The honestly shitty thing about being first generation American and being an artist is that you get misunderstood and mislabeled no matter what you do. You go hardcore towards being the best artist you can be and traditionally people wonder why you're not out caring about making money and buying a house. Then you draw, make art in whatever shape or size and all people see is how "Afro-centric" you are when you're trying to just be you and escape being Afro-anything. The labels people give you never quite fit, because there's no mold for who you are. You want to be normal, but for you there's only a confused mash-up of the American Dream and Africa. You're the first of your kind and being the archetype for anything sucks ass. It's lonely as hell and you live your life in a strange exile . You want to be avant guarde but really that's what you are already because there no precedent for who you're supposed to be. You're expected to be the best of your cultures but constantly seen as the worst.
Then you finally get out on your own. You're free from the stigma of culture and what people 'back home' will think, but it follows you like a thread, threatens your experiences. There's no safe space to be different. Any moment culture and the people 'back home' will gossip, say the wrong thing and then you're back to being the worst of the worst.
Really I'm not anything. I never really got the chance. There was never any space in anyone's dream for that.
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