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Rob Lee: Welcome to the Truth in this Art, your source for conversations, joining arts, culture and community. These are stories that matter and I am your host, Rob Lee. Today, we're running it back and I'm welcoming back by popular demand a creative entrepreneur that I first interviewed back in 2023.
We had a great conversation and I'm looking forward to reconnecting. She is the founder of Sugarcane magazine, a black art and culture media company known for its commitment to recognizing black culture's global influence and the rise of black visual art, music, dance, design and literature. So let's welcome back the great Melissa Hunter Davis. Welcome back to the podcast.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Hola, everyone. Hola, Baltimore and beyond.
Rob Lee: Thank you. Thank you. Baltimore and beyond. I like the sort of still in South Beach, right? Still in Miami, right? They're about. Okay. Yeah, it kind of kind of sound like the Spanish. Like, oh, yeah, we got that.
Rob Lee: So thank you. And it's really, really excited to have you back on. It's been almost two years to the date, by the way. Yeah, I was looking at her early. I was like, March 2023. I was like, well, you know, I got time this. So for those who might have not listened to the first episode, they should, but they haven't listened to the first episode and they may not be familiar who you are. You know, you're Googleable. As we talked about a little bit before we got started. Could you reintroduce yourself for the folks and, you know, share any aspects of just art generally right now that has you excited or even curious?
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Um, well, let's start off with sugar cane. So sugar cane is a digital imprint publication dedicated to global black art and culture. And I have to say, if I am actually like in the process, I think of looking for maybe new artists to support, I'm starting to notice when I look at a lot of work that So how should I say this? There are a lot of artists that really admire like the Hinde Wiley, for example, or Bisa Butler. And because they are so inspired by them, they have this way of building off or continuing the work that they do. Was that good?
Rob Lee: It was very good. Oh, my gosh. I think that was described.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Yes. So I am looking more, I've always been a performance art girl. So I'm looking at more performance arts and young people who are doing great things. So last night, so we're in March, March 13th.
We had the opening of the Floor of Water here in South Florida. And there was a phenomenal young woman named Arsena McCoy. I've known her since she was a college student. Phenomenal performer. She's a singer. She's a writer. And she did an amazing piece specifically for that exhibition. So I find her work to be exciting.
And I'm looking at other young performance artists who have gone beyond maybe music or who have gone, especially gone beyond like spoken word or gone beyond traditional dance that do interesting things in movement and performance.
Rob Lee: That's great. And thank you for that. And even sort of the first portion as well where, and I'll comment on it because of this, in the last two years, maybe it has something to do with that conversation we had. In the last two years, I've been able to explore education and, you know, educating and podcasting specifically high school and in college. And one of the things I tell folks, especially when I was talking with these younger, like just people who are curious, they're not majoring in media or even going into podcasts. They're a different type of artist.
I had film and theater artist. And, you know, they're curious about podcasts. They're like, I'll listen to this, I'll listen to that. I was like, don't make the thing that you like though. Don't try to copy sort of what that is. If you want to do a thing like that, but they are making that, you should make your thing.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): And we forget that. And I understand if you look at maybe writers, you give visual artists and singers, you know, part of the imitation, there's an education in that because they are learning how to do a particular skill. So like a singer may want to kind of practice a certain type of run. And hopefully the goal is, is that they will instead of, you know, trying to do a Karen Clark Sheard run that you develop your own.
If you are writing that, you know, there may be poets that you like, but then you start to develop your own voice in your own point of view. So as an exercise in your education, you know, we're not going to complain. But when we start to put this out in the marketplace, now we have an issue, you know, because it's very clear. It's very clear who your, your, your, your inspiration is. And we're missing out on outside of people who inspire you how you are inspired.
Rob Lee: Yes. Where, where's the, the you at in it? And I've joked about it a few times. I was like, I can do a barbershop podcast. I can do a little bit of all of this different stuff. But that's not what I'm feeling. That's not what, you know, when it's those moments where, man, I could just pass this one off. I can like not do this one. It's like, that's not the thing that gets me excited. I don't feel like I need to get up and interview this person or I need to have this notepad on me to write down some questions.
I want to know what Melissa thinks about this. You know, it's, that's not the thing that barbershop conversation, you know, or, you know, whatever sort of like popular and it's tough. But, you know, to your point, it's like, once it's sort of out there and in the marketplace, you know, what separates you from someone else that might be doing that? Right.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): So I'm curious in this next part here, it's like building out an issue of Sugarcane magazine, right? And one of the reasons why I wanted to have you back on and several of the guests that I've had back on is just like to go a little bit deeper and fill in some of those holes I either didn't think of at the time or wasn't skilled enough. But what is the aim when you're building, you know, an issue out like thinking of like what fits, what fits at this point or to what degree I want to, you know, cover a particular topic or a particular artist?
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Every issue is different. We used to have a theme, but I have given up on themes for a little while just to kind of get back in the groove again. It's always how are we having an international conversation and based off of like what we've heard today about how our current administration is putting pressure on Caribbean nations to stop working with Cuban doctors, for example, which will now possibly cause some friction that I'm not sure how African Americans or Caribbean's in America are going to be able to deal with that. You know, if this maybe changes how we have, you know, relationships with the Caribbean.
Not that we would ever stop that, but I don't know what that travel will look like for us now, right? So it's important to have international conversations for a lot of reasons. Number one, I want us to realize that this is a very small world. And I think social media has shown us that. I remember what I loved about the very early days of Twitter was that it gave us a chance to talk to Africa in real time in a way that we couldn't before.
Because now you're actively talking to somebody in Lagos, you know, now you're going to their Instagram page and you actually see Lagos and you saw the fashion. And for a very long time, you know, we were that Dutch wax had us in the chokehold. A lot of that was that was where, right? It gave us an opportunity to talk to each other in a very real way. And so I want to be sure that I keep that conversation going. So it's making sure that we have international conversations.
And it's also to help all of us realize that we all have the same concerns. We have similar thoughts. We have a similar background. And no matter what, we still can answer questions in a different way, even though we have some similarities. And I think that that's often missed in all facets of life.
Right? Sometimes, you know, when you're having a hard time, you just need to know that there's someone else who is going through the same thing. So on Twitter, not Twitter on TikTok, there's this young woman. Her first name is Diamond. I don't know her last name is.
I don't know how I found it. She just kind of came across my feed and I thought she was really cute. But what I didn't know was that her TikToks were based off of her relationship. And she's a young woman. She's 27 years old and she's married to a 51 year old man. She has three kids. And things aren't really working out with her because I think part of it is the age gap has caught up with them. You know, they started, they got married when she was 22. I don't know how he was.
He was probably somewhere in his 40s. And not that those relationships can't work, but they're very real issues. And she probably feels like she's getting this by herself. But I too am in an age gap relationship. I had a conversation with a woman that she married a very wealthy man and she is in her own right. But same thing, age gap.
And some of the same things that this young woman is dealing with is the same things that this other lady that I know is dealing with with her husband. I think he's in his 80s. I don't know where she is and maybe somewhere in her 60s, right? And because she's doing this alone, she doesn't realize that some of the same things that she's dealing with is same things that lots of women who are in age gap relationships deal with. You don't know that because there's nobody having these conversations. So I think that it's important to let people know that the same issue that you're having in K-Town is the same issue that somebody is having in Tacoma, Washington.
And I think that's the best. You know, we're all dealing with funding. You know, we all know all of these people with resources and most of them are not giving us any. You know, we go to all these dinners smiling and passing out issues and still having a hard time.
All of us, you know, get promised all of this money and then only when it's time to collect, magically, they don't call you back or they change their mind. You know, we've changed course, so we've changed direction. All of these things are very similar and it helps us a, religion out alone. Yeah, we can even help you come up with new ideas to press forward to answer the questions that you need answered. All of those things go into what I put in an issue. Wow.
Rob Lee: That makes so much sense. And I think having those opportunities to, yeah, make the world a bit smaller, make those communities a bit smaller. You know, a lot of times, especially in this, I'm like, in some ways, I feel like I'm a dinosaur as a podcaster. I've been around doing this for a very long time and, you know, looking for sort of that community and even thinking of changing places at time to see if a place has a bigger scene or more robust scene or older scene.
I mean, what would that be like? And being around it, you know, at times and being in New York or even venturing out to California, you know, have conversations and feeling like I don't know anything and then being able to chime in and connect. And it's like, I know probably a little bit more than you do. And I say, Oh, okay, cool.
This is, this is great to understand and then to build it. And, you know, I have a business degree and I hate the notion of networking. This just feels kind of icky to me. It feels a little bit inauthentic. But when you have those authentic connections through, I have this experience as well.
How do you deal with that? There's something about that that works a lot better. Yes. Gotcha. So I think of the second part of the question is somewhat related. And I have considerations that I make in doing this.
What are the key considerations or even the feelings of being a valued resource and sugarcane magazine being a value resource and covering, you know, black art? Like, a lot of times this is the first time something like this podcast is the first time someone's asked someone like, So tell me about your work. And, you know, people like I'm so nervous. I'm, you know, oh, wow, people have checked out my podcast and years later, thank you, Rob or whatever it is. And I think it's a really special feeling and I take a lot of responsibility of not doing a bad interview or at least trying to do a good one. But for you, how do you what are your feelings and your thoughts just generally? That kind of be vulnerable. Please.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): It's something a very long time to accept who I am in the art world. Living and so this is when I start. Okay, if I sound like a hater, I don't mean to sound like a hater, but this is my experience. Living in South Florida. I would never have known sugarcane is important. If it weren't for somebody who didn't live here, because no one here acted like they knew what I was doing.
It didn't seem important. You know, even like some artists that didn't get it. And I didn't know how to answer the question.
Like, I don't know what else to tell you. But we interview artists with a theme. What is it that we don't write?
What are we missing? And there seem to be, I don't know, maybe they just kind of took advantage of the fact that, you know, she's local. And if she's local, then people outside of here don't really care. It wasn't until I met somebody from, I believe he's from the DMV. And that was what kind of blew this up, where some random, I don't even know who this man was. And I know that he's on my email list somewhere. I have to find him.
But he was a collector who read the website all the time. So that's when I start to realize, okay, this work is important. However, because it's such a challenge to keep this work going, especially financially, even though people think it's an important resource, I don't feel like people act like it's an important resource. So somewhere there's this clip floating around of Tamar Braxton saying, I don't know if you love me unless you give me money. Or I don't think, I don't know if you like me unless you give me money.
And at this point, because now it's all about, you know, making sure that you have the capital to keep this going. You don't really like me if you're not giving me money. If I can't buy an app from you, or you kind of like look at me like I am a ghost when, you know, you ask how I can support it. I don't know what else to tell you. And so like that's where I'm at right now is trying to get the capital to not make this just a project, but an actual legacy publication that has legs. And to make this clear, and it sounds like I hate your statement, but I mean it, everything in me. I don't want to have to put sugar cane in a place where it's bought out by an institution that, you know, let's it fade away because there are other journals attract more dollars.
And I've seen that where, you know, it's great. You got bought out and then the quality disappears and people stop paying attention to you and move on. I don't want to be in that place. There's no amount of money that would make me feel good after something like that.
Rob Lee: I respect that. I am in the same boat. I think I've seen a few examples that come to mind that you start looking at their history, their about us section and it's like black sounded. It's like black run though. That's the question I had.
Like who's running it? And, you know, sort of the maybe curse is too strong of a word, but the curse of independence because, you know, there are folks who have such great offers for, you know, an interview for me. And I think I have no problem with booking my interviews. You know, I don't I know what I like. I know if I want to talk to you. And definitely that that piece of when the the reach expands, like I don't put it out there in this way, but this is the international podcast.
I've interviewed people in Japan and France in Brazil and it's not just purely Baltimore. That's my focus and that's where I'm at. But, you know, I talk to people who catch my eye and I try to organize it in a way there's work and attention that's done there. And a lot of times folks don't get it. But then at the same time, it's really great when they have to come back and realize that this artist that they can't access, you know, and I'm speaking of certain institutions that can access.
Hey, could you send us the interview that you did with them or do you have their contact information because somehow I'm the plug, but they hire someone else to do the work right. It's very interesting.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): So we're here. We're here. Yeah, that's the same thing. And, you know, not only that, but the fact that we've accessed certain people really opens doors for others because I can tell you right away that people that we've interviewed when they find out where I'm based allows other local people to have those conversations within where they would never have a conversation. And I'm sure it's the same thing with you. So we're valuable and people know that we're valued and it just may be, you know, that's where we are now, you know, this in two years, you know, will be complained about something else, right. But and it's a privilege to be able to. I know it's a privilege. It's like a privilege. There's a privilege to be able to say that we're still, we're still creating and spiral the fact that, you know, things aren't easy. But still, I think that that our value should be should be acknowledged before, you know, 40 years to go away and they're like, oh, I remember when this happened.
And then all of a sudden you get like 50 11 awards. And that would have been far more valuable had they been a part of building your platform instead of leaving you. And especially, and I know that funders do this. That's not even just funders. Lots of people do this where they kind of change the goalpost. I think I've met you that like sometimes that question platforms that are funded. Yeah. And I get that when they turn in their applications, probably things are written really well.
I love that for them. But I know that you must have clicked that link. There was a link in that application. And at some point you click it and you looked around and you saw what was going on. I know people click our links all the time. So I think that we have proved that we have a lot to offer. Yeah.
Rob Lee: And, you know, I'll say this before I move into this next question. I don't think there was any hater and any of that in there. I think that was just a real perspective. And I think there's all the validity there.
I feel that I feel that holy because it's what the experience has been is what I've heard from other people. And often those are people that look like us. And, you know, I get this feedback from my partner because this is that this interview with Anthony Mackie that's floating around about like success. And she sent it to me. I had thought already, but she sent it to me and she's like, this is what my dad dealt with being a black playwright in the 70s. You know, and she was just like, you know, saying to me, you know, I'll be on my thing. I'm like, man, I was just as big as I was just took off. And she was like, you're talking to black and brown people.
You think they really going to support this? And I'm like, ooh, that was a real thing you just said to me that that way of here's 50 grand, which is in a big scheme of things, not a whole lot of money. Once you have to spend it, no, it's not. Yeah. And it's a it's a thing that that's there and sort of I have these conversations with folks and we talk about whether they're there folks that are in this sort of entrepreneurial space there and this sort of we can move things along.
And we talk about on occasion what's good and this is going to definitely come up as a question later. But what may be good from a fiscal winning with the ROI on it and what might be good culturally. And I think we make a few too many of those decisions that are oriented around ROI.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): And, you know, even doing this work and I'm looking at the economy that we're in and I'm even kind of looking backwards. I'm looking back at like the 80s and 90s. I always remember black art as a kid.
In the libraries. Kevin Williams had that series that was sponsored by a liquor company, I think. It might have been sponsored by liquor company where so all of the salon path of women sitting up under the hood. Yeah, so yeah, that was that was Kevin's work, you know, that when I feel like, you know, every era we're into something else. So now we're into black art.
But you know what was in the 90s, it was all about books and literature, right? So when I think about all those times, I realized that a lot of black artists, yes, they sold pieces, but they didn't sell at the same high rates that you see now. They were making the same type of money. They certainly had a day job.
They were either teaching or some kind of corporate position. And I'm wondering if we will be moving back to that space now. Yeah, which if that's the case, then we have to talk about sugarcane's relevancy. If once, you know, once we move on, you know, what does this look like? So these are all questions that I have in my head, even moving forward, you know, a lot of people didn't have a easy time over somebody saying that they have seen remember seeing like in Harlem, seeing some of the greats selling on the corner.
Yeah. Selling their work, you know, so these are like all things that I think about, especially when it comes to support. You know, like if I'm having a hard time and people like what I'm doing now, but I'm still not getting supported, what happens when like they like they don't care. Right. Even if they're still not supporting like that could be a very real thing. And you know, what am I going to pivot to? I feel like they were all talking about that now as well. Like, well, can you pivot? Can you pivot? Yeah, we may have to consider that.
Rob Lee: You know, it's been a lot of pivoting with sort of the last few years, especially in, you know, journalism with AI floating around. I've seen a lot of poorly written things on really big and popular sites.
I'm like, I can fact check that based on my pop culture knowledge to know that that's not true. Or even, you know, sort of this political push that we're revisiting of the here's some words that we're going to flag and we can flag them and oh person of color black and brown. Nah, we flagging that how navigating through that amid sort of the funding hurdles and just the challenges that are there, you know, again, being independent and working in the spaces that you work. How do you navigate? How do you, you know, just keep at it under these these threats and under sort of, you know, just history kind of being rewritten in front of us in some instances of now we got to get that out of here.
There was no artist of this ill because that did this sort of work during this time. How do you keep pace? How do you like, you know, just even from the standpoint of having the the gumption to do it because it takes a lot to say, we're fighting against it.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): So, part of this is just, I don't give up on anything. Just just, and that's an issue. It's my life. It's both on the personal side to I don't give up on anything, even when people think that I've given up, I may stop and rest a little bit and you know, try to figure out how to move forward. But I'll get right back to it. So I don't give up on anything.
That's number one. I come from a midsize town in the Midwest. I'm from Gary, Indiana.
Right. So if you look up Gary, Indiana now you're going to see like all of these abandoned homes and blight and you want to hear all these things. But I grew up there in the 90s.
The city didn't look great then either, but it wasn't like it is now. So, you know, you had, I tell people all the time, you know, you have black millionaires and you had crack it. You have black doctors and you have black accountants and you have the working class.
You have singers, dancers, actors, scientists, all kinds of people lived in Gary, Indiana. And so I had access to all that. And blackness was important to us. We cared about black music, you know, supporting black businesses. We were happy to have a black life and we could still move into spaces where, you know, we weren't the majority and it wasn't a conversation. So people's problems with DEI and it's not my problem.
You know, that's, this is my life that I'm talking about here. You know, I'm talking of, I'm a black woman. I'm talking about black people and I'm not even just talking about black people in the United States or in the Midwest. I'm talking about black people around the world. So their opinion isn't necessarily that important to me. And I always talk about, if you look at Vogue, if you look at, and I know that there has been more of a push for it to be more inclusive. But if you look at all of these other fashion magazines, there was no conversation about, you know, they may, you know, want to have one black model or one conversation about this black person here, this black person there. But nobody fell apart.
And to be honest with you, no one asked questions about that. You were like in New York City, such a diverse city. This doesn't even represent the city that you live in. Right. And nobody cares about that either. So I am telling black stories the end.
I don't know what the problem is. And if you were smart, if you're not black, I don't care where you're from. I don't care if you're from the UK. I don't care if you're from Philly. I don't care if you're from Montreal.
I don't care if you're from Brussels. You should be reading publications and looking at media of people that don't look like you. How else do you figure out what's happening in the world? How else can you strategize?
Rob Lee: Yeah, I think when you leave yourself into this sort of small silo, you only have those perspectives or maybe similar perspectives. It's maybe a few degrees left or right of where you're at, but you're not worldly.
And I find that folks are kind of less curious. And you got to have this sort of perspective that's outside of where you're at, where your environment is at. And at the beginning of doing the pod, I, in maybe 2022, thought about doing interviews and calling it the series of Truth and Disarpeion, and going into these other cities and really thinking about that intentionally and just having like, I'm going to go here, travel here, do these interviews in the person's community, and try to get seven or eight interviews and pocket those and make those like really cool in a subseries. And I had to think about it. I was like, am I going to lose sort of my audience?
Because there are some folks in Baltimore that don't go from East Baltimore to West Baltimore. And I'm like, yo, you got to get this 20 minutes. Like, you can go over there. And I was just like, but I'm not making it for them.
And I think that that's sort of the broader thing. I'm making it for me. And if they like it, cool. But this is really my interest in where I'm drawn. And it feels like being able to go here and explain why perhaps I'm going here and why I'm interested in that. And then I start seeing like six, 12, 18 months later, this overlap starts happening. And I was like, oh, I'm ahead of the curve. Oh, cool. And you start seeing these perspectives and these interactions and they start coming together. So there's something in that. But I think it all starts from having this interest in trying to, again, going back to the example you provided with acts and TikTok of making the world a little smaller. And this is not even on the global lenses than the, you know, sort of United States.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): That's another important thing that we do is you bridge those communities that typically wouldn't bridge each other. Right. And I think all communities are like that. So in South Florida, it is not unusual for you to find, and I speak because of the community that I know, but it's not unusual to find black kids who have never gone to the beach.
And you literally live on it might be Atlantic Ocean, right? In theory, if you take Martin Luther King, was it Martin Luther King, Junior Drive? I think that's 62nd Street. Whatever 62nd Street is in Miami in theory, if you took it all the way out from, let's say 27th Avenue and you take it east, you literally run into the bay. I think technically at the end of that street is a condo and behind that condo is the bay. It may even end at the bay. Now, I wouldn't tell anybody to go swim in that bay.
I'm not going to listen to this. Now, but if you take 79th Street, which is not far from 62nd and you just hit head on east, you run right into the ocean. And there are some children who have never gone there. They don't even realize how much wealth. And in Liberty City, you have started to notice that very quietly, you know, people who couldn't afford to buy home anywhere else, you buy a little home, fix it up. It looks beautiful, put up really high fences and cameras everywhere. And in those communities have been infiltrated by people that have some sort of wealth and they live there because it's cheaper. And so the work that we do really bridges communities that typically wouldn't speak to each other.
Rob Lee: That makes so much sense. And going back to a little bit of Gary Indiana, Michael Jackson, Freddie Gibbs, you know. Yeah, there are Freddie Gibbs and Michael Jackson in the same conversation. That's a thing that happened. And I think, fictionally, Beauty in Black is set there for whatever reason. I've been watching a Tala Perry show sometimes. I know it's filmed in Atlanta, but I think it's set in Gary Indiana.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Really? You know, you would think that I don't watch, so I don't really watch television. I only watch YouTube unless my kids want me to watch something. I'm a YouTube girl. So I watch other people's podcasts and there are certain things that I listen to to help me sleep at night. That kind of like the only thing that I really watch. But Tala Perry is a great example of somebody who had, and I, you know what, and I use him as my inspiration.
Sure. You know, the fact that he slept in a car, that he was broke, you know, abused by his father. And that's just like what we know. I suspect that there's other things that he had to deal with, you know, in his life. And he held on. And whether you're a Tala Perry fan or not, I know not everybody's a fan, but he was still able to achieve so much greatness. I try to remember him when things get really rough. Like, you know, there are people who have done it. You know, your time is coming.
Rob Lee: I, I, I frankly, I keep this board in Instagram and I have an unplugged completely there yet, but I keep this board of like saved posts and, you know, it's a lot of for all quotes in there. I think there's a few Tala Perry quotes, but just interviews that they've had and sort of, you know, being ready, you know, when things are supposed to come and you'll get your thing when you're supposed to get it and having the belief in that and really thinking through it. And, you know, I've said in the past that, you know, some of the books that I've read related to art and sort of the insights around it. I use that as fodder and material for these questions, but I find that a lot of these insights from folks that are doing it who might fall out of the typical, you know, they they're sharing sort of their insights and that helps give me context and sort of those stories of of perseverance those stories of, hey, I'm this, I'm doing this, this is not supposed to work.
I got a thousand rejections while I'm here. And, you know, you want to know, you want to know those those connective things like, yeah, this person didn't get their first book sold until they were 50. It's like, cool, give me the other details too, because we have this sort of almost as overnight success thing. And, you know, again, that Anthony Mackey thing is in there as well. And, you know, you start thinking like, all right, what do these folks have in common.
And I think they relate to what you were saying and I relate to it as well. I'm going to quit on things. I'm going to give up on things. I'm going to find a different way to do it. Yeah.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): That's exactly what I do. I work around it and find something else. And we spoke a little bit earlier. And that does not mean that even though I don't give up, it doesn't mean that I was not going to. I was not going to because I was really going to hit delete on that go daddy back page.
And yeah, I was going to let all of this go. But I had to remember that this a this idea came to me for a reason and be I'm good at it. Now, my perfect can, you know, are there things that I need to improve?
Yes. And so I'm spending this year focusing on those things that I need to improve and make better. But I'm still good at this and it's important and people find importance in it. So I must keep going.
Rob Lee: You're great at it. And people find it very important. Thank you. You're welcome.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): And how important that is to you right now.
Rob Lee: Look, I'm like, I'm in the same same boat.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Oh, wait a minute, but I had champagne last night. So I guess that means I broke it. So I should be good. I might have my double.
Rob Lee: I mean, I'm operating on that that Linn schedule. I did Marty grad. I was out there bugging. You went to more. I did. I was it. It was great. I didn't catch any coconuts from the Zulu parade, but it was my first time and going to that. I was using the six for frame almost boxing.
I was like, move, granny. I'm gonna get that. Let me get these beads. I ain't doing these things.
I ain't doing anything strange either. I was just like, you know, using size versus like flashing because, you know, there's language that's out there. And I had a great time. It was, um, it was culturally just a really great experience and sort of, you know, New Orleans is one of those cities for me that, you know, it's always on this. Maybe I'll maybe I'll relocate there because I like the notion of we're moving towards fun. That's the, the intent. And I just find like folks down there, they're like, Hey, I want to collaborate as far as what I do. You know, like, yo, I would love to work with you. You're doing something real. And it reminds me of both more a lot to, to be a romantic in that way.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Yeah. I went in 2017 and I loved it too. I really wanted to like go and buy life. I've always wanted to go buy like some raggedy house and, you know, just make it look. It's fabulous.
And I really liked it. There's a lot of poverty there that made me a little uncomfortable. And not that we don't have it here, but it made me uncomfortable because my question is, you know, are there any services to help?
And in all cities, like I live in the suburbs and I just saw two homeless women today and it's really weird, you know, seeing homeless people in the suburbs like this, you know, walking around with their suitcase and their women. So you're always a little bit more concerned, you know, because you want to be sure that they're okay. And while you may think, well, it's nothing over here that should hurt them. You realize if you see them that there are probably others.
There are probably others that are out here as well. But that made me uncomfortable. And I spoke to a woman that talks about colorism. And I was really bothered by that. I have two daughters, one who is a beautiful chocolate girl. And there is actually no way that she won't make my baby feel less than over something and silly skin color. We don't have a problem.
Right. And there's no like, they don't want to hear nothing. I want to hear about no culture. I want to hear, it's an absolute no. Is that alone made me go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, you're not going to do it to me. Absolutely not.
Rob Lee: No, absolutely not. And, you know, it's, it's there. I experienced that of a reverse situation where as far as the thing that I do, I find that there is, you know, sort of other stores that feel a little bit blacker quote unquote, because the person might be a Docker complexion and this comes, serves as a shortcut or this person maybe talks in this way and it feels more authentic. And it's like, I am from here. You know, it's like, it's not a fake thing. It's not a fake affect.
Once Morgan, you know, I want to be like, black, black, black, black, black, black. And it's interesting who it comes from, but definitely the, that sort of maybe shortcut to authenticity is very interesting how it's used and how it factors into some of the funding conversations, some of the access conversations. And I'm just noticing it, you know, at a very high rate. And I'll even say this, I did an interview not too, too long ago where I might have thrown on a suit just to see what the response is going to be. And I did the interview with a suit on and it was a much different and warmer response than I was expecting.
I was like, yeah, don't say. I do social experiments sometimes. I wonder if people know that I'm trolling sometimes, but, you know, I did that and I was just like trying to check to see am I going to be treated differently. And I just that translate because my background and the way I approach this is always the same.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): So one of the things that I like really had to focus on, I love the arts, right? So aesthetics is everything, but the business side of the arts aesthetics is everything. So, you know, yes, sometimes, you know, you have to, you know, what is it? What is the girls get the fake bag from? It's some like site in front gate, not front gate, front gate makes stuff for the home.
Some site that you buy things from in China when you want like the fake bags, like sometimes you have to go buy the fake bags and you have to make sure that, you know, you serve the right thing and the right food and the right table setting and are your clothes, are they, you know, the right contemporary style? So that changes the way that people view you and see you. So I've had to, if somebody who loves to dress, you know, kind of had to like turn things up and not everyone's in a while. You're going to pop out and show them. Yes, you got to pop out and show them for real.
Yeah. That does change the way, but I always say it may change the way they act towards you, but it doesn't change who they are. So I never get confused by a second glance. It doesn't change their character.
Rob Lee: That is a really, really good point. And yeah, you know, I always been looking for maybe where I fit at and sort of what I do is like, oh, that's the podcast guy, that's the person that does this.
And I don't want to be, you know, the guy that's like, let me try to kind of going back to what we talked about in the beginning. I saw this person wear this. So this is what these people wear, right? This is how you art person around this. Like, and it's just like, no, bro, just be comfortable.
And I think I was joking with Derek Adams when I met him a few months ago. And I was like, man, you're having a firearm, bro. He's like, you know, he's put it on, try things, you know, you put on stuff. And I was like, oh, that's I'm going to use that. I'm just going to try things. I'm going to put on stuff. And some of my weekend sits, I've been trying to get a fit off, you know, like regularly.
And because I'm out here in the city in Baltimore is not huge. I ran into a few artists that I know just randomly getting coffee and I had this giant like, uh, bomber on. And it was, I think it was Jeffrey Kent.
I ran into artists here. And he was like, you got that on, bro. I was like, appreciate you. And I just felt a certain vibe about it. And it's sort of that confidence and it's sort of that acknowledgement of people that you dig and you respect how they go about how they present themselves and this sort of, you know, arts world and then the life that's connected to that arts world.
It's really cool to get that acknowledgement and that commentary. Yeah, for sure. So I got two more real questions that I want to hit you with. And the first one is just something that I've observed with like movies. I don't know if it hits with art in the same way, but as I've noticed with movies, it's almost like everything has to pop immediately. If that movie didn't make a billion dollars in the first hour, it was not successful.
And we're not looking at the work that went into it. Is it good or not? We're just looking at, did it make money?
And I think we're not even properly processing it. What are your thoughts on sort of that rush or that push, whether it relates to just art macro-ly, but that push for something to be deemed successful because it made a bunch of money versus is it quality? Is it, you know, artistic rigor, if you will?
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): In that, in my opinion. And that can also be tricky. So like, regionally, I think is that for we are like a real showboat kind of community, right? So there, success markers matter.
But it depends on where you are. So when you start talking about like the black community, yes, they expect to see there are certain things that signal that you're successful. And if they don't see that, then you're not, it doesn't matter. You're not successful, right? But I think in the art world in general, we see a lot of really good work that may not necessarily sell right away. You may even see exhibitions that don't sell out and they may not sell anything at all. But if the work is good, there will at least be a conversation. There's some pride in the fact that you have good work. You know, nobody wants to be broke.
So it's, you know, it's helpful to find out that you're in, you know, maybe certain collections or have certain opportunities. But I don't think it's that bad. Maybe when you start talking about auction prices, that's a different conversation. But just kind of as a whole, I think that it's not like the film industry.
You can't even see the music industry anymore because the music industry now is nothing like it was what was the 90s or the early 2000s where even that was a marker of success, right? You know, how much like you were platinum in a day, right? Or platinum in a week or some kind of craziness. I don't think albums go platinum anymore at all. And that doesn't mean that you didn't, you know, produce a great body of work. We just have a very different market now.
Rob Lee: Yeah, I always look at the sort of staying power of it, you know, of like, I'll go through when you touch on music and because this podcast is on Spotify and Apple, all that stuff, you know, that's where the vast majority of my consumption is coming from. And I look for like, what is the album in the last like few years that I'm always going back to? And it definitely was a, it was a, it was a grower, not a show or if you will. And it was the weekend after hours joint, like I didn't listen to it in beginning and I kind of discovered it late. And I was like, okay, I don't care about blind and light.
I don't care about none of that. And then when I started diving into it a bit further, I was like, oh, this is good. This is just a moody Aquarius. I relate to that. I'm a moody Aquarius.
Let's do it. And, you know, and that's album that's that's on loop and it kind of, you know, my consumption of it is the appreciation of it versus, you know, the FOMO thing. I don't want to miss out. Everyone's talking about this. I got to have my take. And especially with some of the podcasts and all of that stuff that's out there, you know, you've got to review this in the first hour of its release. Let it marinate a little bit and enjoy it. And I think there's work that goes into these things.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): And that's the thing about music that I think is so fantastic and so timeless. Is it Bayla Vett? Are you familiar with her? No, I'm not. So if I'm pretty sure there's a woman who I think it is Bayla Vett was a soul singer. Well, you know what?
Maybe that's at the wrong term. I think she became famous, like somewhat famous, maybe in the 60s. And then you would hear from her every now and again, like every decade. And she was always good.
But what introduced her to a new audience and brought her like more success than she received in any other decade was she did some songs by the Beatles. And I remember I learned about her on it wasn't on NPR, though I'm pretty sure she was on NPR. I think it was CBS Mornings. And CBS Sunday Morning is where I where I heard about her and I'm I immediately downloaded it from Apple. And that Beatles songbook opened up other opportunities for her, but yet she's been around for decades.
Rob Lee: Yeah, I pulled it up. I'm not afraid to say I was on Wikipedia and it's just like she's 80. And you know, this is a 2010 album you're referring to.
It's just like, oh, yeah, here's this new audience. Let's check the back catalog. Like, oh, you go back into the 60s. Oh, you got some stuff. Yeah. You know, she's an Aquarius. I'm not something to worry about.
Rob Lee: You look great.
Rob Lee: I get help. We're great. We're amazing. Yes, I'm married to one. Yeah, I love y'all. So that's a good transition point to sort of this last question I have for you. The last real question. So I think we're all fighting for attention. And at times it can distract us from doing the actual things that we're doing journalists becoming content creators, for instance. And I haven't crossed that bridge yet of like, hey, I got this TikTok dance that I'm doing and listen to the podcast. Do you distinguish art from content and what are the qualities that distinguish one from the other perhaps and where do you over a lot? So I'm having a hard time with it.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): I am fully aware that it's allowed. It's a loud platform out there and there's lots of opportunities to go somewhere else and that you have to, you know, constantly tell people why you're the best. I think my generation was one where putting out good work was that was the calling card and that everything came from there. And that's not the world that we live in. And you would think that I would know that.
I do have a problem with that. So I haven't figured out how to do all those things. I only got a few months to figure it out though. So by the summer time, I got out of the plan in place because I can't live like this forever. But I have a hard time. I've seen, you know, people who are a little bit louder with what they do. And because I found it unimpressive, I didn't think it was going to be a big deal until there are a lot enough people pay attention to them.
So that's not my fourth day. I'm still trying to figure out how to do good work and still like promote at the same time. Yeah. You know, and like my personal opinion is that I never want to, I never want to be arrogant. And think that, you know, like I am into the wheel or that I'm better than anyone else. And that's not to say that we don't do good work, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other options as well. You know, the people who honestly, who they do good work too, you know, like real talk, there are some, there are people who do fantastic things out in the internet. We have a lot of people to celebrate in the black art world, you know, but I am still trying to figure all of that out. And it's something that I'm actively working on because it has become a problem and I need to rectify that.
Rob Lee: I feel you. And sort of the same, you know, like I, in that similar vein where I'm like, well, if you just are doing good work, I don't know if I need to do the sort of dog work. And pony show that some of these things can be. And I remember maybe back in the day with like commercials, right?
Like if you were a big time movie star, you don't do commercials, at least in the U.S. You might do them in Japan or what have you now. It's like Matthew McConaughey is like selling me like Uber Eats. I'm like, yo, are you good? You know, or I don't know, it's sort of going baby, maybe back to the pop, maybe back to the ROI sort of conversation. But it's like this person has this many impressions, this many downloads. So that is now sort of fame and notoriety and so on. And I just remember this, this interview with Maya Hawk talking about getting casted, but based on the number of Instagram followers she had. And that's just like, so that's now part of your portfolio. And she could be a bad actress.
She could be a good actress, but it's like you have five million followers that we got to cast you for this because that five million, we might be the converted percentage of it to go see that movie. That means dollars. And I don't know. And I think that that's used as a shortcut for quality sometime. But also it's a conversation that should be engaged in because otherwise you're going to be just kind of. And I'm thinking about this for myself, I suppose, you know, it's a stream. Social media is a stream and it can be really fast like a river and it could be really slow.
And, you know, the fast like a river thing, you got to find a way to sort of stick you, you know, have you stick out amongst all of the other noise and all the other stimuli that's out there.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): So and there's when there's data, I think it makes sense. But if we look at was it earn your leisure? Yeah. So I think with earn your leisure, they didn't they had a following, but it wasn't like a shade room following. You know, I don't know that they had 100,000 people. It was a private account from what I understand that like only though like only those who knew, you know, knew they were considered the shade room of like finance and money for black folk.
It just so happens that the right person saw them and saw this is an opportunity. And even though so they didn't have any of the things that we would now say make you relevant. They didn't have a lot of followers. It was a private account. And so if it's not a lot of followers, that means that you don't have people who that means that they're not interested. Right.
That's what we think. But they got funding. And next thing you knew, they blew up on YouTube. And they still don't have they might have a big following on TikTok, but it doesn't appear that they have a whole lot of engagement. And they're not doing all of the little tricks to get that engagement either. You know, they're not, you know, doing the dances. They're not doing the viral sounds. They just put up clips from their, their YouTube.
And that's it. But they have their conference. That's a huge deal every year.
I think that conference has has been off at this point of other people doing things around it. They were still able to find everything that they needed. So, you know, in that sense, that's what I would say is sometimes it's just the right person. You need the right person and the right things to kind of get you where you should be because in theory, they didn't have any of that.
That's a good point. They kept going. Now, granted, this was probably, they're probably one of the last that will ever get that type of attention. But yeah, they didn't have any of that.
Rob Lee: And it's having, it's having value too. I mean, like, you know, their content, you know, it's one of those things that going back to Pharrell thing, when you get it, are you ready for it? And it's like, they already have a thing that works. They have a formula that works. They have a value proposition and, you know, conversations that folks are engaged and interested in.
And as you touched on, they have that conference that's helped blow it up. And, you know, from just different outlets, I'm not even following them and different folks that I admire their work and their, and I respect that they do. They're following them and they're having a pop up. I'm like, OK, I see how this works. I see the vision.
I respect the vision. So, no, that's a good point. That's kind of it for the main, the main conversation. So I got these three quick rapid fire questions for you. Don't overthink them.
Just put that out there. So the first one. What is your favorite, this is obscure, but what is your favorite art related word or word that you like to just use in sugar cane magazine? I know, I know. Yeah. I don't know.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): It's not, however, which is not an art related word at all. Further. I use fur. Well, and so it's not art related. It's in all of my writings. At some point you're going to get a sentence that starts with further. OK, I like it. You know, and one more thing, but I'll say further.
Rob Lee: That's like this is definitely Asian. It's like when you're watching the end of Colombo and he's like, one more thing. I was a lot of Colombo. Oh, my gosh. What is one ability? It can be fantastical. It can be something more grounded. But what is one ability you would love to have? Like tomorrow you start off with it. You have this ability in the toolbox. What would you want?
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): I would like to manifest like those people say that they do on YouTube and in social media, people who'd like the manifestation coaches. Yeah. And like, oh, I just thought about it and it appeared.
I would like to make things just appear. And I know that people say that there's dangerous because you may you may not want it after you get it. It may be problematic. All those things. But you know what? Says who?
I don't say that. So I would like my manifestations to come faster. And I do realize that a lot of what I have was what I wanted and I made that happen.
But it wasn't something that came out of the sky with a lot of hard work in weekly crying sessions and begging and, you know, all of the things. But I would love to make those manifestations come faster. This is a snap of a finger.
Rob Lee: That's a snap of a finger. I like it. All right. Here's the last one. This is the one that's in recent addition. I know folks have had some folks have been real quick with it and some folks have been like, I don't know what it would be. So for you, what genre of film would your life story be?
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Probably one of those. What is it the show, the channel that women watch, not necessarily the Hallmark films? I saw. No. Is it WeTV? Okay. It wasn't. But it wasn't WeTV. What was the channel that women used to watch before WeTV? Huh.
WeTV. I actually don't like them. But any of those, those like women's films, it was some station that was like focused on women. But yes, that's what my, my life looks like.
Rob Lee: It would be in that vein that mine was just a 55 movie. Ah, okay. That's what I wanted to be.
Rob Lee: So that's what I wanted to be. All of these here.
Rob Lee: No, that's great. Something, something grounded, something that's like, this is real life. This is, this is a real life. So my life story is a real life story.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): Yeah. It, it definitely has been with, you know, and I've been very lucky because I've made a lot of missteps and I'm here to talk about them. Hey, God. So, but I do realize that I also have a lot of what I wanted. They always say that sometimes you get what you want. It just doesn't, it doesn't look like what you thought it would look like. And that is the absolute positive truth.
Rob Lee: And it goes back to that power you would have just like, if I can manifest this, it'd be very specific with a snap of a finger.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): But that's the thing. I will be very specific to make sure they look like what I want to make.
Rob Lee: You don't want to be a Twilight Zone episode. It's just like, you said you wanted to live forever. Now you're a mannequin. Yes. Yes. Well, that is it for today. So there's two things I would like to do as we wrap up here. One, I want to thank you so much for coming back onto the podcast and catching up and spending some time with me and being open and vulnerable with, you know, how things have been and, you know, where things are going. So thank you so much for spending the time.
And two, I want to invite and encourage you to share with the listeners anything you want to share in these final moments. It could be plugs. It could just be words of wisdom. Anything that you want to share. The floor is yours.
Melissa Hunter Davis (Sugarcane Magazine): A few things definitely visit us at sugarcanemag.com. Make sure that you're following us on Instagram. Sugarcane Magazine is our handle. We're on TikTok. I'm not TikTok-ing right now. But, you know, you'll never know when I start that whole account. If it still exists in April, I forgot that they still, that band isn't necessarily gone. So we'll see if they still exist. If you are in South Florida between now and May 28th, please visit the exhibition that I curated called The Floor of Water at the Arc at 10 North Arts Foundation. We have a lot of fantastic advertisers that have definitely supported us. New World Symphony is one of them. And they have diversified their season, making sure that they add a lot of work by people of color and making sure that they are actually performing work by black composers.
That's really exciting. They have a great show coming up April 6th. If you hear this by April 6th, please go. If not, follow their website to see what else they have for their season for this year and next year. They are supporters of Sugarcane and I'm so happy about it, including the Adrienne Arts Center. They are also supporters. I am deeply grateful.
Rob Lee: And there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Melissa Hunter-Davis for coming back onto the program and catching us up on all things Sugarcane and all things happening in her universe. And for Melissa Hunter-Davis, I am broadly saying that there is art, culture and community. And then around your neck of the woods, you just have to look for it.
