DMAG

Contents

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WHAT IS FTN? Introduction to what From The Noise(FTN) is and the goal of this platform.

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ENTERING THE NOISE Music production, what music means to our culture, who it’s influenced, how its evolved and the importance of production.

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THE COST OF SURVIVAL Incarceration: the impact and responsibility it places on an already vulnerable environment. Introducing people directly impacted from our community.

&THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE Showing real examples, real people from our community. This section features all people from right here at home, in the DMV.

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AN ODE TO BLACK WOMEN 8

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REDEFINING POWER

AMERICA GODDAMN

Talking about our power as a people and defining what that looks for ourselves. Unlearning what we’ve been taught and instilling a new sense of self appreciation and power for our younger ones.

Discussing Nina Simone and her contribution musically, culturally, socially and politically.

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This page is an ode to black women: the super, the creative backbone of the world.

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SELF REFLECTION

I end this issue with a reflection of self, being transparent with you all about my journey to this point.

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What is fROM THE NOISE(ftn)?

Before i even get into all of this , i wanna thank my boy Killah(cam), My boy Rohan and Nick, the photographer who shot my photos (on IG @shuttousai) for helping me make this thing visually come together!

Ight, now lets get to it cus I know yall probably wondering… What is From the Noise? What is BridgeCulture,? What am I doing? What am I on right now, is this another vibe project..? And honestly, those are fair questions. I decided to make this magazine. or magazine adjacent flipbook(lol!) not just for visuals, or music talk, or something to flip through and put down. I'm doing this because It’s me trying to make sense of everything we’re constantly surrounded by. the sounds, the images, the culture — all of it. From the Noise exists because, to me, imagery, music, and art without substance is empty. And substance without artistry usually gets ignored.

So the goal is simple, but not easy: blend the two — in a way where neither loses its impact.

Because right now, we live in a world where culture is consumed fast, copied even faster, and rarely questioned. What we wear. What we listen to. What we repeat. It all travels, but the meaning behind it doesn’t always come with it. From the streets, to music, to fashion — the “cool” gets packaged and passed around without context. And I’m not here to police that… but I am here to slow it down.

Even if it’s just a little. This magazine is my way of doing that. From the Noise merges everything culture, music to clothes, to social commentary because these aren’t just aesthetics — they’re languages. And they shape us early. Especially the youth. That’s who I’m thinking about every time I put something together like this. Because whether we realize it or not, these things teach us: who has power who doesn’t, what’s/who's valuable, what’s worth paying attention to and that comes with responsibility, not just from the people creating… but from us consuming it too. Because yeah, I live for a Future album, I listen to 21 Savage and all them… just like everybody else. That’s part of the culture. That’s enjoyment. But I feel there has to be a flip side to that. There has to be discernment. We can enjoy something and still ask: What is this teaching me? What am I taking from this? What should I question? What do I pass on… and what do I leave here? This space is about that balance. It’s about accountability and not in a heavy, restrictive way, but in a real, aware, intentional way. What we create, what we repeat, what we normalize… it doesn’t just stay with us. It gets passed down. So From the Noise isn’t here to tell you what to think. It’s here to encourage you to think at all. And I also want to say this clearly…

At its core, this is an ode to Black people. This, as a whole, is about us. Our power. Our presence. Our impact. This is a reminder. For the people who already know… For the ones who might’ve forgotten. Or maybe never even had the chance to learn it in the first place.

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I want this to be something you can sit with… and something you can pass down. Something you could hand to your kids and give them something to stand on. Something to start from, instead of having to figure it out later like a lot of us did. imagine what changes if you grow up already knowing. Knowing that you come from innovation. Knowing that you come from resilience. Knowing that your people have shaped the world in ways that don’t always get said out loud. Simple things, like the traffic light as we know it or the technology that lets your voice travel clearly through a microphone. These aren’t small things — they’re everyday parts of life. And we’re a part of that. I believe if more of us knew that early on it would shift the way we move through the world. and the way we go after what’s ours. So this is about that too.

Not just naming what exists but shifting the culture toward something more grounded. More aware. More prideful — in a real way. Not pride that comes from outside validation… but something we can look to within ourselves, and within each other. A reminder that if you ever need to see power, you don’t have to look far.

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Entering the nOISE: MUSIC AND PRODUCTION One of the easiest places to start thinking about culture is through music. Music is one of the first languages many of us learn. It shapes moods, influences style, and often captures the emotional temperature of a generation before people even realize what’s happening. And in today’s landscape, the way music is built — the production itself — is evolving in ways that say a lot about the moment we’re living in. Production matters! Sound is no longer just music — it’s atmosphere, mood, and identity. Production today is becoming more score-like, more immersive, more intentional. It’s not just something you listen to; it’s something you live inside. How sound reflects mental states, culture, rebellion This is where music and mind fully merge. From street corners to studios, from breakbeats to fully realized soundscapes, Black music has consistently transformed lived experience into frequency. Not just for entertainment — but for orientation, survival, and influence. That ability to build meaning through sound — to turn pressure into atmosphere — is power. And understanding that power changes how we listen. One of the main people at the forefront for me of this immersive production movement is Don Toliver.

Don Toliver: A Sonic Linguist Of The Moment

Credit: pintrest @lastrokemycactus

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One of today’s most hardest, compelling voices in modern music. Known for a style that blends melodic R&B’s emotional depth with trap’s rhythmic innovation, often called “Trap&B” , DonT creates music that feels like a place you move through rather than just listen to. His newly released album Octane dropped on January 30, 2026, bringing in a fresh frequency into his discography with beats that feel close and personal, yet huge. And a cinematic rollout that ties visuals, branding, and sound into one cohesive universe. Toliver’s music often exists in that tension between vibe and message — between the visceral pull of a groove and the emotional texture of melody.

His voice glides atop beats with a cadence that feels like memory made audible. where longing, confidence, vulnerability, and just swag merge into one. when you think about sound reflecting mental states or culture, remember — it’s not just what’s said. It’s how it feels, how it’s built, how it moves you. In an era where production is immersive, music becomes the stage on which life’s emotional rhythms play out.

Yeat: New Gen Sound Innovation

Yeat, much like Don Toliver, treats his voice as an instrument. There’s a lineage here— Young Thug pioneered this vocal experimentation, but Yeat doesn’t imitate. He creates. He manipulates pitch, rhythm, and texture in ways that make you forget you’re listening to someone rapping—it’s music as a sensory world. The production doesn’t just support his voice; it extends it, giving each song a unique character, a “place” that fans can inhabit.

What’s even more remarkable is how Yeat navigates cultural influence. His music is undeniably inspired by Black music traditions, but it never feels like he’s copying or cosplaying. He respects the culture, and in turn, he innovates within it—crafting his own lingo, his own flows, his own sonic signature. And he manages to do this while still releasing tracks that hit—songs that are undeniable bombs, without relying on overused tropes. For anyone making music today, there’s a takeaway here: production isn’t just background—it’s storytelling. It’s the bridge between an artist’s vision and the listener’s imagination. Rapping is the voice, but producers are the architects of the world around that voice. Yeat’s album is a masterclass in how sound itself can become a language, a universe, a direct line into the mind of the artist. while today’s artists are often praised for bending genres and building entire sonic worlds, the truth is that kind of musical freedom didn’t start with this generation.

Long before today’s blurred lines between trap, R&B, pop, and electronic soundscapes, there were artists refusing to be confined to one category. Nina Simone was one of them. In many ways, the genre-bending we celebrate today echoes the same instinct Ms. Simone carried decades earlier: the belief that sound should be free enough to hold the full complexity of the moment it comes from.

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America GODDAM America has always had complicated relationships with its truth tellers. Nina Simone was never just a singer. She was a classically trained pianist who studied at the Julliard School and dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. When that path closed to her, she built something different — something the world couldn’t ignore. Simone refused to exist inside one box. Jazz singer. Soul artist. Pianist. Activist. None of those labels alone could contain what she was doing. Her music pulled from classical training, gospel, blues, and protest. It was technical, emotional, and political all at once. When she wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in 1964, it wasn’t subtle, It wasn’t meant to be. The song was her response to the murder of four Black girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the ongoing violence Black Americans faced across the South. The song shocked audiences because it refused to be polite. Simone didn’t hide her anger behind metaphor. She sang it plainly. That honesty came with a cost. As the political climate shifted in the late 60s and into the 70s, open protest became increasingly uncomfortable for the mainstream. Public interest in radical critique faded while institutions worked to suppress many of the movements demanding change. Simone never adjusted her message to make people comfortable. She kept telling the truth. And that kind of courage doesn’t just live in one era.

Today, resistance takes many forms. Some people organize in the streets. Some educate. Some document. Some build spaces where culture and conversation can exist together. There’s an activist on Instagram who goes by @harrietsdreams — a name that, to me, echoes the legacy of Harriet Tubman and the idea that freedom movements are built by people who refuse to accept the world as it is. For me, it’s through music, imagery, and spaces like this magazine. In a way, I think many of us are living out the dreams of the people who came before us — people like Nina Simone, who believed that art should never be separated from truth. And if that’s the case, then maybe this work, the music I study, the culture I write about, the spaces I’m trying to build, is one small way of continuing what she started. Maybe we’re all someone’s wildest dream. Nina Simone believed an artist’s job was to reflect the times. And the times she lived in were full of resistance — people organizing, protesting, demanding something better.

But movements don’t exist in a vacuum. And when communities begin to challenge power, power responds.

Sometimes through silence, sometimes through force. And sometimes through systems designed to control who gets to move freely and who doesn’t.

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THE COST OF SURVIVAL For many Black families in America, incarceration isn’t some distant statistic.

It’s personal. It’s a cousin. A brother. A parent. A friend. In one way or another, most of us have been touched by it. Over time, prison has become so common in our communities that the conversation around it has started to shift.

Sometimes it’s joked about. Sometimes it’s worn like a badge of honor.

Sometimes it’s wrapped into stories about survival, street credibility, or reputation. But behind all of that is something much heavier. Incarceration removes people from their families. It interrupts education. It breaks financial stability. It reshapes entire communities. And yet the reality is still complicated. Many of the people caught in that system aren’t villains. They’re people navigating environments shaped by poverty, lack of opportunity, and generations of structural pressure. A lot of the choices made in those environments are survival choices long before they’re criminal ones.

So the conversation can’t just be about blame. It has to be about responsibility — collective responsibility and accountability. Because if society is quick to punish but slow to support, then the question becomes: what do we do for our own people? What does it look like to nurture our kids before they ever reach that point? What does it look like to intervene earlier — through mentorship, education, creativity, or simply showing them that their future can exist outside of survival mode? And just as important: what happens when people come home? the truth is, society rarely welcomes them back. Jobs disappear and opportunities shrink. Doors close before they even get the chance to knock. So once again, the responsibility falls back onto the community. If someone returns home and wants to rebuild their life, we should be the ones holding them accountable first and foremost but also helping them find that path — whether that means supporting their business, sharing their work, or simply recognizing that people deserve the chance to grow beyond the worst chapter of their life.

At the same time, we also have to be honest about the narratives we pass down. Music, storytelling, and culture have always reflected real experiences — including life in the streets. But when those stories are told, the question becomes: are we only repeating the cycle, or are we also challenging it? If younger kids are listening, watching, learning from us, then the responsibility doesn’t stop at telling the story. It also includes showing them another way forward. Not by pretending the streets don’t exist. But by making sure they understand that it doesn't have to be the ending of their story. our communities are full of talent, intelligence, creativity, and leadership. The same energy that can be pulled into cycles of survival can also be redirected toward building something different. That shift starts with honesty. With accountability. With care for the people who come after us. And with the understanding that freedom isn’t just about avoiding cages. It’s about creating environments where fewer of our people ever end up in them in the first place. Systems can shape our circumstances, but they don’t get to define our worth. The reality of incarceration is heavy, and the impact it has on our communities is real. But our story has never started or ended with the systems built around us. Our power has always lived somewhere deeper — in the ways we support each other, rebuild, create, and continue forward even when the odds were never designed in our favor. And when we begin to recognize that power again, everything starts to shift.

I wanted to not only write about this but I wanted to also give real examples from peers, real people, people I know, so you can hear directly from people who lived it, who experienced it. meet them and hear them.

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IMMANUEL SWAN @manupmentalityllc My question to Immanuel was "What are some things you’d like to share to young black men and women, young black kids coming up? In terms of thinking for yourself, where it can lead you, speak to your experience with that. And Tell me about how you feel you changed in prison, speak to your fitness journey and what that did for you, in and out of prison."

"I’d tell young Black men and women and the younger kids coming up that learning to think for yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do. When you start making your own decisions instead of following the crowd, it can lead you toward discipline, growth, and real purpose. My time in prison forced me to slow down and reflect on my choices, and it changed the way I see life, responsibility, and the value of time. I realized that growth starts with accountability and a willingness to improve every day. Fitness became a big part of that transformation for me because it taught me discipline, consistency, and respect for my body and mind. The gym became a positive outlet that helped me stay focused and motivated, and it showed me that with the right mindset, you can rebuild yourself no matter where you start."

GARY MAYE My question to Gary was essentially the same "what are some things you’d like to share to young black men and women, young black kids coming up? In terms of thinking for yourself, and where it can lead you. Tell me about how you changed in prison."

(Gary Maye is currently still incarcerated) "First i wanna start off with thanking you for allowing me the opportunity to be in your magazine , what a honor . my Name is Gary Maye Also Known As " Gator " . Im currently 30 years of age and have been incarcerated for a lil over 13 years . I was sentenced to 19 years of prison . Through my Incarceration i have received my GED , certification in advanced floor care / custodial maintenance, many programs and received education in retail /marketing . People have a sense that prison is meant to break you but in all actuality its not. Its meant to build you to be a better you an better for society . So we can see that indulging in criminal activity will get you nowhere , & i mean nowhere . Nowhere because where you think your goin doesn't even exist. Being a Billion dollar street dudes , having cars , clothes , jewelry, taking trips all this without nothing legitimate Doesn't exist.

I had to learn this the hard way so i wanna take the opportunity to talk to the youth in the Washington, dc area and get them to see the things that i didn't see.

Its okay not being the toughest , its okay not to do stuff you feel aint right. Make your own choices and decisions and be a leader in everything you do."

Their experiences shows what's possible on an individual level.

But It's also important to separate personal transformation from systemic design. While people can come out stronger, the system itself has historically not been structured around rehabilitation or reentry. And that distinction matters.

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REDEFINING POWER We were taught to separate ourselves from our power. To enjoy the culture but forget the source. To love the style but question the substance. To participate without ownership. Power doesn’t always look obvious. Sometimes it looks like memory. Sometimes it looks like knowing where you come from, even when the world benefits from you forgetting.

Our history isn’t just trauma. It’s invention. It’s problem-solving. It’s creativity under pressure. Black people have always built systems, sounds, languages, and tools — not for recognition, but for survival. For connection. For progress. The issue was never ability. It was access. It was credit. It was control. Reclaiming power to me means standing firm in it. Knowing that the things we were told are “cool,” “urban,” or “trendy” didn’t come from nowhere. They came from us — from communities making something out of nothing, from imagination where options were limited.

And I want to make it clear This isn’t about proving anything to anyone else, I do not care about what non black people think of us. I care about what we think about ourselves. This is about reminding ourselves that power lives in context. In knowing the story behind the image, the meaning behind the sound, and the hands behind the creation. And once you see that, you move differently. when you understand where power comes from, you also start to understand something else: every person in our community carries a piece of it. There’s no such thing as “too hood” or “too articulate.”

That division was never ours to begin with. That’s the beauty of us — we exist boldly and uniquely in all directions. The same culture the world studies, copies, and sells back to us comes from us and that diversity.

From people finding different ways to express the same truth.

So from the alternative rock and punk Black girlies carving out space in scenes they were told weren’t theirs. To the straight-off-the-block rappers narrating realities most people would rather ignore. To Black architects designing the spaces we move through. To self-taught graphic designers shaping the visual language of the internet. Different expressions. Same source. We’ve always taken pain, pressure, and limitation and turned it into something powerful. Something influential. Something the world calls groundbreaking once it leaves our hands. But inside the community, we sometimes forget that all of those roles matter. Movements have never been built by one type of person. We need the writers. The teachers. The thinkers. The artists. The people speaking directly to the streets. And the ones translating those realities into language the world can’t ignore. in the fight for liberation, there were always different approaches. Some believed in nonviolence. Others, like Malcolm X, argued that self-defense and force were necessary parts of freedom.

Those differences weren’t weaknesses, they were evidence that liberation required many strategies, many voices, many kinds of courage. resistance is not one lane. It’s an ecosystem. And Black culture has always reflected that ecosystem. Our music, our art, our fashion, our language — all of it is built from people contributing in their own way.

That’s why someone like Nina Simone matters so deeply in this conversation and why I wrote about her. She wasn’t just a musician. She was a witness. A translator of emotion. Someone who understood that talent alone wasn’t enough! it had to be used in service of something larger. Her music carried beauty and resistance at the same time. That duality — creativity and consciousness — has always been part of our power. And it still is.

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&THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE We just talked about redefining our power. To me, This is what that actually looks like: These next pages are people who took that idea and made it real for themselves redefining it, reclaiming it, and moving with it in their own way.

Different lanes, different backgrounds, different expressions… but all rooted in the same thing.

Starting with the artist who designed my cover:

DON @suckerfreeart

Don is a visual artist working across design and creative direction.

Through his brand Sucker Free®, he creates concept driven work centered on identity and storytelling

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GET GLEE MARKET PLACE @getfleemarketplace Brieana Clay & Darius Stanton, two Maryland natives who founded the Get Flee Marketplace.

Get Flee Marketplace is a community hub and cultural destination for creatives, tast e makers. At the Get Flee Marketplace you’ll find, vintage clothing, luxury brands, art, home goods, wellness/skin care and more. Starting in 2020 with 3 vendors, the Get Flee Marketplace is a highly curated and sought after shopping experience across the DMV area, now hosting 30+ vendors at their events. In the future, be on the lookout for Get Flee Marketplace activations that blends community, fashion, art and style with opportunity.

Fun fact about these amazing people: Brieana is a senior level manager in influencer marketing and Darius teaches a environmental biology class at night at PGCC and works in regulatory affairs for a research nonprofit.

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FPVEGAN @fpvegan

Stephon Archibald also known as FPVEGAN. 27, from Jamaica.

And a super dope drone flyer.

In his own words: "I fly small drones all over the city and where ever I can to express myself like im actually flying. I just fly to escape the reality that im in or to relax. I like that I can show others it’s ok to fly where ever they want as long as they’re not harm anyone ofc but to know they have the free will to fly where they want because if birds can so should we. I guess now that I’m taking about it i like to show people or inspire them to do what they love to do even if they’re alone or scared"

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THE BAND “HUE” @huedatband Ali Of the band Hue, native to washington DC. In his own words:

"Being in a black rock band was kind of intentional. It might have been maifested. In the dmv there’s black people in different types of bands everywhere. but the rest of the country doesn’t have this. I was in a gogo band, rock band, and metal band all in high school and i still rapped and sang and made mixtapes. I had a dream of showing the young black kids that they can be more than the norms that they may see in their areas. as far as being outside of what the world thinks are typical "black norms", we are from the DMV. So we are already against what is perceived as traditional "black norms" in this country. We are from an area that thought rappers were lame and 10 piece bands were superior for many decades. We wear shoes that other ppl think are strange and treat them like gold. We even have a multitude of black people who wear crazy color hair and may watch anime. The culture here is so diverse that one of the guitarists is now one of the biggest metal guitarists in the world. So if anything we are just bringing the culture of the dmv to the rest of the world."

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FATHER SOKKA @fathersokka Washington DC native and an upcoming artist.

In her own words: “Rapper , band member, head they/them in charge. Don’t care for respectability politics, it’s a waste of sacred time on this Earth. I just wanna make people rethink the world around them, and realize ultimately we’re focused on the wrong things.

Definitely i would say I’m more aesthetically driven or inspired

by East African culture, sonically moreso by 90’s rap and new age rock. But a lot of my written material is super duper, “fuck the rules and expectations”, sort of always challenging the expectations and rigid standards set for me as a black female in the USA. So my music is definitely me saying “well fuck it I don’t care how you perceive me, its a waste of time to care” sorta mentality”

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REGIUS @regius4k

A Maryland native based out of LA. She literally does it all.

In her own words: “My name is Regius. I’m a multidisciplinary designer with a Master’s in Architecture, currently working on the rebuild of Altadena, CA after the January 2025 LA fires that destroyed so many homes especially in the historical black communities.

Taking up space as a Black woman, leading my own brand, and practicing architecture means refusing to limit myself. To me there are no differences in architecture and fashion. They inform one another. I’m deeply interested in color and materiality, and pushing the ways design can be interpreted and experienced. I’m always asking myself: how can design break conventional ways of communicating ideas? But more importantly, how design can carry identity and memory. How can it honor where we come from without being confined by it? And beyond aesthetics, how can it challenge the regimes of property and the systems that keep us stuck addressing the same mundane issues over and over?

R02 is an exploration of growth and process. It represents what it means to try, to iterate, and to step into the unknown. Through R02, I began developing my own typeface, blurring the line between art and typography also know as regiustype. The tension between discipline and experimentation is central to my work. For me, taking up space means embracing multiplicity. Being expressive, structured, and disruptive all at once. My work lives at the intersection and that coexistence is intentional."

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AN ODE TO BLACK WOMEN Black women have always been more than what the world “allows” them to be. We are nurturers, creators, protectors, innovators, and storytellers and often all at once. Even in spaces where we are overlooked, under-credited, or expected to carry more than our share, we continue to build, create, and move culture forward. much of what the world now calls “trend,” “aesthetic,” or “genius” has roots in the creativity of Black women.

From beauty rituals to fashion, language, and music, Black women have always been architects of style and identity. The modern nail salon culture that exists across America was heavily shaped by Black women who turned nail artistry into a form of personal expression long before it became mainstream. Hairstyles, beauty standards, and entire aesthetics have traveled from our communities to global runways and social media feeds. Yet when those same looks appear elsewhere, they are often renamed, rebranded, and separated from the people who created them. Moments like the controversy around referring to Fulani braids as “Bo Derek braids” are reminders of how easily Black women’s cultural contributions can be repackaged without context. But the influence has always been there. Black women don’t just participate in culture, we shape it.

CREDIT: @MAJORMYRA

Our impact extends far beyond aesthetics though. Throughout history, Black women have been organizers, strategists, educators, and visionaries within movements for justice and freedom. During the civil rights era, while figures like Martin Luther King Jr. were placed at the forefront, countless Black women were doing the critical work behind the scenes: organizing communities, strategizing protests, raising funds, and sustaining the movement in ways that rarely made headlines. Women like Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer helped shape the direction of the struggle for freedom, even when recognition was uneven. At the same time, Black women have always had to navigate multiple layers of reality.

Conversations about liberation have often centered race while overlooking gender, meaning Black women were carrying both battles at once — fighting racism while also challenging the expectations placed on women. And still, we persist.

There’s a reason Black women are often described as resilient. That resilience isn’t about endurance; it’s about innovation under pressure. It’s about the ability to create community, beauty, and progress even when the world doesn’t offer the same care in return.

The story of Black women is literally foundational to the story of people. And our contributions continue to expand far beyond history books. From entrepreneurs building businesses out of necessity, to artists shaping global culture, to mothers and mentors nurturing the next generation, Black women continue to hold communities together in ways that are both visible and invisible. This page is simply a moment to pause and recognize that truth. Black women exist in many forms — across different cultures, religions, languages, sexualities, and identities. There is no single way to be a Black woman, and that diversity is part of our strength. What connects us is the legacy of creation. Of building something where nothing existed before. Of nurturing others while still finding ways to define ourselves. This is an ode to that power. To the women who came before us. To the women doing the work now. And to the generations of Black women still to come.

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SELF REFLECTION

A friend of mine once told me something that stuck with me. She said, “You can’t be broken.” At the time, I know she meant it as a compliment. like she was recognizing the way I keep getting back up no matter what life throws at me. But the truth is a little more complicated than that, because the determination people see in me doesn’t come from never being broken. It actually comes from feeling like I have been. Life has a way of pulling the rug out from under you sometimes.

Moments where things don’t turn out the way you hoped, where outside opinions start to carry more weight than they should, where you begin to question yourself.

Even though we tell ourselves not to care about what others think, we are still human. Those things land and they sit with us. But what I’ve realized over time is that the disappointment that weighs the heaviest isn’t anyone else’s. It’s my own.

When I’ve given up on something too soon, when I’ve doubted myself before I even tried, when I’ve allowed fear to speak louder than purpose. Those are the feelings that push me to get back up. Because at the end of the day, the person I have to live with the longest is myself and I refuse to keep letting myself down. Over the years, during some of my hardest moments, I found myself turning back to something that always seemed to restore a sense of grounding in me: learning about my people. Our history, our creativity, our resilience. Reading about Black culture, Black thinkers, Black creators, seeing the ways our communities have turned struggle into innovation again and again, became something like a rope I could hold onto when I felt like I was slipping. It reminded me that power doesn’t just exist in perfect circumstances. Sometimes it shows up in the simple act of continuing.

AND That realization is a big part of why this magazine exists. Because the more I learned about where we come from, the more I started to understand where my own sense of purpose came from too. I’m a Black woman. Half American, half Caribbean. Masculine-presenting. Existing in ways that don’t always fit inside the boxes people expect and for a long time, that felt confusing.

But over time, I started to see that my differences weren’t obstacles, they were clues. Pieces of the bigger picture of who I am and how I move through the world. I would like to say though, that purpose doesn’t always arrive as some huge, dramatic realization.

Sometimes it starts smaller. Sometimes it could be simply showing up for yourself in a real, honest way every day. It can be taking care of your family, creating something meaningful, trying something new even when you’re unsure how it will turn out. I think “knowing your purpose” is less about having everything figured out and more about being willing to keep learning yourself. I ask myself questions constantly, not in a way that feeds self-doubt, but in a way that helps me grow. Questions that help me understand who I am, what I care about, and how I want to move through the world. My goal isn’t perfection. It’s alignment. And that’s something I want to encourage anyone reading this to explore for themselves. Try new things. Follow your curiosity.

Don’t limit yourself to one lane if your mind and spirit are pulling you in different directions.

Growth rarely happens inside comfort. So if there’s something in you that believes you can build something, create something, or become something — listen to that voice. Trust it enough to try.

Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can do for ourselves is simply refuse to STOP showing up. And if you keep showing up long enough, you might realize something important: You were never broken, you were just in the process of becoming.

Thank you to anyone who is reading this, seriously thank you. Thank you for taking a step into my noise. Love always - Ky 16