Busy Being Black with Joshua Rivers

As we bear witness to the destruction of our world and kin through handheld technologies designed as slot machines, and increasingly disoriented by the hourly oscillations between the cannibal horror and unutterable awe of being human in 2026, Minna Salami reminds us that we won’t build new worlds with the same words that built this one. Read that again, friends. With her full-bodied philosophy, sensuous knowledge, she calls us back to the wild, sensate, subterranean and queer within and beyond us so that we can reclaim what europatriarchal knowledge systems taught us was uncivilised and savage—including the innumerable ways of knowing that have nothing to do with taxonomies or science or murder. Minna says that ‘freedom is the ability to conjure and then create of our lives the sense of rapture and joy that is our birthright.’ And we know very well that europatriarchal knowledge systems quite explicitly do not offer that as an option About Minna Salami ✷ Minna is an acclaimed afrofeminist scholar, author and cultural critic. Her publication, Kaleido, explores society, culture and power through the kaleidoscopic method: a sensuous, multilayered and epistemically polyamorous approach to knowledge that draws from multiple intersections and cultures. Busy Being Black is the award-winning podcast for Black LGBTQ+ creative, cultural & spiritual inquiry. If the podcast moves you, please: Support ✷ https://buy.stripe.com/aFa3cw82KfqeeNE0UdgjC00 Subscribe ✷ http://www.youtube.com/@busybeingblacktube Follow ✷ https://www.instagram.com/_busybeingblack PERKS + PARTNERS advaya creates courses to awaken the human spirit & inspire purposeful action in the world. Otherworlds begins on 12 May and provides the perspectives, practices & community we need to become active & empowered agents for emerging futures: https://advaya.life/otherworlds 🔑 BUSY-OTHERWORLDS for 15% off advaya+ membership Founded in 1969, Pluto Press is one of the world’s oldest radical publishers & their focus remains making interventions in contemporary struggles: https://www.plutobooks.com/?s=imagination&post_type=product 🔑 BUSY50 for 50% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dennis Carney is an elder whose respect among our community needs no justification nor explanation. Among much else, he led the now-closed Black Gay and Lesbian Centre in Brixton, and he has worked for 25 years as a therapeutic practitioner, supporting Black gay men to love themselves more deeply, hold their emotions more gently and show up in the world more fully. We explore his involvement in the Stop Murder Music campaign, the internationalism of Brixton’s Black Gay and Lesbian Centre and the creation of “Let’s Wrap”, the UK’s first-ever discussion group for Black gay men, which was hosted at London Lighthouse, the leading hospice and charity for people living with HIV. We attend to the history of the long 1980’s, and Dennis shares his advice and insights on what we should pay closer attention to about that fraught, traumatic and generative period of our collective history. Dennis shares how his disillusionment with the efficacy of protests and marches helped recalibrate his energy and efforts towards self-empowerment within our communities, and we broach the ever-important topic of intergenerational conversations, including what we learn from each other in our efforts to get free. Dennis reminds us that love for oneself and community, especially within a world so primed for lovelessness, has a singularly motivating power that supports us in being the change we hope to see in the world. Thank you If this conversation resonates with you, here are three ways you can show your love: leave a comment, rating, or review; share this conversation on social media; or ⁠contribute towards production costs⁠. The song 'Busy Being Black' was created for the show and in collaboration with Lazarus Lynch and Joshua Pleeter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m thrilled to share this conversation with British Nigerian writer and curator Irenosen Okojie, which was recorded at the Garden Cinema in London after a private viewing of Blitz Bazawule’s new musical adaption of The Color Purple. Our conversation was one of many events that took place as part of Irenosen’s Black to the Future festival, an afrofuturist celebration of outstanding Black artists and a growing space for visionary imaginings to thrive. We explore why The Color Purple aligns with Irenosen’s notions of afrofuturism; the lessons we can learn from characters within the novel and the musical about Black hope, family and love; and the ways Black queer people across space and time continue to live, by example, the futures we deserve to inhabit together. Thank you If this conversation resonates with you, here are three ways you can show your love: leave a comment, rating, or review; share this conversation on social media; or ⁠contribute towards production costs⁠. The song 'Busy Being Black' was created for the show and in collaboration with Lazarus Lynch and Joshua Pleeter. Thank you to our friends at Warner Bros, The Royal Society of Literature and The Garden Cinema for making this conversation with Irenosen possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julian Joseph is acclaimed as one of the finest jazz musicians to emerge this side of the Atlantic and his career has been characterised by many ground-breaking advances: he was the first Black British jazz musician to host a series of concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall and the first to headline a late-night televised performance at the BBC Proms. We explore how jazz and life are both animated by the art of improvisation, the methodology that undergirds the educative offering of the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy, the instruments and symphonies that enchant him, the artists and composers he recommends to inspire us to adventure, and his message to those who feel like they have music within them, but aren’t quite sure how to get it out. If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll enjoy the ⁠⁠Black Marvellous⁠⁠: a growing collection of conversations that adventure into Black imaginative vigour—in art, attitude and life. Thank you: If this conversation resonates with you, here are three ways you can show your love: leave a comment, rating, or review; share this conversation on social media; or ⁠contribute towards production costs⁠. The song 'Busy Being Black' was created for the show and in collaboration with Lazarus Lynch and Joshua Pleeter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help me shape the future of Busy Being Black by filling out this short listener survey: https://forms.gle/y7y3iQ7RPievyGFP8 Kokomo City takes up a seemingly simple mantle — to present the stories of four Black transgender sex workers: Daniella Carter, Liyah Mitchell, Dominique Silver and the late Koko Da Doll, who share their reflections on desire, confronting taboos, gender’s many meanings and the ways Black trans women are harmed by both structural and cultural impositions that render their lives less valuable than any other. The film is the directorial debut of D Smith, a veteran of the music industry who was shunned when she came out as trans. In creating Kokomo City, D Smith has captured an unapologetic and cutting analysis of Black culture and society at large from a vantage point that is vibrating with energy, sex and hard-earned wisdom – and tenderness, intimacy and humour. We explore how the artistic process that made Kokomo City possible reflects what D’s learned through her own survival, thriving and liveliness; the role of forgiveness in clearing room for creative expression; and creating art about Black LGBTQ lives that intentionally extends beyond the confining limits of mainstream LGBTQ media narratives. D says she was inspired to create a work of art that not only calls us to imagine and produce more and better options for Black trans women in the world, but also one that cis Black women, her brothers, uncles and father would encounter and which might provoke necessary and life-sustaining conversations about the world we want to inhabit together. About D Smith and Kokomo City D. Smith is a Grammy-nominated producer, singer and songwriter. She is the director of Kokomo City, which was executive produced by Lena Waithe, and the film won the Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT Innovator Award and NEXT Audience Award, as well as the Berlinale’s Audience Award in the Panorama Documentary section. Kokomo City is released in the UK and Irish cinemas on 4 August, 2023. A special thank you to Campbell X for always advocating for Busy Being Black and thus making this conversation possible. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is an exploration and expression of quare liveliness and my guests are those who have learned to live, love and thrive at the intersection of their identities. Please leave a rating and a review and share these conversations far and wide. As we continue to work towards futures worthy of us all, my hope is that as many of you as possible understand Busy Being Black as a soft, tender and intellectually rigorous place for you to land. Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the business community for LGBT+ professionals, students, inclusive employers and anyone who believes in workplace equality. Thank you to my friend Lazarus Lynch for creating the ancestral and enlivening Busy Being Black theme music. Thank you to Lucian Koncz and Stevie Gatez for helping create the Busy Being Black artwork. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer and organiser Kenyon Farrow is fighting for better infrastructures of support for queer Black people vulnerable to and living with HIV. He trained as an actor before he pivoting to activism in response to the fault lines he saw emerging as gentrification, criminalisation and healthcare inequalities began to rock his personal and extended networks. He has since coordinated campaigns large and small, local, national and global at the intersection of public policy, public health and social justice. Today, we explore his upbringing in Cleveland, Ohio – including watershed encounters with gay Black film and literature – and the events that led to a hard pivot from acting to activism. He shares how his work at the policy level is work that centres queer Black liveliness, and speaks lovingly about house music and house music spaces as evidence of the ways queer Black communities create for themselves that which is often structurally denied: spaces of love, care, spiritual renewal and healing. About Kenyon Farrow Kenyon Farrow is a writer, editor and strategist working at the intersection of public health and social justice. Kenyon has a long and distinguished track record working in communities impacted by HIV. BET named Kenyon a "Modern Black History Hero". About Busy Being Black Help me shape the future of Busy Being Black by filling out this short listener survey: https://forms.gle/y7y3iQ7RPievyGFP8 Busy Being Black is an exploration and expression of quare liveliness and my guests are those who have learned to live, love and thrive at the intersection of their identities. Please leave a rating and a review and share these conversations far and wide. As we continue to work towards futures worthy of us all, my hope is that as many of you as possible understand Busy Being Black as a soft, tender and intellectually rigorous place for you to land. Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the business community for LGBT+ professionals, students, inclusive employers and anyone who believes in workplace equality. Thank you to my friend Lazarus Lynch for creating the ancestral and enlivening Busy Being Black theme music. Thank you to Lucian Koncz and Stevie Gatez for helping create the Busy Being Black artwork. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Farzana Khan is the tender titan leading the transformative work of Healing Justice London, which works to dignify lives made vulnerable and to cultivate public health provisions for collective liberation. She's a writer, cultural producer and award-winning arts educator, and her work centres community health, repair and self-transformation, rooted in disability justice, survivor work and trauma-informed practice. We share a love for the poetic wisdom of Kevin Quashie and language and practices that engender tenderness. And our conversation today explores how Farzana and the team at Healing Justice London are thinking through and building new infrastructures that respond to the ongoing needs of vulnerable communities. Undergirding this work is Farzana’s commitment to holding and facilitating spaces that invite change through a deeper engagement with the world of feeling and wisdom in our bodies. We discuss the importance of attending to our grief, mobilising with an improved class consciousness and the long work of un-internalising hundreds of years of colonial thinking. Farzana calls on us to refuse the individualising thrust of the colonial regime, so we can then free ourselves for the transformative work of extending ourselves to each other’s aliveness. References in this conversation include: "Unworlding: an aesthetics of collapse", "the endless possibilities of open-source design" and Rehearsing Freedoms. About Healing Justice London Healing Justice London builds community-led health and healing that creates capacity for transformation. Working for and with communities surviving state and systemic oppression, Healing Justice London build towards futures rooted in dignity, safety and belonging and free from intimate, interpersonal and structural violence. Their practice nurtures the work of radical and holistic medicine to support our personal, collective and structural transformation. About Busy Being Black Help me shape the future of Busy Being Black by filling out this short listener survey: https://forms.gle/y7y3iQ7RPievyGFP8 Busy Being Black is an exploration and expression of quare liveliness and my guests are those who have learned to live, love and thrive at the intersection of their identities. Please leave a rating and a review and share these conversations far and wide. As we continue to work towards futures worthy of us all, my hope is that as many of you as possible understand Busy Being Black as a soft, tender and intellectually rigorous place for you to land. Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the business community for LGBT+ professionals, students, inclusive employers and anyone who believes in workplace equality. Thank you to my friend Lazarus Lynch for creating the ancestral and enlivening Busy Being Black theme music. Thank you to Lucian Koncz and Stevie Gatez for helping create the Busy Being Black artwork. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices