dictionary that his mother gave him.  Inspired, he  begged h...

Today’s Episode is with actress, choreographer and dance legend, Carmen De Lavallade.  Raised by a single father in post-depression Los Angeles, Carmen began her formal training at 14, a bit late for female dancers, but that didn’t stop her one bit.  Within 5 years she became a lead dancer under the tutelage of renown teacher and choreographer Lester Horton, who’s technique is taught in...

Heather McGhee designs and promotes solutions to inequality in America.  Do you know Heather?  You might know Heather. Maybe you saw her on NBC’s Meet the Press, or MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Or perhaps you saw her sparring with Republican Senator John Kennedy during the confirmation hearings of supreme court Justice Neil Gorsuch, or it just may have been that time when, while on C-Span, an...

Why open a school? To close a prison.  That is the title of the Ted talk given by today’s guest, Educator Dr. Nadia Lopez.  The award-winning founding principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy located in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn never dreamed of being a teacher. In fact, she took quite a circuitous route to becoming an educator. The child of Honduran and Guatemalan immigrant...

Today’s episode is with the award-winning chef and restaurateur, Marcus Samuelsson. Hailing from a tiny Ethiopian village where tuberculosis had spread amongst the population, a two-year-old Marcus and his sister found themselves orphaned after his birth mother succumbed to the disease… but not after she’d walked 75 miles to the nearest hospital with young Marcus and his sister in tow. Taken...

Today’s episode is board-certified Dermatologist, and skincare expert to the stars, Dr. Rose Marie Ingleton. Long before caring for the faces of well-known beauties like Iman, Chrissy Teigen and Adriana Lima, Dr. Ingleton stomped the urban streets of the irie metropolis, Kingston, Jamaica. Growing up in the city, her family realized she had a little something different: the brains to transcen...

Today’s episode is with systems thinker and design maverick, Marquise Stillwell.  Born and raised in Ohio, into a family of community activists, Marquise learned the power of owning one’s story at an early age. He is the founder and principal of Openbox, a company focused on improving the lives of those in the communities they serve through design, storytelling, and innovation. His work spans...

Today’s episode is with conceptual and multimedia installation artist, Kenseth Armstead. Born and raised in Washington DC, Kenseth found his artistic path in high school at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, later receiving his Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Corcoran College of Art & Design and his Masters in Integrated Digital Media from the Tandon School of Engineering at NYU. With a ca...

Today’s episode is with bespoke tailor and designer, T-Michael. Born in Accra, Ghana, T-Michael spent the majority of his adolescence in London, later moving to Bergen, Norway. Operating from the philosophy of mastering one’s craft before achieving success; T-Michael discovered his passions early in life, by mastering the art of tailoring, a skill naturally developed surrounded by the colorful fab...

A lot of time,  the conversations I have with guests offline are JUST as interesting as the interview itself. So today, we’re trying something a little different...  The tables are turned! Today’s episode is well, not an episode, but a conversation. If you listened to last week’s episode with artist Xenobia Bailey, and if you haven’t, you definitely should, towards the end, Xenobia lamen...

Today’s episode is with fiber artist and cultivator of funk, Xenobia Bailey. Born in Seattle Washington, into a family that survived off of a material culture provided by both the land and the ingenuity of the Black homemaker. Xenobia discovered her passions early in life, going on to study ethno-musicology at the University of Washington, and later attending Pratt Institute for Industrial Design....

Today’s episode is with American dancer and choreographer, Kyle Abraham. Born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, into a home of loving and supportive parents, Kyle’s family instilled in him the sense that he could do and achieve anything. He discovered his love for dance in his late teens after being cast in his highschool musical, Once on This Island, later receiving his Bachlors of Fine Arts from SUNY...

Today’s episode is with Harlem socialite and style icon, Lana Turner. Born at the Women’s Hospital on West and 110th st. and still residing in the neighborhood 70 years later, Ms. Turner is quintessential Harlem, a landmark unto herself. A mathematician of dressing, Ms. Turner does not just put clothes on, but uses her body as a medium in which she expresses her appreciation and preservation of li...

Today’s episode is with Harlem socialite and style icon, Lana Turner. Born at the Women’s Hospital on West and 110th st. and still residing in the neighborhood 70 years later, Ms. Turner is quintessential Harlem, a landmark unto herself. A mathematician of dressing, Ms. Turner does not just put clothes on, but uses her body as a medium in which she expresses her appreciation and preservation of li...

Tarik ‘Black Thought’ Trotter on his origin story: “I think often in the case of heroes or of a character, a protagonist who sort of rises to greatness there is some trauma Yeah. And you know my life is was no different.” Today’s episode is with a man who needs no introduction, but I’m going to introduce him anyway:  Tariq Luqmaan Trotter, better known as Black Thought, lead MC and co-founder...

Diedrick Brackens on his first encounter with creativity: “Moving my hands in the pursuit of language feels important and to me, it’s so relative to the way that I build narratives with textiles. (10:33) What is a Fiber artist? Currently represented by the galleries Various Small Fires in LA, and Jack Shainman in New York, Diedrick is, and I quote” best known for his woven tapestries that explore...

Episode number 10, with playwright, Tarrell Alvin McCraney Tarell Alvin McCraney on living freely: “I’m starting a new chapter where I try to live and be as free as possible rather than be chained to survival mode.” What makes a person become a writer? An Academy award-winning, playwright, actor and co-writer of the 2016 film ‘Moonlight,’ Tarell Alvin McCraney likens writing more as a survival ins...

Today’s episode is with management consultants and two of the three founders of MyUberLife, Jey Van Sharp and Kwasi Gyasi. With combined degrees in electrical engineering, physics, math, and business, these two men developed keen senses for dimensionality and the need to impact the cultural spaces around them. “Through conversations, people were always amazed by how smart we were, part of it was b...

Today’s episode is with painter, sculptor, and multi-hyphenated artist, Torkwase Dyson. Born in Chicago Illinois, into a family embedded with scholars and artists of many forms, Torkwase found her artistic path while studying Sociology at Tougaloo College, later receiving her Bachelors of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonweath University and her Masters at the Yale School of Art.  Her work is abou...

This is Part Two of our conversation with Andre Leon Talley. In this episode, we discuss how Andre’s crippling childhood experiences resulted in him never knowing a reciprocal type of love. “Tragically and regrettably. I never channeled how to be intimate.” (3:45) How he interprets beauty not only in his personal life but beauty’s  role and purpose in our surrounding world. “Luxury and Beauty...

Today’s episode is with titan of American fashion, André Leon Talley. Raised in Durham North Carolina by his grandmother, Andre’s love for fashion began at an early age, with his discovery of magazines like Vogue and Harper Bazaar, giving him access to worlds and visions beyond the segregated Jim Crow South. A star student, Andre received a full scholarship to Brown University to study French lite...

Today’s episode is with the provocative artist and photographer, Renee Cox. Born in Colgate, Jamaica, into a West Indian heritage that instills unwavering confidence into their youth, Renee and her family eventually settled in Scarsdale, New York while in her teens. After graduating with a degree in Film Studies from Syracuse University, Renee began a groundbreaking career in commercial photograph...