When I started this job a year ago, I made it a point that we would use Teen Vogue as a platform to be unequivocally unapologetic. So this past fashion month in September, when I observed, once again, the mistreatment and erasure of black voices in fashion, I found myself awake at 3 a.m., pacing the floor of my hotel room, wondering what more could be done.
One night, in particular, kept me up—I was on a panel talking about inclusivity with rapper Jane Chika Oranika, better known as Chika, and fashion designer Dapper Dan during Paris Fashion Week at the Business of Fashion symposium.The panel was fantastic, especially since I received word that I had made the Business of Fashion 500 list. How exciting! I thought, only to quickly learn that my friend Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss had helped Business of Fashion with ideas for the cover and was ultimately left out of the final product and event.
After posting on social, Kerby went on to explain the situation in detail in a post on Medium. And though there were plenty of people who talked about it on social media and rallied in support of Kerby, it became clearer than ever that the industry is overflowing with people who are jumping on the “woke” bandwagon rather than actually working to create equal representation.
A poignant quote and one of my personal favorite things Kerby said in the Medium post was “Me getting checks is not going to stop me from checking you,” so consider this cover starring Chika, wearing custom Pyer Moss and in conversation with Kerby, checkmate.
Too often black voices are silenced and told to be grateful, so this was an opportunity to bring a small part of reparations to the situation. Chika, who went viral for calling out Kanye West’s support of Donald Trump, is an incredibly talented artist who has garnered fans like Diddy and Erykah Badu with only a few songs out to date. Her conversation with Kerby, one of the most prolific designers of our time, is full of lessons and humanity—and exactly what the industry needs right now.
(This interview has been condensed for clarity.)
Kerby Jean-Raymond: So let’s start from the beginning. I’m Haitian and you’re Nigerian, right?
Chika: I'm Igbo. We're all about our money. But it's really just the energy that we bring to things. We’re a very family-oriented people, and the fashion is actually similar to a lot of Asian and Indian fashion traditions, but it's literally what each tribe brings to it. I grew up with my dad and my aunt's husband dressing the same but different, and it's literally just because of the different prideful backgrounds of each tribe, and it's actually kind of cool to watch.
KJR: You talk a lot about growing up in a religious environment. What was that like?
Chika: I grew up Pentecostal, in church every Sunday no matter what. My parents still go every Sunday and every Wednesday — we were always there.
KJR: What's at church on a Wednesday?
Chika: It's a bible study or youth service! You come home from school, you eat your little snack, and then, "Oh, it's 6 o'clock, we going to church." That was it.
KJR: My mom died when I was young, so I spent a lot of summers and weekends with my godmother, my grandmother, my aunts, and each one had their own things. A few of them were religious, and I remember my grandmother was the most religious. She had us in church every night in summertime.
Chika: Oh, absolutely not. I would have to pretend, like, "I'm sick."
KJR: The street lights come, you go get food, and you go to church. It was like that for a few summers. It was a lot.
KJR: How does your family feel about your music?
Chika: It's funny because I think they're realizing that I'm an adult and that I didn't grow up to be a bad person in any way, shape, or form. It's, in a way, helped them grow because the things that I talk about or the fact that I like to swear in my music —they learned that it's not about the words you use. It's the subject matter and the message.
KJR: What was their reaction when you first played a song for them?
Chika: I remember the first time I wrote a song about a girl, because my parents didn't know I was gay, so I had written a song about a girl. One of my cousins sent it to my mom trying to be sneaky.
KJR: Your cousin snitched on you? That’s f*cked up!
Chika: Yeah, it was in college and I'd written a song about one of my first love interests, and she sent it to my mom, and from that moment on, I've literally not given a singular f*ck about anything that they have to say about what my music is or what it isn't, because that's my reality. They can't dictate that. Even if they don't like hearing it, don't listen to it. That's literally me, though. That's the child you raised.
KJR: Now that you’ve been doing this for years, do you consider yourself famous? I mean, you’re on the cover of Teen Vogue.
Chika: There are various scales, right? For me, fame means something completely different, but now, being in it, I understand.
KJR: There's levels to this shit. But there's a level of celebrity that I wish and pray to God about, and I'll stop working if I feel like it's even coming —that level of celebrity that everybody knows everything about you, where it's like they know the names of your kids, they know what school you go to, they know how much you pay for your crib. That level of exposure, that's scary.
Chika: It's really scary. You said do I consider myself famous? No, I literally don't. I always say I ain't nobody. But I’ve always valued the work over the title and my presence. My presence means nothing if there is no kind of work to back it up. Until I feel like it's warranted, I can't say I'm famous — I don't care how many people know me.
KJR: You've got an old-school way of thinking. It’s very clear nowadays that some people are just trying to be famous, and some people are trying to be great like you.
Chika: I want longevity. It's not really about the moment because moments come and go, and I've been doing this for four years, almost. I've had waves of people being like, "She's up next" and, like, "This is it." I don't care. It doesn't mean anything. People's words are paper thin. In actuality, all I really need is for my work to back up whatever hype there maybe around my name.
KJR: This hype cycle right now scares me. And I'll just straight disappear whenever I feel like the hype is being paid attention to more than the work. It’s so scary to be known for no reason.
Chika: I can't relate and don't ever want to relate. Because what do you gain from that? There's no real takeaway from being famous for nothing.
KJR: The weirdest shit is when people just start making up stories about how they think they knew you. In the past year, I'm on like two or three new cousin group chats. Like dawg, we did not go to high school together. I don't know you. I barely know me.
Chika: Yeah, because it's more than just it being annoying. It's your mental health. Imagine every time you touch your phone, it comes with work stuff and then it comes with people who you really don't talk to and only want something from you. People look at it from the outside and see you on TV, or on Instagram and think it equates to something real.
KJR: I was naive like that too, and then I got deeper into these industries that I work in, whether it be music, fashion, or film, and you start realizing that even if you're on TV and doing all these public things, it doesn't make you rich. It doesn't make you famous. It doesn't mean you have power.
Chika: You realize that even if you have that visibility, at any moment things could change.
KJR: And with social media, it's like, you have to keep up. I can't just go into a depression state or into a hole and just disappear. You've got to keep posting and keep all of it up.
Chika: You are speaking my language. Trust me, I have run away from social media many times. I think a lot about what to do when you get to a place where you're not okay and don’t want to be on social media when you’ve already set this precedent of sharing your life constantly.
KJR: Have you had a terrible social media moment yet?
Chika: Oh, I’ve had many! But recently someone said, "Two fat black women dropped a song today, and you all should go support them." And I was like, “Okay, f*cking rude, first of all."
KJR: Just what kind of backhanded [compliment] is that?
Chika: As a gay woman, if someone were to call me the D slur, within the group of our marginalized community, typically a lot of people wouldn't be offended by that. But there are people within certain groups who do not identify with certain words because of the trauma that it elicits in their brain. So for me, I don't like people being like, "A fat rapper dropped something" because I don't associate that word with good things.
KJR: You don't even want to be a gay rapper, right? You're just a rapper.
Chika: I don't want to even be a female rapper. I'm a rapper. So for someone to have a qualifier like that and throw it out there so publicly — it feels really backhanded. I don't like [it].
KJR: You can’t make this stuff up, it’s so crazy.
Chika: Exactly! And so imagine, from each corner, getting attacked over simply saying, "This thing makes me uncomfortable. I don't like that." Like, it always happens because people are entitled to your feelings, they're entitled to the way that you want to be addressed. And when you speak up, they think that you're childish and petulant for wanting people to address you the way that you want to be addressed.
KJR: So what do you think about cancel culture?
Chika: I wonder how many people have actually been canceled? Think about that. How many people have stopped giving their dollar to a certain thing only based on the culture of cancellation? It doesn't really happen. But we do check people often nowadays.
KJR: When it pertains to #MeToo and similar situations, we’ve actually been able to see cancellations, and rightfully so.
Chika: In my mind, those are legal things that you can't run from and should be canceled for. I don't like calling it cancel culture because it gives it a lot more power than it has even gotten yet. And there are certain people who quote-unquote deserve cancellation. But in the grand scheme of things, it's really just checking people. And being like, "Hey, real quick, keep that at the door." And then for a moment, we ignore them and they get a time-out and they get to rebuild.
KJR: I hear you on that. But as I read Twitter, and lately I have to get off Twitter because it's like —
Chika: It's toxic.
KJR: — it's the ghetto.
Chika: It is.
KJR: It's the ghetto, for sure. It's literally the ghetto of thought.
KJR: It’s the childish arguments of "Let's give this person a chance. Let's not give them a chance." It's like, what is that about? Like, throwing somebody into permanent purgatory without letting them learn from their mistake. It's heinous.
Chika: People end up arguing because they can have an argument. And not because they truly believe what they're arguing about. And that goes into cancel culture because these moments should be a time for dialogue and learning. But we're not at a place where people can communicate yet without offending each other or just talk. As much as I may hate somebody, what’s more important than the opportunity to learn and [achieve] redemption?
KJR: Everything on social media is now so divisive. Which leads a bit to the story of how we met.
Chika: Well, we’re meeting for the first time in person today, but we already know each other! Do you want to get into it or should I?
KJR: No, you tell the story.
Chika: So, not too long ago, we were having a Parisian adventure, where I was brought to the Hotel de Ville to do a little gala for Business of Fashion. There was something going on behind the scenes that nobody told me about that I had to find out about the hard way, being dragged on Twitter and people asking me questions. And I was like, "What the f*ck is going on?"
There was a lot of disrespect toward you, that no one informed me of, and we ended up having a conversation, because you're a respectful human being and you were like, "Hey, real quick, just so you know, let me catch you up. We'll talk." And I was like, "All right, cool." It was one of the biggest moments in my life, also, with this looming cloud of like, "Oh. This is not cool at all."
KJR: But I think, ultimately, we need to rely on each other. Not just me and you, but like us, as a community of minorities who are coming of age together, in a space where we're trending. And we have all this — what are we going to do with all this power, right? That's like the best of questions, at this really tricky time, for us. We have to inform each other. We have to have an open line of communication. We have to be able to say, like, "Yo, I'm not f*cking with this person, because you did Chika wrong." You know what I'm saying?
Chika: Do you have mixed feelings about the situation?
KJR: I have mixed feelings about how I handled it. I posted about how I felt disrespected on Instagram, and then I went to dinner and my instant reflex was, "Take the shit down." And I honestly was just enjoying dinner and completely forgot about it. By the time we finished dinner that night around midnight, my publicist’s phone was blowing up.
My original post was just literally like, "Yo, look at this shit. Like, I feel so disrespected right now." And I didn't give the backstory of anything. And my publicist was like, "Yo, they're going to frame this. They're going to say that you're angry about a choir and that you’re nothing more than an angry black man.”
So I downloaded this app Medium and wrote it out. I sent it to Lena Waithe and a few people before I published it, but it was just so I could protect myself from the narrative being so narrow-minded.
Chika: Right, and the narrative that people continuously try to force on black people.
KJR: I guess I didn't think about collateral damage.
Chika: Then I started to get dragged on social media with people saying the event that I just performed at was a sham, and we hate you and why would you be on the cover of a publication that really isn’t here for us.
KJR: I didn't want anyone to be collateral damage, and I wasn't even making a societal statement — this was specifically my situation. Typically I like to just shut up and let people do what they do. I don't like to preach or impose or anything like that, but in this specific case, everything was different.
Chika: It was real typed out. That was a real nice, eloquent Medium post.
KJR: Well, my favorite class in college was creative writing.
Chika: What?! Mine too!
KJR: I think whatever it was, the universe bursts together, and I'm happy to be here with you. So since you liked creative writing, what’s been your process in writing music?
Chika: Most of the time I start with a concept or feeling first. If there's a concept, I know what I want the beat to sound like, the rhyme schemes I want to use, the cadence I’m going to attack it from, If I’m going to write it as a rapid-fire verse or if it’s going to be more spoken-word.
KJR: You got bars, though, I mean you really got bars.
Chika: They call me Willy Wonka.
KJR: What was a song or moment with your music that changed everything for you?
Chika: So a lot of people say the Kanye verse — was that what you would've said?
KJR: That was the most polarizing one for sure.
Chika: To be honest, it was my 1985 verse by J Cole because the Kanye verse came two days later. With that 1985 verse before the Kanye verse ended up being my biggest verse today. Everyone was like, Oh, sh*t. Who's this child?
KJR: You created the perfect storm.
Chika: All to lead up to my new EP, It's called Industry Games, which is a snapshot of where I've been for the past year. I came out to L.A. in January, and I was supposed to be out here for two weeks, and my friend Nick Cannon was like, “Yeah, I'll put you up in a spot for two weeks and just lock in and work on music.” I was like, “Tight”. From that two-week vacation or whatever, I never went home. I live here now.
I decided to call it Industry Games because there's a lot of games that are played and a lot of politicking that happens within the industry that you don't know until you get there.
I'm someone who feels like my gift was something ordained. Whatever is written out for me, it was written out for me before I got here. So this industry shit, you can have it. If I didn't know any of you, I would still be who I am, and I'm still going to do what I'm supposed to do.
KJR: It shocks me every time I speak to you how young you are and how ancestral your spirit is. I'm really proud of you. Thank you.
Credits:
Photographer: Kelia Anne
Stylist: Eric McNeal
Hair: Lacy Redway
Makeup: Porsche Cooper
Nails: Lisa Jachno
Set Design: Justin Fry
