Interview with Detroit Creative Will See...

Will See is a hip-hop artist and all around creative from Detroit.   I choose him to do my creative interview because I am constantly using his music or an article of his for community workshop or university community organizing classes.  I find him to be incredibly inspiring.  A sample of his work can be found here:

I had a change to sit down with Will See this week and talk about his creative process.  There is a question we pose in the middle of this interview in bold that I would love to get feedback on from members of this class.

DC: In your own words – or however you interpret this question, how would you describe your creative process?

WS: First thing that comes to mind is Dow Jones.  I hope he continues to develop as a performer.  He posts a lot of his writing on Facebook and he has more access to writing then he does to recording.  There is something about his perspective.  Something that is very unique, very Detroit.  It is very grassroots without the meaning that nonprofits put on that.  He has this whole notion that the job system is the slave system – so he is very precise.  Like, “let me see your fists, all you abolitionists.  He has this whole analysis that he puts with in his raps – what it means to be free, what it means to be in Detroit.    I get inspired by what I read that other artists put out there – I might see a poem or a post and that will inspire me to write.  It will inspire me to stop what I’m doing and write.

DC: You had mentioned that you see Dow as being very Detroit.  And that is interesting to me because that is how I think of your work – that your work is very Detroit.  Do you think there is something about the city that is a source of inspiring that you can draw inspiration from?

WS: In a subtle way.  When I was taking a poetry class with one of my mentors Vivee was telling us – this isn’t the 60s anymore.  You don’t have to say things like I’m black and this is what being black is like or I’m from Detroit and this is what that experience is.  You just have to tell your story and who you are will shine through.  She just encouraged all of us to tell our truth – and know all those things you are will be there.  Like take the houses back – talking about things that are happening in Detroit – but I never explicated say that this is Detroit’s thing. 

DC: Take the houses back is one of my favorite pieces that you have ever done.  We've talked before about making your Basics album into a curricula.  Do you have any ideas of how you might take your work into the classroom?

WC:  I just met with a women today and we talked about the incinerator and how to take issues of the incinerator and issues that affect children's health into these different schools.  She got excited about me talking about Environmental Justice.  The first thought about my raps – would be at a college level because some of the issues that I rap about  a lot of folks have not heard about – or thought about as societal concerns.  So I think there would have to be some articles to go along with that.  Then again I talk to second graders and they have not had a lot of the brainwashing that goes along with getting older.  They know what’s right – they have lived experience – so I don’t know – maybe some of my work would organically appeal to a younger audience.

DC: There are a lot of brilliant teachers in this class – so I’d like to open it up to them.  As you listen to ‘take the houses back’ and read some of his words – how would you translate this work into a lesson or curricula?

WC:  I would love that - I would really love to here about what they think.  You know I always want to work with your classes.

DC:  Is there a preferred method for how you capture thoughts? 

WS:  I did the artist method.  That requires that you write a little bit everyday.  Basically it is like viewing creativity like practice.  Just like a basketball played would throw 100s of free throws a day so that when it comes to a day when those few baskets really count – you’re ready.

It’s like that with creativity – you try out this, you write that – you don’t get too attached to any particular thing.  It’s an ongoing creativity – so when you want to write a song you tap into the practice of creativity that’s been flowing all along.  A lot of the things I really do are like practice.

DC: Do you favor paper and pen to the computer?

WS: oh yeah.  Paper is the best.  On the computer you can cut and paste – but with writing with an insterment maybe it’s the body memory, maybe it’s the whole body movement.  Something about it is better.  I do write on the computer because I have my music on the computer so I can rap and write to that.  But something about a sheet of paper is more organic.

Will See's music appeals to my sense of creativity and justice.  His music and art are a wonderful to reach new audiences that may otherwise be turned off by more traditional activist methods.

Listening to the music and watching videos of Detroit MC’s Sacramento Knoxx and Will See, who within there music put forth a vision for breaking the patter of oppression and protest, call for liberation zones through decolonization.  

Both Knoxx and See are very clear that “taking back” land, spaces and houses is a form of decolonization.  They both do community work were they have been able to secure a building to create art and for non-profits to operate.  We have also experienced a few “liberated” spaces with in Detroit.  Community made gardens and centers we have begun to imagine new patterns that disrupt patterns of oppression.    

Knoxx’s work is very multi media.  While he raps, his beats, which incorporate powwow music, are in the background and a video (of his creation) is synchronized to the beats.  His videos are all superimposed images.  Video of him, his collective, pictures of modern day Detroit, and other Detroit hip-hop artists are juxtaposed under footage of traditional Anishinaabe dance.