You know i dont step out of time to everybody i want to have a good time. Commitment to the top of the map turn down this road it just seems to people most mysterious nobody keeps me going to take. Me doesnt really fit anything. But shop him because hes the whole good about. A few days i suppose he. Was completely thrown. Up to put up with the big client and the big one. Point it might make. A claim. That he was only human got the fuck out of this is their places but you get to keep the trophy about apollo upon me i can trust you to find it out some people. Yes no because if you. Really. Cant. Think of. Such it doesnt really. Get. The sole. Goal you. Think youre. Taylor alexander. One of the hardest working drag queens in atlanta georgia. She is a musician and a drag performer a Community Organizer a proud parent of 2 cats. And. Its really about creating art that people can connect to i know thats very cliche but i think for people who kind of share my background and my various identities finding something that they can connect to is really important i want to ask what is a d. I. Y. Performance artist as and what is a do it yourself performance artist and what was your journey to become one. Performance artist is a fancy way of saying that i do i create most of everything that i do so with my music i write i produce a creative director. Im my own from owner and manager theres no force or label that behind me to push my music im the driving force. And really that reflects itself in every single aspect of my life you know being a performer in atlanta being Community Organizer a lot of what i do is grassroots from the roots from starting with nothing ending up with something and knowing that you know its all uniquely organic in a way and its also a way for me to be a control freak so you know everything comes back to me i accept the appraisingly applause but i also know like if i mess up i have full accountability for that 0 its all on you whether the succeeded or failed it all comes down to you with me on me all the pros. Let me one did music 1st touch you want to suddenly you said you know what its music thats what i really its one of those i really want to work so when i really feel like i can get who i am inside out through music one of the like feeling by inspiration 1st to you oh well ive always been making music i didnt seriously start creating music until 2015 you know back in Like Elementary School i took piano lessons i was in korea so i did all those things ive been. Writing songs since i was 7. But yeah i didnt start seriously you know saying im gonna sit down learn how to produce learn how to you know full well rounded musician as well 2015 and i think its because music allowed me to express myself in certain ways that other parts of my life couldnt even doing drag you know with you know being a drag performer off to sing other peoples creations. And theres a certain limitation with that and there were certain things that i couldnt say in my day job i couldnt say at my night job being a drag queen. I mean in music really. Kind of like made it known to me and. Allowed me to. Talk to me a little bit about your music what what do you want like you know the 1st track to recenter to be able to perform what do you want people to take away from that what would you want to inspire and people would listen to your music i always want to create music where people. I usually say i want people to dance too but i also dont think so i love dance music as you know a black person as a queer person and dance music has often been the driving force of a lot of different aspects of our cultures. But i want to create music where people can listen to it maybe here in a 2nd time here like a lyric again oh thats thats thats real like i want them to like really and i think that thats what i strive to do with my music and what you mention Community Organizing know a couple times women when did you start getting into Community Organizing you know the activists who were giving Something Back and what inspired you to get into that part of you know its a little bit out of something with your problem in your life and work oh yeah i think it all start when i moved to atlanta in 2011 im born and raised in georgia but i moved in 2011 to go to Georgia State university for college and so i started getting involved with local. Organizations i started getting involved with a lot of the differently seen and so my Community Organizing background arose from wanting to be involved because where im originally from griffen georgia is a population of like 3400 people its really small i was raised on a 400 acre fire and so there was no Clear Community there was no kind of Like Community for people who express themselves and experience life like myself so i wanted to do whatever i could when i moved to the big city to give back and so that you know start off as a volunteer ing and then it went into performing and then also just uniquely finding how performance are in our in general can create ways to advocate being activists i think sometimes when we say the word activist we think about you know you had to be lobbying you have to be up in the senate you have to be up in all these different forms of government winry. Lee the most radical changes that we can have in our communities day to day are grassroots and very d. I. Y. And so thats kind of where i found myself being a part of Community Organizing because change really comes at a local level yes its really i mean the things that we want there are National Things that we want theres theres a world things that we want to see change politicAlly Community was but really its starting to started right at the local level you see a problem in front of you with them doing something about it to try to fix it. You know. You grew up as you say you know in this small town 3500 people you know what was i mean did you know that like you know what this is who i am and im proud to be who you know but now im growing up in a town of what 3500 people you know was there any kind of acceptance for who you are what was that journey. It was maybe me being an aquarius but i just really didnt care it was you know i came out. First time i came out because theres an ongoing process i came out of 8th grade in high school i was the 1st person ever started a Gay Straight Alliance at my High School Even though i hadnt fully come out like my parents you know come out to friends and fairs and it just i knew what i needed and i knew what i would want to see happen and whether that you know had certain repercussions was completely 2nd to anything else so you know being in a small town you have a lot of eyes on you you know you go to the local walmart or the local Grocery Store the flea market and people talk about things and so its a very small fishbowl kind of community. But i think here i mean what i need to do and whether they got me in trouble with the principal or my parents. I didnt really care for other well for other kids out there like you would all grown up in a Small Community or at least a close minded community you know what advice would you give them you know do in terms of what you know whether its coming out or just you know how to make you know how to make their Community Better understand what theyre going through my and how wonderful they are well i think what we talk about you know people in kind of more vulnerable situations and like smaller communities i think sometimes we forget about safety a lot of the narrative is come out and you know because youll be more honest in things like that thing thats a terrible framing i think people should mind their safety in a space where youre youre you might be physically or emotionally or mentally you know harmed if you come out mind yourself like take care of yourself 1st. But also. Being out sometimes in small spaces and communities like that can really. Just bring up a whole new community can really show to other people hey theres somebody else like me and we can form some kind of general bond. But i definitely think in terms of like Small Community sometimes you have to mine your own and take care of yourself and then eventually once you get a proper footing you can develop some kind of like connection to a community and build from there i. Fed the sympathy of course with all the middle class was and is mean if the sun is shining star will ensure the spinach we are stuck you feeling i used these for well for you for the now dont i do it is me going for bush but i will push the castle for the sugar i mean you just know. Youre going to see. Im going to fulfill the repeated promises apologise to the people i promise you know weve all pots be. Free from. Now you want to 1st. Know. Cut cut. Trade and investment to become magic spells to. Economic development. Most people think about trade they think about goods and services being exchanged between countries and the in fast chapter of a trade agreement is about something very different but what one investment leads to toxic manufacturing that destroys sacred sites all ruins the environment. That means that local communities that are being poisoned if they object if they do anything that the company feels is interrupting their profits they can they serve. The nationals are taking on the whole nation Philip Morris is trying to use i guess d. S. To stop the oracle wife from implementing new tobacco regulations aimed at cutting domestic smoking rates a French Company sued egypt because egypt raise its minimum wage to democratic choice of a trump corporate. Joint says we try to fund one of the to. Me. Being from the south when you talk about you know. You always hear about. California its amazing in seattle chicago without this and we talked about. Media or in the context. You know there is these statistics you know atlantas rising hiv rates or you know queer home with you the rates or things like that were always. And. Never fully human eye the south the south region of the United States has the largest population of queer and trans people in america we have so many historical figures and moments and figureheads we have our own stonewall we have so many vibrant communities that are constantly negated under this idea that the south is incredibly conservative and it definitely is in certain pockets but to completely erase the existence and the reality of a and entire quarter of the nation. Is harmful i think and so thats part of why a southern flank where pride came up because we see ourselves our president in media we didnt see ourselves as you know black and brown green trans youth poor peoples sex workers. No reflect and we needed to build community in that regard and so we started in 2014 and its been you know 5 amazing years of Building Community because there wasnt enough for us. As marginalized people. From the from so from the outside looking in like you know what do you think is like one of the biggest misconceptions you know of community you must solve what you know for folks never even realize that exists and that its so strong like what do you think its a bigger misconception is that your struggle with even good music oh well i think. I think people have a major misconception that. Were all miserable that were all just waiting for some kind of like savior to come along and save us from the south we dont need to be safe from the south i think yeah this idea that southern people are just so overly oppressed by republicans and conservatives and whatnot. Which does play out sometimes and have Political Races and things like that. The idea they were miserable and that we need saving we dont need saving we just need. Assistance we need respect and we need to be thought of a considered as legitimate communities. And i think in terms of like me when putting my music out there you know obviously a beautiful drag queen and a few i think a lot of people think that dragons are very limited and that only exists in one kind of form of live thinking top 40 hits and then performing in bars and clubs and so when you put that on top of being without is just like you know how it is even when i think people think that you have to make some kind of great koger marriage to new york city where you find yourself and love yourself and thats not the case i want to stay at the wall file so that land where my life when you sit down when you sit down to write a song you know what youre going to do ok are you what do you look for you know what inspires you just song by song as if you know something the conversation your thoughts were going around youre like what what does that process when you sit down and said ok im going to put pen to paper. You know figure out how to make a hit song i it varies you know sometimes ill get like a melody stuck in my head and so ill take my voice memo app on my phone and be like this is a song youre going create and so i like you know i record that i build upon it sometimes as a phrase so like the song one started off with a phrase that i thought about what does one mean and it was right after i had read invisible man by Ralph Ellison and so there is a portion of that book that talks about where the coming here to work from like a pain factory and the trying to make the purest form of white and any kind of a little dot of anything which is completely messed up and thought about like you know what are some situations where i feel like the one that messes up the. Situation or no one dot this being encroached on by oh whiteness so really its just like you know it can be anything you know a melody in your phrase it can be a certain kind of feeling. I get inspiration from anything really. This song is called. Social media. Problem you dont know how to solve them if youve got questions have you lets take a 2nd. Post its not a real show we broadcast it on the screen everyone is caught up in. This can that take some time so. Its a lot all this can that takes time to so. This is how you do you. Think you struck out. Because how do you think about. How funny it is trying. To. Fake laugh out loud cry. Hes a lot to take time to so because how do you. Do you need. To take time to stop because. You need to log in to face time so because. You need to log all this. Time so. You. Think you. Literally i was scrolling on facebook you know as well and really hours and you dont see anything and its like reading people that is just you know. I didnt really say anything and its like i feel like people sometimes think they can solve all their soul problem with social media and thats just not the case so literally i was like you need to log off you need to disconnect and i was like. This could work into something and so at that time when i was writing the songs on my 1st hologram. A lot of the songs already talking about like ways that we kind of communicate to the world outside like we think we know who we are internally thats great but trying to communicate to the world to be like social Media Technology just like person to person interactions. With log off it was really about you know. Are we actually affectively communicating who we are to the world outside is the algorithm that were all playing into really like doesnt mean anything if they completely delete it its a camera facebook where we are like where would your self value be as a person d d lake form self value as a person on the internet or is it like in here within you it was just a lot of questions i had i thought i had the answers. But yeah like a lot of you listening to logoff disconnect and take some time to self reflection its a great song its a really great song has a great message you know its interesting because it also kind of in that internet world or in the you know online world that we exist in you know i think its easy to talk about the enemies its easy to draw a lot of a better word if you talk about those who would stand against us whether it be our you know our religion our gender or sexuality or whatever may be a lot of people can stand against us but them at the same time. Allies or an interesting kind of mix too because wall a lot of people kind of say change my avatar to be this picture or you know i. Dont think online and you know but you know what should allies really like how can allies truly help how can they truly make a difference when theyre fighting for a cause you know beyond just kind of giving you a verbal hey youre doing great youre all of believing you i think you know this is something that ive always had conversations around because you know theres a lot of people who are really fervent supporters of any kind of marginalized community you know when you think about. A community you think about how some people think that the last a ally or that you know in the black labs Matter Movement that it wouldnt be successful without you know the allies and i think you know in even as like a marginalized person within myself obviously i dont detain all that i didnt in the world so obviously im an ally and other people i think if youre in a situation where youre trying to support a movement or a marginalized community and you constantly hear your words your voice more than others youre probably. Shouldnt be happening i think sometimes you have to listen and show up and not so much be heard i think sometimes. Its very performative its very a look at me im doing this i use all the pronouns i showed up to the protests i made a sign im like agree but like. You know you need to sometimes take a seat back and realize that you know whatever community your cause that youre trying to be an ally to these are very harsh real lived i didnt use their realities and taking up space and talking over people and trying to perform being an ally. Honestly i think sometimes i dont even like the word ally i think sometimes that you should just be a decent human being and this should be expected things that we have people like you shouldnt get like a trophy for like showing up for like women and you shouldnt get a trophy for showing up for like i dont know where trans people you shouldnt you know just be like natural things that just come from being a decent human being but you know i think that also asked me to you know what they are going to say thank you for saying that because its one of the things that like i see a lot amongst you kn