We've been Working!

Greetings LJL family we have been super use but have not forgotten about you Lovelies. 

We have so much exciting news to share, and want you to be a part of our growth! 

We have been busily building programs, platforms and businesses to serve YOU, the LJL reader, lover and lifestyle living world citizen. Right now, we are building a beautiful new collection of plays and independent theatre experiences through Harkins House Productions. We are so excited about our upcoming season, which includes a second run of the previously sold out show The Man Store. 

The Man Store is about a scientist named Dr. Delilah Banks, who becomes the first Black woman and scientist to develop a clone in the image of Black men. Along with her daughter, Portia, Delilah opens a business that sells these newly designed Black male clones to single Black women as options for husbands. The stage play is one part satire, one part drama, and one part comedy, and it offers a unique perspective on Black love and relationships.  The Man Store is scheduled for another run during the weekend of November 22-24, 2013 in Memphis, TN.

We are also working on building fun and exciting platforms for you to express your creativity with writing workshops,  acting workshops, and culture based entertainment. We can't wait to share all of this goodness, art, culture,fun, excitement and richness with you all. 

Right now, we are building a solid foundation and asking for your help with that, by donating to and sharing the indiegogo campaign found here (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hhp-donation-drive?mobile=1) with your friends and community who also support positive representations of our culture, good music, new Black theatre and quality entertainment from a fresh perspective. 

We will be sharing more updates soon! In the meantime, keep living the lifestyle! 

P.S. go to Facebook and Like our Harkins House Productions (www.facebook.com/harkinshouse) page to get the updates pics and progress of all of our exciting projects! 

The Truth about LJL

The truth...it's something Chandra Kamaria and I have been grappling with in our love lives, as well as artistic endeavors. What we know, is that there are multiple truths, never just one, and life, at it's fullest consists of navigating those truths, honoring our true selves and walking our divinely appointed paths.

While we've both contributed to LJL, often our lives and lifestyles are not conducive to our consistent contribution. We are artists, we love art, we love creation and we love love. We entered 2012 with a huge jolt back into reality, defined by pushing our dreams forward and seeing the deepest desires of our hearts come into fruition. Harkin's House Productions completed it's official launch into 2012 with a weekend long open house and film showcase. Red Heart Films and Zenzile's Way began filming it's first documentary film Curvaceous. Amid our professional success, we've also begun to explore the options for love.

We've entered into several discussions of what love means and looks like IN the midst of a Love Jones Lifestyle. Our current contemplation is open relationships and polyamory. As artists and creators, our work is on a constant tightrope, as we attempt to balance our creative selves, the demands of family, day jobs and our very real needs as youthful, attractive, socially active women. While we work to sustain ourselves, our need to create and our desire to love and be loved, we've considered the reality of what fits in our lives, and how. We've engaged in a continually evolving discussion of what love looks like, our specific needs, and what we can actually contribute. A discussion of polyamory presents the options that could very well fit our lives and lifestyles. It's not something we'd embark on on a whim, and definitely not a lifestyle for the faint of heart, but nothing about the Love Jones Lifestyle is.

So far, we've only concluded that there is more work to do. While we've agreed to follow what life has presented us with, to be honest with ourselves, and to remain devoted to our art, we can only deal with the truths of our lives. Truth 1. we want love Truth 2. we will remain open. We will keep you posted on our progress, our learnings, our discussions and our challenges...who knows, maybe there's a podcast in our future!

In the meantime, tell us how YOU live YOUR Love Jones Lifestyle. How do you balance love and life in the creative class?

For all those lives you've ruined...

It's the Revenge of the Nice Guy! you know you've listened to some crap rap, some trap rap, some rap about cars, booty and dope slanging...you thought you did it in secret, until you accidentally burst out with the chorus at the wrong place, the wrong time and in the wrong crowd...Um hmm, it's ok, we've all done it.

However, no "deed" goes unpunished, and for that, we're now subject to Revenge...

Fortunately for us mere humans, art, like god, teaches lessons through education, not punishment. Fathom 9, a steady presence on the hip hop scene in Memphis who has taken his work across the Northeast, from Chicago to New York and back in various incarnations such as the Genesis Experiment and IMC or Iron Mic Coalition serves his revenge with fervor serving not to decimate (although lesser emcees would argue that point) but to explicate. To provide for the neophyte and hip hop aficionado alike a return to (or example of) a musical form that is simultaneously a critique, a cry and the language of an entire culture.

With the theme of "revenge", Fathom9 modeled his show and album release after the film/comic V for Vendetta, releasing the work on the fifth of November and the cameo appearance of a legion of masked V's in the audience. Primed for a revolution through terrorizing lesser emcee's, the city of Memphis and visitors from the tri-state area were served with quite the COLD dish!

Deneka Lottalox started the set with a couple of smooth songs before she really opened up and gave us the live version of Black Girls Rock. Her voice, emotion, and lyricism were all showcased in her performance of original work that the world desperately needs.

By the time Fathom9 graced the stage, the audience had been treated to work from both The Genesis Experiment and the Iron Mic Coalition, a nice lead up to the main event. When Fathom9 appeared there was a palpable sense that he was not alone; the crowd was with him. A literal huddle formed, as supporters and fans alike formed a protective circle along the periphery of the stage to indulge themselves in the historic moment. The official ass kicking and name taking that was Revenge!!!! As a fan and supporter, after months of hearing snippets, sneak peaks, sample tracks and verses, I still was not prepared for the full force of Fathom's voice, music and presence in the same place and at the same time. The emcee's energy level was incredible. Fathom delivers spitfire verses with a power and force that can only be described as a dominating passion.

Revenge is the perfect title as Fathom broke down the problems of the music industry, so called artists, his community and society in general. Through his lyricism alone, he demands and dares other "rappers" to step their game up. His self- produced music, which he explained were generated from the inability to find beats intense enough for his material yet sophisticated enough for his sensibilities, are a cultured mix. In the concert space, familiar sounds from the past juxtaposed themselves against the imagery of the present, the energy of the crowd and the emotional release we all felt, finally absolving us of our sins. Dipped in the waters of true hip hop, our musical vices were no more...

Fathom9's music is intense enough to rattle your bones and complex enough to unravel your mind. Revenge has been exacted.If you need to get your musical soul washed, start here, buy the album, then let us know how YOU live, the LoveJonesLifestyle.

Art, Love, Life and Death

I was saddened to learn that the Georgia Prisoners ended their peaceful strike against the living and working conditions they faced in the Georgia State Correctional system. I was also proud of the prisoners ability to peacefully strike, and then end the strike with the goal of working on their legal stance. However, the strike itself brought up important questions that the artists and writers in my community have been dealing with for several weeks now.

What does the artist owe, if anything to her community? Is she obliged to use her wider influence and voice as an artist to address the politics of her community? Is she obligated to produce work that portrays a specific message?

In a Cultural Anthropology class I taught this semester, I made it clear to my students that artists traditionally are not independent. The were supported by the community; their work reinforced by the concerns, beliefs and opinions of those supporting them, whether it be a formal patron relationship, or the public space call and response, or create and critique methods that exist in the traditional Black church or the market place in west Africa.

Therefore, by virtue of their craft, artists have consistently used their voice to articulate the concerns of their communities, to resist oppression when necessary, and to manifest their visions.

Academics are often a mixture of pure intellectuals, activists who educate, and practicing teacher/artists. Indeed we have seen some of the most important examples in the African American communities with intellectual activists transitioning into academia and maintaining a commitment to oppressed peoples. Both Angela Davis and Elaine Brown come to mind when we think of artists/activists becoming educators. Both have consistently expressed work that supports oppressed people while articulating their struggles to a larger population. Davis has graced us with well reasoned accounts of her position on the Prison Industrial Complex with her work Are Prisons Obsolete?


While Brown explained on Democracy Now, the significance of the strike, and the prisoners motives. As an activist, educator and mentor, she serves as an expert witness on the system in which so many in our community find themselves.



This tradition and relationship between the artist and activist has not escaped us here at Love Jones Lifestyle, and we were pleased to discover the tradition of political artistry alive and well. The Death Penalty Anthology is a project that seeks artistic expression regarding the death penalty. It is an excellent example of art in action, as its proceeds will support the Texas State chapter of Amnesty International, an organization known for the support of human rights globally, and specifically for the fight against the Death Penalty as a form of punishment.

As our world becomes increasingly complex, and artists will become more and more integral in expressing the turmoil, rapid change, political successes, and challenges of every day people. Do today's artist feel or reflect a responsibility towards their communities? Do they owe anything to the communities in which they practice art? Have you found a way to integrate your artistry and activism? We'd love for you to tell us how.

*photo courtesy of sptimes.com