(Omi Jones took this photo of me at the Hassan Hajjaj performance installation "My Rockstars Experimental - Live" at the Ford Theatre in Los Angele in one of the rooms set up for audience engagement pre and post show.)

Hosted by Sharon Bridgforth, 
Who Yo People Is 
features conversations with artists whose Work and artistic practices
are rooted in serving our communities through healing/creative/Spiritual and cultural traditions centered in Love. 

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SHARON BRIDGFORTH

yo host

She/Her/He/Him/Mermaid

sharonbridgforth.com

Guests speak intimately about who raised them, their cultures, traditions, growing up experiences and how that shapes their artistic practices, vision and community activism.

Each guest is a critically acclaimed award winning artist whose work is rooted in social justice. But these conversations with Sharon are not the pretty bits that bios and artist statements are made of these are bloody memories, flesh offerings, tales of resilience, transgression, triumph and self-determination. 

In this series, Sharon, a self employed touring artist since 1998, shares her people. Artists that she has been teacher/mentor/student/collaborator – long time family with in her artistic Journey. Together they laugh and cry and shout out their stories - as ways forward/to Love.

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Raised by African-American Southerners who moved to Los Angeles determined to make a better life for themselves, their families
and those to come
I am a child of the
Great African-American Migration.

I’ve always Loved listening to the elders in my family talk about Home . . . my Great-Auntie Bea telling me over and over the same stories which I now understand were our family history. Uncle June Bug in the kitchen singing to emphasize what ever truth he was stretching. The sounds of finger popping, bid whist, fried chicken, and Bobby Blue Bland. Whispers of tears floating in from another room. Multiple realities coexisting. Jesus. Cigarettes, and liquor. The names of the dead called every day. Home remedies. Gossip. Call, and response. The art of repetition. Altars. Always dancing.
The use of humor as medicine.
Making beauty out of nothing. Prayer.
This is my cultural inheritance. It is the bone, and marrow of my work.

Born a day Dreamer.
I am Inspired by other people’s stories/family Journey’s/blood memories and Knowings.
I have always wondered

who yo people is.

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Producers

(L) Sonja Perryman - Producer
(Also, sanga of dat podcast jingle)

(R) Sharon Bridgforth - Executive Producer
(Also, podcast host)

Photo Credit: Jeremy Thomas.

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Season 3 Sponsor

Check Out Alice Wilder Sound HERE

Thank you to Season 2 supporters!

Whale Wonder

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Special shout out and thanks to Season 1 guests and supporters!
Season 1 was dedicated to giving space to intimate conversations with Black women, women of color and LGBTQ artists under 45 whose Work and artistic practices are rooted in serving our communities through healing/creative/Spiritual and cultural traditions - centered in Love. Support for Season 1 came thanks to Sayra Pinto and Matthew Kolan and The Crossroads Leadership Lab which is part of the University of Vermont’s Leadership for Sustainability Master’s Program.