Setting The Table

Episode 5

The Complicated Stories of Soul Food

Deb Freeman:

On the dining room table were things like collared greens, cornbread, sweet potato pie, liver and onions with gravy, and chicken dumplings, or as my Nana called it, chicken and pastry, where she rolled out long strips of dough on brown paper bags with a glass. And to this day, I haven't found a better dish.

Deb Freeman:

All of these meals and more were in regular rotation on the dinner table and it was what I ate every day. One of my fondest childhood memories is coming home from school to find out what my Nana cooked for dinner. She was an excellent cook, never measured anything, and yet I put her dishes up against practically any award-winning restaurant in the country.

Deb Freeman:

Clearly I got my love of food from her, and I suppose it was only natural that I started digging into not only what we eat, but why we eat it.

Deb Freeman:

Welcome to Setting the table, a podcast about black cuisine and food ways. I'm Deb Freeman. I'm a writer that focuses on African-American food ways and the impact those food ways have on how we cook and eat today. On this episode, we're taking a look at the complicated relationships some black chefs have soul food, which has become interchangeable with Black food. We'll talk to three chefs who have made their careers cooking, advancing, and thinking about the history and future of soul food.

Deb Freeman:

So first let's talk about exactly what is soul food? And to talk about that, I want to the most knowledgeable person I know.

Therese Nelson:

My name is Therese Nelson, Harlem-based chef, writer and the founder of the website, blackculinaryhistory.com.

Deb Freeman:

Therese is a chef, author and a living encyclopedia of black culinary history, and I couldn't think of anyone better to give us an overview of what sold food is. She is always so generous with her knowledge and she's just really a cool person.

Therese Nelson:

2015, Austin, Texas, 150th anniversary of [Ms. Patient lo Eric Eli 00:02:18] is up on a podium in a room full of the smartest, dopest, most wide-ranging Black food creators in the country. And he comes at the tail end of a three-day conference at 20th and Martin has convened, but we're all thinking about what it means to be Black in food. So he stands up in front of this group of people, and he gives the definition for soul food.

Therese Nelson:

And he basically says that it is the food of Black people descended from the African diaspora. He says it's a collection of ingredients, techniques, all telling a similar story. But for me, the way in which he frames soul food really should have been what is Black food? I think soul food is a very convenient container that's legible to people. It talks about time, place, [TOR 00:03:12]. It gives people very clear set of dishes or starting point for thinking about what the food of the Black experience is in this country.

Therese Nelson:

It's not the whole story. It's not even the most interesting story, but it's a clear and legible story. I've been sitting with his definition since 15, because he was trying to get the heart of how you put words to something that has such a particular kind of ephemera tied to it. It has such a particular kind of emotional connection to it and something that is different region to region.

Therese Nelson:

So I guess the short answer is soul food is Black food. The longer, more complicated nuance answers that soul food is whatever you want it to be, but it's a starting point.

Deb Freeman:

Soul food can also feel like a burden that Black chefs have to carry. I asked Therese to share her thoughts on that complicated relationship.

Therese Nelson:

I think about Vertamae Grosvenor a lot. There's this really dope interview of her when she's talking to somebody in maybe, feels like the mid- to late-90s. And this woman is asking her very-well intentioned question about sort of why she doesn't like soul food, because she had been famously quoted as saying she "had a problem with using soul food as sort of a container for Black food and culture."

Therese Nelson:

Vertamae Grosvenor fame, culinary anthropologist, kind of created that language around culinary anthropology. And what Dr. Grosvenor says in that interview is basically that soul food is a very particular kind of translation of Black culture that existed in a very particular time and that this function is of that time.

Therese Nelson:

That said, I always think about soul food as immigrant cuisine, as movement cuisine, as sort of trying to translate and find plays and find home and personhood outside the context of the protection of the American south.

Therese Nelson:

Think about the second wave of the great migration and think about the civil rights era when this sort of language of soul, soul music, soul cuisine, soul culture is birth itself in terms of language. That time period is all about people exiting the south, exiting the past and this really particular way. It was this idea forward thinking forward movement. And so I think soul food was also less about particular dishes and more about this new way of thinking about blackness.

Deb Freeman:

Soul food was coined in the 60s during the civil rights era to represent the heritage cuisines the African-Americans preserve through the great migration. It's a cuisine with roots in west African and European food ways, the mix made possible because of Black enslavement. Many of the dishes have blended into Southern cuisine at large.

Therese Nelson:

I think the legacy of soul food is always going to be about Black agency and Black place-making. I love the idea of soul food. Vertamae was a little concerned with soul food, but she wasn't concerned with it because she didn't respect it. She was concerned with it because there's a tendency to rest on heritage as though it's a static thing. It's a comfortable thing to rest on heritage because it doesn't suggest that you have to contribute anything. That's not what our culture is ever about.

Therese Nelson:

When we show up fully as Black people, we create the culture, we create the conversation, which can't do that work without being informed. The legacy of most of the folks, especially in the midst of the civil rights era, the soul generation. So much of their legacy, so much of that work was about creating a new language. We are existed in a similar moment.

Therese Nelson:

We existed in a moment where we are in a profoundly kinetic artistic moment. Black art and music is on fire. Should we not be as forward thinking about our food? That to me does not look like just resting on the tropes of the past. I mean start thinking forward. Soul food is about innovation. I mean, we could sort of lament the static nature of the tropes of soul food and the celebration foods that we rest on, but that's not a whole story. We know it. So, tell a more expansive story. That's the job. That's the gig.

Deb Freeman:

But like Therese says, "Soul food shouldn't be confined to stereotypes because it was never meant to be a limiting constraint, but rather a very broad description of Black food." So how can we redefine soul food for the modern era?

Therese Nelson:

The work of a real chef is translation, is starting from a place of your particular point of view, your particular place in the world, the set of experiences, cultural references, technical ability. All of that is put into a pot and you start from that place to express, to translate what you think about food.

Therese Nelson:

Why is that different for black chefs? Why is that not the work that you're supposed to be doing. To site inspiration, site reference is necessary, but your work shouldn't be trying to recreate a modern version of the soul food restaurants that exist. Your work should be taking the same influences, tasting those flavors, deciding what you want to say as a professional chef and creating your own language.

Therese Nelson:

Of course there's going to be grown pains. Of course there's going to be messy. Of course it's going to be complicated. But I think the fruit of that labor exists in the form of really dope restaurants from all over diaspora, restaurants that aren't beholden to the narrowness of anyone else's expectations but are really asking interesting questions about how you move cuisine forward are thriving right now.

Therese Nelson:

To be a Black chef right now, in this moment, the work is so dope, so delicious. It's really asking folks about how they want to dine and what's delicious. It's fusion between communities. You exist in a place where your food is in cultural context to all kinds of other influences. And it's showing up on a play in a way I think is more soulful than anything else.

Therese Nelson:

Maybe it's not traditional, but soul food restaurants have always been in community with other cultures. So why is that not the part of the legacy we want to talk about or pay attention to.

Deb Freeman:

I want to explore more about the modern chefs who have made cooking soul food their calling. That meant, I needed to talk to chef Chris Scott.

Chris Scott:

My name is Chris Scott, and I'm a chef here in New York City and I'm calling from my restaurant, Butterfunk Biscuit Company.

Deb Freeman:

Chris is an amazing chef who's had long and storied career cooking up some really good food. You might remember Chris from his deep run on season 15 of Top Chef, where he famously called his style of cooking, Amish soul food. I've been a massive fan of his for a while and he's one of the best people I know to talk to about Black food.

Chris Scott:

Amish soul food to me is regular food. It's certainly what I grew up on. The best way to describe it, my family is originally from Virginia and during the great migration north, they relocated to an area called Coatesville, Pennsylvania, which is smack dab in between Philly and Lancaster County, more leaning towards Lancaster county. So they started to co-mingle with some of the Amish folk and the Pennsylvania Dutch, the German, the Dutch cuisine that they have.

Chris Scott:

It was sort of like the best of both worlds came together. You have Southern food from Virginia, that Tidewater kind of feel, and now here they are a couple hundred miles north and Coatesville intermingling with a new style of cuisine and what was happening in the area.

Chris Scott:

So by the time that I was born, that stuff was already on the table. To me, it seemed completely normal. I just happened to coin that phrase when I was on the show. And I guess because no one said it before, it sort of became a thing. It's plain and simple. It's the food that me and my family were raised on.

Deb Freeman:

Chris believes that food should tell a story. And that belief also informs his approach to soul food.

Chris Scott:

Soul food is, it's our story. It's the joy and pain. It's a lot of things that go deeper than just what's right in front of your face, much deeper than what anyone or any of us can put on the plate. Soul food is regional first off. So, like even down south, you have some of the low country or you have the Creole or what's happening between the Florida panhandle all the way to Texas. And then you start moving your way up into the Tidewater different regions there. And then you go a little bit west from there, it's more barbecuish. Then you come find your way up to the north where more ingredients kind of came into play like sugar and cream and butter, where people of folks could afford to have some money to put that into the food. But I think that when you look at the regions of Southern cuisine, that tells the story. It's a way of life.

Chris Scott:

It tells our story through the food, all the way from the women that fried chicken and sold it to the travelers on the train, all the way from the bakers that did the cornbread, the flat breads, the biscuits. And then to take it even deeper, the roti, the injera, things of that nature. Because it has so many left and right turns, it's not always directly straight.

Chris Scott:

To me, soul food is more of our story. It's our way of life. We just communicate that through our food. So having that opportunity to tell that story about my youth and this food, that's everything. To me, it's always about giving back and telling the origins of who we are and as individuals, because every single Black person has their own, of course, soul food story, but their Black family story too.

Chris Scott:

And there are similarities in that, but also a lot of different things too. This kind of gives you a lot of insight to me, to where I'm from, to who raised me, to these two women that raised me, to how we ate and so on and so on.

Deb Freeman:

Just like with my Nana, Chris's grandmother plays a big role in his story. And I asked him to share some of his memories of her.

Chris Scott:

Nana always had a green thumb. She would grow anything from like rhubarb to tomatoes. She even tried her hand at a Japanese peach tree that she planted in the backyard one time, but the worms and the birds got to that.

Chris Scott:

But almost every single thing that she would grow, she would use in the house, either for salads or for canning or just to throw together real fast. And squash, the pies. She was so creative like that.

Chris Scott:

Right next door was a lady. Her name was Mrs. Mitchum, and she grew Concord grapes. They would trade off. They would lift the bag over the backyard fence and Nana would can some of her Concord grapes, and then the lady next door would maybe can some tomatoes or so.

Chris Scott:

But Nana always had a green thumb, and she was always very conscious about what was happening in the garden with the climate. She knew when to pick, when not to pick, when to water, when she could get the best use of a tomato or a cucumber or whatever it is that she was growing to pickle it, and even knowing when to bust that out. Either make it like a chow chow or something sweet. And she was handy like that.

Deb Freeman:

I wanted to get Chris's thoughts on what Therese had mentioned about the stag nature of how soul food is perceived versus the dynamic nature of what soul food can be.

Chris Scott:

I love the fact that there are Southern chefs that stay true to what our ancestors ate, because I think that's important. I think that it's great to taste those flavors, to still master those techniques, because a lot of people will look at soul food and they'll go, "Oh man, that's the easiest food ever. You just dump something in the fryer, you add a bunch of fat or whatever."

Chris Scott:

There was a lot of technique in that style, is a lot of technique in that style, which people just disregard and sideline. I think that soul food purists that still cook that way, it's brilliant. But there is a great number of us who are rooted in that, like myself, who are changing it a little bit at a time. I will probably never go way off the deep end, but sometimes I like to have one foot in and one foot out.

Chris Scott:

Just yesterday I was doing a cornbread recipe where rather than make the recipe all in one shot, I make a corn meal sponge. So I take some sourdough starter. I add a little bit more buttermilk to that and then the corn meal. And just let that sit for about 48 hours. When you come in the next day, the fermentation process really gets... You really taste that sourdough funk, but it's not too much. And then I add goat milk to that, goat milk and buttermilk, proceed with the eggs, the sugar, this and that, and then you bake it.

Chris Scott:

The texture of it was super moist. You know how when you have good buttermilk and you get that tang, picture that times five with a little bit of the honey butter in there, a little bit of sea salt. I'm telling you this, that's going to be my new joint now.

Chris Scott:

So every single time I do cornbread, I think that this new way that I've been experimenting with is the way that I'm going to do it. But that's what I mean, it's still rooted in culture. It's still rooted in ingredient-focused stuff. All I did was tweak a few things here and there to really elevate the science of it.

Deb Freeman:

That sourdough sounds amazing. And I'm going to need that recipe ASAP. But before saying goodbye to Chris, I wanted to get his thoughts on how he thinks soul food can move onward and upward as a modern cuisine.

Chris Scott:

You know what I would like to see, for real. So you know how a lot of chefs will always travel around and they'll go from place to place, and they'll try to stash at different restaurants in different parts of the world.

Chris Scott:

Like for example, you'll go and you'll have a guy who wants to do a stash at Per Se. And then once he's done that Per Se, they'll send him to Chicago and he'll work with Charlie Trotter; once he's done at Charlie Trotter, he'll send him to some other chef.

Chris Scott:

What I want to see is chefs taking an interest in Black food and coming and doing a stash in our restaurants, like knowing what a ham hock is and how to really use it. What does it do in our food? Knowing about collar greens, knowing about chow chows, knowing about Haitian pickles and pickles in general or any of the breads that we do.

Chris Scott:

I would like to see people of all races doing stashes in Black food focused restaurants. And then I think from there that they'll be able to kind of branch out and do their own thing. And then I think that you'll see more of a change in the way that soul food is.

Chris Scott:

If they're true to it and keep like I do, keep one foot in maybe one foot out every now and then, I think that there's so many possibilities to what soul food could even look like in 10, 15 years from now. I would like to see that happen first, to where people were taking interests and doing stash at the Red Rooster, coming here and learning breads made from brown countries, learning all of that stuff.

Deb Freeman:

I absolutely love this idea of stashing at black restaurants and then taking that knowledge to the next level. If any chefs are listening, y'all should make that happen. Our last guest for this episode is another prominent chef who's on the cutting edge of modern soul food.

Mashama Bailey:

My name is Mashama Bailey, and I am a chef, and I'm calling from Austin, Texas.

Deb Freeman:

Mashama is a James Beard award-winning chef and is the co-owner of The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, one of the top restaurants in the nation. The restaurant just happens to be a formally segregated Greyhound bus terminal. Talk about juxtaposition.

Deb Freeman:

I was excited to catch Michelle while she was in Austin, Texas, where she's opening two new restaurants this year. Like with Therese and Chris, I wanted to get her thoughts on the term soul food.

Mashama Bailey:

I think I'm a little ambivalent. I love the word soul. I love food. I think saying those two things make perfect sense to me. And I know when I say those two words together that I'm talking about my particular experience. I'm not necessarily talking about what soul food has been conveyed as out in the world or in the media.

Mashama Bailey:

From a personal perspective, I don't think it's outdated. But I do think from a media perspective, I can see how some people would say that it's just a blanket, it's outdated and it just needs to go away, especially as more and more black chefs arise to a position of influence. I think that it seems small now. It doesn't give us our full due.

Deb Freeman:

Michelle's cooking is a reflection of her own life's journey. Having cooked in restaurants from New York City; to Burgundy, France; to Savannah, Georgia; and now in Austin, Michelle has shared some of her thoughts about her cooking and how she ended up cooking her style of food.

Mashama Bailey:

My cooking is all over the place. I feel like I got a real... I grew up in New York City, heavily influenced by New York City deli's and bodegas. I'm also influenced by Korea and China and Italy and France.

Mashama Bailey:

And so when I was growing up and I wanted to cook food professionally, I wasn't very interested in learning how to cook soul food. I was interested in learning how to cook everything else. Not because I cooked soul food particularly well, but because I was interested all types of food. And so I think for me, because I was very interested in learning how to cook from a European point of view, because I think I like the structure of it and I liked the record keeping of it. I liked the recipes of it and the techniques. I kind of went that route, but it wasn't until I opened up a restaurant that I was like, "Girl, you need to look into the things that are really going to make your food different and special."

Mashama Bailey:

Because it wasn't until I opened The Grey was when I really started to think about what I was trying to say and who I was there to represent. And that's when I started to look at the things that were going to keep me grounded. And that kept me motivated.

Mashama Bailey:

I remember when I started cooking, my grandmother, she would just say, "Oh, well, you have to be careful about what you put in your belly, and you can't go out eating all that stuff," she would say if I went to go eat oysters with friends, or if I had like beef tartar or something like that. She'd be like, "Oh, you can't put all that stuff in your stomach. You have to protect your stomach."

Mashama Bailey:

You have to kind of eat the food that we've been raised on is what she was implying. I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Mashama Bailey:

This is a whole different thing and I'm learning so much and I'm learning about French food and I'm learning about Italian food and I'm learning about Spanish food. It's fine because that food has its own history too. And it wasn't until I opened up The Grey when it was like, "I want to cook the food that nourishes me and that I find nourishing and that I found comforting and craveable," and that's when I made the connection to what she was saying. And I think that's when my food started to take a turn for the better.

Deb Freeman:

Mashama's experiences culminated into a unique spin on food that has served at The Gray.

Mashama Bailey:

I guess if I were to put a phrase to it, it would be "port city Southern" by way of the African diaspora. Right? So it's like, there is this kind of nod to west Africa, definitely a nod to Black Americans or Blacks in the south, a nod to servitude to Blacks in the homes of rich people cooking those types of foods. And maybe that's where the French techniques or the Spanish techniques make sense in Black kitchens, because we kind of do a little bit of that crossover.

Deb Freeman:

And how did the dires of Savannah take to Mashama's port-city-Southern food?

Mashama Bailey:

I think it was mostly positive. I don't think everything was really relatable. We were far more rustic in the beginning, doing pork shanks and greens with cornbread and grilled steaks.

Mashama Bailey:

My maternal grandmother worked in a daycare for many, many years, and she was by far one of the best cooks in the family that I can remember. But I would visit her in Georgia and she would always have something on the stove. And often she would make a pasta, spaghetti with brown beef, tomato and cheddar cheese. I don't know if anybody out there knows what that is, but I often ate that in the summertime when we would go and visit her. It was a good pot of food. And so when I came to Savannah, talking to my Italian business partner, I was like, "We got to do a pasta like that," and I think he almost fell over.

Mashama Bailey:

And so I figured out a way to do my own take on what would be a country pasta, which is basically like a play on carbonara with a braised pork belly and egg yolks and black pepper. So that was on the opening menu. We did like a sizzly pig, a lot of pork on the opening menu, actually. Some whole-grilled fish and people were into that. Some people were looking for fried chicken, and I kind of kept that at bay for as long as I could. People were looking for shrimp and grits, and I kept that at bay. And I think now that I'm a little bit more comfortable in my voice, I don't mind bringing those things into my repertoire. But I think in the beginning, I didn't want to be defined by people's expectations of what they thought I was going to be cooking. I wanted to cook stuff that was really a little bit different, a little bit closer to why I got into food.

Deb Freeman:

Like Chris, Mashama is interested in pushing the boundaries of what soul food can mean by utilizing the many skills and techniques she has learned throughout her career.

Mashama Bailey:

I think we're probably cooking more from our own personal experience, not from what people are looking from us. I think we're traveling more. We have way more exposure. We're moving away from where we were raised and going away to schools and coming back or going across this water, the country, going to Africa. We're seeing way more things firsthand. And I think that level of exposure is influencing our foods. And so I think that we still are coming from authentic places that are black and beautiful, but we are also seeing more.

Mashama Bailey:

So by us seeing more that also we're artists. We're creatives. So that's going to play in how we're even preparing something. Even if we fry fish, we're probably going to use a method that we prefer. If it's going to be lighter, then maybe we're frying fish in a more Korean way or a more Japanese way or more Scandinavian way versus how we may have learned to do it growing up from our grandmothers or growing up from the neighborhood chicken, a waffle spot. Maybe we're doing it just a little bit differently so we can incorporate more flavor. We can have more crunch. We can have more texture.

Mashama Bailey:

I think that's how we're elevating our perspectives and food. And I think that has a lot to do with me. I've been exposed to a lot, so that comes back to show in my food. And so I experiment and I change dishes and I create from that place because my food is very different 10 years ago, five years ago, last year.

Deb Freeman:

I asked Mashama if the term soul food is outdated and if there's even a place for it today.

Mashama Bailey:

Can we just be Black and cooking, or can we just be chefs. Can't we just be good at what we do. Because we always have to be excellent. We always have to be labeled. And there always has to be something that is attached to what we do, so people know that we are Black Americans living in this country doing extraordinary things.

Mashama Bailey:

But can't we just be extraordinary people in this country doing extraordinary things. And so, I don't know, I don't really care. I use the word because I was born in the 70s and it's just in me, so I'm going to forever use that word. But if my nephew never says soul food, it wouldn't bother me. I would not miss it coming out of his mouth. So I don't know. I don't think it defines us. I just think that we're above and beyond it. And I think there was a time and place for it. And I think that we've been through a lot, and we have to show ourselves love in so many different ways. And I think that soul food was definitely a way that we showed ourselves love. And I think as long as its continued to be used in that way, then I'm for it. But as soon as it starts to feel like it's being exploited, then I'm not for it.

Deb Freeman:

This has been Setting the Table. I'd like to thank my guests: Therese Nelson, Chris Scott and Mashama Bailey. Check out Therese's work preserving the culinary history of black food at blackculinaryhistory.com.

Deb Freeman:

Next time you're in New York City, check out Chris's restaurant Butterfunk Biscuit Company, located in Harlem. And be on the lookout for his upcoming cookbook, Homage: Recipes and Stories From an Amish, Soul Food Kitchen. And if you get the chance, definitely pay a visit to one Mashama's restaurants: The Grey in Savannah, The Grey Diner Bar in Austin and The Gray Market in both Savannah and Austin. Her cookbook/ memoir, Black, White and the Gray, co-written with The Grey co-owner John O. Morisano, is available now at book sellers everywhere.

Deb Freeman:

Setting the Table is part of Whetstone Radio Collective. Thank you to the Setting the Table team: producer, Marvin Yeah; audio editor, Evan Lindsay; researcher Havin Obasilase; and intern Kai Stone.

Deb Freeman:

I'd also like to thank Whetstone founder Steven Sauerfield, Whetstone Radio Collective head of podcast, Fling Glazier; sound engineer, Max Katellchuk; associate producer, Quentin Lebeau; production assistant, Amalisa Utinko; and sound intern, Simon Lavender; cover art created by Whetstone art director, Alexandra Bowman.

Deb Freeman:

Our theme music is Who's Back in Town by Sammy Miller and the Congregation. You can learn more about this podcast at whetstoneradio.com, on Instagram and Twitter at Whetstone Radio, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, Whetstone Radio Collective for more podcast video content. You can learn more about all things happening at Whetstone at whetstonemagazine.com. Until next time, I'm Deb Freeman.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

West Africa was the center of cotton production as early as the 11th century. But we often don't hear about this history. When we do hear about Black people in cotton, it is almost exclusively through the lens of slavery and the Americas. However, Tropical Africans were enslaved in no small part because of their expertise in agricultural cultivation and their experience in textile manufacture. In his book, Precolonial African Material Culture, my dad, Baba, has a chapter specifically on textile manufacturing.

Tarik Farrar:

One was that kind of old, that demon, that's still inside of me, of Africans of the Tarzan movies, and Africans running around almost naked or running around wearing raggedy animal skins. Even when Africans wore animal skins they were not raggedy, they tended to be very well made. But textile manufacturing in particular, I talk about barkcloth, which is not technically a textile. Textile manufacturers involves weaving in particular. It fascinated me because what's clearly the case is that as early as 500 BC people in West Africa where weaving something. Now we know that from the archeological culture, Nigeria, the Nok, N-O-K culture, which was long seen as the earliest iron working culture in West Africa, now it turned out not to be the case. But it was like 500 BC, it's in Nigeria.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

For some context in 500 BC, the entire world population was a hundred million and only 15 million humans inhabited the Western Hemisphere. All to say, textile cultivation and production in Tropical Africa is ancient and has a long history.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

My name is Teju Adisa-Farrar, speaking to you from the unseated territory of the Ohlone people. Welcome back to Black Material Geographies. Throughout the continent of Africa, humans were producing fiber and creating textiles in a way that we would now consider regenerative. For several centuries most products were created using only local natural materials because that's what was mostly available. From batik fabric to [mud cloth 00:10:43], there are thousands of traditions in Tropical Africa that use natural fibers to create cloth and use plants to dye them.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

Mud cloth dates back to before the 12th century and originated in the country now called Mali. The Bambara people created and perfected this process. The Bambara word for mud cloth is Bògòlanfini. "Bògò" means clay or mud, "lan" means by way, and "fini" means cloth. Even in the language it describes the materials used in the process. Baba explains the process of how some fabrics were made in precolonial Africa.

Tarik Farrar:

The whole business of making cotton textiles, the types of looms, that kind of double-head loom, which was first invented in Iran and Persia centuries ago. And it spread throughout West Asia and North Africa, as a result of the spread of Islam. That all came in one package. The people who adopted this technology modified it. They took that loom and they transformed it. So, rather than producing wide strips of cloth, for example, they tended to produce very narrow strips of cloth, long narrow strips of cloth, which they then wove together.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

Which is how mud cloth is made also?

Tarik Farrar:

Yes. Yes. I mean, because that's the way that it gets transformed in Africa. And then something like mud cloth, for example, the way that dyeing takes place is also something that's developed locally. So the technology is introduced a thousand years ago, but very quickly it's adapted to local tastes, and the availability of things to use is dye. Indigo dye, for example, is very common in West Africa, comes from two different plants. And that was something that was mastered in West Africa, particularly in the region that's now covers most of Northern Nigeria in adjacent parts of Niger. Primarily the Hausa people developed this type of indigo dyeing, which became very popular throughout the Islamic world. And some of the cloths found its way in Spain because it was this really lustrous deeply dyed indigo.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

So well before the trans-Atlantic slave trade artisanally made African textiles were finding their way around the Eastern Hemisphere of the world. Beyond textiles, the landscape of Africa has been transported around the world to benefit all of us. It is really not an exaggeration to say that all of us have a piece of Africa in our homes.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

The world owes a debt to Africa for the resources that have been extracted that we all interact with and use on a daily basis. Approximately $41 billion leaves Africa every year. But when put in context of the overall GDP of Africa, it's over $7 trillion. One of the most well-known resources extracted from central Africa is cobalt, which is a mineral used in nearly every smartphone, laptop, and electrical vehicle battery.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

Most of the world's cobalt comes from the Congo, which sits on top of more than three million metric tons of cobalt, which is about half of the planet's supply. The Congo's resource-rich lands have been plundered by Western powers for centuries. The Congo was a colony of Belgium until 1961, and under King Leopold II, as many as 10 million Congolese were killed. Some refer to this as the Rubber Terror. It has been called that because most of the violence and killing was done to extract natural rubber from the Congo for export, mostly to Europe and other places in the West. Kenyan artist, Tahir Karmali's series called STRATA, thinks about this extraction of materials from Africa and who benefits from it.

Tahir Karmali:

I just really interested in this notion of extraction of material from one location to be burned or used in another place. That eventually in the long run affects the environment and the ecology of which that material has been mined for the betterment of the simplicity of people's lives outside of that particular place. And then now, thinking about it in a larger scale, just how much Africa in general, especially Sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing these problems of climate change and climate degradation around them, for pretty much something that a lot of the people that live in that part of the world are not responsible for. It's an unfortunate reality where materials are extracted from one place, burnt in another place, with a betterment of other people. And then the degradation of the landscape from the people that those materials were originally extracted from, which is just a terrible reality, honestly.

Tahir Karmali:

And so the STRATA series really kind of focuses on that particular aspect of how supply chain works, and supply chain economics works, and then how these materials are transported from one place to another. And so that's basically kind of like the impetus of like thinking about the STRATA series, especially when it comes to mining and extraction of materials from the Congo, specifically.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

As with most extraction, the degradation takes place on the land, our physical environment, and the humans who are forced to provide the labor. The violence done to the earth to extract the resources that create the materials of our lives, has also been done to Black bodies whose livelihoods and lives depend on our consumption. When we look at material culture we have to understand not only its impact on the physical environment, but also the impact on our social and cultural environment. So while cobalt is central to the technological architecture of our everyday lives, Tahir thinks of textiles as part of human architecture in our everyday lives.

Tahir Karmali:

Well, I think textile is like our primary architecture. Like the first thing that really, when you think about the structures that surround us in terms of protection. The first thing that you put on your body is a textile. And so I think that I like using textiles because in its abstraction, because it's so immediately references the body, and anything to do with fibers or anything that we put close to ourselves. And also I really like textile because of its ability to sort of take different forms and channels in physical spaces. And it's easier to use textiles to reference the body. Especially, if you look at a lot of my work, they have this sort of more portrait versus the landscape orientation. So, it's definitely to do with how close we are to interacting with these materials. Everybody, but most people in the world are always constantly interacting with these fibers and textiles, and what is the material that surrounds it.

Tahir Karmali:

And also, especially with textiles, what's really interesting is how all of them are just made so differently. And how a lot of people are very unaware of how textile is made or even like cotton or... A lot of people actually, they can understand that cotton is grown, but they don't really understand necessarily how cotton becomes something. Or even silk, or how even raffia or Kuba cloth, or even mud cloth for that matter, literally that's cotton. But a lot of people don't really understand how textiles come into being, which I think it's interesting as a way to sort of teach people about how textiles are actually made, but then also pair it with a story which has a larger context.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

One such textile that Tahir works with is Kuba cloth. Kuba cloth has a long history in East and Central Africa. Like mud cloth, traditional Kuba is created using plants that grow naturally in the region in which it is made.

Tahir Karmali:

Kuba cloth is basically a raffia product, so it's made from raffia. It's very close to a palm based product. So that's basically dried and woven together and then beat so that it becomes sort of soft like a cotton, almost. And typically used for either room dressing or dressing architecture like interior adornment, also used for ceremonial performances and purposes. So, it's something that's like very dear to the Kuba Kingdom and Kuba tribes. It's typically dyed with a type of root, of which I should actually have on hand. It's a kind of... How do I say? Root dye and it's called [twool 00:12:06], actually. And it comes from also a fruit as well. And so they believe a lot about that dye holds some elements of spirituality, and so some of it is dyed. And it's interesting because it's a collaborative process between men and women as well in the tribe where the men weave and beat the cloth together.

Tahir Karmali:

Well, the women weave and then the men beat the cloth, and then they harvest the raffia itself. And then it's later adorned and dyed by the women. It's kind of interesting because the cloth itself, how they decide to create the patterns is very modernist. And it has these sort of abstract forms that are not necessarily something that you would typically associate with what the West would typically associate with African pattern making. And they're just really incredibly beautiful, especially the traditional ones, like the really old ones are very interesting. Nowadays you see a lot of Kuba cloth in interior design, you see it in Restoration Hardware.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

Similar to Collective Closets, Tahir's art brings traditional artisanal African practices into modern conversations about aesthetics. Just as Mudcloth has become a popular home decor trend without any mention of its West African origins, you've probably seen a contemporary imitation of Kuba cloth and not even known.

Tahir Karmali:

And all of these sort of upscale furniture businesses in stores, and so they have these, they make cushions out of it, they make all these kind of things. But what they're using, isn't sort of like the traditional authentic way of actually making it. It's kind of like a short process, so it's similar to how you have fast fashion, there's also fast interiors. So, they just don't take the time work with villages and work with people to actually make it. They kind of develop like a... Appropriate the pattern making side of it, and a little bit to do with the raffia. I guess they use a little bit of raffia, but the way that they treat it's like a thicker weave. It's not necessarily as fine or as refined as traditional Kuba cloth.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

What is part of the process of creating the traditional Kuba cloth that you can identify as being different from this manufactured Kuba cloth?

Tahir Karmali:

Well, you see they have this really thicker sort of warp and weft. The warps and wefts of the textile are thicker, so they're less refined. In Kuba cloth, when you pull apart the leaves of the raffia after it's dried, they would actually pull thinner strands versus thicker strands. And so you would have thinner strands of raffia, which makes it sort of softer and more malleable. Then that would then be later beaten until it becomes soft and then the fibers are broken.

Tahir Karmali:

The horizontal fibers go in one direction, once those are beaten, they can kind of like separate even further. So, then it actually feels very similar to a raw silk or like a raw cotton or thin cotton material. It bends easier and it has a better drape and then it feels better on the body. But what you have with these other fast interior... Yes, they would use raffia, they would use these materials, but you'll have a wider warp and weft. So, you can actually visually see the weaving itself, but like the traditional Kuba cloth, you'll have to go really, really close to it to actually see the actual weave in the textile itself.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

Authentic Kuba cloth is made by people from the Kuba tribe. The process is not fast and requires a lot of skill, often when traditional African culture is appropriated the version that results is much cheaper and less refined. But even before cultural appropriation, colonial powers literally took material culture out of Africa. Kuba cloth is one example.

Tahir Karmali:

Well, I think for the most part, when you see commercial Kuba cloth, like things in interior design stores, very few of them are actually from the Kuba tribes or the Kuba Kingdoms. Because actually a majority of them are acquired, well, not acquired, but were stolen and placed in museums across the world. So, a lot of the ones that you see in interior stores that would either be made somewhere in China or some sort of fast producing factory country in Africa. I can't imagine Restoration Hardware or anyone actually going to a village and waiting years for the amounts of product that they need, because it is a very slow process.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

About how long does it take to produce a garment for example, or a large piece of cloth that you might use for an installation?

Tahir Karmali:

Well, for me, it like a year to get all of the pieces of Kuba cloth that I needed. They're using this primarily for their own traditional ceremonial and adornment purposes. There might be some villages and some people who have managed to sort of turn it into an export business, but there's no way that these can actually get that refined level of Kuba cloth to a large market like Restoration Hardware or places that have such a high turnover. But you would be able to go to an antique store or some places in here in Brooklyn that specifically have African textiles. Those would be the incredibly expensive pieces of textile compared to what would be sold in a more sort of commercial space.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

In the Western world, we walk around consuming culture that has originated on the continent of Africa, with little or no recognition given to indigenous Africans who cultivated and developed aesthetics that so many humans around the world appreciate today. The exclusion of pre-colonial Africa's contributions to the world is a result of racist ideas developed to justify looting Africa and enslaving Africans in the Americas. Baba's book aims to challenge the stereotypes of Africa's inferiority.

Tarik Farrar:

The first half of the book simply looks at the development of the ideas about black inferiority. The first half deals with that, and how these ideas get into when African history begins to develop people begin to pay attention to it. In the second half of the 20th century, you begin to get African history classes. This notion of Africa has all of these ideas in it. These racist ideas that come from the past. So, what the first half of the book does is it follows the development of these ideas and then it attempts to refute them. But in order to refute them, of course you have to provide evidence of that.

Tarik Farrar:

And that's where the second half of the book comes in. It looks at these different aspects of material culture, African farming agriculture is seen as being primitive and back, that has to be addressed, and it does. The idea that African metallurgy of all things was somehow primitive. African made better steel than Europeans did for centuries. For centuries, they made better steel, better iron, the furnace technology was more advanced. The methods of producing different iron/steel of different qualities, I mean all that stuff was there. So, when Europeans first appeared in Africa, they didn't have anything to teach Africans about making iron.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

When we look to the past, we are able to understand why certain things now are overlooked and intentionally ignored. Thinking about materials, be it intellectually, as Baba does, using art as Tahir does, or in your brand as Collective Closets is doing, gives us insight into our current realities.

Tahir Karmali:

Any way of making something in this kind of old school or traditional way has always fascinated me. And I don't think that necessarily to talk about our contemporary issues, do we have to use contemporary materials to do so. I think that you can critique the world around us still using these older sort of strategies. And I kind of like that.

Tahir Karmali:

It's not that I'm like a Luddite in any way. I do think that technology has some benefits, but I think about how do we make people understand that there is a materiality and a humanity behind all of these particular machines that we use day to day. Because for the most part, a lot of them exist in our world in this kind of alien way. Like if you think about how you open an iPhone box or like how you would engage with an LED screen, it just feels very removed from sort of a tangible human reality. So, I like this idea of converting these materials into something that is immediately attached to our body. Because essentially they are actually made from our planet and they are actually helpful, but also very harmful at the same time, like everything else around us.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

It's time for the wind down. I invite you to take a deep breath and stretch your body. Release tension in your shoulders, jaw, neck. Taking a moment to reflect on and process our conversations today, our journey into traditional African textiles and artisanal approaches to fiber, our journey of honoring the earth under the continent of Africa that all humans benefit from. Let's just take a few moments to reflect on the themes we dove into today. I invite you to take a deep breath and thank yourself for listening to something new today. I invite you to take a deep breath and reflect on this debt we owe to Africa, to the humans whose labor creates our material realities. They are the ones owe our lifestyle to. Thank you to the land from which the world's resources come, Africa. Thank you for caring about Africa's innovative, ancient past, and honoring its future. Thank you for listening, learning, and experiencing the material geographies that we are all made of.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

You can subscribe to Black Material Geographies anywhere you get your podcast. Black Material Geographies is part of Whetstone Radio Collective. This podcast is a team effort. Thank you to the Black Material Geographies team, my Producer, Tiffani Rozier; Audio Editor, Rhae Royal; Researcher, Haven Ogbaselase; and Intern, Kai Stone.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

I'd also like to thank Whetstone founder, Stephen Satterfield; Whetstone Radio Collective Head of Podcast, Celine Glasier; Sound Engineer, Max Kotelchuck; Associate Producer, Quentin Lebeau; Production Assistant, Amalissa Uytingco; and Sound Intern, Simon Lavender. With music by Philip Kelechi Nnamdi Iroh.

Teju Adisa-Farrar:

You can learn more about this podcast at whetstoneradio.com, on Instagram and Twitter at @whetstoneradio. Subscribe to our YouTube channel Wetstone Radio Collective for more podcast video content. You could learn more about all things happening at Whetstone at whetstonemagazine.com.