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Kinfolk Energy: Giving A Little Piece Of Yourself

• Adrian Franks

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Have you ever walked into a space and immediately felt at home? That invisible but palpable sense of belonging isn't accidental—it's what we call "kinfolk energy," and it's at the heart of creating communities that nurture us in ways that transcend blood relations.

In this intimate conversation, we unpack our 21-year journey of building sacred spaces across multiple cities. From our first home off Bankhead in Atlanta to our Brooklyn apartment and art studio in Red Hook, to our current Maroon House in Athens, we've cultivated environments where people literally don't want to leave. But what makes these spaces so magnetic?

The roots of kinfolk energy run deep in Black American history. We trace this concept from Maroon societies—communities of escaped enslaved people who created self-sufficient havens—to the Great Migration networks where someone you'd never met would become "cousin" for life after helping you find housing and work in a new city. These weren't just survival tactics; they were profound expressions of community care that continue to influence how we build our worlds today.

Creating kinfolk energy requires both openness and boundaries. Not everyone deserves access to your sacred spaces, and learning this distinction is part of maturing as a community builder. We share practical wisdom about finding your different "tribes," being intentionally hospitable, and bringing your authentic self wherever you go. From the simple act of providing clean socks for guests in our shoeless home to hosting regular gatherings that feel effortless after decades of practice, we reveal how attention to detail communicates care in powerful ways.

As we navigate increasingly disconnected times, rekindling kinfolk energy might be our most radical act. Step back into freedom, pursue interests that naturally connect you with like-minded souls, and remember that community isn't something you find—it's something you create, one sacred space at a time.

You've been tuned in to Graphite Radio, where creativity meets culture. Part of the Kaffeine Audio Network and proudly distributed by Pepper Labs. Thanks for joining us on this journey of ideas, art, and innovation. Be sure to subscribe and stay connected for more stories that shape the world we create. Until next time, keep sketching your vision into reality.

Introduction to Creative Living

Speaker 1

What does it mean to live creatively, not just in what you make, but how you move and how you dress and how you build your world?

Speaker 2

What does it mean to feel at home in your space, in your skin, in your purpose?

Speaker 1

Welcome to the Maroon Life. Our lives in Full Color, a podcast where we explore the art of creative living, from the way we style our homes to the stories we wear on our backs.

Speaker 2

We're your co-hosts, adrienne Franks. Nicole A Taylor two lifelong creators, curators and culture seekers on a mission to make space for freedom, joy and design that speaks.

Speaker 1

We tap into soulful conversations about joy, design, self-expression, home renovation and everything in between.

Speaker 2

And we're back, and we're back. How you doing, nicole?

Speaker 1

You know what?

Speaker 2

As they say, I'm blessed, you're blessed, and what highly flavored. That's very old school southern.

Speaker 1

I feel you I'm blessed southern well, we're both southern uh, old school, I don't know about them. That's, that's up for debate. Um, I say this first I'm a little shocked, but I not shocked. There are a few people who listen, more than a few people who listen to the podcast, and I got one text from our photographer friend and she was like how did you guys meet? You didn't talk about how you and Adrian met. I mean, did we even say how long we've been together, or I can't even remember. No, we didn't.

Speaker 2

But you know, it's not one of those things, I just walk around. Oh, I've been with Nicole since 2003. It's like you know we've been together for so long. You kind of don't even think about that. It's one of those weird things. It's not like a mirror badge on it, even though it is, but you just don't wear it on my shoulder.

Speaker 1

I don't wear it on my shoulder too. I hate the whole.

Speaker 2

Super couple.

Speaker 1

Super couple, power couple that's a word that we don't use but how we met, I think you know, as we're talking about the Maroon house, we got to talk about how we met Because some of those same people, I would say, are still in our lives or influence not who we are but how we live. In some crazy way, their spirit, their aura, their artwork is in the Maroon house. I'm going to let you tell.

Speaker 2

Well, we're talking about kinfolk energy today, right yeah? And I think that kind of leads to what we're talking about, this origin story of us, even though we have our own personal origin stories. And you know, for those who want to know, me and Nicole have been knowing each other, been together for quite some time 2003,. This is post-9-11, post-1990s. That's 21 years I was freelancing at this spot in Atlanta, called Noman Noodum.

Speaker 1

You got to do the short version, AJ, yeah.

Speaker 2

I'm going to do a short version, but it's a marketing firm. Right, it's a black marketing firm owned by these two guys by the name of Marlon and Stanley Yorker. At the time, I was emceeing their event. That night it was a networking event in Midtown and you was there with your old business partner, stacey West.

Speaker 1

One of my dearest friends, who I met in college. We had a candy company making gourmet chocolates. Do you remember the name of the place? It was an old house that's in Midtown.

Speaker 2

It's been called many things it was called Bar. I can't remember the name of the place it used to be called Ibiza. It's been a bunch of different names but I've actually done a bunch of websites. I've made a website for those guys.

Speaker 1

So Stacey and I got invited there by, I guess, Martin Hubbard, His wife at the time. Stacey and I met them at like a benefit gala and then I got in their orbit and they were like you should come to this networking event. This networking event.

Speaker 1

I remember a few things about Gnome and Noodlem is that they used to be in Studio Complex before, like Crog Street and the Belt and Road was even there, and so that's how I got invited to the event. So we go to the event. Stacey and I are, you know, hawking our candy company, our chocolate company, no business cards.

Speaker 1

We didn't have business cards. Oh my gosh, I'm embarrassed. We didn't have business cards. Oh my gosh, I'm embarrassed, we had to have business cards. Anyway, um, we go to the event. I don't remember anything really about the networking event, except for I started getting the email from the guy who was emceeing the event.

Speaker 2

That would be me.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and it was. It was literally the sub stack of of the early two thousands it and it was literally the sub stack of the early 2000s. It was like an email saying, hi, this is the art that I'm working on it was literally like the sub stack.

Speaker 1

You were talking about your art and you had was it poetry in there. It was a newsletter. It was my personal blast to people that people know I'm working on in terms of design, art, creative. Hey, I managed to list. I put the list together and I figured why, yeah, you still. Oh, I, this is the thing that I that I buried the lead. He stole the email list from that night. I steal it. I don't want to compile it.

Speaker 2

I'm stealing he took.

Speaker 1

He took the email list from the networking event that wasn't his and added it to his personal email list.

Speaker 2

I'm not mad at that. Well, they owed me that they forgot to pay me my money, but it's fine.

Speaker 1

You're wrong. You're wrong, so fast forward. Stacey went, started doing other things. I was still very interested in like, making this candy business work, so I was looking for a new identity for the business and I remember I was like wait, this guy that I'm getting his emails from. I think he's like a graphic designer or he could do a logo. What have you? So fast forward? This was after September 11th. This story's getting long. You were laid off at the time. You were pouring coffee, as you like to say.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And you eventually did my new brand identity and I will tell you from the moment I met Adrian.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you started off as a client first. Yeah, how about that?

Speaker 1

But what happened is that my world changed in a way that just it just changed who I was and who I was going to become forever. I was already on this journey to to, you know, like figuring out who I was I mean, I was like 20 something years old but, um, who I thought I was going to be it was very obvious that, um, I was going to be something different, and I think Adrian helped me like move in that direction. So, um, we came together very quickly and I became like engulfed in understanding his world and, um, I would say vice versa, you were, you know, we came in and understanding both worlds. But the thing that happened so easily and magically is that, um, our friends became, your friends became we had a lot of people in common too.

Speaker 1

Yeah, your friends became my friends. Our house, our style, everything just kind of like meshed, and you started at a point where it just evolved to where it is today. But, um, so those same people are still in our lives. Stanley Yorker.

Speaker 2

Stanley Yorker. The Ponders at the time was just Greg and Gabby before they got married, but they're the Ponders now, definitely. Who else would I say? Quentin? Right, I've been with Quentin since college. Q shout out to Q. So these are people I've been knowing a long time. You've been knowing a while as well. This idea that us being together, coming together, brought a whole another group of Black creatives together in this small insular network.

Speaker 1

We're talking about friends who became kinfolks, Sometimes business partners who became family. Right 5-9-6 South.

Speaker 2

Evelyn.

Origin Story: How We Met

Speaker 1

I don't know if we need to say that whole address, but south evelyn, south evelyn place, man, so many things were birthed there and I think by the time then, at least for me, my family was totally confused about who I was at that point I didn't have a perm anymore. I had like these chunky twists. I mean, I was living in like this a neighborhood when all my friends were going out buying new condos and new houses.

Speaker 2

You wouldn't have bought a 1930s bungalow. Off Bankhead. You want to call it Hollowell. I'm from Atlanta. It's called Bankhead.

Speaker 1

Not Hollowell but off Bankhead. There's so many people from that time, I mean since then. We lived in Atlanta, we lived in two different apartments in New York. We're on a third place in New York and bought this house in Athens. There's so many communities that make up who we are and make up the larger community so I mean, with that said, we kind of went into this.

Speaker 2

Let's go back into the topic, right? So what is this idea of kinfolk energy? Because for me, I think it's more of a feeling than you know people could. People communicate feelings. Feelings are either going to be that of joy or that of fear. But I don't think, you know, uh, kinfolk for me is it's like this we can relate on different things. We don't necessarily have to agree on everything. You don't have to always like the art that I like or the designs I like, or the books I read or the music I listen to, but it's a feeling more for me.

Speaker 1

It is that feeling I can't even put into words. You don't get it. At least I don't get it that much anymore because I'm not, I don't live in my familiar, my, my familiar town 24, 7, and I would say even even to go even further to say a lot of those people who said it with such conviction, they've transitioned well, yeah, transition, or they probably moved on to other things in life, or, you know, people lives just change but I will. I mean our lives change.

Speaker 2

We got a kid.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

We got, you know, responsibilities. We got careers, but you know we do have different travels in life, right?

Speaker 1

Yeah, but I just yes, I 100% agree with that. So Kenfolk energy to me, part of it, you know, if I had to define it, it's hearing those, those phrases to say what's up, cuz, or that's my folks right there, um, the words and the feeling when those phrases are said, um, that's part of the energy. And a lot of times, um, you know now, I mean I think about my brother Kamau, where when he goes sis, or when Quentin, who's like family, says sis, that's Kenfo.

Speaker 2

You know, for me it's both of the Kamau's it's Keza Kamau, kappa, weezy and Kamau, who I ironically met the same week.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Right, me and Keza was working on a project for this company that deals with outdoor cars and this other celebrity that's kind of owned this company called Rock Nation. Long story short, we would come up with some ideas. That was activating this car Right. And yeah, we met through this guy named Aubrey. Again, this is like Ken Folk Aubrey. Aubrey is a good close brother. He's the brother of, like, charlie Palmer, one of my mentors from Atlanta, who I met in college and it was like that thread right.

Speaker 2

So if you think about like how we met, we met doing work and I often tell you a lot of people get to meet other people through work. So I met Kamau Kapowizi doing a freelance gig. Then, you know, a year goes by, I catch up. You know Kamau with our studio down in Red Hook and the things that you know we built over the years in terms of like things for Black Gotham, some of the things we've done in terms of creative partnerships with like projects and just just being a community with each other. For me that energy is about um, connectivity, sense of realness, but usually I find kind of Ken Folk energy first through the projects I'm working on.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, so listen, yeah, so listen. Um, I gotta, I gotta kind of push this conversation forward. We've dropped a lot of names. That's fine, you, you just dropped a lot of names, I know I'm gonna google them yeah, but no, no, I mean I wouldn't say people can google them.

Speaker 1

I mean, listen, I and both of my books will, a lot of my. I have three books. I have a fourth book coming out about the maroon house well, inspired by the Maroon House, and one of kind of the hallmarks. Particularly when I'm writing something that's mine, or even sometimes when I'm writing for large publications, I like to drop in an Easter egg, a drop a name, and I think it's a it. It opens up another world. And a lot of these names we just dropped. They're artists, they are professionals, they're everyday people.

Speaker 1

But when I look into the physicality of our home now, the people are in here like their artwork is in here, they're in here. Exactly, and.

Speaker 2

I'll visit it.

Speaker 1

And how and why visit it. And how and why I mean I guess it's a question that I'm posing to to both of us is how have we been able to create organically a space that is safe and it, like, supports our community? We can't get people to leave sometimes. How? How how do you think it?

Speaker 2

goes back to. I often tell you, you know it is a certain level of intentionality when it comes to hosting anyone. But if you're going to host people where you shouldn't do anything for people you wouldn't do for yourself, I often tell you that, like it's one thing to say I'm doing this with the intent for a host, but I like to reverse it. How would I treat myself first? Yeah, because if I treat myself in a certain particular manner is how I'm going to treat anybody who walk through the door right or walk into my personal space, where's my studio? Or at home, or hey, if I invite you out to dinner, like to me, it's the same feeling. So for me it starts with how do we treat each other? I mean, you know, how do we treat?

Speaker 2

ourselves, and then it kind of spills out from there, you know.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's about paying attention to the details, right, even in your own life, you know. It's about seeking comfort. In your own life, for instance, we have this inside joke. I don't even know if we need to tell the people, but I'll give them a bit of this thing. So, at the Maroon House here in Athens, we are a shoeless home. We're a shoeless home in New York as well, right?

Speaker 2

Well, let's back it up. We wasn't shoeless when we lived in Atlanta. We weren't shoeless. Moved to New York made us shoeless.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Because of some kind of like you know culture thing. It's just, it makes sense, it's a functional design thing. New York is dirty.

Speaker 1

New York is very dirty and when you just just break down how much dog poop and pee and everything else you step into like I don't want that same thing in my house. I think a lot of people in the American South and let's keep, I'm going to keep it real I think people who are from Athens who come into my house and I asked them to take their shoes off they actually think that um.

Speaker 1

I'm being a snob, right, um, but it's because I want, because I want to, not, you know, track in a bunch of allergens. So when people come into our house, we have a beautiful basket of socks, and the socks are there and they're always clean, and when they start getting ratty, I replace them. I also, you know, try to buy like flip flops and easy sandals when people are visiting us, and so I do that because I want my guests to feel comfortable. But also, too, when I go to other people's house and they ask me to take my shoes off, I mean they should, they should provide some socks or slippers for me as well.

Speaker 1

I bring my own socks but everyone's not going to do that. For me as well, I bring my own socks, but everyone's not going to do that. So that's a part of, I think, one of the reasons why people come here and they never want to leave. I don't care if we're renting an Airbnb and we invite people over. People still want to stay. So I do think it's kind of the details, but I do think there's an energy, there's a kinfolk energy that we bring, and I don't want to talk too much, but you're going to have to agree with me or disagree with me. How many times have you heard people say to me you remind me of somebody, you remind me of my auntie.

Speaker 2

I think you get that more than me, just because there's a certain sense of familiarity that you kind of I don't know on display or you project a little.

Speaker 2

I think it's kinfolk, I think it is. That I think for me I'm a little I need to kind of get to know you a little bit more before you kind of get to know who I am. So I'm a little guarded in that manner. That's more the artist kind of side of me first, and then after a while you know, it's more like hey, we chill right. But I think you definitely get that more than I do.

Speaker 1

I think it's kinfolk energy, so I got to ask you this question. So when you were growing up in Atlanta, if you met someone because you talked about your little garden, how long did it take for you to be like this is my play cousin, or this is my friend, or your mama told you call this person auntie oh well, I mean, for me it's about like relating.

Speaker 2

It's about relating when it comes down to like things that I like interest. So this guy who used to work at tower records, as an example, this guy by the name of flower now I don't know this guy from a hole in the wall, but we talk like Ken folks all the time because we had a big thing about music and we had a specific thing about talking about imported music, right when it's going to be these way at the time of CDs, because that's what it was.

Speaker 2

You talk about the late 90s, but me and him will talk about a lot of things around hip hop groups, like imported exports of certain groups that was from America but they only had certain releases in, like the UK. Or we're talking about British artists. We're talking about Mika, paris, omar, the Brand New, heavies, jamiroquai. We would talk about those guys for hours Anytime. I saw this guy out in the back in Atlanta. It was like we were brothers, like we just kind of kept caught up first about life stuff, then we just instantly ended up talking about musicals.

Speaker 1

So caught up first about life stuff. Then we just instantly didn't talk about musical. So for me it was more about the things that I was into. That made you kind of kinfolk and a lot of times you call him by his name.

Defining Kinfolk Energy

Speaker 2

You didn't call him cuz his name is flower to me. I don't know his governmental name, but that's fine, because if I see the guy today I know exactly. Yes, and that's the beauty of it, right, sometimes, this kinfolk energy, you don't have to know everything about a person, but you can relate about certain things.

Speaker 1

So how would you say, flower shows up in the Maroon house.

Speaker 2

Oh, in the music, 100% in the music. I got a system that I can play music around the house pretty ubiquitously, or I can individually play music in certain rooms, just different soundtracks, whatever. For me, I like to come home to music playing in a house. It feels better, right.

Speaker 1

Music is a big part of what I do, so you can go touch a CD and say, flower, told me to give you this.

Speaker 2

I can touch all the CDs I ever bought from Towers that me and him talked about. Wow, I can do that with all my CDs. I know where they all came from, where I bought them, at who I bought them. A lot of the kinfolk energy was always around cultural interests and because you know some people. Again, I started kind of becoming cool with people based on the things I was into or based into the things that I was working on right, and they have to start with this magical, we just connect kind of thing. First I kind of got to eat the newer person first. Then it's like oh man, you're cool. Oh folks, you're cool. Oh, she's mad chill, right, it becomes that yeah.

Speaker 1

And I know it's funny. You know, one of the things that recently I realized is that I let people or I gave I tend to give people my kinfolk energy, naturally. Mm hmm, soon as I meet them.

Speaker 2

And.

Speaker 1

I don't, I don't it's not even like I even realize that I do that. I think it's just kind of who I am, but I do realize that everyone doesn't deserve the what we call the kinfolk energy, right, right, um, which is for me, I think, is about giving a little piece of myself and sharing the abundance well, that's the archetype of a nurturer.

Speaker 1

Yeah, sharing, because I feel like I am abundantly blessed, so immediately if I feel a little kinetic energy, I will give it to them. But one of the things that I've learned recently and are unlearning recently is, like everybody's energy doesn't need to be in your house and a lot of times they don't have kinfolk energy, right, um, and so I think I knew that growing up. When people say, oh, such and such can't come over my house, even if they, if the cousin, like the blood cousin, I didn't understand that fully until probably the last two years or so.

Speaker 2

Oh, it doesn't necessarily have to be a house. It could just be within your proximity Because, again, a house is just where you live. It holds a lot of things, it can hold energy, it can hold memories, but it's really wherever you may dwell. It can be your personal space at work, it can be your car, if you've got a car. It can be man just standing at the bus stop, waiting on a bus, right. That's your personal space. So I feel like that space is sacred wherever you may go, because you know we're beings, we're spiritual beings, having a human moment, right, so that that sacredness can be anywhere and black people and sacred spaces and safe spaces a lot of times our houses, no matter if it was a two-room shotgun or a cabin or a farm.

Speaker 1

we understood that our houses were sacred and we went out to the world and even if we had to experience white supremacy or even if we were enslaved and had to go work in the big house, we wanted to keep all of that out there, because the little room or the big room or the mansion that was ours, it was ours and it was sacred let's just take a quick break and when we come back let's get into that like the origins of like kinfolk energy.

Speaker 2

Who kind of maybe started this? I think it goes even before the maroons, but maroons, that are certain things, yeah. And what does it mean to Kenfolk energy? Who kind of maybe started this? I think it goes even before the Maroons, but Maroons did a certain thing, yeah, and what does it mean to have Kenfolk energy just kind of going forward? So let's take a quick break and we come back and talk more about it.

Creating Safe, Supportive Spaces

Speaker 2

Looking for creative inspiration, graphite Pro Radio explores the intersection of design, culture and innovation. One conversation at a time. Join us for deep dives into the creative process and game-changing ideas. Start listening today. All right, we're back, nicole, and let's get into the segment. This idea of you know. What does the idea of Kimpo come from? I know we talk about maroons and the idea of this community, of these escaped Africans at the time who kind of left where he was in, you know, enslaved with or with whom, and they created these communities in different parts of the islands and the South and whatever, and they kind of created this ideal of you know safe spaces, right, and this, is it safe to say that this ideal of like kinfolk energy, I want to say it came from them. But you know, they more or less kind of cultivated that here in the West.

Speaker 1

Well, I think that kinfolk energy was around before the Maroons. Sure, you know, I think they're. You can read about the Maroons in. You know the swamps of Virginia. You can read about the Maroons in Charleston. You know it's people's like oh, peace out. I'm about to lead a plantation and I'm going to create my own community Intentional space, right, but I think that the Kenfolk energy was there. I think what they did, they did something very radical. They put their lives on the line to say we not only are we going to escape, but we are going to take all the knowledge that's always been inside of us, um and uh, create a space where we can. We don't need anybody else, and that's that's what happened. But you have to already have the kinfo energy to be able to do that successfully. I mean successfully, where people are studying it and writing about it and there's research about the Maroons and what they did. So the Kenfolk energy, the Kenfolk energy, been with us.

Speaker 2

Also, I see how it played out, too, in certain periods of our lineage. We talk about the Harlem Renaissance. Yeah, we talk about groups like Spiral, who's a group of visual artists that operate in New York who more or less did a show together, but it was like a collective of people and these creatives who wanted to do some radical things around freedom of expression, around creativity and art.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Can folk energy? When you talk about the Harlem Renaissance, I often think about the great migration. You would basically, you know, leave the American South and go north, or some people even went west. But you would have to reach out to, or somebody would send you a letter and say or a ticket or a ticket to say go see John John Smith Right at such and such address.

Speaker 1

He good people Right, you know, and you would call John Smith your cousin. But he wasn't your cousin because he looked out for you when you got to Chicago.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

He told you you know what boarding house to stay at. He got you a job and your whole life. You would say John Smith is my cousin to my people. And then, two generations back, you're like is John Smith my cousin? Then somebody explained to you, like, nah, nah, nah, he just met him when he went to Chicago. That's Kenfolk energy.

Speaker 2

Also, I've seen Kenfolk energy play out in certain communities. I've seen it play out on the Vineyard. I've seen it play out at the Sag.

Speaker 2

Harbor. I've seen it play it out in certain aspects of Atlanta, definitely seen it play out very well. Growing up in Atlanta we now talking about, like different types of, you know, black experiences. Yeah, one specific place that I saw it play out just growing up was the West End. Now, if anybody knows anything about the West End, this was like a cultural hub for a lot of different black communities. You're now talking about people who use from the bcn, which are black christian nationalists. You're talking about guys from the nation of islam. You have a lot of the rosa community but you also, right, had right next to the west end you had the au centers right, so you had a lot of black students, but the west end was like the cultural melting pot for a lot of like experiences in atlanta. Culture experiences. Um, I've seen the guys like jason wall who started funk, jazz and a couple other people you know a lot of those guys got a lot of the ideas who started their more or less cultural experiences from the west end now growing up.

Speaker 2

One thing I can remember that was kind of kinfolk energy was going to the bcn right or their bookstore, specifically the the Shrine of the Black Medina. Yeah, that bookstore. You walk in you feel like you knew everybody there, right. Yeah, and chances are you probably did. You know it's a young homie. I got a chance to see Alice Walker talk about some of her books at the BCN right, and that was like beautiful. I was with my family. My dad knew a bunch of people there. He was used to be a member of the BCN, him, and one of my cousins. But you know, again, that is like a specific community that kind of handles certain cultural experiences and everybody kind of knew each other and supported each other, you know, financially, culturally, even spiritually.

Speaker 1

So that was like one example for me. What about for you? Well, I mean, I grew up in East Athens mainly. You know, my home house that my folks moved in in 1974 still stands and we still own it.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And then across the street, which is now a passive river park, is where they originally lived. I mean, when I say across the street, I literally mean like 10 steps over.

Speaker 2

I mean when I say across the street.

Speaker 1

I literally mean like 10 steps over there were like rows of shotgun houses on the river. So I grew up in that same community. So that that's the community I've known. For what? 50 years basically.

Speaker 2

Almost 50 years.

Speaker 1

Almost 50 years, and so I was able to see you ain't telling your age, huh.

Speaker 2

No that's what I was like, almost 50.

Speaker 1

I was able to see working class. Working class and I would say white collar workers, because there were teachers, there were nurses, there were, you know, municipal workers, people who worked at the University of Georgia. There were a monroge of black people but I saw community there. Those folks looked out for each other. You would call when somebody's dog was loose. You would. You know people would call and complain about us running through their gardens. So I got to see Black people working and striving and moving through different class levels and communities and I think that that pride and seeing those people keeping their yards up, getting a new car, people graduating and living in Atlanta and living in New York, I think my experience of kinfolk energy and your experience of kinfolk energy, it just kind of it was in us and it just naturally kind of came together and it spews out everywhere we reside.

The History of Kinfolk Communities

Speaker 2

Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about how have we used that framework over these last 20 plus years. I know it started with us doing things at our old house, our bank head, you know. We will host a bunch of little, you know, gatherings and soirees. Sometimes I would show art, you would obviously cook up beautiful things. But then we moved on to New York, right? You know our old apartment in Bed-Stuy, you know. And then at some point we acquired a studio down in Red Hook.

Speaker 1

Oh my gosh, what a day.

Speaker 2

But the beauty of this King, folk energy and the framework of that is by, you know, inviting all these different people in and creating these spaces. Where it's going to be intentional or just some random, what it did do was build community.

Speaker 1

It, did it, did you know? Wow. I mean, I want to go back to like two moments when I think about the Atlanta days of us being together and like hosting people at our house. It was just organic. We weren't trying to say, hey, let's have a happy hour, because now we're like, okay, our tradition is like doing happy hours, um, and I just think about all the just kind of classic good times we had yeah, and it was, it was, it was just easy.

Speaker 1

And I think about um, when we lived our first apartment in bed start and that apartment was so small and we would literally have 15 and 20 people at parties.

Speaker 2

We would, we, you know, we were known for our it felt like breakfast at Tiffany's, but it was breakfast on Plitvim it was kind of a dump it was.

Speaker 1

When we left we looked around it was like wow, we really made this apartment feel like something. But anyway, I remember one incident that I knew for certain that we had built a community that was um, very rich um was. I was at a coffee shop and a girl ran up to me and was like oh my gosh, I had so much fun at your party and I was like I could not remember, I didn't even remember. She came to the party and it's not like we had hundreds of people there, but like we just would have so many. We would meet people and literally invite them to our apartment.

Speaker 1

I can't say I would do that now, but there's so many people that I think about and I see in pictures. So I found an old like a login to Flickr and I was able to see a bunch of Wow, yeah, like recently, and I was able to see some pictures of people that I had like met online or just met randomly and invited him to to our apartment I'm putting on putnam avenue and I just think about, like you know, um to build community, you do have to have a sense of fearlessness and openness. Um to be around to be around certain people and invite people in your home, and then you know when you got a studio in red hook an art studio in Red Hook.

Speaker 1

It was not only a place where you created art, but it became the watering hole.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah, yeah, but it was a fun watering hole.

Speaker 1

We were joking here, I saw a lot of art there. It became a watering hole, a studio space, but it also became the center of how we built community.

Speaker 2

So many people rolled there A lot of my friends, um, like a serena, they would ask to borrow the studio to shoot content. I'm like sure, go right ahead, I'm not gonna charge you, I don't care, go ahead and do whatever it was. That's the kind of you know community that I would like to be. I'm not going to charge my friends to use my studio. Sometimes we would share our old studio, do kind of these collaborative like gatherings with the wares down the hallway, so you know. So we would have like our own kind of art crawl at the studio. So I always thought I was like a beautiful space.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that was a. That was a beautiful time and it was. It was intentional, but it wasn't Well.

Speaker 2

I think it became a lot more intentional just because but it wasn't Well. I think it became a lot more intentional just because, well, it's in Red Hook. Red Hook is not exactly that easy to get to, sure, but it was. It was kind of like a yes and or both intentional and sometimes it can be random, and random can just feel somewhat intentional.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think we have to say for people who are not from Brooklyn listen, this Red Hook is a neighborhood in Brooklyn. It's kind of you don't have a lot of you only have the bus. There is a but it's a train station, there's a train station nearby, but it's not like one of those spots in that's super easy to um to get to in New York City. But we had so much fun, so many incredible food and art moments.

Speaker 2

Um, we're camp folks yeah, yeah, definitely we can't fault. So let's talk about what does it mean to think about like it's 2025 now, right, a lot of things going on in the world. We didn't have to get into it that crazy we know it's highly political, is a little polarizing, a little crazy, right? What does it mean now to kind of create this feeling, kind of going beyond 2025? How do you build these safe spaces for people? You know, like, I know one way. I like to do it again beyond vetting people, because I don't think it's always about always vetting people, but for me it is a, it's a feeling, and if I don't feel your energy again, I just don't want to start, you know, inviting people into our circle if I'm not feeling you. I kind of got to get to know you a little bit better than that right, yeah, I agree with that, I mean.

Speaker 1

But get back to your question about you know the current state of the world and how we continue and it doesn't have to be me and you having people in general so I'm saying the current state of the world and how I look at creating community for myself and advice I would give to somebody else. Um, I think they're going back to my, my, our early days of being together 20 years ago. I think that there was a fearlessness, right, right.

Speaker 2

There were younger.

Speaker 1

There was an openness. There was. There was. Our guards were not up about people.

Building Community in Different Cities

Speaker 2

It was Obama years too. Whatever I said, it, it's cool.

Speaker 1

Our guards were not up about people, right, you know. So I would say you got to let your guards down a little bit, just a little bit, right, yeah, you don't have to let them all the way down, but I think you do have to let your guards down and be a little bit more open to inviting people in, to inviting people in and I'm air quoting here when I say inviting people in that you may not just kind of feel in the very beginning, and when I say in, it may not be at your house at first, you may invite them like, hey, I'm going to check out. You know, americans in Exile in Paris at the Georgia Museum of Art. Right, you want to hang with me? It's that that's how you invite people in. So that would be my one piece of advice, and my other piece of advice for people is to step back and do something for yourself.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

Find other interests, yeah, to do something for yourself and see how that moment or that thing opens up your world to other people or other ideas, um, and other ways of living, and or when I say living, I mean like living out loud in terms of joy, I mean physical living, in terms of things you know, and lastly, my other advice would be go to your friend's houses.

Speaker 1

I love going to people's people when people invite us over which crazily we do a lot of hosting, and sometimes people don't invite us over, sometimes people do. I mean, I think it's vice versa. A lot of people don't host anymore. Let me, let me just pull back and say this People don't host as much as they used to.

Speaker 2

I think the pandemic has something to do with it.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean we still host a lot. We still host at least once or twice a month minimum, right, right. But a lot of people, it's a thing I mean we could do it with our eyes closed, right, and I mean we could do it with our eyes closed, right. And I say, going to other people's houses I get to see how they live and that they may have a book that I'm like, oh, I need to get that. It means that you get inspired by how they just have a different sense of welcoming people into your home. So the Kenfolk energy moving forward is really about opening yourself up. Opening yourself up being a little kind of stepping back into freedom you know what I'm saying Stepping into being free, a little bit more free.

Speaker 2

No, I agree, I totally agree with that. I do think, for me personally is you know, sometimes you have to find your tribe. Sometimes you're part of multiple tribes. You're not part of just one tribe, right? You know, we've had a friend from the past and you know, god bless her. She's no longer here on the earth, but at her memorial. The one thing I learned from her is that man, she wasn't just a part of one community, she was a part of a lot of different communities and when people showed up to memorialize her, what we understood is that, you know, mariba was like man, she was everywhere. She was living this kind of kinfolk energy wherever she landed, whether she was doing activism work, whether she was into dancing, travel, food, she had communities specific for all of those different things. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they didn't, but what her energy was is that she brought that energy wherever she landed. And I think that's what it probably means to move forward from this moment on.

Future of Kinfolk Energy

Speaker 2

For for a lot of us is to find your different tribes, right, every tribe is not going to be with each other. Some friends don't need to be with each other, Right, it's just real. Don't mix all your friends, mix some of your friends. That's number one. I think also too, is that once you kind of find a tribe, you know, be actively a part of that tribe, bring that tribe your gifts, your ideas, your talents and just your overall love. So I do think finding your different tribes is going to be kind of great too, and that's kind of how I see it. You know, in terms of how you reinvent or bring kinfolk energy into 2025. You just take it wherever you go.

Speaker 1

Well, I guess we shouldn't say bring it into 2025, bring it into 2026.

Speaker 2

Because I mean look we blink two times.

Speaker 1

We're going to be putting the Christmas decoration up 2030. So this was good, this was good, this was good, it was great.

Speaker 2

I like it, I dig it.

Speaker 1

And listen, I love the feedback. Someone was like I love this, I love this, keep doing this, keep sending it to me, and we're going to be back. We're going to be back. We're getting into a routine here. Let us know what else you want to hear from us. All right, until next time.

Speaker 2

Until next time, people we talk, be easy Peace. Thanks for tuning in to the.

Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

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Speaker 2

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