You just released your documentary titled ‘Niguse and The Red Terror.’ How did that project come together?

Just some backstory: Niguse and The Red Terror was a film I directed and produced via my company, Third World Vision. I put it into the world on December 10, 2020, though the film was shot in June of 2016. It explores the story of my uncle, Niguse Girmay Hadera, a revolutionary that was killed in the 1970s during the reign of the DERG regime in Ethiopia. I found out about him over 30 years after his death.  and I went back to Ethiopia to document his story. The initial plan was to share it as a part of my thesis during final year of my MFA in Acting program at Brown University/Trinity Rep, but I decided to present something else. 

The song itself, didn’t appear until much later in the film making process. I had a rough cut of my documentary, and then I found out my grandmother, Niguse’s mother had passed on August 1st, 2020. Then, I took that month to process. I write music almost every day, a habit that hasn’t left me since the age of 10. I had released an instrumental EP, Cry Curious in August, and in the following weeks, I think I just put my grief into my production and writing. I wrote and recorded about seven songs that week. I remember just being exhausted and sleeping for hours at the end of that week, I think both from the mental strain of the grief and the creative output. 

After getting my energy back, I worked on the final edit of the documentary. Then, the news about Ethiopia started to come in and I heard the lyrics in a new way. I remember the moment I added the song to the end of the film, and excitedly calling my sister at 2am with goosebumps. It felt like the edit and the song linked up so well and I was excited to share it. It was a beautiful reminder to me that the process is the prize. Had I not committed to writing music and creating consistently, the stars wouldn’t have been able to align for that exciting moment. Some days are harder than others, and most times the creative process is frustrating, but those special moments where what is in my head comes together (and hopefully has impact and resonance) is a feeling I love.

A powerful moment in the song came as you repeat the words your mom said to you, “I ain’t come all this way, I ain’t almost die.” I felt that. What is your relationship like with the inherited responsibility from your parents and the generations before? 

Funny thing is, I don’t really recall her saying those exact words. I do remember a time when I came home from a thrift store she said, “I didn’t become a refugee for you to wear someone else’s clothes.” When I wrote the lyrics though, I was imagining we were arguing and she’s giving me her perspective (“I ain’t come all this way…”) and I was responding (“I ain’t almost die”). When I was born, I was 3 months premature, with bleeding in my brain, and intestinal failure. I was given a 25% chance to live, but miraculously survived.

My relationship with “inherited responsibility” is complex and I’m still figuring it out. For a lot of my life, it felt like this mountain I had to climb, and no matter what, I would never reach the peak. I was not Black enough, Habesha enough, well-behaved enough, too fat, too talkative. There was a lot of cultural confusion for me and I built up a lot of self-hate. As I got older though, I learned I couldn’t keep running away from my family, my history, or my culture  because in doing that I was running away from myself. So, I chose to dive in, and the pandemic, the war in Ethiopia, the recent passing of my family members, and this documentary brought out more things to unpack.

I’ve learned that my relationship to what I inherited and what I am responsible for is ever-evolving and I may never have a clear answer. I do my best to focus on what I can control, which includes taking care of my health in all aspects and practicing vulnerability, accountability, and integrity, in order to make that mountain more climbable.  Like anything, it has its ups and down, and I’m definitely better than I was. 

With the violence currently ongoing across Ethiopia, this song carries a new weight for me and potentially other listeners too. What do you believe we can learn from previous generations on living in & persevering through times of conflict?

Yea, with every news update the song had new resonance. Ethiopia wasn’t at war when I wrote “Her country at war and my country at war.” White supremacists had not stormed the U.S. Capital yet. It’s unfortunate that those words later have a more immediate resonance. I wish that was not the case.

Because of the documentary, I’ve been fortunate to talk to the pillars in my family, the elders. Learning about them, and who they were taught me that everything I have is inside of me, another type of inheritance. My inheritance is not “struggle” but “resilience in spite of resistance”. They taught me that my mind is the first battlefield. My father used to always remind me, “People will call you Black, Habesha, purple, orange. No matter what people call you, remember you are a child of God and you are loved.” In the difficult times in my life, it has been powerful to know I am loved, and that I belong to something bigger than myself. I’ve seen how important community is to sustaining “self”, to pour into others and allow them to pour into you. 

As someone who has had their own struggles with mental health, I’m a huge advocate of therapy, and if you have access to it, I highly encourage it. Therapy has provided me with knowledge and tools to help myself through low moments, and in this pandemic, those tools have been life savers. In moments when I don’t have access to therapy, I read a lot of books on healing from trauma, building perseverance, and staying consistent. It creates a feedback loop of encouragement in my head. I’ve found that I deal differently with myself. I’m not mean to myself, I don’t belittle myself, which was very different from where I was in 2013/2014. I’m becoming more concerned with learning and listening to myself, and seeing where and how I can be a support to others in my community. I found when I do my best to be of service, to myself and others, my ego gets out of the way and fear and shame take a backseat. I’ve seen a lot of resources online around healing from trauma and I’m inspired by what folks are doing to break generational trauma, whether through art, music, poetry, film, writing, mutual aid, community programs. It’s going to take a while, but I’m hopeful that we can craft a new way forward and inspire the people to come together and abolish systems of oppression.