Won't You Come Through? The Black Creatures Talk Grief, Community Care, and Neopets
The Black Creatures by DOMvisions
Won’t you come through and kick back with The Black Creatures? The Kansas City based power duo have released their music video for D'ummm, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s been on repeat all morning. It’s the perfect mix of sweet, laidback tunes and community love. The track is off their 2020 album Wild Echoes.
Their music provides a deep introspective look into themes of grief, love, and mental health, particularly within the Black community. Jade and Xavier wanted to make music that allows people to imagine things that may not exist right now. They explain, “Music is very political. It permits us to draw out the blueprints for what we want to create.”
I had got the chance to chat with Jade and Xavier, covering everything from meaningful community activism, to what their songs would look like as Neopets. Check it out below.
Malaika Astorga for Also Cool: For those who don’t know you, how would you describe yourselves as individuals and as a band?
Jade of The Black Creatures: I'm Jade Green, a singer, prison abolitionist, and Pan-Afrikanist. I'm nonbinary, and I want a world without starvation, homelessness, or police. The Black Creatures became a thing when I was going through a really hopeless time in my life, and since then it's the only thing that has consistently made sense.
Xavier of The Black Creatures: I'm Xavier and I would describe myself as unimportant in the same way that trees, rocks, birds, water, and dirt are. I'm the same as everything else: here.
We, as a band, are a collection of our greatest inspirations and fears, filtered through our understanding of music to support and uplift people who are like who we were as kids; the lonely, confused, hurt, angry, joyful, passionate, and curious.
Also Cool: What’s the music scene like in Kansas City? I know you met over the Internet initially in your senior year, and I’m wondering what the IRL and online creatives spaces in your scene are like. I’m also interested in what serpentine green lipstick has to do with your friendship.
Jade: My experience being in the KC music scene for the last seven years has been mostly what I made it. But the environment is undeniable; the music scene here is almost as segregated as the rest of KC, the home of redlining (which is the practice of drawing districts into ridiculous shapes to preserve its whiteness, property values, and funding).
At first, I was really green - I didn't come from a family of musicians, I was sort of shunned (and simultaneously emulated) by the white punk kids I ran with in high school, and I really had no background in being a recording artist. At first I felt like everyone was laughing at me all the time. When I stopped caring about what people thought of me and just started focusing on learning and growing, it really changed the trajectory of the band I think.
Xavier: The KC music scene is admittedly underrated. No one outside of Kansas City would expect so much amazing music so many incredible artists to come out of the Midwest. There's an unparalleled range of styles and approaches here. While I don't deny other places having an equally wide variety, I just think (at least for us) there's a lot of intermingling. We've played shows with punk bands, jazz artists, rappers, metal bands, noise artists, DJs, the list goes on. There is a surprising number of shows and festivals from local to nationwide, all put together by artists and performers from HERE. Or maybe I'm just not well travelled; ask me again in a few years!
The Black Creatures by Beth Taye
AC: I love your undying chaotic love for creative creation. From Sonic, to Charmed, to a huge range of musical inspiration, you seem to pull your creative forces from many different places. What are some of the most influential pieces of media, whether they’re musical or visual, been for both of you as artists and people?
J: Media consumption was very important for me growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. Watching The Fifth Element as a child gave life to my love for funk, outer space, and opera. Video games like Final Fantasy X-II & Kingdom Hearts opened my mind up to even more otherworldly possibilities, and companionship that spans beyond time. Musically it was Aaliyah, The Gorillaz, Dir en grey, and Missy Elliott that inspired me then and now to make visceral, unapologetic music - hoping it heals and breaks some curses along the way.
X: Within production and lyric writing, I've been inspired by things completely unrelated to music like Shigeru Miyamoto's approach to game design in Super Mario Bros, teaching all of the mechanics of the game in the first level in the first few seconds. I copy this approach musically by introducing the listener to a theme through melody or rhythm to kind of define the "rules" of engaging with that particular song. Or, like in visual mediums, white space (think of the unpainted parts of art on canvas) can be used to actually fill out the piece, or direct the eye, or cause tension.
Ultimately, a relationship between a song and the listener can be informed by silence. Many films have definitely inspired some work, like Annihilation, Interstellar, The Boy, and The Blair Witch Project to name a few!
The Black Creatures by Beth Taye
AC: You’ve mentioned that your activism is very community-oriented, and IRL. In an age of digital activism and performative infographics, can you tell us a bit about how you connect to your communities IRL, and the importance of maintaining that kind of connection?
J: I'm learning now what Angela Davis meant when she said the personal is the political. The most sustainable efforts of "activism" I engage in are part of my daily life: urban farming, conflict resolution services, working with children, volunteering at Food Not Bombs KC, helping Black and Indigenous folks buy houses in this predatory housing market situation our city has... speaking of which, my friend is about to lose their house because the city decided they want to build a shopping center there. In a city with several abandoned shopping centers already... yeah. I guess another form of daily activism I engage in is bringing contradictions to light. I don't say this to brag, but to give other people ideas on how to make trouble for the dying culture that wants to take us with it.
X: Honestly, keeping a network of colleagues, associates, and friends who know people who provide information, resources and/or services, and people who simply have needs is another way we approach this. At every level of society something can be done in some capacity; it can be as simple as connecting a hungry friend with someone who provides regular meals, to something as frontlines as connecting activists with someone who knows the right information.
AC: If your songs are like Neopets, can you tell us what D’ummm and Wretched (It Goes) would look like?
J: D'ummm gotta be MAD BUBBLEGUM CUTE. Like a purple-and-white Polish Frizzle chicken with nasturtium and phlox blossoms in the feathers. Chunky and funky. Life of the party. Wretched would be like a Hotep tuxedo penguin with a Kufi (hat) who speaks nothing but the truth. He also chews up shrimp to feed his children. He has braved many storms and he is loyal.
AC: Your project ranges across the Internet, from your music to your YouTube videos. How do you find balance creating content and creating just for yourselves?
J: Honestly, a lot of what I put into The Black Creatures then and now started as personal journal entries and notepad notes. What's wonderful about being part of this musical project is that Xavier has always encouraged my personal growth. If I ever was "too much," he wouldn't show it — we would just find a different way to exert all that energy and it always turns out alright.
X: Understanding my own limits is incredibly important to me. So is knowing when to say no. Finding balance, for me, is mostly about knowing myself well enough to avoid overwhelming myself. It's admittedly an ongoing process because the goal is to always know myself better. I try to extend that to the band as a whole. So, as a band, our combined processes keep us mostly balanced in regards to our workload.
AC: Who are some artists/musicians from your scene that we should know about?
J: God I LOVE THIS QUESTION! PLEEEEASE check out Les Izmore, Bath Consolidated, Collidescope, and Betty Maun.
X: I strongly recommend TideCruz, Mess, Ebony Tusks, Bad Alaskan, VP3... how long can this list be????!?!?
AC: Last but not least, what do you have coming up this year? Is there anything you want to shoutout/highlight?
J: We are planning to give everyone a new video from us before Valentine's Day, and a lot more later... but I don't want to spoil anything (yet)! You're the first to know about our upcoming video.
X: Issa mystery.
The Black Creatures