Foundwork Dialogues: Stephanye Watts in convo w: Azikiwe Mohammed
Stephanie Mills’ Home album came out when I was three years old and by age seven, it was one of my favorites in my family’s collection. Besides being the swan song of The Wiz, Mills sings at the very end 'I can hear my friends telling me, STEPHANIE! PLEASE! sing my sooooooooooong'—and what kid doesn’t love hearing their name in a song? In the 30+ years since I’ve carried this song with me, it rang loudest as I explored the work of multidisciplinary artist Azikiwe Mohammed. Rooted in themes of Black placemaking, Mohammed has mastered varying art mediums producing work that exists as IYKYK coded language for Black folk. Using art to invoke community uplift is also key to his practice and lives now in his recently launched Black Painter’s Academy, offering free classes and mutual aid in lower Manhattan.
In our conversation, Azikiwe turned our Zoom room into a family room...the kind with the tv sitting on the floor, and we chatted like cousins that hadn’t seen each other since one went off to college.
