Rebuilding in NYC: A Photographer's Journey of Self-Care, Community, and Creativity

This story is the transcript of a Narratives video interview, lightly edited for clarity.

Content note: this story includes discussion of suicidal thoughts and of being drugged without consent.

A Dirty Souf Yankee

Well, thank you so much for rushing over here and making the time to do this.

Yeah, of course. Good to meet you.

I don't know much about you, so I figured we would start with where you're from, and what brought you to New York.

Well, I'm originally from Savannah, Georgia, born and raised. I came here after high school, so I moved a while ago. I moved in 2003. I was here 10 years, went home to handle some family things, was in Georgia, kind of back and forth, because I was doing tour things, and then I came back. So I'm recently back, as of August 2023, in New York.

What was life like in Savannah, Georgia, growing up?

For me, it was a little slow. I always wanted to be in the mix of things. I'd come up here because I have family here; my father lived here. So I was back and forth, hence my name, Dirty Souf Yankee, because I'm both. Dirty Souf Yankee. But yeah, I would come, and for me, I was enthralled. I was like, I want to live in New York, because Savannah just felt too small-town for me. I had big dreams and aspirations.

And in hindsight, it's cool. I like that I have both. I like that I have the experience of growing up in the South. There's a nice Southern lady in here that's got some manners, that'll talk to you like this. But also, my adult life was forged here, because I came literally right after I graduated. I moved up here. So I feel like I have the best of both worlds. And Savannah now, too: Savannah is actually a really cool city. It's not big-time, but we're getting more cool things because of the movie industry. A lot of stuff gets outsourced from Atlanta, from the big studios, to Savannah.

It's really artsy. There's all kinds of cool stuff. These earrings are from a local designer in Savannah. Her name is Emy, and her brand is Tribe and Temple, and she makes all of this fun stuff out of acrylic. All kinds of little makers' markets. That's what I like doing when I go home. I like seeing the local artists and meeting people and getting into the community aspect of what's going on now, because there's all kinds of fun stuff that I wish was happening more when I grew up.

Your frames are cool too.

Thanks.

What were those big dreams?

I wanted to sing. I wanted to be in the music industry. I was a boy band fanatic at the time. I was jealous of Britney Spears, because I was like, she's not that pretty anyway, which she really is. But yeah, I wanted to sing. I wanted to be in the music industry, and I wanted to be a star.

Talking her way in

Did you go down that path? Did you do theater in school at all, or was that an option?

I did some. I did musicals and stuff in school. I was in chorus and stuff like that. It kind of took a back seat for a while, because when I did move, I was coming from the fandom of being a super fan of all my favorite artists. And Savannah is a small town, you know what I mean? So I'm trying to figure out how I can get in, because back then the internet was not what it is today. We had to be a little more creative.

I remember, and I don't remember how I got this list, I got a list of every record label that existed in New York City, whether it was a big one, a small one, an independent. I had a list of all the labels. I don't even remember how I was doing this on AOL dial-up, but I was finding out where people were going to be and how to meet people. And, long story short, my in: I discovered zines, fanzines, things like that. So I was like, OK, if I can get in and be useful, I can interview my favorite artists and shoot them, and still be able to do what I want to do and get a little bit closer. And that was what turned into my career path.

So it went from that, and finagling and trying to sound grown as a 16-year-old in somebody's email box. It's like, how did you get this email, NSYNC's publicist or whatever? I don't remember how I got these things. But trying to, like, "Hey, I'm so-and-so," and making these little laminated things at Kinko's, press, whatever. It was all creative stuff at the end of the day, and it worked for a couple. I actually got in. Not the big artists, but up-and-comers, and then I was shooting, and that's what became my career path as a photographer. I would shoot film, and then digital came in, and I upped my gear and whatnot.

When I moved here, creatively, I was customizing sneakers. I was doing sneakers, trucker hats. I was outfitting a lot of local artists. Essentially graphic design, but not digital; it was all hand-drawn stuff, like custom vests, painting shoes, painting hats, things like that. And once again, I needed photos of people in my stuff, so I would go to shows and shoot it, and then it snowballed. Everybody was like, "Wow, these pictures are really great. We want you to come shoot this," or, "Let's do a photo shoot." And 15 years later, I'm most well known as a photographer in the music industry, the hip-hop and R&B scene. That's how I got here.

Who are some of the coolest people you've photographed?

Miguel, early on. I did a lot of work with Miguel. He was always really cool, awesome dude. Ro James is also a friend of mine. They had a whole little clique and collective. A lot of the cool kids in the R&B scene, like Luke James, Ro James, Miguel, BJ the Chicago Kid, Diana Gordon, who is now songwriting, people like Bridget Kelly, Melanie Fiona. There was a really cool bubble in New York at that time of people who have gone on to be really successful but were still at the beginnings of everything back then, and that was kind of where I sandwiched myself. That was comfortable.

But I shot Jay-Z's mom's 50th birthday party. That's pretty cool. I shot Nicki Minaj early on. A couple of years back, one of my faves, Craig David: I got to shoot him for Vibe a few years ago, when he was doing a DJ set.

How did you get that gig?

A friend of mine. I forget what her official title is there, but I've known her through the course of moving around up here, and she pulled me in for that gig. She was like, "Hey, do you want to do this?" I was like, yeah.

Atlanta

And is it tough? Do you feel like a struggling artist in the city? Or do you feel like you created your path, and it's sustainable?

Well, that's the thing, right? Like we were chatting about off camera before, as a recent new New Yorker again, things kind of changed during the pandemic. I was living in Atlanta at the time, and I was miserable. Did not like it. Do not recommend. But that's for me; everybody has their own experience.

What was wrong with Atlanta, as a Georgian?

I thought it would be the happy medium between Savannah and New York. My mom was like, "Oh, you're closer. Atlanta's closer. Just go to Atlanta." For me, it gave me a little more of an LA vibe than I cared for. I've been to LA a few times. It's just not really my flag.

And even pre-pandemic, because I did in fact record an EP while I was in Atlanta, so I got to live out a part of the dream. But I was going to do that before I lived there, so it was back and forth, back and forth, and that was cool. The in and out worked for me, going to do a thing and then going back. But living there, I don't know, it felt really hard, even pre-pandemic, to build community.

I also took it upon myself, after my knee surgery, because I couldn't move around as much as I wanted to, to focus on other things. I said, I'm going to do music, because I had some clients who were encouraging me. They were like, "You know, we know you sing." I was like, "You do?" And they're like, "You harmonize in everybody's sessions, and if you were bad, we'd tell you to shut up." So I had some people that I hold in high esteem, and I'm sure a lot of other people do too, and they were like, "Just do it. If you take it seriously, people will take you seriously. You act like you're playing around, so nobody really does." So I was like, OK. I started doing that maybe a year and a half before moving there.

But being on the ground, I pulled away from promoting myself as Dirty Souf Yankee the photographer, because I was also running into a lot of "Oh, that's cute. Come take these pictures." "Hey, can I sit in on a session? Can I maybe songwrite with you guys, or do some background vocals?" And a lot of people were like, "That's cute. Just come take the pictures. Stay here." So I was like, OK, maybe in a new market I'll move a little differently. Then the pandemic happened, and everything went to shit.

I guess it was hard because I'm a peoply person. I feel like I'm outgoing, and I make friends relatively easily, and it just felt very insular. Everybody's in their bubble. Nobody wants to leave their area to come do something else. I was like, well, I'm parked right now, but I'll drive over there. If I care about it, I'm going to pull up. And I was running into what felt like a lot of situations that weren't reciprocal, where I'm like, "Hey, I'm willing to come do this thing," and I'm being met with nothing. So I was like, OK, maybe I'll try something different.

And again, everybody has their own experience, so this is just mine. But I felt like unless I name-dropped myself as me, right, and who I worked with and what I've done, then it was, "Oh yeah, we should, yeah, come, let's..." And I'm like, no. I don't want it to be that. I want it on my own merits, because I'm dope enough by myself, without my resume and my accolades, to be in a room and be worthy of just interacting and being friends, or trying to build a relationship with somebody that's not based on who can I get next to because you've done what you've done.

And you feel like the New York scene isn't that way?

There are moments. But I guess, too, I came up in New York, so I already have a different type of relationship with people I built with before I got those things. I know a lot of those people, and they've grown along with me. We've all come up together. So I'm not just being received as this person who had a bit of virality myself at one point. You get that, but then you get the people who knew you before all that, and you already have an existing relationship with them.

And also, I'm moving in different directions in terms of what I'm pursuing as a career or profession at the moment. I still photograph. If people reach out to me and it makes sense, absolutely. But I'm just not promoting myself that way, because I was starting to do other things: touring in the experiential industry, which is a very fancy word for marketing and promotions, and doing a lot more work in that sector versus entertainment and music. A lot of the skill sets overlap.

It's really funny, actually. Craig David had a show, and I'm used to being in the pit, or having a media pass, or having an all-access, whatever. And I bought a ticket and everything, like a regular person, and I was like, I don't want to be in this crowd. I was like, I'm so spoiled. I hate this.

You hate it?

I hate this now, as a fan. I used to not care, but I've spent so much time immersing myself in the behind-the-scenes of everything and getting used to that. It was cool. I still enjoyed myself and had fun. But I guess there are also the social anxieties now, of crowds. It's different for me. I never used to have that, and now I'm like, it's too many people. It's too many people. Stop touching me. Stop touching me. What are you doing?

Doing the work every day

You seem like a pretty upbeat, positive person. What do you do to maintain your mental health, the way you are? That's the first question I'll ask, but I'll eventually follow it up with what keeps you optimistic about humanity.

Child. It's an everyday thing. You wake up, you brush your teeth. You've got to do it every day. You don't get to skip a day of doing the work, right? And if you do skip a day, you start to get plaque on your teeth, and once you get enough plaque on your teeth, your gums are going to start to recede. So it's the same thing. You have to do the things, and whatever the things look like for you, versus me, versus somebody else, may be completely different.

And I'm about to spout all the stuff that you probably see in memes, but there was something I read one time, something on Instagram: if a seed doesn't germinate, do you yell at the seed and say, "You didn't work hard enough to sprout, you dumb plant"? No. You're like, OK, well, why didn't it sprout? Was the soil wrong? Did it not have enough sunlight? You start to question the environment. You don't question the seed; you question the environment it grew in. And I was like, wow. Because I'm really hard on myself about a lot of different stuff all the time too. Oh, you didn't do this, or how come you didn't, and you had an opportunity, and whatever.

And I'm like, you know what, once again, Atlanta, which I'm sure is great for some people: for me, in that environment, I didn't germinate there, you know what I mean? I was very sad, honestly. I went through a lot of loss. I lost my grandmother, I lost my father, I lost a very close friend of mine, all within that time. And I was struggling again, once again, with community, feeling lonely, feeling sad. And I had, and I have, some wonderful people that I befriended in Atlanta who are absolutely fantastic, and this is no shade to them. Once again, you can have people who love you and care about you, but you still feel so isolated.

And I had a terrible roommate. There was just a lot going on, and I didn't always feel safe in the places I lived. I wasn't comfortable at home. And I was working out, I was doing the things, I looked great, but I felt so sad all the time. And there were days when, in all honesty, I was having ideations. I wasn't planning anything, but I was just questioning: why do I care about doing this every day? Why do I care about getting up and living? Why does anybody care about art?

And then, once again, the pandemic, right? Everything just felt useless. We're not supposed to touch each other. We can't see each other. People are dying, and we can't even be there. I had people having babies, and I couldn't go, and they were afraid of me because I was unvaxxed. This whole thing of feeling more and more isolated, and what's the point? Other people are dying. Why does any of this matter? I was having some health complications myself. Everything hurts. My brain hurts, my heart hurts, my body hurts. Why do I want to do this every day?

Coming back to New York

And what I realized in moving back... I didn't plan to move back. After my friend died... He was a huge figure in the community here. He was the leader of a band, and I was their personal photographer for a long time. A giant figure. I get goosebumps every time I talk about him. And when he died, there were so many of us from different facets of his life who had never intersected, and we did a block party for him, and we all met, or some of us met virtually through Instagram.

My current roommate was someone I didn't know, but she knew him from this new chapter of his life. We started talking, ended up going to dinner, I told her about all my craziness, and she was like, "Why don't you just come stay here next time you're in town?" And then a couple of weeks later she was like, "You should be my roommate." And I was like, "I don't know you like that yet." And she's like, "You can stay as long as you want, but I would like it if you moved in." So I stayed for a couple of months to feel it out, and then I was like, I should probably pay rent now. I started paying rent, and we're roommates now.

I've realized, in moving back to an environment where I'm with people who are kind, people who are thoughtful, people who genuinely care about me, that it makes so much difference. Just creating a space to be able to flourish. And as soon as I got here, boom, boom, boom, I've got a photography job, I've got the things. They just started coming into my life. And the funny part is, a lot of them are tied to this friend. I'm like, OK, I'm here. People see me on the street: "Hey, what's up? Let's reconnect."

When did it turn, though? On paper, you were like, I looked good, I was working out. So the habits were there.

That's what I mean about the environment. You're doing the things, right? You keep brushing your teeth. But maybe there's something else wrong. OK, my teeth are white, but I still have flaws, or something's missing. You've got a cavity, you need a root canal, next thing you know your tooth fell out. That also happened in Atlanta, but whatever. There are things where you're like, I'm doing the stuff, so why isn't it working? There might be other underlying issues that aren't being addressed. I'm trying so hard to do this stuff and make it work, but if I can't even come home and feel safe where I'm living...

What was the last straw, the moment of realization?

My last roommate in Atlanta physically threatened me, on my birthday and then on New Year's Eve, and I was like, I'm not going to have this. This is going to go somewhere else. I had friends who were like, "I'll pull up," and I was like, no, because that's a whole other thing. That's not your fight. I'm not even going to argue. I said, why would I fight you to stay here? I'll be out. I put my stuff in storage, and then I ended up getting a tour with L.L.Bean, because that's how life works out for me, and that was wonderful too.

But that's what I mean. Stop fighting against it, you know what I mean? When you know it's time to move, go. And for me, usually the universe will kick me in the ass if it's time to go: "Hey, we've been giving you some signs, and you're acting like you don't know. Guess what." So yeah, I was on edge. I literally couldn't come home without feeling like I didn't know what was going to happen. So I was like, I'm just going to go.

Breath and safety

And when times are tough, and it feels like the universe isn't showing its cards the right way, what do you lean on? Do you have a spirituality or a religion, or some sort of practice?

I consider myself spiritual. I'm technically Greek Orthodox; that's how I was baptized. I went to Catholic middle school. I have lots of churchy friends and things like that. I don't necessarily subscribe to all of the things that come along with those particular institutions. But what I've also realized, over time, trying to take care of my body and my mental health and seeing how all of these things intersect: one of my favorite discoveries in singing and having vocal coaches is how much breath work, literally just breathing, changes everything. Literally just the act of how you breathe. It's an exercise within itself.

I find myself coming back often to stuff I learned with Eric Arceneaux, who was my first vocal coach, and Trina, who he also brings in to assist him. Just literally breathing. You don't realize when you're holding your breath, or when you're tense, and all of these different things that contribute. Once again, over time, if you're not doing them daily, you lose your vocal ability, or you lose your muscle ability. It's a thing you have to constantly practice, and if you do fall off track, guess what, you've got muscle memory. It's the same thing. Your voice is a muscle. Just the same way, I might be a little off right now if I tried to sing you something, but if I go and train for another two or three weeks, I'll be back in it. If I go to the gym, I might have a little cellulite right now, but if I get back in the gym, my body remembers what I used to do, and it'll pick up very quickly.

So for me, it's just remembering to breathe. Literally, if you're not breathing, you're definitely dead. So just breathe. Be conscious of it. Take it slow. Just focus on breath first and foremost. That was also how... I used to have panic attacks at one point, and coming back to breath work is how I would come out of a panic attack. Just breathing, breathing. Because otherwise I would get to where, if you've ever had a really bad one, you're struggling, you're crying, you can't quit, and you feel like you're choking.

And in that moment, just coming back to: what am I upset about? Is it something that's already happened, or something that's about to happen? Because in this moment, right now, I'm in a studio. It's climate controlled. It's very nice in here. But if I'm reliving some weird thing that happened to me, or I'm afraid of something that's going to happen, it doesn't matter if you're the nicest people in the world. I'm not even in this moment. So I have to bring myself back: am I safe right now? What's happening right now? Those are the questions that go through my brain. In this moment, am I safe? If I'm not, that's the first thing that needs to change. But if I am, then what's upsetting me? OK, has it happened? Can I do anything about it? No? OK. If it already passed, what can you do? If it hasn't happened yet, who knows if it's even going to happen? So what are you upset about?

Rewiring old patterns

How did you learn this questioning process? Therapy, or years and years of being curious?

Curious. I tried to get a therapist twice, and neither one of those worked out, and I'm probably just being stubborn about it. But I'm a self-starter. Things I'm curious about, I research ad nauseam, whether it's boy bands or therapy or whatever. Actually, my favorite account on Instagram is The Holistic Psychologist, Nicole LePera. I love her content. In all honesty, that's probably been the most helpful thing for me in the last few years.

And then some people I've met, who I have in my life now, who I feel safe with, who I can articulate myself to about a lot of whatever trauma I've dealt with in the past. It's a safe space to say, "Hey, you know what, I'm going to do something a little differently this time." Or if I'm reacting in a certain way: "Hey, can you please be patient with me? I recognize what I'm doing. Can we talk through it? I'm not trying to be nasty to you. I know why I'm doing the thing; I'm just trying not to do the thing anymore." And it's hard when you're trying to get out of it, you know what I mean?

So having people in your life you can create new neural pathways with, to do something differently. Because your brain is always searching for confirmation: these people are going to hurt me. They're going to edit this, and I'm going to look crazy, you know what I mean? I don't think y'all are going to make me look crazy, but maybe I've been through that before, and my whole body language is a little different, because I'm scared. But once you're able to do the thing with a different result, and then do it consistently with a different result... If I've been in terrible relationships with men, and I'm like, "Yeah, you're going to cheat, or you're going to hurt me, and I knew you were going to do this," any little thing becomes the confirmation bias. So you have to have new pathways, to create those new experiences that then become the norm: oh, this is safe. This is OK. We can work through this. It's not us against each other; it's us against the problem.

And just having people in my life I'm able to work through my own shit with, who are patient with me, even in moments when I might be fucked up, who bring me back to center and say, "Hey, you're projecting. I'm here. Don't do that to me. It's me."

You threw out the words "new neural pathways," which for me evokes the question, if you're comfortable, of whether you'd talk about any psychedelic use.

The only time I've ever been on drugs was involuntarily. I've had two terrible experiences.

That's not good.

No, it's not. And that's the other thing. I've also realized that everybody's always like, "You're high on life." Anybody who knows me is like, "You are the energy. You are the party starter. You are the socializer." And that's the thing: I'm already tapped into what most people need those things to tap into. Whether it was involuntary, or sometimes I've tried weed. Weed is not my thing. Don't like it, hate it. I've tried the gummy. Don't like it, hate it. Anything beyond that, I just never felt a need. I've been encouraged to do ayahuasca. I've been encouraged to do mushrooms. And I'm just like, I don't think the way my brain is set up... A, I don't feel comfortable, and B, I don't think it would be helpful. I might change my mind later down the line. That might change. But for now, no.

You seem very naturally magical, and your brain seems very plastic, in a good way.

Finagling, with value

You had left off talking about how you have a community now that's able to support you really well. How did you create this community?

So, my first tenure in New York, I was just in these streets, so to speak. Literally. I would go to anything, and I was always researching: what's going on, where is this at, where is that at, how can I get in here, how can I meet this person, how can I work my way into what I want to be a part of, and how can I provide value in the situation, so I'm not just looking like a groupie or some shit. And I do have lots of different skill sets, most of which are creative.

And then there's imposter syndrome. It's like, I don't deserve to be here, technically. But I have all the things that everybody else here has at their disposal; I just didn't do it the official way, right? And as time went on, somebody would be like, "Hey, who did you know here?" I just walked in, you know what I mean? It's actually funny. A lot of people I'm still friends with today are like, "You just finagled your way into all this shit, and everybody loves you." Kind of, yeah. Because I didn't know anybody. I didn't have any ins, things like that. So I had to use my personality and be really good at stuff, because somebody will figure out really quick if you're not really good at what the fuck you said you're really good at. "What are you doing? Why are you here?"

But yeah, I have skill sets, and I use my personality first and foremost to try to connect with people in an actual, genuine way. Not like, "Hey, I need you to step up the ladder to get to the next thing." I really care about creating actual, lasting relationships, which in the entertainment industry is usually the wrong way to go about stuff. Because everybody's not your friend. Everybody's not going to love you. Everybody's not going to keep you around after the thing ends, and you learn a lot of that the hard way.

But at the same time, the people who are meant to stay are going to actually give a fuck about you beyond that. Maybe I lose my eyesight tomorrow. Then what good am I as a photographer, right? I'm useless to a lot of people in that sense. But the people who know me and love me, they don't care. If I can't see tomorrow, I'm still funny as fuck. I'm still going to be able to show up and be me, even if I don't have my eyesight, you know what I mean? There are inherent parts of what makes me me, and there's still an incredible amount of worth there beyond what I'm able to provide to someone as a service.

Role models and a cautionary tale

My train of thought came back to me. I wanted to know about your role models, whether they're people in your life or people who aren't necessarily in your life, who you might not even know but follow online. They could be from now or from when you were younger. Who are the people where you were like, "I'm going to be like that person"? Maybe you didn't even think of them as a role model at the time, but you were like, this is the type of person I want to be, the type of parent I want to be, the type of funny.

I never really considered... There's one person I'm going to name, but I'm really trying to think if there was anybody else I considered a role model per se. There are plenty of people creatively who inspire me. But as somebody I wanted to model myself after, the only person who comes to mind is Pink. I always thought, man, she's so badass. She had short hair way back when, and she was different, and she just wasn't typical pretty, and she spoke her mind. And her music: she's touched pretty much every genre at this point and killed it. And her just as a human, and now she's a mom, you know what I mean? The type of mom she is, and even her own relationship, the way she talks about it in her music, the way that her and Carey... I don't necessarily aspire to be like, "Oh, this is my role model," but if there's one person who had a significant amount of influence on who I've become as a human, it would probably be Pink.

Any anti-heroes? People where you thought, this is the reason I'm not going to be this type of person? Or a moment when maybe you were the person you didn't want to be, and you caught yourself and were like, nope, not it?

I'm not going to name them, but there's again one person who comes to mind. It's like Voldemort; we don't talk about them. But seeing what our relationship was, and who this person was to me a long time ago, and how it's ended up, where we have the... I'm probably going to mess up the word: vitriol. The intense amount of hatred that drove this person to where they're at now, and what they've done to my life and to other people around me. I'm like, that is something I fight against. If something is going to lead me down that path, what am I upset about now? Why am I upset about this? Is there something I need to check myself about?

I always try to ask myself what's underneath it, first and foremost, and then: am I really justified in how I'm feeling right now, or am I just feeling something? Because I feel like this person went their whole life feeling a certain type of way and just let that grow to where it's at now, and I'm like, you've spontaneously combusted to the point where you're not even recognizable, and you're so far gone you can't even catch yourself. It's sad. It's sad. This was once a friend, or was a family member, and it really is sad at the end of the day.

There are things that make me angry, but as angry as I am, and as justified as that is, I know that most of whatever we're going through isn't really even about me. It's about other stuff that you let seep into what everything has become. Man, you are so deep into it. I don't ever want to let myself get there, because not only have you ruined tons of relationships, but you're conniving, and you're manipulative. And I've recognized those traits within myself on different occasions, because I've learned them over time, right? In certain situations I can use them to my advantage, but especially in personal dealings, I try really hard to make sure that's not something that seeps into my personal relationships.

A 20-year friendship

And even with a good friend of mine, we've been friends 20 years now. We've had conversations about it, and we've had our off periods. I lived with him for a little while, and I left, and I told him, "I think you feel like I used you. I think you feel like I came here..." At that time I didn't have any money, and I was like, "Hey, how else can I contribute?" We came to conclusions, but he needed more, and he wasn't voicing that. So I'm keeping up my end of the bargain, but now you're asking way more of me than I can provide. As your friend, I have to go, because if I wasn't really your friend and I wanted to use you, I know you'd never kick me out. I know you wouldn't do that, and I'm just not going to do what you ask me to do. I don't want to do that. So I said, "Listen, it's time to go." I left.

We had a period where we were off, and then we came back and talked about it, and I explained it to him from my perspective. I said, "This is why I chose to do it this way." And he's grown a lot over time too. I said, "Listen, think about it. If I had stayed, I couldn't do a lot of what you were asking me for." Not even asking, but implying. There were other people involved in the situation, and you were asking other people to do things they weren't doing, and then putting them on me, and I couldn't do it. If I could, I would. I just didn't have the resources in that capacity. Because I know that, I've got to go, because I'd be using you otherwise, and that's not fair, and I do value you. If we've got to have a moment where you don't fuck with me right now because you feel upset, then that's cool. But when we reconvene, we can talk about it: "Hey, this is why." Because I do value our friendship, and I didn't want to do that.

Good versus evil

Going back to that family member you mentioned: I imagine you may have experienced this more than once in your life, where a person kind of goes off a certain ledge. It's almost self-sabotage, and then the self-sabotage creates a circumstance where that person is mentally unwell, and they can't take care of themselves, and then they're a nuisance to others. What do you do when you have love for someone like that? Because you seem like the type of person who probably has a lot of love.

It's hard, right? Because on the one side you want to help someone, and on the other you realize you can't fix everyone. And for me, and this is going to sound extreme, but this is how I view it: it literally became good versus evil. A lot of the things this person is, and has done, are evil. It's the weight of... some people are unaware of their shit. They're doing things unconsciously. They're not trying to hurt you, but they're hurting you. This is like, "No, I want these things to happen, and I want them to happen in this way, and I want it to hurt like this." It's literally become, in my brain, good versus evil. You reached the threshold and went way past it. Unfortunately, this was one of my favorite people at one point, but for my own safety and sanity, you just don't exist anymore.

I feel like everyone has someone in their life they could think of who's kind of this person. There was a quote I heard the other day that brought me to thinking of that person in my life. It was something about how the kindest people in the world recognize that they're not just kind or nice. They see that evil is within them, and they choose not to act on it every day. They recognize it as part of the human condition, part of who they are and their thoughts, but they don't voice those thoughts and they don't act on them. And there's a part of me that wonders how you convince someone to believe in the good again, to get them back from being evil. Have you ever seen that? You mentioned your previous roommate, where maybe it wasn't a battle of good versus evil, but where taking time apart, having their own independent experiences, brought them back around, and maybe you were better off for having gone separate ways for a while.

Well, yeah. That person I mentioned, who I've been friends with for 20 years, he does a lot of self-work too, you know what I mean? He's constantly questioning and evolving, and he's one of my favorite people. Because, as somebody who thinks they know everything, because I'm a Capricorn and I'm usually always right, he will come to me for advice. And a lot of people ask you, but they don't hear you, because they want to do what they want to do anyway. They don't take it in. They don't really receive what they've asked for.

I love him because he will still bring things up to me. He's like, "You know, this one time you said this to me, and that made me..." And then he'll trace the path of how he got to the thing he's doing now, and he's like, "That really helped me. Thank you." And I'm like, you listened to me. For me, it's like, you genuinely want to, A, better yourself and, B, be a better person, whether it's for your friendships, your kids, your partners. You're trying, right? And that's all we can ask for. We don't all get it right every day. We all fall short somewhere. Somebody doesn't like us. But at the end of the day, if you're trying and you're doing your best...

You know what they say about good intentions. But if you really have good intentions, and maybe those good intentions fell short, and you're willing to say, "OK, hey, talk to me about it," he's that type of person, and I love that. I feel heard by him, and not only heard, but really received. Because I don't just talk to talk. I talk because I think it's something important, right? And he's taken those things. If I'm telling you something and giving you advice, it's because I want to see you do better and I think it can help you, and the fact that he's taken that advice and done just that literally makes me happy. Not just the validation, but, man, you got better, you know what I mean? This not only makes our relationship better, but it makes it better for everybody in your life, and for what you want to do. That makes me happy.

Human design

So what's the future dream now, for Christina in New York City, recently unemployed? What's the new dream? It doesn't have to be about work.

I'm always feeling something out, swimming, going and doing. There might be something where I'm like, oh, dang, this ended, this sucks. But I really try not to marinate or wallow in that, because there's so much other stuff, you know what I mean? My human design chart tells me I'm a manifesting generator, so I can literally do anything I fucking want to. If I decide I want to do a thing, and I'm going to put my energy into that thing, I'm going to do the thing. So if I fuck up, it's really on me at the end of the day.

What is this human design chart?

It's kind of like astrology on crack. Basically, you plug in, the same way you read a birth chart, and it tells you even more in depth. With a birth chart, you're like, "I don't understand. What does this mean?" But a human design chart tells you very specific stuff about how you're literally designed to function. The first time you really read a birth chart broken down, if you're into that, some of it is conflicting, but then again, that's because of the astrology of things that are at odds with each other. That could be going down the rabbit hole. But human design is very specific. It's much more explanatory than a birth chart, and it gives a deeper insight into how you function in your individuality, and where you will thrive and how you will thrive.

Maybe you're doing something that's against your human design, and that's why you're like, "Ah, man, this is always a problem." Well, yeah, because this is how you're designed to work. If you're a spiral cutter and you're trying to cut straight lines, that's not going to work, because you're meant to spiral. So it felt good to read a lot of stuff where I was like, man. As somebody who seemingly hops from thing to thing to thing, because I'm good at a lot of stuff, people are like, "Pick something, do that thing, and stop doing all this stuff and just focus on this." And I'm like, yeah, but my whole life I've done everything, and I'm good at everything, so I just kind of cycle through. And reading that chart reconfirmed it: no, this is what you're meant to do. You feel miserable when you're not doing that.

So that's also probably why, in Atlanta, I had fallen back from a lot of stuff. I was just trying to reconfigure and figure it out, and I was like, OK, I'm going to focus on this one thing. And I was miserable. I was very miserable, for a lot of reasons. It wasn't just the city, but I was just not living my purpose.

Do you feel like you can clearly articulate your purpose now?

Not necessarily. I'm still in the throes of coming back to me, whoever that is in this moment. Because, going back to the earlier part of the conversation, waking up every day like, what is the point? What is the purpose? Is it just to take pictures of people? What does it matter if I have a billion pictures of a billion people? So what? So in the sense of me interpreting it as a thing, I can't pinpoint it. I can't be like, my purpose is to do this job, and that's my purpose. I can't articulate it beyond what I just mentioned about my friend. I don't know how to articulate it, but that feels like my purpose: connecting with people in a way that helps them grow, whatever that looks like. Whatever I'm bringing to the table in that moment, and however I'm connecting with someone in that moment, if there's something I'm doing that can help someone else grow, then I'm living my purpose.

In general, I think for a lot of people the purpose is human connection. And the way you talked about Pink makes me think you're probably that person for a lot of other people in their lives. They won't be like, "Oh, well, Christina's my role model," but maybe 10 years from now someone will ask them, and they'll be like, "Yeah."

Dating at 39

So what about dating in New York? I've got to ask. This is the city of all the people. I don't live here. I could tell you stories for days about the nightmare of dating in LA.

You didn't ask me about Atlanta, so I'm not even going to touch that.

Well, you could throw in a comparative perspective on Atlanta as well, if you want.

We're going to leave Atlanta out of the conversation. I don't know. I'm 39. I'll be 40 this year. I get told very often that I don't look my age, that I don't act my age. I get hit on by a lot of gentlemen who are way younger than me, and I'm just like... I have a young spirit. I'm very tapped into culture, whatever.

You don't want to date younger?

I mean, I have, but it's weird. Young, young, young guys, I'll be looking at them like, what are you doing? You're embarrassing me. There are just certain things, where I'm at in life. We could be friends, and we could have fun, and by "have fun" I really mean just have fun. I'm not trying to sleep with people. I've done it here and there, but even that, it's like, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. Have a good day.

I don't know. It's just a weird space, me having a certain level of maturity, being where I'm at in life, having done a lot of what I wanted to do across the board and feeling content with that. And a lot of the stuff I see younger people do, I get it, and I know why you're there, because you're however old you are. But this is not for me. I'm just going to go home and go to bed. And then the gentlemen who are my age or older, everybody of course has their baggage. A lot of people are looking to settle down, or they want a family, or they've had a family and they've been divorced and now they've got kids.

I think that, just for the type of person I am, for a long time I thought there was something wrong with me, because everybody's like, "Just do one thing and settle down and do the thing," and I'm like, what the hell? No. That's just not really how I'm built. And going from being sad, I'm like, I'm good. Now I've got people I live with who I'm cool with. I can come home and there's emotional support there, and I feel comfortable in my own home again. I'm not looking for something or someone.

Intentional, not casual

So you don't feel lonely?

Every once in a while, yeah. Sometimes I just want a cuddle. Can you just come cuddle with me? I just want a cuddle. But I don't want to do casual at this point in life. I've done that before, and that's fine, but I'm just not there. I don't want to be somebody's baby mother. I don't necessarily want to get married and do that thing. Not saying I wouldn't ever, but I just haven't found somebody where I really felt like it. I don't want to be in a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship, just appeasing Mom or Dad: "We want grandkids." No.

It's the same thing as what I'm saying about working one job, right? They want you to live their version of happy. If I found a job that really fulfilled me, and I was like, hell yeah, this allows me to do everything I do in a million places, absolutely. That's how I feel about a relationship. If someone came along who I really felt complemented me in that sense, who understood me, and we could truly have a partnership, filling gaps for each other, a partnership and not just a need...

But I'm tired of wasting my time, too. I was on a dating app. I hate dating apps, first of all. But I found one I liked, and I was on it for a while, and I had mostly good experiences. But what I was finding was that with most of the people I was meeting... I had a long-ass bio too, because I was like, I'm going to be intentional. That didn't help. But I found more friends than anything, or people where, OK, maybe we did end up sleeping together, but you really don't want what I want. And that's cool. They were still cool people. Well, listen, be my friends. But I'm at the point now where I don't want to just fuck around to fuck around. Let's be friends. But I can make friends everywhere. I don't need to be on a dating app to make friends, and that's kind of what I was running into.

I was being as specific as I could about what I want and what I'm looking for, but maybe that's just so hard for people to comprehend. It's still not translating. And a lot of dating apps are people who are just looking to fuck around. I got that message a lot before I deleted it. You're not here to have sex? No, I am not.

Do you find a lot of that in New York? The scene is casual sometimes.

If you had asked me when I lived here 10 years ago, I could talk to you much more thoroughly about dating and things like that. I'm just not even doing it right now. When I first came back, I was on the app, and I met some people, but it just got exhausting. I'm not interested in just meeting you for a meal. I can pay for all my own meals; I'm good on that. If there's legitimately good conversation, or we have some type of shared interest, or there's something we could do... We don't even have to go eat. We can literally do anything. But that's the other thing: nobody's imaginative. Let me not generalize. Most of what I was receiving was just really unimaginative, the same thing all the time, and the end goal is always, "I'm trying to get some." And I already said it in my bio. This is not what I'm here for. Now, granted, if we're vibing, cool, but once again, I've already said that's not where I'm at. I'm looking to build, first and foremost. Are we compatible? Can we have a friendship? And then, cool, from there, are we compatible in the sense of, are you interested in being in a relationship? I don't know. I feel too old and too young at the same time, trying to date people, and it's frustrating.

Fairy tales and checking herself

How is your mindset different now? What was your mindset in your 20s, and in your 30s, and now going into your 40s, if you have to break it up?

I was never really focused on marriage and white picket fences, and kids never entered my mind. I've never been the person who dreamed of a wedding or a wedding dress or what that looked like. I've literally never thought about it. I've had the Disney fairy tale shit, of somebody's going to sweep me off my feet, because we all got sold that dream. I'm still waiting to grow fins. Listen, I wanted to be Ariel. I was trying to sing my way out of the sea.

But a lot of what we grew up on is very unrealistic, the expectations of what a relationship and Prince Charming and all that look like. That's not real life. And also, as an only child, my parents were like, "Oh, who are you going to date? And when are we going to get grandbabies? And when are you going to get serious?" And I'm like, I'm trying to do a thing. I want to go to New York. I want to be in the music industry. Those were my blinders. I never really thought about it. I mean, yeah, I like guys, and they're cute, and I want to make out with them, and I might want to do other things with them. I would have liked to be in a relationship, but for all the wrong reasons. I wanted somebody to want to be with me. And I found plenty of people who wanted to do the do with me, but not people who wanted to be with me.

And at that time, that also sent me down a path of, well, what's wrong with me? Well, you weren't even in that mind space to begin with. Did you really want to be with them? No. So why are you upset, right? It's this, again, self-fulfilling prophecy of "I'm not good enough." But you're picking people you know aren't compatible in that sense, and then you're reinforcing it: why don't they want me? Do you really want them, girl? No, you don't. They were just cute and cool for the moment.

How do you check yourself like that? Is it just wisdom, that with time you've learned...?

Yeah. Once again, doing the work, right? Coming back to: why am I so sad? What's the common denominator here? Girl, you're the common denominator, so let's talk about it. What's the real problem? Are you doing something wrong? Is there something you need to address? Or did you really want to be with them in that way? No, you didn't. So you're just upset because, again, there's this confirmation bias happening, and it's like, stop that shit. If you want to go have fun, go have fun, but stop trying to make it into anything other than what it is. If you know that's not going to work, then don't do that to yourself. If you know that's a fuckboy, then don't do that, you know? So it's checking myself: we're going to do this again? OK, don't complain about it. It's an internal conversation of, you know where this leads, right?

So right now... Somebody sent me something stupid on Instagram the other day about not being promiscuous, and I was like, sir, I'm abstinent. That's just where I'm at right now. I want something that's... what is the word I'm looking for? It's escaping me. Intentional. I'm looking for intentionality. I put that in my bio too. People were like, "What does that mean?" Swipe left, unmatch. But I want something intentional. If you're not intentional about what's going on, I don't have time for it. That's just what it is. The same way, if somebody wants to book me for something and they're wishy-washy, I'm like, you're not being intentional. What do you want to do? Let's get to the basics. What do you need the photos for? Where are they going? What are you going to use them for? What's the look we're going for? If you can't even break all that down, get somebody else to do it.

Her parents

How do you manage your relationship with your parents when they have these expectations of you? I imagine it's a lot, because you're an only child, so there's probably a lot of attention on you.

My mom has kind of given up on the grandchildren conversation at this point. She just makes jokes about it: "Oh, I'm never getting grandchildren." My father passed a couple of years ago, and we had conversations before he died, and we came to a good understanding. Funny enough, I realized how similar we were in the last couple of years, and I was like, dang, I'm a lot more like my father than I realized. But he's Greek. "I want the grandbabies. You don't give me grandbabies." So I was like, what do you want me to say? You want me to just have them with anyone? Without going into the deeper family dynamics, I was like, do you really want what you and Mommy are asking for? First of all, I'm having these babies with who? Who is helping me take care of these babies, as an only child who's already struggling to find community?

So my father and I had those conversations, and he finally validated a lot of stuff I was saying. We had a lot of heart-to-heart talks before he died, and it made me feel like, all right, somebody finally understands. But my mom, she likes being Grandma to some of my friends' kids. She's like, "When's Jasmine coming back over? When are they bringing so-and-so?" Or if friends come through Savannah and I happen to be there, I've had them stop over sometimes, and she gets really excited to do little Grandma things. She has a trick she's done ever since I was little, with a coin or with sugar, where she does a whole thing and next thing you know it's there. She still loves to do that with people's kids. She wants to do Grandma stuff, and I get it, but I'm like, you have a dog too. You have Chi-Chi. Chi-Chi is your child now.

Could you see yourself living in New York forever?

I don't know about forever. I don't know if I can see anything forever. I don't know if I'm built that way. Maybe that's my own issue with relationships too. I can't necessarily see forever. I can see what makes sense right now. So I can't guarantee you I'm going to be suitable for you for the next... how old am I now? Jesus Christ, I was about to say 60 years. The next 40 years. I can't guarantee what the fuck I'm going to be doing today, you know what I mean? So unless you can roll and surf with me, I can't guarantee that. I don't know. I might go to Boston. I might go somewhere else. I'm just kind of nomadic, going with the wind and what feels good, and the people who know me and love me, they know that.

What she follows

All right, we're reaching the end, but I want to know what kind of content you consume, and how much of it. What's your relationship with your tech?

I follow a number of self-help pages and things like that. I'm very, very into self-help. Still very tapped into the music industry. I follow a lot of fitness people. I fell off when my other friend died. It really threw me for a loop, because I was training four days a week. I was probably in the best shape I'd ever been in, and that sent me down a spiral. I haven't gotten back into my full whatever, but I follow a lot of fitness and a lot of self-help.

Do you find that the self-help stuff you follow helps?

Maybe. And again, you filter through things. There are probably two or three main pages I like, and then everybody else is a give or take. Singing: I follow a lot of different people, because it's fascinating, not just the singing itself. Really, it's a full-body thing, so it ties into everything else. It ties into fitness. They all overlap, with self-care and wellness. And I also just find the dynamics of breaking down vocals and voice fascinating. There's a gentleman, J.M. something, I think, anyway. He does vocal breakdowns. He'll take people's videos and break down very specifically what they're doing and how it matters. I find that interesting. Comedians. Mostly Instagram. I'm definitely an old head when it comes to that. I'm on Instagram and Facebook.

Can people follow you?

Yeah. I'm Dirty Souf Yankee everywhere. I have been forever, and I probably will be forever. Even if I change my name, I'm still going to have the handles. Dirty South with an F: S-O-U-F. Dirty Souf Yankee. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, even though I don't really use TikTok. Literally anywhere you can find a thing, I probably have the handle for it, even if I don't use it.

The show that changed her mind

What's the best show you've ever seen?

Oh. Ever? That's hard. That's hard. The best show ever.

Top three, top two.

Man. What was the first thing that came to your mind when I asked that? Well, because Pink is my favorite, I was like, how many Pink shows have I seen, and where have I seen her? I've been to big stadium stuff, but I've also been to really intimate stuff. Matter of fact, I know. I don't know if I want to call it the best, but it was probably one of the most impactful ones ever.

Thirty Seconds to Mars played their 500th show or something. They got into the Guinness Book of World Records. They played it at the Hammerstein Ballroom. I went there with my friend; we're in the little picture they did, whatever. We were at that show. And they did a show at a church in Chelsea the following day. I don't even remember how; I think somebody at the label was able to get me the tickets, because they mostly do big stadiums. They rarely do intimate stuff. I was still a new fan at that time. I didn't know all the stuff yet, but I knew a certain number of songs. And I went, and it was stripped down, because they were in the church. They had the violinists and whatever, and the acoustics.

And I'll never forget it, because I was going through some wild shit with somebody who was threatening me on Twitter at the time, and starting to come see me and have people shoot me, whatever. He was crazy. It was some weird music industry stuff again. And I decided I was going to fall back for quite a while. I went to that show, and I had almost made a different decision. It had nothing to do with the show, and I don't want to say something wild and crazy, but I was going to make a different decision. My decision at that time wasn't necessarily to fall back.

What was the wild decision?

I was going to make some calls. That's where it had gotten to. I was ready to make some calls, and it was going to go a different way, potentially. And once again, good versus evil, right? I had people who were like, "Dirty, you say the word. What's up? What do you want us to do?" And I was ready to make some calls.

And I went to this show, and I just remember sitting there in the pew. As somebody who doesn't consider themselves religious, back then I probably wouldn't even have said God. "Oh, don't say God, because Sky Daddy," whatever. But at this point, I feel like we're all talking about the same thing for the most part, whether it's God, the universe, Allah. To me, we're all on the same page of different books. But at that time, I was like, we're in a church, and this is awkward. I felt a little awkward, but the experience was great.

And I just remember sitting in the pew, listening to Jared Leto sing the words to this song that I didn't know, and I felt like God was singing to me directly through him. I just started bawling. Everyone's like, "Are you OK?" And I remember looking up, like, are you fucking serious? This is the way you want to do it? And it changed the whole course of everything I thought I was about to do in that moment. I just sat there and cried through that whole song. And there was something else concurrently happening in my life that the following song addressed. You've got to be fucking kidding me. I just cried, because I was like, OK, I hear you.

And I just fell back for about six months. I started managing my artist friend who was on America's Got Talent. I stopped promoting myself, because it was hot; I didn't want to be out there like that. So I was like, I'll just let everything cool off. And I felt like that was God talking to me directly through him in that moment. There's only one other time I had something so specific happen. It was through music, but it wasn't a show. There was a moment where I was like, this has to be God. There's no other way. There's nothing here. I'm in the most silent room, and I hear something.

A frequency in the night

What was that story, in a silent room, when you heard something?

Listen. I used to live with my grandmother, before she died. I stayed upstairs. We were in Savannah. It was quiet; maybe crickets are the only thing you hear at night. There was family drama, I mean, we were going to court. It was crazy. So my body was not well, and I could not sleep. There were two days I couldn't sleep. I physically could not get to sleep. My head was pounding. I thought my head was going to explode. And I just remember lying in the bed asking God, "Please let me sleep. I don't know what to do to sleep. Please just tell me what to do to sleep." It was the worst pain.

It was 2 or 3 in the morning, and I just remember hearing a sound. It didn't come from anywhere. It wasn't a car. Now I know it's a frequency, but at that time I didn't know how to describe it. And it stopped. I don't even remember what the fuck I Googled, I'm not going to lie to you, but it made me sit up, because I was like, where the fuck did that come from? I get goosebumps talking about it. What was that? It was a sound. I still can't remember, but I must have Googled frequencies or something of that nature. I'd have to look on Facebook, because I wrote a status about it, like, "Y'all, what the fuck?" And I ended up finding out it was either 417 or 432 hertz. I think it was 417, but it was one of those. I went and found the sound on YouTube, the same sound I had just heard. It's like a binaural beat that just loops that sound. I went to sleep.

Whoa. Do you still use that sound?

Yes, to this day. Once again, that's why, with breathing and with sound and singing, when you learn how singing affects your body, and how healing it is, literally for the molecules, how certain frequencies and sounds change the molecules in your body... That's why every time I forget, and I haven't sung in a while and I'm feeling miserable, I'm like, you need to go out and sing, because that's when you feel great and you look great and you radiate. It's healing. I'll never forget that. I just sat up, like, what the f... And I found it, and I just looped it, and I went to sleep.

Crazy. Pretty cool. There's science that backs this up too.

That was how I learned about binaural beats. I just felt it.

That's pretty incredible. Well, thank you so much for taking all this time and telling us all your stories.

Yeah. Thank you for having me.