Jamila Woods

I think it's just my nature to stay on the outside so that I can understand and observe.

The lake was always my orienting point when my dad was teaching me how to not get lost. The lake is east, so you'll always know that. It's a weird thing where you can kind of feel where you're at in Chicago, and when I was downtown, I was like, 'Oh, it feels more open over here. That must be east.' It felt like a little secret thing.

I spent a lot time with my siblings because there weren't too many young people on our block. We were our own best friends: making dances to a Stevie Wonder songs and singing with my mom.

A lot of people get Chicago wrong. I've developed this protective feeling about how we're portrayed, and at the same time, I'm acutely aware of the issues we face and the root causes of these issues.

My artistic manifesto exists in the world as poetry. So even though most of the things that I've done have been on other people's projects or could be pigeonholed in certain ways, that's not how I perceive myself.

I don't create from a place of me making art for art's sake, but wanting my work to actually do stuff... tangible things.