“Words are to be taken seriously. Words set things in motion. I’ve seen them doing it. Words set up atmospheres, electrical fields, charges. I’ve felt them doing it. Words conjure. I try not to be careless about what I utter, write, sing. I’m careful about what I give voice to.”
Toni Cade Bambara
READ: "ON THE ISSUE OF ROLES" BY TONI CADE BAMBARA
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READ: "ON THE ISSUE OF ROLES" BY TONI CADE BAMBARA →
Busy Being Black is the award-winning podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives.
From conversations exploring the queerness of the cosmos to the art, activism and intimacies that honour the life made possible by our ancestors, guests on Busy Being Black have surrendered to what enlivens them. In these lives, built with Black magic and a great deal of grit, we find remedies for the existential and quotidian quagmires of these discordant times. Busy Being Black is offered as proof and promise: you are not alone.
Busy Being Black is a soft place to land.
The world around us has been sharpened by the structures and strictures we live within: the influence of conservative cultural morés grows, ecosystems are collapsing under the weight of dying empires and the cataclysmic rage of small men with enormous war chests threatens life as we know it. Guests on Busy Being Black remind us that we each have our part of the new world to build, and in service of that higher vision, we must also keep learning to unfurl ourselves to the world again and again. To seek joy again and again. To laugh until we cry. You are encouraged to take your armour off with us.
Busy Being Black aspires to its inheritance.
Busy Being Black is the nephew of the Black gay writers of the 1980s, expressive and defiant men who stared death in the face, took out their pens and wrote themselves into the future. I aspire to their bravery, and I admire the reverence with which guests on Busy Being Black honour the legacies they have inherited. We have a collective responsibility to carry what others could only take so far in their time. Our creative and cultural productions, our subtle and grandiose refusals and our efforts to nurture and defend those we love are contributions to work that started long before us. You are asked to claim your jewels and join us with your crown on.
Busy Being Black is by us and for us.
A world built with our blood and not in our image cannot be the arbiter of our brilliance, and Busy Being Black does not petition for seats or understanding. I am energised by the tenacity it takes to live beyond the limitations of a world that couldn’t possibly support our magnificence. I am exceedingly curious about the shape life takes in the hands of a Black person with something to prove to themselves. Whether we’re encouraging rebellion through eroticism, turning red-hot rage into art that awakens the disenchanted or treating each other as the divine sparks of aliveness that we are, Busy Being Black is an invitation to bear witness. When we do, we can see more clearly that which truly illuminates our way forward: each other.
Busy Being Black is made for you, and I hope you feel loved here.