PRE-SHOW
Claire: Hi, Listeners. Just a heads up that act three of today’s show mentions disordered eating. Check the show notes for time codes if you want to avoid any triggers.
Ok, let's get started.
OPENING
Claire: When Wayna was nine years old, she stumbled across a documentary on TV.
Wayna: My aunt had just subscribed to HBO. It was a big deal in our house, and there was an amazing documentary about the making of We Are the World.
>> music: We Are The World
Claire: In 1985, all of America’s biggest artists came together to record this song. We’re talking Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Ray Charles, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Cyndi Lauper, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder, just to name a few.
This documentary delved into the recording session, and also revealed why all these major artists were recording a song together.
Wayna: There was a sign on the door that said no egos allowed and a song written that was to galvanize, support, and raise money for the people of Ethiopia who were going through a famine.
Claire: Wayna and her family immigrated from Ethiopia when she was young, so she was instantly locked in. She watched this documentary so many times, she had it memorized.
Wayna: There was one scene in particular where an Ethiopian woman was brought to the studio and asked to address the artists, who were, up until that time, you know, kind of joking around, having fun, and she spoke to them and thanked them in Amharic for what they were doing for her people and she broke down into tears, and I must have rewound that, I don't know, maybe a hundred times, and watched her speak from her heart on behalf of all of us and it just became so real what they were doing.
And I decided really in that moment, this is what I want to do with my life. This is the best gift I could give to myself and the world.
>> music: We Are The World
Claire: In its first year, We Are The World raised over 44 million dollars. And in the decades since, the album and related donations top more than 200 million dollars. All going toward humanitarian causes in Ethiopia and throughout Africa.
Wayna: Seeing all of my heroes, essentially, giving their time and their craft and their love to this cause through the form of a song, really rocked me to my core. And I loved the idea of being in a room like that and of making music for a purpose that great.
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INTRO
Claire: You’re listening to ARTS. WORK. LIFE., a podcast from The Association of Performing Arts Professionals.
I’m your host Claire Caulfield and today’s episode: The Personal and The Political.
Artists are often the voice for social movements. Some make it their life's purpose, while others are thrust into politics by just random circumstance.
Today, we bring you three inspiring stories from artists. First, from a singer with a mission. Then, from a performer dragged into a political battle. And lastly, from a groundbreaker who confronted racism and found a gateway to tell her story through art.
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ACT ONE
Claire: Act one: Songs In The Key Of Change
Wayna fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming a recording artist, and has performed all over the world. In the continuation of her story, Wayna reveals how she applies the lessons from We Are The World to her own art, and how she personally made sure the song’s legacy is working for the next generation of artists.
Here’s Wayna, picking up her story with one of the first songs she wrote as a professional musician.
Wayna: That first project, I really dug deep into my cultural background, and I wrote a song called Slums of Paradise, and it's based on this young woman that I saw the first time I went back to Ethiopia as a young adult when I was 23. There was a prostitute standing on the corner and a young, beautiful girl.
And it was just unheard of, I mean, in Ethiopian culture, a man can't even walk in front of a woman and show his back to her. That's how deeply ingrained a respect for women is in our community.
So seeing that so out in the open just blew my mind. And I imagined what her journey could have been like. And I told the story of what a lot of families like ours went through during the revolution in the seventies when they lost everything.
>> music: Slums of Paradise
Wayna: And then the second verse became about my own relative who was stricken with AIDS.
And at that time there was a raging AIDS pandemic across Africa. And he was just one of so many casualties who didn't get the help he needed, didn't get the support he needed because there was such a stigma.
>> music: Slums of Paradise
Wayna: You know, I told the story of these two young people who were essentially survivors of this place that was grappling with so many different terrible challenges, but that came from so much richness and culture and history and triumph to celebrate in that contrast, that conflict I thought was so important to tell and to do it through the eyes of a person who's proud of where she's from, but is also very candid about what we struggle with as a people and as a, as a government.
So that was a special one to me.
>> music: Slums of Paradise
Claire: Wayna was performing songs from this first project in California. And one night she looked into the audience and THE Steve Wonder was there!
Wayna: Now, I'm a brand new artist, right? I mean, my album just came out. And I was like, yeee what? Like that was beyond even comprehension, right?
Claire: After the show, Wayna met Stevie, and over the years the two stayed in touch. Then in 2015 when Stevie Wonder was preparing for his Songs In The Key of Life tour, he invited Wayna on as a backup singer.
>> sound: Wayna and Stevie riffing
Wayna: I ended up joining his live band for about two and a half years and had really the experience of a life.
>>sound: Wayna riffing
Wayna: Then there was one moment in particular when we were performing at the benefit concert that he does yearly and Lionel Richie joined him on stage and they started singing We Are the World.
When I heard them sing that song, I just thought, Oh my God, I dreamed of this as a kid and now I'm seeing this happen right in front of me. You know, this is a full circle moment.
>> music: We Are the World
Claire: Over the years, Wayna continued to make music with a call-to-action.
Wayna: So, always loving, message-driven music and always being surrounded by artists that make message-driven music. I really wanted to encourage those of us who felt like the industry didn't always value this kind of art, you know. In fact, a lot of artists pay a heavy price for making songs with social commentary in it.
Claire: When the pandemic hit, Wayna spent a lot of time listening to new music coming out about the avalanche of social issues. And then she realized there was something she could do to help these artists reach a larger audience – so she teamed up with two friends and collaborators in the industry.
Wayna: We said, let's write a proposal. Let's help create a Grammy award for the best song for social change.
Claire: Wayna spent countless hours in committee meetings, talking to stakeholders and drafting the proposal to create a new category in the Grammys.
Wayna: It was such a long shot. I mean, a lot of people had told us, don't get your hopes up. And I had plenty of moments up in my office where I was just plugging away and thinking, am I gonna end up being more discouraged after this than I started out?
Claire: But, her timing was right. And in 2021, the First Lady of the United states, Dr. Jill Biden, presented the first award.
>> audio of Jill Biden
Wayna: We had another pinch me moment at the actual Grammy awards when the First Lady presented the first award to the first winner who had written this incredible protest anthem for a young woman who was killed in police custody in Iran for not wearing a hijab.
So it, it couldn't have been a better first awardee, and there were over 120,000 submissions of that song in the category that year. So it was, it just became its own thing and became a voice for people who were under persecution and not being heard. And that was exactly what the three of us dreamed it could be.
>> music
Wayna: When there's conflict, when we don't see each other, when there's a lack of empathy, artists, we tap into our feelings and put it in our art. That art helps the listener tap into their feelings. And that is where all change starts. It's in that connection, in that authenticity, in that vulnerability, in that identity that's true and pure. And music at its best is a facilitator of that, and artists at our best are communicators of that.
Claire: Wayna is a recording artist based in Washington, D.C.
ACT TWO
Claire: Act two: The Kindness of Strangers
After twenty years of performing for children in libraries, you'd think Dennis Porter has seen it all.
But last summer, he was the victim of a misinformation campaign.
You see, Dennis is a comedian, children’s entertainer, emcee, and also a drag queen. He’s a true variety entertainer and he owns his own company – Happy Faces Entertainment.
Like any variety performer, Dennis offers different performances for different audiences.
And last summer, he was performing his tried-and-true children’s show at a library in Missouri. But after all the snow cones were eaten and the bounce house was deflated, the unexpected happened.
Here’s Dennis.
Dennis: Last year's theme was All Together, which was encouraging inclusion and diversity and working together.
So I had a program called Super Friends, and it was all about everyone finding your unique skills and talents to use for good in the world. And we talked about how that could be anything from math, to singing, to sports, to whatever your unique talent- skills and talents are that you can use and that's your superpower.
>>sound: Dennis at an event
Dennis: So I did the program. All was great. It was outdoors, nice sunny June day. Uh, then that following week, there were some Facebook posts.
Claire: It started with a Facebook post from the library itself, thanking Dennis and Happy Faces Entertainment for a successful event.
Someone must have gone onto Dennis’ website and seen that he also offers drag performances under the name Ruby – and they started a fuss in the comment section.
Dennis: Someone had put, you know, Happy Faces Entertainment was there. And, their, one of their entertainers, Dennis Porter, also has a drag character, Ruby, who read stories to kids at the library. Which was blatantly wrong. *laughs* Ruby was never at the library.
And then they were just like, what are we doing? What is our county doing accepting this? Why are we allowing this- sexualization content allowed in our libraries. In which, I look at it and I kind of laugh, because I'm like, What? You obviously were not there. There's nothing sexual about this. Never has been, never will be. That's not what I do in libraries.
And, it blew up, a little bit.
Claire: The library ended up deleting the Facebook post. But then a texting chain started going around, and suddenly Dennis’ friends were reaching out asking if he was ok.
Dennis: It was crazy. A lady from the other side of the state made a blatant lie of saying that I was having children question the sex that God gave them. Never have, never will, of anybody, of any age. Not my business. No, not gonna talk about it.
I had the children take a pledge of inclusion and diversity, which the pledge is I Super Me will be only me. Using my skills and talents, to let all voices be heard, to make the world a better place.
Now, it might have been that, to let all voices be heard that caused the ruffle, cause, there are people who don't want every voice to be heard.
Claire: The local news picked up on the story.
>> sound of the news report
Claire: And this group of people stated that they were going to go to the library board meeting at the end of the month to protest Dennis’ show.
Dennis: It really kind of shocked me that it had gotten that far.
Claire: Dennis performs across four different states. So that summer as he was driving from gig to gig, he spent hours and hours stressing about all of these lies.
Dennis: When you have a big imagination that can sometimes work against you, in that you can imagine the worst case scenario, And so a lot of that, things were popping around, is this going to hinder my future? Are libraries not going to book me?
In three months, I did a hundred library programs. This is a big chunk of what I do and what I love. These people are coming in and saying this shouldn't be done. They were hitting me at what I do for not just a living, but as a passion. This is who I am. This is the reason I'm here.
>>music
Dennis: Over the years, I would go to small little towns and I would stop myself at times from saying husband. I wasn't sure if I was safe, if it would affect me coming back there again.
It took years for me to get past that. And I'm finding myself having to do the same thing by saying drag. When I list all the different things, magic, storytelling, game show parties, murder mysteries, emcee, clowning. Am I okay to say drag to this person? And I hate that, and I shouldn't have to do that.
Claire: In the weeks between that initial performance and the library board meeting, Dennis was still traveling around the region – performing events for audiences of all ages. But then, his phone started blowing up with messages again. This time, the messages were different.
Dennis: The part that amazed me the most was support that I got from total strangers. They were just people who saw what was happening and sent me a message, said, Hey, I see what you're doing. Keep doing what you're doing. You're doing a great thing.
One of those happened to be, a minister who was from that town. He just was like, I just want to support you as best I can. He actually drove down a couple hours, wherever long it is to get there, to support me and be there. And that was amazing.
The president of the town council said, hey, I'm gonna be there and I want to support you. And even so much in support, he said, I was thinking about showing up in drag. I'm like, I appreciate your thought. However, I don't think that'll be helpful to the situation. Let's not try to get them all riled up.
Claire: Dennis couldn't attend the library board meeting, but his in-person supporters said it ended up being pretty anti-climactic. But this whole experience was still transformational for Dennis.
Dennis: And I've questioned even telling this story over again, because so much- I'm not going to dwell on the past, and let's move forward. However, I will say, revisiting has also given me a chance to review it a little bit and remind me of that positive.
And in this case, maybe finding my new mission statement, *laughs* F you and Namaste. Screw you for what you're saying against me, but also I hundred percent believe namaste and that there is good in you and that hopefully some time in your life, at some point you will find the good that's there and use that for good.
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Dennis: I'm still gonna do libraries, and I'm still gonna do preschools, and I'm gonna reach every age group I have every possibility to do. And keep going. I know that I am doing good in the world. And I'm gonna keep doing it.
Claire: Dennis Porter is a variety artist and owner of Happy Faces Entertainment. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
CROSS PROMO
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Claire: Before our next story, I want to take a moment to tell you about another podcast: The Art of Mass Gatherings.
The Art of Mass Gatherings Podcast flips the script on festivals, transforming community events into hubs for disaster preparedness.
Artists and event workers already play a vital role in their communities, and are a powerful latent force when it comes to building climate resilience. Since 2017, the Art of Mass Gatherings has turned beloved festivals and venues across the country into hands-on classrooms where people could come together to plan for the best and worst of times through the four pillars of safety, accessibility, sustainability, and community engagement.
Now, they're bringing top luminaries, fresh tips, and groundbreaking ideas of 'creative resilience' straight to your feed. Tune in for inspiring interviews and to share your own stories.
Ok. Now back to our show.
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ACT THREE
Claire: Act three: Bravery in Brass.
Jazzie Piggott first picked up a tuba in the fourth grade, but it wasn’t until she was in high school that she met another Black woman who played the instrument. And since then, not much has changed. As a professional tuba player, Jazzie often finds herself in all-white environments.
In her story, Jazzie shares how she overcame crippling insecurity and how leaders can better support artists facing racism and discrimination.
Jazzie: People underestimate it a lot, because people who haven't heard solo tuba music don't know how beautiful and, like, rich it's capable of sounding and what it can do.
>>sound of tuba playing
Jazzie: It's kind of the butt of a joke most of the time, where it's like the oom pahs and, like, that kind of low and slow instrument. However, it, like, has a lot of virtuosic abilities.
I'll play some sort of like lyrical thing with like some technical sections and then just like, the faces in the audience are just like, Oh my God, I didn't know the tuba could sound like that. It's kind of another way, I guess, of like representing something, that's underrepresented because like, the tuba is underestimated frequently and kind of making it more visible so people know what it truly is capable of, is kind of like a part of my core mission, like the same thing with Black musicians.
Claire: In 2022, Jazzie was hired for an Easter gig with a group she had performed with before. The group was all-white, and there had been some uncomfortable moments in the past, but Jazzie was excited for the opportunity. So she traveled to Florida for the performance, which went well. And afterward, her host family invited the group to a country club.
Jazzie: When we first walked into this country club, I noticed that I was the only Black person there who was not a server. All the patrons were white and all the servers were Black. And I was super uncomfortable with that, but nobody again thought to like check in and see, Hey, how are you feeling?
Halfway through the Easter brunch, the other host woman decides to start a conversation where she pulled the waiter, grabbed him by the arm and said, he's from Jamaica and it's like really cool that we're giving these people an opportunity to do this.
Now, my dad's side is Antican immigrants, my mom's side is Haitian immigrants. So like, I was super uncomfortable because I'm just like, why are you like patting him on the back and kind of talking about "these people". Now everyone was just kind of silent and didn't really say much. Because once she let this man go, she turns to me and says, Jazzie, the first time I met a Black person, they were my mailman. And it really showed me that they weren't all that bad. And I was taken aback.
And again, like, I am the only black person, like, in this space. So there's the angry black woman trope, where I can't really express how I'm feeling if I were to say something to her right then and there or be sassy, like, that's how I'd be labeled and be unprofessional.
So I couldn't say anything. But, the thing that bothered me the most was looking around at these people who were at least ten years older than me, who were supposedly my colleagues, and their indifference to this response the entire time. Nobody said anything. They just kind of segued the conversation and just kept moving past that as if nothing happened. But, obviously, it did happen.
>>music
Claire: Jazzie muscled through that long, awkward meal. And hours later when she was at the airport, she said a few members of the group reached out via text to say they were sorry about the host family's racist comments.
But Jazzie said, those after-the-fact text messages just aren't enough.
Jazzie: At this point, it was kind of very clear to me that this group did not respect me or value me as a colleague.
Because I did tell the leader of the group, like, hey, if you want to have a phone conversation about how to, like, handle these things in the future, then I am more than happy to do that. Because I did do a lot of, like, diversity education in undergrad. And she said, Oh, yeah, totally. But that was the last text that I saw from her.
Claire: This instance sent Jazzie into a spiral. She kept ruminating about the racism she’s faced throughout her life and career, until she reached a breaking point.
Jazzie: I ended up basically just kind of going between panicking about the situation to exercising for like three to five hours a day to figuring out how long I could starve myself.
I spent so much time just freaking out that that lack of control led to me spiraling into an eating disorder.
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Jazzie: For the next couple of months, I did have several other performances booked. And rather than being afraid to miss notes, I was afraid of passing out. Because I wasn't eating, I wasn't fueling my body. And any moment I wasn't practicing was spent either exercising or thinking about how not to eat. And it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.
>>music
Jazzie: My husband was worried, my mother was worried. I remember she cried on the phone saying, like, I was killing myself very slowly just because of, like, what I was doing.
Claire: Jazzie found the strength to ask for help, and ended up entering a full-time eating disorder treatment facility.
Jazzie: Which was probably the hardest thing I had to do in my entire life. I
had to give up exercise completely, um, which had been a huge part of my identity.
And when I sat back and just kind of thought back to my life, I realized that every time I had an incidence of strong racism, because the first time being my sophomore year of undergrad, like that developed into binge eating disorder where I gained 90 pounds in a year.
Um, and then now it went the opposite way, where, like, I had that experience with that group, and then I fell headfirst into a different form of an eating disorder.
In that program, um, I was able to just kind of, like, reflect and be like, I don't want to do this anymore. Like, this isn't worth it. And that was a huge thing. Being recovered has probably been like the best choice that I made in my life.
Claire: Jazzie graduated from the treatment center, and has continued healing – all while studying for her doctorate of musical arts.
Jazzie: I'm graduating in two weeks. I'm the first Black woman to get a DMA in tuba performance in history. And, like, I'm very solid in feeling strong as a performer and kind of touching, like, other future Black women, and, like, not really trying to shape my body, just kind of letting it, like, be what it is, and ignoring the comments as they come.
Claire: Jazzie channeled these feelings of triumph and defeat into a new composition.
Jazzie: Yeah, so I wrote this piece in 2022 called Gateways for tuba and Spoken Word. Um, I've performed it several times and it was premiered at the International Women's Brass Conference. And it's about like gatekeepers in the field and how like, often times they will say like, Oh, well you had the opportunity to come inside. But that opportunity doesn't account for the broken leg I have and the crutches that I need to use. Where, as other people can go with, like, on bicycles, or like, you know, with free hands, where it's like, I'm trying to navigate all this stuff and I don't have the same opportunities and people tend to kind of ignore that.
>>Gateways music: “I watch as others make it before the gate closes. Others who go in with empty pockets riding on bicycles rather than being forced to use their own two feet and carry the weight of their own bags. They say, we gave you the crutches. Why didn't you move faster?”
Jazzie: I've gotten a lot of, like, really good reactions. I've found that it depends on the audience I play it for and the context.
I played it for basically an all Black audience, and that was, like, standing ovation, and everyone was, like, really excited for it.
>>Gateways music: “I break the crutches and melt them down. And then I start building. I'm building my own gate. If the systems won't allow me in, then I must make my own.”
Jazzie: Recently, I posted a recording, of it online and I got like a lot of people saying like, man, that really spoke to me. Like, I always like to say, like, my story's not my own.
My whole mission as a performer is again, to like increase representation of Black music styles, Black artists, Black composers. If I am a Black woman tuba professor, it's like, oh, I guess Black women can do this, which opens the door for other people.
>>Gateways music “The winds of change are here.”
Claire: Dr. Jazzie Piggott is a tuba player and composer in Baltimore, Maryland.
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CREDITS
Claire: Thank you so much for listening.
ARTS. WORK. LIFE. is a production from APAP – the Association of Performing Arts Professionals.
APAP is the national service organization for the performing arts presenting, booking and touring industry. You can join APAP at APAP365.org.
I’m Claire Caulfield, your host and producer.
Jenny Thomas is our Executive Producer.
Music today is from Blue Dot Sessions, Wayna and Dr. Jazzie Pigott.
This podcast wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of The Wallace Foundation. So thank you.
Other thank yous to Grace Asuncion, Cara Gluck, The APAP staff and board of directors, our storytellers today, and the hundreds of thousands of arts workers across the world.
Your stories matter. And arts workers ARE essential.
If you want to submit your own story to this podcast, visit APAP365.org/podcast.
And if you could do me one favor this week, it would be to share this episode with a friend, family member or colleague.
Carolyn: Arts, Work, Life. That’s real. *laugh*
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