You Have to Care About Culture to Fuck with We Are Scorpio

Talib Kweli is a hip hop artist and activist; jessica Care moore is a poet, recording artist, filmmaker, and the founder of Black Women Rock; and Steffanie Christi’an is a singer and songwriter, who has worked with Don Was, Inner City, Taylor Mac, and many more. Together, jessica and Steffanie are the Detroit-born rock duo We Are Scorpio, and earlier this year, they released their self-titled debut record. Ahead of the Black Women Rock 20th Anniversary concert at The Fillmore Detroit, the longtime friends and collaborators got on a Zoom call to catch up about it all.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music.

Talib Kweli: So we’re just kind of chopping it up, right? How are y’all feeling?

jessica Care moore: I’m feeling great! Excited. Our record just came out. 

Talib: Yeah, I’m very excited about this record. jessica, working with you has been an amazing journey and amazing pleasure for me. One thing that’s funny about you is that you come to me with these ideas that sound like ideas, right? But by the time I follow up with you, the ideas are completed. They’re done, they’re mixed, they’re mastered. When you came to me with Black Tea, it was done. When you told me you wanted to do a movie — you were like, “I’m thinking about doing a movie,” and the next time we spoke about it, you had a grant and you had Tobias [Truvillion] in the movie [this year’s He Looked Like A Postcard]. With We Are Scorpio, I’ve been there to watch your friendship with Steffanie blossom, but when you came to talk to me about this record, it was done. So the first thing I wanted to talk to you about is: how are you doing this as a poet, as a woman, as an independent artist? How are you so prolific and so productive? We have people who have major deals, people who have funding, people who have major systems behind them who can’t create like that.

jessica: Wow. That’s a great question. I don’t have any choice in the matter. I’ve been at this, as you know, almost 30 years now, and no one has ever taken care of me. I’ve always had to take care of myself. I became an institution builder at 22, starting my first publishing house [Moore Black Press] and then publishing Saul Williams’s book. Who had the audacity to do that, at 22, 23 years old, publishing other poets in New York City? I’m a void filler by nature. I’m my daddy’s child — Tom Moore was an independent construction worker, and I never saw him work for anybody. I’m determined to not work for anyone the rest of my life. I’d like to work with people. 

But you were one of the first people who ever supported me in any kind of way. The industry didn’t really support me. But I’m a finisher. I’m a Scorpio, so I don’t like people talking shit about what they’re gonna do. And I don’t wait for people to do things for me. I remember you heard the record Black Tea and you were like, “What are you gonna do with it?” And I was like, “What are you gonna do with it?” And it was just that simple. I’m like, “Feel free to help me. You’re a rapper. You’re my friend. You have more followers and more reach online.” That’s better than any freaking record deal, or somebody who’s going to suck up all my publishing and then put me on the shelf because I’m not like Mariah Carey or Beyonce. I’m a poet. It’s different. I’m like Gil Scott-Heron. So you have to care about culture to really be fucking with me. And I know that you do.

Talib: I just read an interview with Steve Stoute — god bless Steve Stoute — he’s such a capitalist, such a businessman, but he is also such a part of our culture — someone asked him, “When did hip hop stop caring about lyricism?” And he said, “Hip hop has never cared about lyricism. It’s never been about lyrics. It’s always been about the money. It’s always been about the business.” 

jessica: [Shakes her head in disagreement.]

Talib: That’s a very bleak capitalistic look at it. He’s not entirely wrong, but he’s definitely not entirely correct about it. And it’s funny because I’ve been rewatching The Wire lately — you know, some of these TV shows, you have a different perspective when you watch them years later because you’re older. 

jessica: Yes. Love Jones — I hated Love Jones, but I like it now.

Talib: I still hate Love Jones, but we could get into that. 

jessica: [Laughs.]

Steffanie Christi’an: I’ve never watched it. 

Talib: We’ll give jessica a chance to redeem Love Jones next, because I’d like to hear that as well. But watching The Wire — all the poets I know who are so dope had to do something else to eat, and seeing Wood Harris and Sonja [Sohn], Andre Royo [acting on the show]… I knew all of them as poets, but they had to develop this other skill set just in order to eat. I mean, most of them probably was already dabbling in acting before. But I didn’t meet them as actors. It’s good to see poets out there doing it, but I also know how difficult it is as someone who’s on the lyrical side of things.

Steffanie: Yeah.

jessica: Turning poems into food is not easy, but I have been doing it quite some time. And then I had a push with the Apollo — I haven’t had a full time job since I won the Apollo. But that’s not because of the Apollo, that’s because I’ve just been reinventing myself and I have ideas. And I became a producer. That’s why I was able to get my film done: because I have an idea and I’m like, “OK, well, how am I going to produce it? I’m going to produce it.” That’s how I became a playwright. I wrote and produced my first play at the Nuyorican. That’s the hip hop in me, too. That’s the Detroit hustle. Part of hip hop culture is we create spaces where there are no spaces. 

Talib: Tell us about the film real quick. 

jessica: He Looked Like A Postcard is my first feature film. It’s about a poet; it’s loosely based on my own coming home to Detroit. Serendipity has her 10-year-old son, Idris, and she’s leaving a relationship. She’s a single mom trying to find her voice again in her city, and nobody around her is a full-time artist. Then she gets a postcard under her door, and later sees the man go past her on the skateboard, and the postcard kind of magically comes to life. There’s a love story there, but it’s really a self-love story. It’s been amazing, Talib, because it’s my first screenplay. Qasim Basir is directing it, and it got nominated for Best Feature at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival last week. I premiered it in Miami at the American Black Film Festival. Steffanie was there — women were crying at the premiere last week in Detroit. It’s been beautiful. You’re going to love it. 

I brought up Love Jones earlier because I didn’t like that film when it came out. Me and my then boyfriend, Sharrif Simmons — I just remember us hating Love Jones so much as poets, because we felt like it was corny. And this isn’t a corny film. The poems are good because I wrote them. [Laughs.] 

Talib: So you relate to Love Jones because now you’re grown up?

jessica: I mean, it’s a thing I could watch on Sundays and I don’t mind it as much. You know what I mean?

Talib: I want to qualify my statements: I said earlier that I hate Love Jones. I don’t actually hate Love Jones. That’s a strong word, and I was being very facetious. Love Jones was iconic, Love Jones was revolutionary, Love Jones opened a lot of doors for Black filmmaking, for poetry. With that being said, me as a man, I just didn’t believe… And I love all the people involved  — I love Bill Bellamy.

Steffanie: Larenz Tate. 

Talib: But I just didn’t have somebody like Bill Bellamy in my crew. He was fucking evil! And Nia Long was putting that boy through the motions. I think it was probably more about what I was going through with women at the time. I was like, “Yo, man, he don’t deserve all that! That’s a good brother! That’s a renaissance man! He do poetry, he ride a motorcycle, everything!”

jessica: He was hot, yeah. Larenz Tate is hotter now than he was then. He’s gotten better in time.

Talib: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

jessica: [Laughs.] 

Talib: Now, Steffanie, you and jessica have been making music, making memories, making magic for so long. Tell us how y’all first met.

Steffanie: Well, jessica had recently moved back from Atlanta, and she had reconnected with my cousin, who she had known prior to meeting me. She was looking specifically for a Black woman rock singer, and my cousin was like, “Yo, I know somebody, my cousin Stef is dope as hell.”

jessica: I was looking for, like, the Alice Smith and the Imani Uzuri of Detroit. And [Steffanie’s cousin] was like, “Yeah, Steffanie.” I was dating him, for the record.

Steffanie: Yes, you were dating him.

jessica: We were definitely connecting. [Laughs.] 

Talib: This is like Love & Hip Hop of poetry going on over here.

Steffanie: [Laughs.] Right. So, my cousin called like, “I want you to meet my friend Jess, she’s looking for a singer.” And I think that night I went over there. I was probably hanging out with my husband somewhere, and we ended up over there—

jessica: You weren’t married yet. You were single still, but you were hanging out.

Steffanie: I wasn’t married yet? Oh, my god, that was a million years ago. But I sang for her that night, and we’ve been rocking and rolling ever since. I started performing with with Jess shortly thereafter, and we’ve never stopped.

Talib: Now, you mentioned that she was looking for a rock singer, right? So, I want to get into the origins of rock & roll, particularly Black women’s history in rock & roll. But before we get into that, you being in Detroit — Detroit has a reputation as a rock & roll city, but Detroit also has a reputation of being a very Black city. So can you talk to us a little bit about being a young Black girl growing up in Detroit, and maybe defying some people’s expectations by being more into rock than you were into what people saw as more Black music at the time?

Steffanie: Well, like I say, rock & roll for me has never been a gimmick or a way for me to be different within the industry. My mother had me at 15 years old, and my grandfather worked in computers, so he was always in these very suburban areas with a lot of white people. My mother just so happened to get turned on to that kind of music. There are pictures of my mother with this humongous purple mohawk and safety pins in her ears. She was a punk rocker.

Talib: What kind of bands was she listening to?

Steffanie: Gang of Four. Zeppelin, of course. Rolling Stones. I mean, my mother listened to everything from Janis Joplin to Mahalia Jackson. She had a very eccentric music taste. But what I remember, what felt palpable to me, was always rock music. So it was just kind of ingrained in me. And it was nothing that my mother forced upon me — I just hung out with my mother because she was a child. We hung out at rock bars, we hung out at reggae bars. And, you know what I think happened? Don’t let me lie — I think when I was about three years old, MTV started to air. And something about MTV got me. I was so heavily influenced by it, even though they were pretty much all white hair bands.

jessica: Pat Benatar was on there.

Steffanie: Exactly, Pat Benatar. So I was always the weird Black kid listening to rock & roll. And it didn’t bother me any, because I knew that it was the type of music that moved me. And “Black music” — I’m doing quotation marks — “Black music” also does as well. But for me, I found my joy in rock music.

jessica: And that is Black music.

Steffanie: It is Black music. 

Talib: Yeah, and that’s why you’ve added the quotation marks. Because the tradition of music in America in general all starts from Black people. Music in general starts from Africa, but if we’re talking about pop and contemporary music, I’ve always been of the mind that all of it comes from gospel. You hear elements in the biggest pop songs. If you put gospel elements in your music, it just sounds better. Gospel came before the before the blues, and if we start talking about rock & roll, we’re really talking about the blues.

jessica: Right. And they call Rosetta Tharpe “the godmother of rock & roll,” but she actually created rock & roll.

Steffanie: Exactly. 

jessica: She is the creator of what we call rock & roll music — spiritual lyrics mixed with electric guitar. Nobody did that before Rosetta Tharpe. 

Talib: Right. So, talk about the challenges of introducing this rock & roll poetry album into a space — especially an American space, that’s so divided and so ignorant about the history of music, and has all these preconceived notions about which race of people should be doing what.

jessica: I mean, it’s a challenge. As you know, I’ve been producing Black Women Rock for 20 years, and I’m bringing to Detroit Joi and Kimberly Nichole and Steffanie, and all these incredible women that are rock singers. They struggle, man. I do this thing not just for myself, but really for this community of women around the world. SATE, out of Canada, are heavy singers, and can sing just about every woman you know off any stage. Nik West — crazy bass player. Divinity Roxx — crazy bass player. They have this strength. I connect with them as a poet because I’m in this place where sometimes I’m famous, and sometimes nobody knows who I am. Nik West just got off tour with Lenny Kravitz, and Kimberly was just on tour with Janelle Monae. So they’re on tours with people more famous than them, they’re doing stadiums in Europe, but they’re coming back home and Black audiences don’t know who they are. It’s literally heartbreaking. We want Black community to show up. We want all community, but god, if Black community would just show up for us, it would change the game. Because Black radio — “urban radio,” in quotes — doesn’t play Black rock music, which is ridiculous. I call them out on a regular basis, because I’m exhausted from that. Maybe WRIF will give us some love in Michigan, but the rock stations — they’re not going to do it, so who else is gonna play us? 

Steffanie: Exactly.

jessica: So that’s the struggle, putting out this album. It’s a very experimental album. But, you know, if I was a white girl, they’d be comparing me to Patti Smith. It wouldn’t be so hard to find my audience.

Talib: The singing on this album, the poetry on this album, the musicianship on this album is top notch. High level. So, you’re right. It’s like what Chris Rock says: a Black man gotta fly to where a white man can walk to.

Steffanie: Uh-huh.

Talib: Now, Steffanie — as your friend and as someone who’s been a fan of yours, I’ve heard your music that you’ve made over the years, some of the bands you’ve been a part of. But I know that you also tour a lot with other artists that are not necessarily in the rock vein. 

Steffanie: Right. 

Talib: Tell us a little bit about what it’s like for you as a working touring singer and the groups that you work with.

Steffanie: Well, I think that can jump off the conversation we were just having about having to do other things to eat, because I don’t necessarily book shows the same way that I do when I’m performing with, say, Taylor Mac or Kevin Saunderson and Inner City, or singing jazz with Don Was. And mind you, I don’t think any of these people choose me because they want me to actually do musical theater or to sing jazz — it’s because I sound like a rock singer, and they want me to sound different in their projects. So it’s so ironic. Nobody wants me to sound like Samara Joy; they want me to sound like Steffanie Christi’an, just singing in front of jazz music. Which I find so strange. Like, why can’t I do the same thing and perform my rock music? 

Talib: I mean, you’re one of my favorite singers, so I kind of get that. I’ve had you sing with me on shows, and I get that what you do comes from the rock background, but it sounds good on anything. Even if they’re not doing rock music, people want that passion added to what they do. What you do is very, very passionate.

Steffanie: Oh, thank you, Talib. Thank you.

jessica: She was my favorite singer before Don Was stole her. Now I’m trying to steal her from Kevin Saunderson every day. 

Talib: Kevin, if you’re reading, jessica’s on your heels right now.

Steffanie: But, I mean, even that is weird, how electronic music has been kind of stolen from its founders who are Black people. 

Talib: I was just in London during Pride month, and because it was Pride month, they had a female DJ that was DJing in — I can’t remember the name, but it’s like the Whole Foods of London. Imagine you walk into a Whole Foods and someone’s playing a mix of deep house and reggaeton records, but it’s not a person of color… I was happy to see that representation for Pride month, but the music she was playing comes from Black folks.

jessica: And probably from Detroit! [Laughs.] 

Talib: [Laughs.] I have to assume that whoever that woman was had earned her stripes in whatever community she’s from; she wouldn’t have been in that position unless she was a known DJ. And she was a good DJ, so it wasn’t that. But I almost felt like it was a personal pet peeve. You know what I’m saying?

jessica: That music is very popular in Europe and all over the world, even more popular than here. Jeff Mills was just in Detroit, but he lives in Paris and he’s done very well. Mike Banks, who’s one of the founders of Underground Resistance — he throws the [first pitch] at the Japanese baseball games. They’re icons in other parts of the world. And then here, they are at the grocery store and people don’t know who they are.

Steffanie: Exactly. That’s what I was just about to talk about — when me and Kevin are in Europe, there are people meeting us at the airport, people meeting us off the tour bus or the train. But in Detroit, nobody will be up. I just performed in front of over 50,000 people in Italy — nobody knows who I am in Detroit. [Laughs.] 

Talib: Yeah. “The prophet is without honor in his own country,” is how the saying goes.

jessica: Uh, I’m gonna fix that — people know who you are in Detroit. 

Steffanie: Well, people know who I am. But you understand what I mean. 

jessica: Italy is different, yeah. With Black Women Rock, people always ask me — because we’re at the Fillmore this year ,and it’s a struggle because that’s a huge space. We’ve got almost 3,000 seats, and that’s bigger than any venue we’ve ever done. People say, “jessica, why don’t you have this person, or that person, or Janelle Monae or Erykah Badu?” And I’m like, “They’ve already got stages.” The point of the show is to support women who don’t. So, no, I’d rather take the L or have half the place filled up. Because some of these people are so groupie-d out, and they need to learn how to support culture instead of just the person that they see on TV. It’s like, grow up.

Steffanie: Yeah, I agree. 100%.

Talib: As I’m talking to you, I just got in the mail my invitation to Sonia Sanchez’s 90th birthday party.

Steffanie: Aw.

Talib: Let’s talk about how Sonia Sanchez has influenced this collective.

jessica: Oh, she’s one of my other mothers. She’s inspired my life. I talk to her on a regular basis. My son was born on her birthday, so I have missed a lot of her birthdays. I just thought it was appropriate that I would have a baby on Sonia Sanchez’s birthday. Without her, I would not exist. I’ve met a lot of the other poets over the years — I’ve done lots of things with Nikki Giovanni, I got the the thrill and privilege to work with and know Jayne Cortez, I shared laughs and tea and funny ass moments with Ntozake Shange before she passed. I’ve been really, really, really blessed with being able to interact with these amazing women. But Sonia I’m the closest to, without question. She’s been the most consistent Black woman poet in my life, and I just tear up even thinking about her. I’m just so grateful.

Steffanie: I was just about to say, I’m getting emotional. 

jessica: I can call her phone and she’ll say, “Sister jessica —” she answers the phone first ring. Sonia is like that with all of us. She’d love you, Talib. She’s so real and so down to earth. She’s important. Sonia, and all of those Black art movement writers like Amiri Baraka and Baba Haki Madhubuti out of Third World Press in Chicago, have poured into me personally. 

Talib: Let’s talk about Detroit being a city that’s known for music, from the MC5 to Motown, to the techno you were talking about and to hip hop. Why is it so unique that this album comes from two women from Detroit?

jessica: Me and Steffanie — I think I might have her by two or three years, but I came up in the hip hop scene in Detroit. I used to run the Hip Hop Shop. Her and I were both very dear friends of Proof. J Dilla was a dear friend of mine, and I knew Slum Village, and all those folks that became friends with my friends from Detroit when they moved to New York — all the Soulquarians — those are all my people in different kinds of ways. JD was one of the first people who I said, “I want to put my poetry over beats,” and he was like, “Yeah, we should do that!” He was one of the first producers who didn’t look at me like I was crazy. So we’re connected in that way through the hip hop scene here. And then techno — I mean, I work in techno. I got a record with Jeff Mills and Eddie Fowlkes, who’s considered the godfather of techno [The Crystal City Is Alive]. It’s a great record that came out during the pandemic. I wrote a techno choreo poem based on my conversations with Mike Banks and Underground Resistance, which is an Afrofuturistic story. I used all the music of Underground Resistance and Jeff Mills and Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson — all these icons. So I’m deeply connected and feel a kinship to techno. And of course, both of us grew up with Motown music inside of our homes.

Steffanie: Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s just been wild to me, because before I was even singing with Inner City, I was singing those songs as a little girl. I remember at my birthday party in my living room, I was, like, eight years old singing “Good Life” and “Big Fun.” It was such a mind fuck for me to end up being their lead vocalist later in life.

Talib: Since we just have a couple of minutes left, I want to throw out two things out I want to learn more about. One of you take one, and the other one take the other one. Describe the record and explain to people what they’re going to get when they hear the record. And, explain how spirituality enters into play with your music.

jessica: I’m gonna get the first one, because you’re deeper than me. 

Steffanie: [Laughs.]

jessica: So, if Rage Against the Machine were fine ass Black women from Detroit, that’s what we are. If Tom Morello was a fine Black woman. [Laughs.] It’s Black, it’s feminine, it’s sexy, it’s in your face, and it’s necessary. 

Steffanie: Absolutely. And, you know, jessica is a beast with the pen. I think that in between her writing and my vocals and us collaborating, that is a spiritual experience within itself.

Talib: That’s right.

Steffanie: And even though this is rock music, like we’ve been saying, the Black experience in music begins with gospel — this is our gospel. Being raw and being authentic and being powerful Black women is our gospel. There is spirit in that, there is enlightenment in that, in knowing yourself and knowing what you can do to help others come into that space. 

jessica: It’s healing. 

Steffanie: Exactly, it’s a healing experience. You wanna bang your head and all of that, but you also get such a deep feeling of authenticity and healing.

(Photo Credit: left, Shawn Lee)