O.N.E. Mile, V1

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AFROTOPIAISNOW.COM
AFROTOPIA FILM SERIES
@ CHARLES H. WRIGHT MUSEUM
OF AMERICAN AMERICAN
HISTORY
APRIL 29 - MAY 3, 2015
___
MONTHLY BOOK CLUB
@ THE SOURCE

• Red Jazz Shoe Shine Parlor •
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8348 Oakland Street, Detroit, MI 48211 • 313 662 9182
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DETROIT AFRIKAN MUSIC INSTITUTE
coming to Oakland Avenue
Summer 2015

G.R.inD.
by Sidney Genee
fine art • apparel • home goods
GirlRaisedinDetroit.com

COVER
Jannash Rashid is wearing a
vintage jacket from her aunt, Asos shirt and chain
around scarf, leggings F21, scarf from Teeba fashion,
Michael Kors watch, glasses from her sister’s car, boots
from a boutique in Atlanta.
Jannash was accompanied by her sister, Leah Vernon-
Rashad for the photo shoot in the Mothership.

SPRING 2015 ONE MILE DETROIT
Creative Directors
Bryce Detroit, Jean Louis Farges,
Halima Cassells, Anya Sirota
Fashion Editor
Halima Cassells
Managing Designer
Matthew Story
Contributing photographers
Piper Carter, Jean Louis Farges, Kirk Donaldson
Peter Halquist, Halima Cassells
Contributing writers
Annelise Heeringa, Matthew Story, Peter Halquist
Jamii Tata, Makeeba Ellington, Bryce Detroit,
Halima Cassells, Anya Sirota, Christophe Ponceau, Carelton Golz,
Athenia Harris, Za’Nyia Kelly
Assistants
Danielle Weitzman, Kristen Collins, Rosemary O’Brien,
Kathryn Carethers, Caroline Petersen
Publisher
ONE Mile Publishing
Spiritualist
Makeeba Ellington
PR
Andrea Daniel
For international and domestic distribution
info@onemile.org
For advertising inquiries
halima@onemile.org
And a special thank you to:
Dee Castelow, Roger Robinson, Dave Boggon, Jerry Hebron, DJ Los, Rachel Mulder
Made possible through the support of:
ArtPlace America, Knight Arts Foundation, University of Michigan,
Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning
Follow us on:
facebook.com/onemile
twitter.com/ onemile
copyright
ONE Mile © 2015, the authors and photographs
Reproduction without permission prohibited

SPRING 2015 CONTRIBUTORS
A long-time dream came true when the legendary
Detroit-based photographer and cultural activist
PIPER CARTER shot the opening event at the
Bureau of Emergent Urbanity. The shoot resulting
a beautiful series of candid photographs that
harnessed the energy and projective potential of
the collective, multivalent experience. Piper is one
of our cultural heroes, and her powerful, dreamy,
undeniably sexy images invoke a deep sense of
dynamism and beauty that have led to innumerable
nationally recognized publications, including
British Elle, New York Times, Trace, Spin, and
Island Def Jam Music Group, and Vogue Magazine,
to name a few. We’re touched and excited to share
Piper’s visionary look at the workings of ONE Mile.
A night out in Detroit with MATTHEW STORY will
bring you in contact with the most unpredictable
people and places. The reason why is that Story
is a designer who operates without borders. He is
concerned with cities and their political contexts
as sites of social experimentation and resistance
to anticipated outcomes. A musician, polemicist,
and son of a midwestern preacher, Story is a keen
observer of the world, and a delirious participant.
He is currently a project manager with the
Metropolitan Observatory of Digital Culture and
Representation and Akoaki, where he works on
novel aesthetics of social practice.
Epic is the word we would use to describe
BRYCE DETROIT’s positive impact on Detroit’s
21st century culture and arts movement. The
exceptional caliber of his artistry, his deep
impact on youth, and his message of positive,
diasporic African self-determinism all make
Bryce Detroit among the ones to watch. There are
few who can combine his acumen, candor, and
cultural sophistication with such ease. Currently
Bryce Detroit lives and works in the North End,
contributing to the board of the Oakland Avenue
Artists Coalition and Cass Corridor Commons.
He is the founder of Detroit Recordings, and is
currently establishing the Detroit
Afrikan Music Institute.
JEAN LOUIS FARGES is a designer and
photographer with great passion. His energy
and idiosyncratic approach to perceiving and
visualizing the world have led him to work on
some of the city’s most iconographically punchy
and socially driven spatial interventions. We are
excited to include his documentary work in this
issue. Along side his photographic work, Jean
Louis is the principal of Akoaki and the co-founder
of MODCaR. He is also an insatiable, autodidactic
music aficionado. He is currently working on
the launch of the Detroit Afrikan
Music Institute
Detroit-based artist and activist HALIMA
CASSELLS is one of the most exceptional
figures in the city. Her work crosses
disciplines and boundaries, always defying
expectation. A consummate diplomat and avid
experimentationalist, she traverses diverse circles,
and occupies a myriad of roles that are unified
by a deep and unwavering devotion to fostering
community interconnectivity and love. Cassells
shares her work as the pilot of the Free Market
Project and Swap programming. In addition, she
assumes roles at O.N.E. Mile, Incite Focus, the
Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition, North End
Soup, Center for Community Based Enterprise, the
Detroit Black Community Food Security Network,
and as an independent artist and media-maker
We are happy to welcome ANNELISE HEERINGA
to our pages. For this inaugural issue of the
O.N.E. Mile zine, she shares her impressions of
weeds, mowing, trimming, picking, and pruning.
Trained as a civil engineer, and currently working
on a master of architecture degree, coiffing the
landscape is more than just a sweat-inducing
activity for Heeringa. She imagines it as a way of
cultivating public space and a sense of collectivity.
In her future she sees mushrooms. She is currently
working on a strategy to transform underused
architecture into sites for fungi horticulture and
artistic production.
Architectural designer ANYA SIROTA loves
making social space. Deploying objects,
environments, and experimental programming,
she creates situations where surprising things
happen between people. As the co-founder of
the Metropolitan Observatory of Digital Culture
and Representation (MODCaR) and principal of
Akoaki, she studies architecture, urbanism, and
generative cultural infrastructure, and believes
that design came make significant impact on
collective experience. Her work has received
recognition internationally, and featured in
numerous design publications and exhibitions.
She currently teaches architecture at the
University of Michigan.
Spend the day with DR. MAKEEBA ELLINGTON,
the North End’s acclaimed Abstract Oracle, and
you will experience the world in an unprecedented
way. Dr. Ellington is an ordained minister, a
spiritual counselor & auditor, a Tapology and
Reiki practitioner, as well as a mom. Through her
studies and doctorate in divinity, Dr. Ellington
uses her abilities to tune in to people’s energy and
emotions to channel spiritual energy for readings
and healing. Along with Hip N’ Zen in the North
End, Dr. Ellington holds “Save Your Soul Sundays”
at Red Door Digital, a movement-based, group
meditation. She is also a published writer, knitter,
painter, dancer, singer, and O.N.E. Mile Artist
Fellow. Her strength and positivity are unmatched.
ANDREA DANIEL is a writer and poet. She is
co-owner of Dakota Avenue West Publishing,
an independent book publisher. She also owns
AND Communications, a multi-layered creative
communications agency. Andrea is a member of
the Motown Writers Network, Michigan Literary
Network, and is producer and guest host of
Michigan Literary Network Radio and co-produces
“Literature, Lyrics and Lines” on WRCJ Radio.
She combines her love of poetry and music as a
singer/songwriter under the stage name Naomi
Daniel.She serves on the Board of Directors for
the Friends of the E. Azalia Hackely Collection of
African Americans in the Performing Arts with the
Detroit Public Library.
CHRISTOPHE PONCEAU is an unusual landscape
architect. For one, he doesn’t believe in weeds.
Instead, he treats all plants as participants in
an ever evolving ecological performance, where
the gardener, released from the role of vegetal
enforcer, learns from natural processes and
encourages outcomes. Coupling the garden with
other disciplinary interests, including photography,
graphic design and architectural installation,
Ponceau situates landscapes within a confluence
of creative practices that contribute to the quality
of collective experience. The approach has earned
Ponceau accolades. He has co-curated the Jardin
Lausanne 2014 international festival, the Zaragova
French Pavilion, and designed the scenography for
Cartier’s flagship stores around the global, to name
a few recent projects.
JAMII TATA is a North End based artist,
advocate, and educator. His commitment to
issues of justice in the community are expressed
in his direct contribution to campaigns around
homelessness, food justice, education reform,
literacy, environmental justice, cultural expression
and counter-narrative dissemination. Working with
youth through his organization, Know Allegiance
Nation, Tata uses writing, performance poetry,
storytelling, and self-publishing as tools to combat
illiteracy, build social and economic capital and
create a foundation for future villages to stand on.
He is also Youth Growing Detroit Coordinator of
Keep Growing Detroit, which engages thousands
across the city in community gardening. And
principal organizer and President of the Oakland
Avenue Artists Coalition.
PETER HALQUIST’s training as both an architect
and large-scale multi-media sculptor made him
the perfect person to head up the fabrication
and construction of the Mothership. He is equal
parts hyper-detailed engineer, ad-hoc DIY’er, selftaught
structural whiz, and all-in-all positive force
for O.N.E. Mile. His work couples playfulness,
economy, and misappropriation to virtuosic effect.
Halquist makes things happen, without apology.
He currently teaches design at the
University of Michigan.

Jasmine Harris
cr8iveminds.com

SPRING 2015 CONTENT
21
Welcome to the Bureau
Photography by Piper Carter
110
Roger Robinson
Interview by Halima Cassells and Matthew Story
36
Meet D.J. Los
Interview by Bryce Detroit
Portrait by JL
121
Dee Castelow is Biking and Baking
Interview and photograpy JL
47
Building the Mothership
Conversation with Peter Halquist &
Ian Donaldson
131
Landing in the D
Story by Christophe Ponceau
Photography by JL
59
Jerry Hebron:
Growing Green, Jobs, and Community
Interview by Jamii Tata
Portrait by JL
142
Detroit Sound Conservancy
Text by Carleton Gholz
67
Swap Till You Drop
Story & Photography by Halima Cassells
77
Red Jazz Shoe Shine Parlor
Interview by Matthew Story
Photography by JL
89
The Legacy of Funk
Photographs by Piper Carter & Kirk Donaldson
Narrative by Bryce Detroit
145
Building Social Practice
Text by Matthew Story
Photography by JL
157
Spiritual Healing with Dr Ellington
Drawings by Makeeba Ellington
163
North End Poetry Power
Text by Za’Nyia Kelly
Poem by Athenia Harris-Muhammed

EDITORS’ NOTE
The O.N.E. Mile Project is a collaborative effort to
support the cultural production and socio-economic
activity of Detroit’s epic North End neighborhood. We
host events, exhibits, workshops, conversations, and
performances. We create public spaces and experimental
environments. We design tools for broadcast. And we
continue to build a network of people interested in the
sustained collective vibrancy of the North End.
Amazing things have happened and continue happening
in the North End - production and activity that
transformed music and culture around the globe. In
this inaugural issue of the O.N.E. Mile zine, we’ve
collected a few stories from people who live and work in
the North End. They represent a small fragment of the
neighborhood’s energy and cultural endowment. We’re
excited to share these stories and images with you, to
broadcast and uplift the people and activity of the
North End. Enjoy!
O.N.E. Mile
19

21
Welcome to the BUREAU OF EMERGENT
URBANITY. Last fall, we opened a space for
people to gather, share ideas, and talk about
their work and their city. To convert the former
OK Barbershop into a new urban hot spot was a
collective effort. We fixed the walls, floors, and
ceiling. Then we installed a new facade. But,
as a wink and an aspiration, the barber chairs,
pole, and mirrors remain - reminders of the
power of convivial and informal social space.
photography
PIPER CARTER
words
ANYA SIROTA
The Bureau of Emergent Urbanity is located at 8326 Oakland Avenue, Detroit.
The space hosts events, performances and exhibits.

Bureau opening , September 5, 2014

Marsha Music’s “From all sides” exhibit
facing page top: Marsha Music with Cynthia Jarvis-Zuri
bottom: Marsha Music accompanied by David Philpot reading “The Kidnapped Children of Detroit”

Jaffer Kolb preparing his “Home Economics” exhibit, a commentary on the politics of making in Detroit

36
Detroit’s pioneering musician D.J. LOS gives
a good interview. He is candid - willing to
speak openly about the city’s Hip Hop and
Funk scenes, as well as to share his personal
experiences growing up among some of the
world’s most renown musicians. Likewise, few
are better equipped to speak of D.J. Los’s work
than the notorious Bryce Detroit, a community
advocate and music producer based in the
North End. Together, they offer their memories,
thoughts, and impressions about the remarkable
power of music to shape experience.
interview
BRYCE DETROIT
portrait
JL
Photographed at the Bureau of Emergent Urbanity in Detroit.
Archival photos courtesy of the artist.

Okay. Alright, I am Bryce Detroit here with hip hop legend and...my
brother, please introduce yourself...
I am the DJ pioneer, DJ Los.
True indeed. We are here today as a part of this Legacy of Funk...
shout out to ONE Mile Detroit, shout out to Detroit Recordings,
Oakland Avenue Artist Coalition. Los, we’d like to start with this
question: What is your connection to the legacy of funk, which is
Parliament Funkadelic?
I’m looked at as a baby funkateer, if you will. My dad is a
percussionist of Parliament Funkadelic. I traveled with him, toured
with him. As a child I used to go to the studio twice a week at the
time when he was recording Flashlight, Knee Deep, One Nation and
stuff like that. I say that I was there when history was being made.
To that point, who, if you could please share with us, were some of
these players who were making history in front of your eyes?
Oh yeah, man, my uncle Tony Green, T-Money Green, bass player,
he also played with the Dramatics. Tony was instrumental in playing
a lot of the bass lines back then. Bernie Worrell, Larry Hatcher, a
horn player, and Gray, I can’t remember his last name, played in
the great horn section in Parliament, Ricky Rouse... it’s a bunch of
people that I hung with, George himself, you know what I’m saying..
And who was your pops, you know, who brought you into that whole
world?
I give honors to my dad, Carl “Butch” Small. He’s the percussionist
who made all those hit records, More Bounce to the Ounce, etc. His
discography is extensive. Many hit records.
Now boom, we’re gonna seagway from your pops to the... fruit, you
know what I mean. All of us who know anything about Detroit hip
hip, locally or globally, we know DJ Los as a pioneer. Can you just
explain to us, the audience who may not know, why so many people
on the planet uphold you as a pioneer? Can you tell us about some
of those moments that establish your living legacy?
When me and EZB were placed together in reality, we did not
know that we would create history for Detroit. I recently found
out we created the first full length rap album from Detroit. I take
honor in that. I didn’t know we were doing that at the time. We were
just having fun, experimenting, and trying to do things... to create.
We see now that we had an impact on a lot of people. We had a
historic moment with Detroit.
I was speaking with two of my partners that are a part of 5-Ela
which grew out of D-12, Eminem’s best friends in the beginning,
and they told me that from the very beginning stages when they
were creating a group, J Dilla... (car pulls up outside blasting More
Bounce to the Ounce)*laughs* That’s funny there...my dad is playing
on that song. ...well my friends started explaining to me something
about producer J Dilla, who they had interacted with alot. He
produced a lot of tracks for 5-Ela. They were informing me, you
know, I guess they didn’t realize after brushing up with me so many
times that I was the pioneer DJ Los from back in the day and he
didn’t realized who I was, I guess I have a youthful appearance.
They were apologizing for not recognizing me and thought that I
was a little older, you know, things of that interest. They said. “You
don’t realize that Dilla, J Dilla, was influenced by what you were
doing that back in the day, the album covers, not so much the
music, but the album covers and the packaging, and videos, and
our songs playing on the radio, you know, and we were inspiration.”
They said “If those guys on the West side can do this stuff, you
know, we can too,” and he used that as motivation for everybody he
was working with.
That’s crazy dope, especially how that speaks to the peer-to-peer
skill sharing, the peer-to-peer experience sharing, and the presence
of each other and having a creative community where we can see
examples of ourselves so to speak..., that’s crazy dope. That speaks
to community building in this art and culture. One thing I want to
ask you, a real straight question, you essentially having Parliament
Funkadelic... in your DNA, and then went to create your own career
in hip hop and rap music. What would you say is the direct influence
of Parliament Funkadelic in your thinking as a producer, or your
style as a composer?
Well, the funk influenced a lot of people in hip hop. The first time I
saw it introduced might have been on the East Coast, with a group
called EPMB, Eric’s son was a producer in that group. He had a
lot of gritty bass lines and actually had sampled “More Bounce to
the Ounce” with my dad’s hand claps. That was first time I think I
started to notice that people were taking to the Midwest sound as
far as production... and I could be wrong man, but then there is Dr.
Dre. Dr. Dre was heavily influenced by the Midwest sound, because
the sound G-Funk he patterned after P-Funk. P-Funk was his
inspiration for a lot of what he was doing...so he named his sound
G-Funk... but he knows where he got that from, you know what I am
saying, and I’m sure George knows that. That’s why you saw Dr. Dre
wearing a Parliament-Funkadelic T-shirt in his video, you know, he’s
got that Funkadelic shirt on during G Thing because you know it
was a George Funkadelic song.
Now this is a lot of what I call history, but for some, it’s like hip hop
urban legend...that speaks to you, Butch, Tony, some real people
who coming in direct contact with Dr. Dre. As the legends go, that’s
the reason why we were hearing the music that we were hearing
during the reign of Death Row, from California Love and Tupac,
Doggy Dog world with Snoop, you know what I mean. We felt Detroit
in it, but the legends say Detroit was actually on it too. So please
clarify, enlighten us, hip us on what that is about.
For example, my Dad played professionally on California Love [by
38

26

D.J. Los with E.Z.B.

Tupac Shakur]. They were in studio thinking about putting a talk
box on that song. You know a talk box is the harmonic sound that
plays the keyboards and singing at the same time... and Dre was
thinking about using someone he used before in one of Snoop’s
albums, I think it was “What’s My Name”... at the beginning. My Dad
was in the studio with Dre at the time and he told him “Why don’t
you use from Roger Traubman?” and he goes, you know, “I don’t
know Roger like that” and my dad was like “I know Roger, I could
call Roger up no problem.” So he called him up and flew him out
to do “California Love”, and that’s how Roger Traubman got in on
California Love.
That’s dope. SO as far as Detroit artists being liaisons to Dr. Dre,
actually being on the songs...you actually, and I know this from
my conversations with you, you actually had direct conversations
with Dr. Dre to assist his getting our Detroit fault sound down pat,
making sure he got it right. How has your direct participation with
craft and this whole G-funk, that is based off the legacy that is in
your DNA, how has this informed and inspired where you are today
as a part of this Legacy of Funk initiative?
How has it inspired me?
In terms of what you are doing today, how has your contribution
to what we are now calling Hip Hop history in terms of Funk...how
is that informing...What’s DJ Los doing today with the funk, since
he has funk in his DNA and has had such a major part with the
resurgence of the funk sound, along with his family members….his
family members are responsible during the hip hop era in 1990 for
getting funk in the air.
When I saw Dre do it, and my dad and my uncle and all these guys
I knew way before I knew Dr. Dre, when I see him be successful
utilizing everyone that is close to me, you know, he kind of beat me
to the punch. I am a huge Dr. Dre fan, he’s my favorite producer,
but when I see him do that I think, “ why didn’t I do that”... so, you’ll
find in a lot of DJ Los productions, there’s a lot of that going on. I
had a lot of instrumentation from people who play funk, who were
affiliated with Death Row. They are playing parts of a lot of tracks
that I am creating now that are for newer artist. So you will hear
that now because I was there when I was a child so I should be able
to do that.
I appreciated you bringing up that child piece. How did having a
father, who literally created rhythms on these hits, respond when
you began to express interest in hip hop?
As a good father, you know he did everything a good father would
do, he cultivated it he saw interest. You know, he was a part of the
beginning stages of hip hop. He used to tool with a group called
R.J.’s Latest Arrival, they had a record called “Shackle On My Feet
“and my dad played on that song and as they were touring he came
in contact with groups like Kraftwerk which is techno, but a different
type of techno, you know what I’m saying, like hip-hop influenced
techno, and so he came in contact with Kraftwerk, Newcleus, they
had songs like “Jam On It”, and he saw this new genre of music
emerging around the same time he saw me experimenting you know
trying to learn it, trying to scratch on it, you know some generic
brand turn tables my grandmother had laying around the house,
and he was saying, “what are you doing”, and I got embarrassed,
but he already knew what I was doing. I said “I am DJ-ing man”,
and he said “don’t you need some equipment for that,” and I said
“yeah but I don’t have any money to buy any equipment dad”. So he
took me to a store here in Detroit, well actually in Dearborn, called
Wonderland Music and he bought me my first turntable, my first
mixer, and a Peavey guitar amp so I could hear myself. He didn’t
buy me two turn-tables, he bought me one and he said, “you gonna
learn with the best equipment” and back then I think Technic 1200
turntables cost $600 apiece and a mixer is like $200, so he spent
close to $1000 dollars. And he said, “Learn. If I see that you are
serious, maybe you’ll get the other turntable.”
So I practiced every day in my room, scratching every day, learning
rhythm patterns, studying everyone in the industry that I looked up
to, guys like Jazzy Jeff. Now Jazzy Jeff started around the same time
I did, but he had records out before me. So I was listening to his
rhythm patterns and emulating, seeing how you transform things,
listening to scratch patterns.
Three weeks later, my dad checked on me to see how I was
progressing and he was pleased that I was developing my skill. So
he placed me with a member of my group EZB. He had this idea to
put us together, he had already pre-planned it. He saw me DJ-ing,
or trying to DJ, so he gave me the tools. Then he had this other guy
he’d already seen, skill-wise, “I’m going to put these guys together to
develop their skills together.” He and executive producer Ken David
placed us together. My dad was very supportive of everything that I
wanted to do, Him being a percussionist, he probably didn’t have a
father figure to cultivate that talent. I needed him to give me a little
boost.
So how old were you when you and EZB got together?
I was around 15.
That’s crazy dope. To be 15 and to have the environment and
opportunities for that type of professional development and
nurturing that came from a place of straight fatherhood.
Environment wise, were there communities of young people into hip
hop? Cause now a days there are mad fifteen, sixteen, seventeen
years olds who we engage through the community. Was it like that
back then...a vast community for artist?
I’d want to say that there was, but there was not much community.
I’m sure they existed in some form or fashion. Now there is social
media and the internet, there are ways to connect. We didn’t have
that back then in 1987. If something was going on it was all word of
mouth. If you didn’t get that information you didn’t attend.
We didn’t congregate a lot back then, but when did it was huge. We
had this club called The Habitat, or the X Spot. Everybody used to
come to this spot it was on Livernois and 6 mile in this abandoned
building, a warehouse or something, on the 3rd floor. Everybody
who did hip hop came through. Actually John Salley was the
financial backer of the building; he would come through and give us
money to try to spruce it up. We had legends like Chaos, Maestro,
Mark Simpson, Awesome Dre, Dez Andres, DJ Dez, the whole Twelve
Tech Mob, the turntablists, I wasn’t a part of that group because
I was signed to a contract, but I always wanted to be a part...well,
I was...but not officially. Those were the days. Nothing like today.
41

We did it in small groups, a couple people here and there; it wasn’t
really a strong camaraderie for a lot of people
On this similar tip, what are some of the mechanisms that help
build community back then? I am appreciating this and projecting
my own viewpoint on this, I can sense that there was enough of a
sense of community to where people, who come from, like the Hip
Hop Shop, were part of a scene that was known to have existed, a
core energy, in an organized and collected way. What were some of
those community building things back then? I just spoke about the
Hip Hop Shop; you talked about the X Spot, what were some of the
pieces that existed that allowed you all to form community
Those places like that were central and essential. They directly
spoke to hip hop. You had places like Northland Skate Room where
they would showcase talent where a couple of people would be
able to perform. All of those places like that were able to help us
develop as a community because we frequented those places all
the time. There were certain stages set up in the mall. There weren’t
a lot of venues set up for us. So when they had stuff set up at the
Northland Skating Rink - that was essential.
I appreciate you uplifting those examples because it speaks the
importance of creating spaces and how spaces were used to come
together around this particular point of expression which is hip hop.
You are collaborating with us at ONE Mile to help uplift the culture
to create spaces.
See, we were inspired by things we saw in movies like Fresh Groove
and Beat Street. In Beat Street they had a place called the Roxy.
It was the place where all the break-dancers came, all of the DJs,
the rappers showed their talent. We didn’t really have a spot like
that in Detroit. We had the Habitat and the X spot, and we were
trying to duplicate what we saw in movies, some central spot. In LA
they had the Good Life Lounge where people like Ice Cube, NWA,
Pharcyde; they all frequented that place, that’s where they emerged
from. It was like what our Hip Hop Shop is today. Everybody you
know of today they came out of the Good Life Lounge, a small
open mic place. , kind of like our 5E gallery. We wanted a place like
that, be we didn’t really have that. So all the groups that emerged
like Awesome Dre, Smiley, Detroit’s Most Wanted, we all knew each
other because we had that music common, but we were recording
in different parts of the city and we never came together to create.
It was more of a friendly competition. “Oh ______ got a new record
out, we can out do that”. Then we would come out with something
Now days in Detroit, the hip hop community would say that there is
a lot of collaboration. Mainly because there is a lot more access to
studio equipment and people are practicing and linking up in those
ways. What was the access like back in the day? How much access
did the average young person have who wanted to get into hip hop
have?
By no means, we didn’t have the technology that we have today; so
you know as far as now you can create something, and I can create
something, and you can email it right now straight to you and you
can record. If you have a facility at your house, you can record
vocals on top of it, you know what I’m saying? You can create whole
albums like that now. So we definitely in this day and time have a
lot more access to recording and creating without doing it. A lot
of people are doing it with the best that they had, including myself.
Like my dad had good equipment, but when I was first starting
out, I didn’t have everything I needed in order to record. We used
tape decks, you know, I always get props from my brother DJ Dez,
because he was the one that didn’t have a lot of equipment, but
he worked well with what he had. He didn’t have a sampling drum
machine, like I had. Dez would make beats with two tape decks and
loop them together, and when you listen to it you can barely hear
the slices in between the recording, and you be like “how did you do
that man?” So I think that’s what we got away from, you know, hiphop
was born out of working with what you had; you know, that’s
how the turntable got incorporated, because when we want real
instrumentalist we took what you call the break, from the record
which is a small part of the record where it’s just instrumentals and
no vocals, and you play that, you have two of the same record,
you play the instrumental a part and you play it, you keep playing
it back and forth, so that the rapper can rap over top of you still
with the instrumental and you keep it going. So, that’s how breakdancers
were introduced, that’s why they’re called break-dancers,
where they dance over the breaks so that you can play through DJing.
So a lot of people don’t know that history. You work with what
you had, the bare, whatever it is you had.
This is me asking your professional opinion, do you think that
the working with what you had, the innovation that that brought
forward, do you feel like you are still seeing that same, not the same
kind of innovation, but do you still feel like you’re seeing innovation
amongst the you people that you, I mean, young cats doing hip-hop
today? When I speak of innovation, do you feel like you’re seeing
them going further in their imagination, like you all had to? Like you
literally had to. If you only had two tape decks, then you have to
think of a new way to create this feat, which is in turn what makes
the beats sound different period, just because of the technology
you’re using. But if we all have free loops, like if I can use my
man’s machine, that leads, it could lead to a lot of similar thought
processes, and a lot of similar sounds. I know me as a producer I
hear a lot of the same shit; I’m just wondering how you feel about
that?
I think that a lot of the youth are emulating what they see, which
is not a bad thing totally, because that’s what we did too. We
emulated what we saw too, so I’m not taking nothing away from
them. I think it’s too much emulation, like back in the day; we use to
say that, someone was biting, and they sounded like someone else.
Like “oh man you biting, like you can’t do that, you’re trying to be
like, you biting that’s whack”. So we were real strict about rules... you
can’t be like nobody else, you have to be your own person. They not
like that now, it’s like its ok to be just like somebody else, and do the
exact same thing as somebody else, you know the vocal sound, you
know the range of the rappers, a lot of times they sound exactly like
the other rappers. Back in the day, it was about having a distinct
voice, a distinct sound; the subject matter had to be distinct. You
had to be an individual. you getting influenced by everything you
see, but you know what I’m still going to do this hip-hop, because
everybody else is doing hip-hop, but I’m going to do it my own way,
so that I make my own lane, so that people say, “oh man, that
guy is unique”, so I don’t see a lot of that now, every now and then
you hear an artist come out, you got people like Kendrick Lamar,
somebody you know he’s studying.
42

D.J. Los with E.Z.B.

“
... hip-hop was born out of working with what
you had; you know, that’s how the turntable
got incorporated, because when we wanted
real instrumentalists, we took what you call
the break, from the record which is just
instrumentals ...”
I appreciate you saying that. I want to switch gears a little bit to the
actual legacy of the funk, this whole initiative; you’ve been with us
from the beginning of this. You’re the first person I reached out to
orchestrate what then became, that Mothership Launch concert we
did. Let me ask you, how has your interaction, you’re engagement
with the O.N.E Mile project, how has your participation with the
legacy of the funk so far, how has that been for you? What are
some of the type of things you’ve been experiencing? Based on
what you’re experiencing, what are some of the things you would
like to see, or how you would like to see yourself moving forward in
this?
Well I told you personally it was a dream come true to be rocking
on stage with all these people that I had a fondness for. My family
members, my dad, Uncle Tony, Gabe, and Amp Fiddler. Like man
this is all right, I should’ve come up with this! I really appreciate
ONE Mile putting this together; it means something to me
personally. What I would like to see in the future, just more exposure
of it, on an international level, with tours and videos and albums
put together with all of these same instrumentalists involved.
Editing wise, this will probably be up front. If you can let us know,
as a DJ what is your definition of a DJ based on you? What are DJs
supposed to be for the people in a philosophical and spiritual way?
He is a communicator, for one. He distributes information. People
don’t look at him like that but he has that ability. There are all types
of DJs; there are so many different variations. I tell you all the time
don’t put us all in the same bunch because there are different forms
of us. You’ve got your scratch DJS, your turn tablers, you’ve got your
radio DJs. A lot of us DJs are producers. So many are technical DJs.
There are so many different forms.
into consideration. You are not there for you. You take yourself out of
the equation. I look at the people that are in front of me and I am
trying to understand them and I want them to understand me and I
want us to be on the same wavelength. So, say there are a bunch of
old people there and I am the youngest person there, I am not going
to play rap music, I am not going to play things that are pleasing to
my ear necessarily, but there are some old songs that are pleasing
to my ear too, and I say, I listen to stuff from their time period, from
when they were young, so I am communicating with them, and when
I see people on the dance floor go “ooooh that’s my jam!” Now I am
happy, now if I see a large number of people doing it then I continue
doing that, I try not to deviate too far away from that because I am
not supposed to do.
What kind of advice or preparation or techniques do you share with
young people who want to develop their ability to communicate
through DJ-ing?
Put yourself outside of yourself and think about other people. I think
we should do that anyway in every aspect of life. Know that you are
there to provide something for someone else. If you are good, that
is going to show anyway and you will be pleasing people. But don’t
be so focused on that, be focused on “I want to give to someone,
I want to please someone, and I want to do something for other
people.” And if you approach it that way you will be great, you will
be good, and everyone will come to you and always look up to you.
On behalf of ONE Mile Detroit and Detroit Recordings, I want to
thank you my brother DJ Los.
So, first and foremost as a DJ if you are hired to do an event you
have to take the audience and the demographics of the audience
45

47
The P-Funk-inspired Mothership was
designed to serve as an urban marker,
mobile DJ unit, and broadcast module. We
imagined the vessel as an easy-to-assemble,
deployable unit that fastens together using
a simple aluminum paneling system and
bolts. Sixteen panels fit flat into the back
of pickup truck and attach to produce a
self-structured polygonic shape secured to
an interior platform. Steel tubing supports
the platform, floating the DJ’s staging
area a few feet above the ground. PETER
HALQUIST and IAN DONALDSON talk
about the challenges and pleasures of
building a contemporary Mothership.
photography
JL
conversation
PETER HALQUIST & IAN DONALDSON
The Mothership was fabricated at the Taubman College of Architecture Fab Lab and
first reassembled at Omar Bruce’s Garage on Oakland Avenue, where it currently resides.

“
... then Bryce Detroit said make it gold, make
a reference to Sun Ra. And it was a revelation.
Gold would be perfect.”
PETER: So when we heard that there was only four week to
fabricate the Mothership, we panicked a little bit. Actually, we
panicked a lot.
IAN: Then we learning that the original musicians from the
P-Funk ‘family’ would be taking a look at this version and giving
their feedback - and that was intimidating, too. But, exciting, or
inspiring, really… So the team started the fabrication process when
we learned that twelve members of Parliament Funkadelic were
performing at the Mothership launch. That was a real motivation!
Nothing like figuring out how things work under pressure. Up
until then, we had been developing patterns and shapes. But
when we got that call, we had actually had to build it. But, from
the beginning, we had been thinking about ways to make the
mothership travel. It had to land! And perhaps more than once.
This meant it had to be relatively light, easy to manufacture, easy
to transport, and simple to assemble, without any heavy tools or
machinery.
I remember conversations about using a crane to drop the
Mothership onto the site! It was a sweet idea, but too expensive.
So ultimately, aluminum turned out to be the perfect material. It
doesn’t rust. It’s light. It cuts with relative ease using a water jet
cutter.
However, we had to get around its lack of stiffness because we
didn’t want to just fix panels to a separate frame, which is why we
ended up designing the panels with flanges that bolt together on
the interior to create a self-supporting shell. Making the skin and
skeleton the same piece allowed the panel connections to remain
very low tech. No welding, nothing like that. Just some socket
wrenches. And preferably some tall people.
You’re right, aluminum was the way to go. But the problem was the
finish. It lacked luster. It didn’t support the ambitions of Funk - and
its intrinsic hotness. It’s intergalactic sophistication...
It had to be more inspiring. So we entertained trying to paint it like
a car and mixing our own paint with reflective sparkles and effects…
But then Bryce Detroit, the ONE Mile music and cultural curator,
had an idea. He said, make it gold... Make a reference to Sun Ra.
And it was a revelation. Gold would be perfect. This is when we
starting testing polished gold vinyl. It’s otherworldly. And we started
testing its material and visual effects right next to dichroic film. That
stuff is so psychedelic - it throws every color you could imagine onto
surfaces.
So the Mothership’s cosmetic finish borrows techniques from car
customization. The result is a glistening exterior that purposefully
juxtaposes popular embellishment with psychedelic interior effects.
Then you add billowing smoke and lighting add to create the illusion
that the module just landed.
But the best part is seeing the Mothership as an active module
activated at events. The Mothership’s front panels crank open
revealing the artist, along with a DJ table, mixer, laptop and
speakers.
In the end, the Mothership is an urban marker and a prototype,
and it’s significance is weighty. The project comes at an important
time for the North End. As residents of Detroit know, blight removal
across the city is proceeding at an accelerated clip. Unchecked, the
broad renewal plan threatens to erase important historical spaces
that connect Detroit and its cultural innovations to a greater
national legacy.
So in many ways, the Mothership is a physical reminder. It’s an icon
that says important things happened in Detroit and its outlying
neighborhoods. Rather than plaques, the module serves as a living
symbol that Funk music literally started here.
Of course the broad concept for the Mothership is the
consequence of an unprecedented collaborative effort. It’s an
amalgam of ideas from people who live in the North End, from
people who were there when Funk was born, ideas from people
with a deep understanding Afro-Futurism, of the diasporic African
tradition, ideas from people who were literally part of Parliament
Funkadelic, from people who sampled the music, who danced
to the groove. What we added to the mix was a technique to
materially channel the collective ethos.

49

54

The Mothership stationed at Omar Bruce’s Garage
7615 Oakland Avenue, Detroit.
57

59
The Detroit-based community leader
JERRY HEBRON has shining eyes - like she
has access to a container of determination and
optimism that the universe told her to safeguard
and share at will. She does share, and her
impact is throttling. Since 2009, she has worked
tirelessly in the North End to grow greens,
confidence, jobs, and a sense of place. Her tools
of empowerment are inextricably connected to
her beliefs in collective opportunity and justice.
On a crisp winter morning, fellow community
advocate Jamii Tata sat down with Jerry Hebron
to talk about gardens and projective visions.
Their conversation reveals the deep rootedness
of their mutual commitment.
interview
JAMII TATA
portrait
JL
Photographed at the Oakland Avenue Community Garden hoop house.

I started this work in the community and became apart of the
community in 2008 as an activist. I lived in the community as a
child, went away, and visited often throughout the years and saw a
dramatic change in the way that it looked given the large economic
decline.
I’m a former real estate broker, so, quite often I showed properties
in the North End. But then when the real estate market crashed in
2008, I closed my office, took a step back, and looked at my life
and asked, “where do I go from here.” It was at that time when
I received a call from Reverend Carter, the pastor at St. John’s
Church. She asked me to come over and take a look at their nonprofit
and try to figure out what’s happening in the community from
a ministry perspective. So, at that time, in the North End there were
approximately 44 churches up record of different sizes, but about
80% or more of their membership, did not live in the community.
They would come in to worship and then leave, and what that
meant is that there was no connection to the community. And so
my role was figure out what St. John could do to change that. So
rather than sit in the office, I used to stand out on Oakland in front
of the church and just talk to people.“Hey, what’s going on? Who
are you? Where do you live? Where are you going? What do you do?
What would you like to see happen in this community? What do you
need?” And over and over again I heard that there was a need for
healthy food, there was a need for jobs and there was a need for
good housing.
You talked about growing up in the North End, and if you could
describe a little bit what this neighborhood was like when you were
growing up and what your family was like, just to set up what kind
of possibilities for density were here, and scenarios are for people
might not imagine...
So, my family lived in Black Bottom. We actually lived across the
street from the Elmwood Cemetery. I can remember, we used to
jump the fence and play inside the cemetery when I was a young
kid. But after the I-75 expressway came through, it kind of wiped
out the neighborhood. We moved into the North End. My world was
Woodward, Oakland, the Boulevard. I can remember my parents
had friends that lived down on Woodland. The North End, as I knew
it as a child, was safe. We knew all of our neighbors. For streets over,
the kids played together. We played in the alleys. I can remember
as a child, I was about 12, and there was a skating alley, a roller
rink, the arcade, which was not too far from the Fox Theatre. I can
remember it would be like 6 of us young girls we would walk down
Woodward at 10 o’clock at night going to the roller rink. I mean we
could see the prostitutes and some other activities going on but
nobody would bother us. And we were very innocent in the way
that we looked at the world, in terms of our right to be able to go
and come as we pleased. It was a very safe environment and a
very happy environment. We had abundant fruit trees. We had fruit
trees, which were abundant. Apples, pears, and peaches. We always
knew which ones were ripe so that we could raid the trees.
Everybody had gardens at that time. I can remember my parents,
mostly my mom because my Dad worked for the city of Detroit
(he was a garbage collector), growing and my mom grew grains,
tomatoes, and string beans. Those were our staples. And then Ms.
Mary grew cabbage and something else and they were always
back and forth sharing. Maybe you have peppers down the street,
so give me some of your peppers; you can have some of my grains.
That cooperative economics was very prevalent back in the day. I
mean, it’s a term that is thrown around today like it just arrived, but
it has always been there; that cooperative economics of sharing.
So that is my vision and memory of the North End. It was a very
safe and happy. Even though we knew there were things happening
underground, it was safe and happy. I can remember 12th street,
whenwhere 12th street was very lively with prostitution and illegal
gambling and a lot of things, but it was always exciting as a child to
just kind of drive through it at nighttime to see the big cars and the
fancy outfits, and just the energy. It was always very exciting and
that was a different type of economy.
Could just situate us in this moment of having come back and your
questions and your assessment of the changes that had taken
place?
I was a little bourjie when it came to real estate. When I was asked
60

to come over and work in the North End, I was like “Oh my god,
I am out of my mind,” because to come into the neighborhood
from the outside and see the decay,it was hard to think back to
the way that it was. My husband didn’t know anything about this
neighborhood. When he first saw where we were going to be working
he said,- you are out of your mind! I am not doing this! But then,
he started meeting people and hearing the stories about the North
End. He related that to what I had talked about and he was like, -
you know what, its probably going to be ok.
So yes, the initial reaction was, for me, it was sad. There is a vacant
building right across from the garden on Oakland that I knew the
lady that owned it when I was a child. She had her beauty salon
there and her brother had his barber school there. There was a
restaurant there; there were people that lived upstairs. I was a child,
but I remember all of this.
As I began this work and became enthralled in growing food and
creating this green space and just trying to figure out what can we
do with this vacant land to create a light in the community. That
became my mission. I want people to come back. I want that energy
to come back.
When you started working here, did you imagine yourself as an
advocate, an activist, an organizer?
Every time I heard somebody call me that I was like, “Hmm, I didn’t
know that was what I was doing”. I embrace it now.
What did you think you were doing initially?
I was just working! *Laughs* I was just working. I was just doing
what I was asked to do. All of a sudden people were drawn to us.
People really became interested in what was happening down here.
The first year, they were looking at us like, “Hmm, they won’t be
back.” But then when we left for the winter and we returned in the
spring it was like, “Oh y’all came back! Oh, ok! What’s up! Whatcha
gonna do!” So then we stayed and we are here every day. I didn’t
come in here to say I’m going to become an activist. It just kind of
happened. And actually, I can’t think of doing anything else.
For 30 years I chased money. I didn’t value it at all. It was fast. We
made it fast and we spent it fast. And the market crashed, I saw
so many of my friends in the industry just lose everything. Things
happen to these folks because of the change in the market, so
when I look at what I am doing today and I still talk to some of my
friends in real estate, those that are till struggling, I am so blessed
and so grateful for the work that we do because of the lives that we
touch and there is no expectation. It brings me joy and my husband
joy to be able to do what we do in this community and we feel very
much apart of the community.
Describe what you do on a daily basis, what does your week look
like, or maybe you can tell us an anecdote of working with one
particular person to give us a sense of the impact through what you
do.
There is a young man that stays here. He is part of our security
team. And his name is Carlos. We met Carlos about two days after
he was released from prison. Same way, standing out on the street.
He was walking by and I was like, “Hey! Where are you going?” He
looked lost and he was like “Who? Me?” and I’m like “yes. You. Who
are you? What is your name?” He told me his name and I asked
“Where are you going” and he said, “I don’t know I am just walking.”
And I said, “Do you have a few minutes? Do you want to help us
do something.”? And he was like “yea” and he started helping
us pull weeds. I found out he was just released from prison, his
grandmother lived on Brussell and he was just wandering. Carlos
was one of the first people that we hired.
Carlos didn’t have a father and he latched onto my husband as a
positive role model. We’ve now worked with Carlos for four years.
Because of the work that he has done here and his parole officers
have seen the house, the garden, they know about the church. They
know about the farmers market and all of his involvement with
that. They started working to get him off of paper because on his
connection to us and finally in November it happened. So he is no
longer on parole. He is free.
He tells that story to other people in the community and we have
several of them here who will be working with us again this year
who are trying to find their place in the world and in society. When
they release them back into society there is no book that says you
do this you do this they have to go out and figure it out and a lot of
them don’t make it. They get back, they get locked up again. It is not
a simple environment. I think stability is one of our biggest impacts
in terms of individuals.
So many non-profit organizations have different ways of going
about doing their work. What is your goal or drive? That is a
difficult question because we are non-traditional and I resisted the
structure, the corporate environment. The church had a little office
for me upstairs and they wanted me to set up a desk and I was like
“I don’t want to be in here! I worked in an office for 30 something
years! I don’t want to do that! I can’t even see people! People can’t
see me! How do they get to me? How do they know I’m here unless
they see my car or something like that!”
So what me as an executive director is trying to do is figure out and
identify that individual who can step in my shoes and continue this
work for it who has the passion to do the work and to continue
the ministry. Hopefully a young person, and can continue to grow
the organization and build capacity in a way that compliments
the work in the community and not get caught up in corporate
structures and funding. So we are trying to figure out a way for the
organization to be sustainable.
To create some type of income that is sustainable and that is one
of the reasons that we run the farmer’s market, that is one of the
reasons that we do the off site markets, and we are trying to figure
out some of the value and the products that we can bring that will
build sustainability to the organization. So, I have a conversation
with an attorney on Monday who is trying to help us acquire this
whole block of vacant land here because we would like to see some
fruit orchards producing apples and pears and peaches so that
maybe we can make some jams and things like that. I don’t think
small. I don’t think in terms of lots.
62

“
... the main thing for me is that you eat something
that is healthy, and not eat something
only because you have no other option. So
that’s why we do Urban Ag, that’s why we grow
food. Who would’ve thought you would get it
in the North End. They kept saying nobody in
the North End wants organic. Who told you
that? I want organic if I can get it. I don’t want
poison on my food if I can get it.”
How do you approach urban act in the garden, why do you do
that?
I tell you one of the big reasons we do it. Have you seen the
Salvation Army truck parked on Oakland? I want to get rid of
them. And I know that that sounds horrible, but I just think that.
I have people that work with us, who eat off that truck often,
and then they’re sick. Their stomach hurts, I know that for a lot of
people, that that one meal a day that they get, but the quality of
the food, on that truck is sub standard, and I think that people
deserve something back. So urban ag is providing better quality
food choice to vulnerable people. So I don’t care if they have no
money, or if they have some money, they can still get some food
out of our garden. If they come and say I don’t have any money,
but I want some greens today. Okay we’re going to get you some
greens, tomatoes, we’ll get you what you need. One day you’ll have
something and we wont worry about that, but the main thing for
me is that you eat something that is healthy, and not eat something
only because you have no other option. So that’s why we do Urban
Ag, that’s why we grow food. Who would’ve thought you would get it
in the North End. They kept saying nobody in the North End wants
organic. Who told you that? I want organic if I can get it. I don’t
want poison on my food if I can get it.
What is the trajectory of expanding the garden program and the
farmers market, kind of expanding that business? What do you see
the goals for producing the garden, the business of it. We have the
new food co-op potentially coming in, we still have some, spaces
like King Cole, the same spaces that offer nothing, interacting with
the gas stations the CVS are not interact. Like where do you see
produce?
That conversation that were having now. Were going to run a pilot,
a CSA, community supported agriculture, but we’re going to do it
a little different. I haven’t worked out the details yet, but basically,
fearful network has rolled out the opportunity for double up food
box to be accepted by CSA, businesses. I’ll learn more about
that in a couple weeks. But the beauty in that is for, vulnerable
communities now, and this requires a lot of education, and just
walking people on how it works. We will be able to provide small
box, large box, of produce and some value added products at
maybe $20 a box, I don’t know what the numbers are going to
reflect, but lets say $20 or $40 depending on what your family size
is and what your needs are. Weekly or biweekly, so with that we
would be able to accept your bridge card for payment, and offer
double up food bucks as an option. So for $20, instead of $20 you
would swipe your card for $10. For a $40 box, instead of $40 you
would swipe your card for. We have to work out the details; the
devil is in the details, on how that exactly works, in terms of the
transaction. But my point is CSA opportunities, are not in the city.
They’re in the rural areas, where the farms are, and so for us to be
able to do it in that urban environment is something new, and we
think that it will increase the affordability and the access, to more
people. Were going to run a pilot, and test it out, but that’s what
were looking at. To presale the shears, its about $400-$600, for the
season. How many people do you know, just out of pocket can pay
that, so that’s not the motto that we want to look at. We want to
look at the model where we have the produce laid out, and people
show up and, you’re shares $20 so you can get this much tomatoes,
this much greens, this much squash, this much this. That’s what you
do; it’s like an a-la-carte. So that’s our plan.
Is there anything that you would like to see along Oakland Ave?
I mean, look at Oakland, there is not one cleaners, there is not,
well we’re soon to have a bakery. I would like to see, a coffee shop, I
want that building right there for a smoothie shop. Red’s, don’t you
63

“
We would like to see some fruit orchards
producing apples and pears and peaches
so that maybe we can make some jams and
things like that. I don’t think small... ”
think Reds could be a dynamic smoothie shop. So basically I want
to see, some businesses. I feel like the lone ranger sometimes, you
know on Oakland. So, Id like to see a coffee shop, I’d like to see a
cleaners, I don’t know where these people go for the Laundromat.
Other than the liquor store, I’d like to see some stuff.
There’s this nice project involving a greenway, and you have
gardens, would you like to see more of that down on Oakland
or should that just be a part of the natural I would like to see a
corridor, to see Oakland was very active. I remember there was a
furniture store, a meat market, a record store, barbershop, beauty
salon, cleaners, and fish market. All this kind of stuff was happening
on Oakland. Kind of like Hamtramck and Joseph Campau. People
would be out and about for the day, just enjoying the space. So a
greenway with gathering spaces, or places, activities, I can shop, I
can sit out at the café and have a latte. That’s what I want to see,
now that’s me, that’s what I see. A diverse, culture, that’s vibrant
community space with all these things.
pass the vacant lots they would just huddle up together , because
you don know what’s in the grass, I couldn’t see. One day I was
standing in the field, and you could not see the top of my head, the
grass was that tall.
(Pause) It makes me feel good that I’m not the lone ranger
anymore, you know we can collaborate and pull our resources and
really make this happen. I felt like the lone ranger. People would
say to me why do you do this work, because I want to see stuff
develop economic development. Then they would look at me like on
Oakland. Yes on Oakland.
Oakland Avenue Farmers Market is located on 9354 Oakland
Avenue. Open Every Saturday 11am - 3:30pm. Vendors include:
Oakland Avenue Community Garden and Greenhouse,
SunRise Smoothies, Pure Religion Bake Good.
This is the reason green space is so important. We’ve got to make
them functional, but we also have to, they provide safety. The
reason we started cutting a lot of the grass is because were a block
from the school , and I saw the kids walking , and when they would
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67

69
The Free Market of Detroit is a
new economic model that started with the
North End’s very own HALIMA CASSELLS. We
connected with the artist-activist after her most
recent swap at the Garage. She talked about how
looking good has never been more radical than
doing it for free. In the Free Market, if you like
something, it’s yours! Just make sure you bring
something to swap. Cassells has grown the swap
from a couple of friends to a nomadic fashion
house dropping in all over the city. It is a new
way to imagine an economy where everyone
can participate.
photography and words
HALIMA CASSELLS
The O.N.E. Mile Swap was held in December 2014 at the Garage on Oakland Avenue.
The event featured Mike Agent X Clark D.J.ing from the Mothership.

Tell us a little bit about the Free Market of Detroit. What exactly is
it?
Its the awesomest place on planet Earth and it got started on the
North End of Detroit. Its where people find things they want and
take them for free in exchange for things they no longer want, but
are useable and could benefit someone else.
How did it all start?
As a mom, I wanted to help friends and family, and myself by
moving kids clothes and toys around the community. So it began
the practice of swapping items at get-togethers. Soon the backyard
bbq tradition among family and friends grew into an event that now
has live music, interactive elements like impromptu fashion shows,
photo booths, and participatory art-making.
Since you started hosting swaps, what’s changed? How have the
events evolved over time?
Since the beginning this event has grown organically from the needs
and desires of a community. In addition to The Free Market being
mobile and fluid, we will also be moving into a space in Detroit’s
historic North End neighborhood. A practice space for new
economy and new work. It will be open to skillshare, workshops,
trunk shows, and other evolving programs that respond to people
needs and fashion desire. This will be an informal fashion house
where anyone may lead a group in learning whatever skill they’d like
to share.
What’s next for the Free Market?
This summer we look forward to hosting workshops that combine
fashion, visual art, and basic sewing, with featured artists Sydney
G. James, and Diana Nucera who will lead garment deconstruction
and artistic refashioning.
What’s the coolest thing that you ever picked up at a swap?
I have gotten so many cool things at the swap including
kitchenwares, copy machine, shoes etc. It’s really hard for me to say
the absolute coolest... but something I truly love is a pot of motherin-law
tongues that is almost 6 feet tall and over 30 years old. I look
at this plant in my living room and think of my friend who brought it
every day.
What the largest thing that anyone has ever brought over?
The largest thing that was swapped was a refrigerator that was
taken no more than 15 seconds after it was brought in by a super
grateful dude whose fridge had just blown out.
Can you share an anecdote with us about someone who was
touched by the idea of a swap, or maybe found exactly what they
had always been looking for?
At the last swap, an elderly woman came in with her daughter, and
said she was looking for some boots. Since the space is always in
flux once it gets going, I was totally unsure if we had any boots at
all, but i pointed her to our “women’s section.” She was astounded
by how much clothing and accessories that people were giving
away. They shopped for a couple hours, and on her way out she
came over smiling, holding a pair of tall furry boots. “Thanks so
much! I got my boots!”
How do people find out when and where to swap?
For more swap info - people can check out
freemarketofdetroit.wordpress.com. And remember to like us on
Facebook.
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26

77
Throughout the history of modern dress, the
art of cobbling has remained a vital force in the
symbolism of popular fashion. Embellishment,
ornamentation, color, stitching, and polish
stem from the indulgent and the profound:
a good pair of shoes can elevate a person’s
image and poise. No one knows this better than
DAVE BOGGON. He’s been saving soles in the
North End since anyone can remember. Today
Dave’s infamous Red Jazz Shoe Shine Parlor on
Oakland Avenue is a Detroit institution where
people of all walks of life connect over shoes,
music, and an appreciation of shine.
photography
JL
interview
JL
MATTHEW STORY
Red Jazz Shoe Shine Parlor is located at
8348 Oakland Avenue in Detroit.

“
... Didn’t matter what walk of life -
gangsters, preachers, police, all professional
people. Thisis where they came. And one thing
about the shop, you never know who you were
sitting next to... ”
So Dave, tell us about your amazing business!
Well, I must say, at about the age of 15, I started working with my
uncle who had the business at that time. He put Reds together in
1950.
And was it here at this location?
No, it was on Oakland. It has been in several places up and down
the street... but it never moved off of Oakland. I was one of 16 guys
that worked with him and the only one who went to school to learn
how to do shoe repair. So I advanced myself on knowing how to fix
every pair of shoes. I went off to do business for myself in 1990 on
the East Side of Detroit under the name of Reflections Shoe Shine. I
was on Van Dyke and 7 mile for about 7 years, then I joined back up
with my Uncle right after that. After he passed on, the business was
passed on to someone else, and then after that it was passed on to
me. So now I am here, just keeping the tradition going.
How many days a week are you open?
Right now, I am open from Tuesday through Saturday. I am open 5
days a week.
All year round, winter, summer…
Yes, all the time, Tuesday through Saturday all year round.
Do you work by yourself?
No. I have two other employees by the names of Mel and Alvina.
What kinds of clients do you have? People of the North End or
people who come from far away?
People come from all over the place. From as far North, West, East
and South as they come because it has been a business for over 60
years.
Has you clientele changed since it started in 1950?
Yes, can’t do nothing but change. Now it is more of a middle class
that we see. Also now, the younger generation is catching on as far
as taking care of their shoes.
I think there is a big cultural shift from leather shoes and soles that
can be repaired to sneakers. Are young people are catching on and
moving back towards more traditional styles and care?
More of keeping the sneakers clean, basically. And traditional
styles, yes.
Have you had any famous people come in? Detroit famous or world
famous?
Well, everybody that walks through the door is famous because
they are customers. I treat them just as I would treat anyone who
would come in here.
Maybe some singers?
Yea, we do have people that come in that are pretty well known in
politics and government and corporations. So we do have people
that come in with high stature in those areas.
So your uncle started the shop and built a really great reputation
and you are keeping that alive?
Correct. I am keeping the reputation going on.
What helped build that reputation? Good craft?
Spitshine, which is called the Boston Gloss. That is being able to
make a shoe shine to the highest capacity, as much as it will go. It is
an ancient Chinese secret but it is simple. It is basically being able
and knowing how to use the rag and the polish to create that high
gloss that we put on shoes.
Where did the name of the shop come from?
My uncle… That is a good question. I never asked him that. But, he
came up with the name Red Jazz Shoe Shine Parlor, and I never
asked him where it came from.
Do you have any good guesses?
Mel: Well, I think his uncle’s skin tone was a light skin color, so they
called him Red, and he played Jazz in the shop...so Red’s Jazz….
83

So I can see there are many images of singers.
Aretha Franklin and her father, used to frequently visit his shop. The
Temptations used to visit his shop and get things done. Dramatic
used to visit his shop. Spinners. Actually a whole line of artists really
used to come in and visit him.
Because of the neighborhood?
Because of the neighborhood and the area where it was located.
The atmosphere was to the point to where people just wanted to
come. Didn’t matter what walk of life, gangsters, preachers, police,
all professional people. This is where they came. And one thing
about the shop, you never knew whom you were sitting next to. You
never knew. The only people that knew, basically, unless you knew
the person, were the workers. You could be a politician sitting next
to a gangster. Or you could be a drug dealer sitting next to police.
They came in, frequently, this is what they did. Everybody kept up
their shoes. From suede to dance shoes.
Could you recognize the kind of shoes that belonged to a certain
kind of character?
Yes. If I am not here in the shop and I see some shoes, I basically
know who they belong to. Oh yeah.
I kind of want to test you.
Well, if you are a frequent person who comes here all of the time,
and I am not here when you come and leave them, I’ll basically
know who they belong to. I have to know who they are. We don’t
write down anything unless they ask us for a receipt or something.
We have never written stuff down unless they asked. We don’t mix
people’s shoes up. We do any type of shoes. We do any brands and
walks of life of shoes. It doesn’t matter. We can make just about any
leather shine. So the whole point is, no matter what condition your
shoe is in, if it’s dirty and you think there is just no hope for them,
don’t count them out, bring them in. We can wake them up.
So there used to be nights when musicians were dropping in all the
time. So, before concerts the musicians would come over to have
their shoes shined to look their very best on the stage. Do you have
any stories about musicians coming in and talking about what
songs they were going to play? Or is it confidential, what musicians
talk about while they are getting their shoes shined?
No, basically they just come in and get their shoes done. And they
basically say they are on their way to work and they’re going to the
Fox Theater or Music Hall.
Do you have any telling stories about the shop because you
described it as full of so many different people and there aren’t
many places like that?
Well, it’s like going to a barber shop or inside a beauty salon where
everybody gets together to talk on a subject that can be just about
anything. It’s just the atmosphere that people bring when they come
in. They come in for that ambience of conversation.
It’s a pretty special place where politicians, actors, preachers, and
musicians are all in one room.
Oh, yeah! Everybody! All of them right here in one place.
Do you have any ladies come in?
Oh, ladies as well! Of course! They sit up on the stand just like the
guys do.
That’s what differentiates it from a barber shop because they’re
usually separate.
Yeah, I can seat up to 7 people to do shoes all at one time. You can
drop them off. You can leave them and come back and get them.
Or you can sit down and put them on.
So, this business is the same one it was 60 years ago? There is no
big difference?
Only difference there is now is the economy. Outside of that, it is
the same.
And the iPhone. People watching their iPhones more than before?
Oh yeah! But I try to keep it going by playing music that everyone
will like. You know smooth music. Nothing hard or anything like that.
It keeps the ambience going.
So we hear you’re a DJ? Do you play music in the store?
Yeah, I’m a DJ. I play R&B; I play jazz; and I play hip-hop, but it’s
the clean, smooth stuff. I used to play records, but I don’t have
any vinyl anymore. It’s just digital, but I started collecting records
around ‘88 or ‘89.
Was your taste in music based on Detroit musicians that were here
or did you branch out first and then come back to what’s here?
No, I always knew the music here. I was full of music anywhere. I
grew up on music from the neighorhood and Detroit as a whole.
So, as a teenager you would go out and dance to music all the
time?
Yeah.
Red Jazz Shoe Shine Parlor is located on 9148 Oakland Avenue.
As everyone in Detroit know, the shop provides the best service in
town, including gloss shines and high quality repairs. In addition,
customers are surrounded by good people, good music, and good
conversation.
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89
There is a deep legacy embedded in
the homes, buildings and streets that
many North End residents live in,
drive past, and walk on – unknowingly,
everyday. A community’s history so rich
and compelling that even it’s storiesof-legend,
spanning decades long
since past, continue to inspire awe and
reverence, attracting music historians
and aficionados the world over.
concert photography
PIPER CARTER
portraits
KIRK DONALDSON
words
BRYCE DETROIT
The Legacy of Funk Performance and launch of the ONE Mile Mothership took place at
Omar Bruce’s Garage on October 11, 2014.
The event featured: Walter “Hazmat” Howard, Carl “Butch” Small, T-Money Green, Gabe Gonzalez,
Dominie Deporres, the T.F.O. Horns, Dames Brown and D.J. Los. #LegacyOfFunk

“
If only we could see the wealth of art,
culture, and infrastructure our greatgrandparents,
uncles, and aunts have
created; vanguards of curating urban life
and contemporary expression. ”
A mighty current of musical innovation and cultural
generation, flows strongly enough through our
Oakland Avenue artery, to buoy at least seven
future generations of creative producers, community
activists and entrepreneurs.
If only we knew of the cultural revolutions and
economic legacies that our legendary North End
neighborhood has birthed. If only we could tap into
the ocean of our own ancestral memory; perhaps
that could offer a point-of-reference upon which a
people rendered “down-trodden and destitute” can
establish a new vantage –one oriented in a self-image
of determined love and community pride.
If only we could remember the sounds …the smells …
the tastes and the sensations of that not-so-distant
truth; a truth from which we’ve been so thoroughly
disconnected. If only we could see the wealth of art,
culture, and infrastructure our great-grandparents,
uncles and aunts have created; vanguards of curating
urban life and contemporary expression. If only we
saw “something” different, as we glance ashamedly
into broken-window-paned reflections of class
disparity and modern displacement.
The mainstream news outlets paint pictures of
our hood reminiscent of a war-leathered general’s
recounts of invaded foreign territories; pitifully
fashioned in fire-scorched storefronts and ballisticsriddled
residential blocks. The legacy members of
the North End anecdote of eras replete with racial
segregation, blues and soul funk royalty, revolutionist
political movements and economic prosperity –all
against the backdrop of “one of the most important
cities in the world” for popular music entertainment in
the 20th century …Detroit.
I am the North End, now. Standing proudly at a
unique point on a well-traveled road. Standing
between one of the greatest musical legacies on
Earth, and the reimagined Future of the most
important cultural revolution of our collective Time.
I am my Ancestors, now. Gyrating guitars, piano
playing, spirit raising, ever-creating and ideating
new realities through improvised composition. I am
the new drum. Speaking old rhythmic myths digitally
mixed with samples of new narratives –synthesis
synthesized. I am a member of that legacy continued.
Through my community, We etch our existence in art,
music, design, and culture. We are the next chapters
of one of the greatest music stories yet to be told.
90

110
If the North End has a long running
space for informal and organized social
gathering, it’s in no small part due to ROGER
ROBINSON. As driven as he is astute, the
expert community advocate - owner of Red Door
Digital - has developed a space as appealing
to movement and mediation spiritualists as it
is to young spoken word performers and street
artists. A month ago, we sat down with Robinson
in front of his fireplace at the print shop-cumcultural
center to talk about being a young
organizer in a burgeoning Detroit, the politics of
Jewish heritage, and the future of
the North End.
interview
HALIMA CASSELLS
MATTHEW STORY
photography
MATTHEW STORY
Red Door Digital is located at 7500 Oakland Avenue in Detroit.

I was born in Detroit. I have been around the North End as a
resident and/or business person pursuing my vocational activities
for the last thirty-five years. I was first introduced to the area almost
sixty-five years ago. I went to Sunday school at Temple Bethel which
is at Woodward and Glasgow. My first adventure on the East Side
of Woodward was to go to what was then the Jewish Community
center where I went swimming. And my dentist, which I went to a
year later, was on the East side of Woodward, on the Boulevard
and Woodward. So I am not unfamiliar with the area. And I have a
historically-set, modern involvement.
So you were born in Detroit, but there were a couple years before
you got introduced to the North End, but where in Detroit do you
come from?
I was born in North West Detroit. Had I not been an antisocial
youth, I would have gone to Mumford High School. But I was sent
off to military school because I was probably headed towards
reform school if I didn’t go there.
After military school, you came back to Detroit?
I came back to Detroit, went to an honors college called Montief
College at Wayne State. They used a pedagogy that was
extrapolated from the University of Chicago. So I went to Montief
College. I only applied to one place, got accepted, and I went.
For what?
The Univeristy was a front. I organized my first union when I
was 19. I was at an large member of SDS when I was 18. I had
received a scholarship internship with the Committee for Sane
Nuclear Policy in Washington in 1964. I actually ran or travelled to
the Senate subway cars lobbying against the resolution of Tonkin
Bay.
Were you at Port Huron?
Port Huron proceeds me. I was among a small enough
group where there wasn’t an SDS chapter in Detroit.
What is SDS?
Students for a Democratic Society was a grouping which
was a progressive, anti-capitalist presence. It had predecessor
roots in the American Socialist Movement and was a paternal
organization linked to SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee) and SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership
Committee).
You must have raised a little bit of hell in the antiwar
movement.
I was one of the tenpeople who organized and founded the Detroit
Union. I was alsoorganizing working people for the municipal
workers union. And before that I organized for the restaurant union.
You said you organized your first union at 18. What was the pressure
to do that?
I was 18 about to be 19. That was a workforce that was the total
action against poverty workforce. The poverty program had people
working for it. I wound up organizing that into a union. Actually
appointed me to interim officers. Got me involved in negotiations.
Your political consciousness started pretty early.
I did not look like an 18 and 19 year old, and I did not function like
one.
Where do you think your ideology comes from? As a young person,
what had you seen or what do you think made you move in that
direction?
I think part of it is the cultural left wing pro-worker underfitting of
my mother’s parents who left Russia after the unsuccessful revolt
of 1905. He was a carpenter, he carried books in Windsor and
Detroit. He was a simple guy who believed in what was the socialist
response of many Jews in Russia. There were two responses, the
left revolutionary response or the insular, very orthodox, ethnic,
religious response from the pogroms and oppression. So, I had that
from my family. My mother went to what was called the Harbor
Terrain Workman Circles School which was part of the Second
International Yiddish Manifestation of the socialist movement. My
father was not a left winger, but he was an educated, developed
man who was on socialism.
112

Very progressive and onto that aspect of Jewish culture, I
emphasized and believed in the liberation aspect of the celebration
of Passover. I understood that I had come from a people that had
seen repeated oppression and therefore did not want to favor
people who oppressed other people. The other thing is that when
I was growing up there was a serious movement for human rights
and the Organizing Policy Act of the American community. I was
maturing concurrent with that. I was intellectually and ideologically
in support and in concert with what was going on. When I was
active politically, my parents had move to Lafayette Park in Detroit.
Which was a different enclave, but the greater geography was
black. So as I cut my teeth in mainstream traditional politics, it was
essentially a black political jurisdiction.
I also learned certain aspects of support and came to the
conclusion that many white liberals were fine with coalitions, as
long as they were allowed to dominate the coalition. But I actually
practiced and learned in the situation where operationallysupported
black folks were the leaders of the coalition that was
in the jurisdiction where I practiced politics. It basically was an
agreement that there were some undesirable types who would
prevail, but I basically came up when it was appropriate that that
political jurisdiction is best led by black folks.
I’m curious, what did that look like? Was this when you were
younger, or when you were practicing as an organizer?
No, I had made this move when I was still in high school. So I came
into an area that was middle class and probably upper middle
class, but it was a thoroughly integrated community. A lot of the
black population were more activist elements of the black middle
class, though fewer were very progressive and politically enriched.
You describe an incredibly formative environment. How do we
understand how difference is supported in a place like this?
Well I’m really not sure, but there were some unique things that
happened. Detroit had the first serious black middle class, which
were the children of the black industrial working class. Most of
whom had been employed at Ford Motor. So Detroit was ahead a
full generation, or generation and a half before that phenomenon
was in the rest of the country. You had a very developed middle
class, and black working class. Detroit had an economic explosion
in 1943 before the rest of the country and again in ‘67. So the
black movement and sociology of Detroit is different from the
rest of the country. Detroit was the first jurisdiction in America
that sent black folks to congress. That’s not an accident. It wasn’t
Chicago, it wasn’t L.A., it wasn’t New York - it was Detroit. Detroit
was the first community with “one person, one vote” and that had
a proportional aggregate of legislative representatives in Lansing.
That came from the black community in Detroit. So you had some
advanced developments also, the black leadership in most of the
industrial unions were to a degree overdeveloped, because of the
racism in the society at large,. Black folks weren’t given access in
management. They were able to get access, if they were incredibly
politically adroit, in the labor movement.
So the black leaders in the UAW, in the earlier days were an
incredibly skilled group of people, who because of racism wound up
dedicating their lives, their energy, and their intellect there. So these
were not slouches, these were very skilled people, and I interacted
with these people, and had respect for them. They were people to
learn from and they knew a lot. They were incredibly able. It was
sort of an anomalous act that happened in this geography.
Are you speaking of General Baker?
General Baker is the next generation, but he’s a manifestation of
the kind of people like the first Horace Sheffield. Ernie Dillerd got
elected to be in the most important collective bargaining position
and the big GM local was less than 10% black. You have the whites
that were basically hillbillies and Hungarians and Poles. So you had
a situation where the working class might not like black people.
Mr. Dillerd got elected in a department that was mostly black,
then the rest of the working class saw how well he negotiated and
defended workers. That then gave them access to representing all.
So you had a lot of that going on, these were very talented people.
Some of these people I came up with. I was taught by developed
white people and developed black people. I was trained in the old
religion.
So what is the old religion?
The old religion is not being afraid to use extra- legal activities in
order to prosecute what you wish to have accomplished. Its not
being afraid to place you picket sign on a 2x4 and then apply it to
someone who is trying to break your line. In some circumstances it
was much more - consequential.
So is there a new religion then, not necessarily in terms of labor?
There are no acolytes and there is no religion. The people who came
after when it was a fat time and it was easy, and they never had
to fight...they had no desire to fight. They had a desire, they might
have had sincere effort to defend people, but they - they weren’t the
same stuff let’s just put it that way, and they’re not the same stuff.
Given the impact of Jewish history and Jewish politics, as well as
union organizing, labor politics, workers’ rights on Detroit, I’m
wondering how do you see these impact the culture coming from
ONE Mile? Or how do all of our different experiences and history
influence culture production?
Well I’ll take a side - what is now ONE mile was the old Jewish North
End. There were twelve houses of worship in the area. The Jewish
community center was on the East side of Woodward in the North
End. Most of the progressive Jewish Union were New York centered.
They had branches in Cleveland and Chicago and a minor
presences here. There were Jews that were active in labor. Probably
the most prominent was Edmond Bluestone who was the vice
president of the UAW and Martin Beiber who also became VP. They
came out of the old socialist movement and were Jewish. Barry
Bluestone was at Port Huron. And Port Huron was a UAW
convocation, so the founding of SDS was underwritten by the UAW.
There was among the older generation, the generation before me,
an understanding that came out of Eastern Europe where there
was oppression; and understanding that abuse could systematically
be heaped upon people. I don’t suggest there wasn’t racism, but I
think there was a lot less and a lot people weren’t racist at all. That
progressive patina and social democratic sensibility, its more than
a varnish. Isn’t what it was, but it still resonates for some folks. My
hope is that it will have a stronger voice sometime in the future.
113

“
“Wwʼás z’n’n ʼ’yr g’m’kt? Wwʼás t’ánʼ’yr t’án” What are you
making, what do you do? ”’yk byn g’m’kt hyys byyg’l’k” I’m
making hot bagels. They weren’t just having a few words, they
could speak Yiddish. You had the same thing in the Polish
community. You had black folks that spoke elegant Polish,
spoke Italian, because that’s who their neighbors were. So I
think there was a working class, an industrial class, in Detroit,
which was a little bit different from most other
geographies.”
I don’t know necessarily what all that is, but in this community, the
old Jewish North End, social ties were tight because those who were
religious couldn’t drive on the Sabbath. See you had to live close
enough to where you worshiped so you walked and that also built
community. So it was in a Jewish context a recreation of the church
centered village, and I was here.
Is that your first memory of the North End? Sunday School?
Sunday school was on the West side of Woodward, but I didn’t
really know much about the North End until the early and mid 60’s
when my friend’s father had a furniture store on Westminster and
Oakland. When I got to the neighborhood and I was a little more -
adventurous... Oakland probably had twenty blind pigs, which were
after hours establishments, besides the ones that were licensed. I
had some experience relating to Oakland when it was Oakland.
That’s probably the most delicate way you’ve ever talked about
that...
You had Jewish merchants, but the blind pigs were all black.
That transition had been made. You had residual Jewish merchants
that were there, but after ‘67 they basically, except for Charlie
the Pencilman, were gone. There is still one Jewish business of
consequence left, Greenfield Noodle Company just a block away.
That was established 1980, its not from the period when there was
a residential density of Jews.
What interrelationship between Jewish people and black people
have you seen in the area?
Well right now there isn’t really any, because there aren’t any Jews
who live here, the Jewish merchants aren’t here. Historically most
Jews in 1950 were some what supportive of equal rights. If they
weren’t explicitly supportive of the civil rights movement, they were
intellectually in concert with their goals. To a large extent. There are
obviously conservative Jews, but there weren’t that many back then.
I went to a junior high school that was probably black. No one from
the Jewish community who came from Bagley Elementary School
felt dislocated because they were going to a school with black kids.
There occasionally could be some stupid pejorative references, but
I never ever saw a negative action, and most of the verbal stuff was
minimal.
Two weeks ago, at the Bureau, Marsha Music was reading about
housing covenants, did you see that here?
Well I remember when I was very young still seeing signs that said,
“No Jews and dogs allowed.”
Here?
In Detroit, on the West side of Woodward. Whites lived on the
Westside , blacks lived on the East side. So in my memory, I still
have memory of that shit. I have explicit memory of the point
system and the points. If you were a Jew, you couldn’t buy a house
because of the the point system. If you were a gangster you could
buy a house. If you were an Italian Gangster. That changed later on
but there was a prevalence of closed housing. Neighborhoods were
closed. I remember going to bagel shops, and bakeries, where the
black workers spoke Yiddish.
In Detroit?
“Wwʼás z’n’n ʼ’yr g’m’kt? Wwʼás t’ánʼ’yr t’án” What are you making,
what do you do?”’yk byn g’m’kt hyys byyg’l’k” I’m making hot bagels.
They weren’t just having a few words, they could speak Yiddish.
You had the same thing in the Polish community before Fannie
May financed the black working class to leave the city. You had
black folks that spoke elegant Polish, spoke Italian, because that’s
who their neighbors were. So I think there was a working class,
an industrial class in Detroit which was a little bit different from
most other geographies. Because of the brutality and madness of
industrial production, people in their communities got their strength
after the depression and before the end of World War II. You have
a lot of ethnic whites living next door to mostly blacks who came up
from the South, and they got along...for the most part.
You described both and incredibly vibrant and tumultuous Detroit.
The alienation of the industrial work was more perverse than any
115

other geography. In Chicago if you worked in a steel mill, it was
exhausting work but it wasn’t dehumanizing. You were part of a
magnificent process that made steel. It was not magnificent to
screw a fucking bolt, 200 times, 250 times, 300 times an hour. That
is dehumanizing, its alienating. The brutality of the plant was that
you voluntarily went into a inhuman condition because you
were economical rewarded. Consequential to a certain point, the
industrial working class was paid very well and had a middle class
life existence as a result of the economic reward of the wealth that
was generated and negotiated on their behalf. That is not at this
time a common experience.
How have your feeling changed about Detroit? You have a
relationship with the city, you’ve been here for so long.
The city has been disinvested. The black population, the
fundamental black pollution hasn’t changed in 60 years, 678,000
people, its not 600,000 people, in 1950 it was close to 600,000
people, in 1960 it was 600,000 people. Detroit was one third black,
that’s when Detroit was 2 million. The white people left, black folks
were here. Leaving with the white people was all of the economic
power of the rural class, the industrial class, the merchant
class. The fact that Detroit was the first to develop a suburban
shopping mall. Northland, it was the first in the country, meant the
abandonment of the city. The retail commerce outside the city.
So how do you couple this frustration with the disinvestment of the
city with the fact that Detroit is also one of the most vibrant cities in
the country, or that there has ever been.
Detroit is a complex accident. The working class of Detroit
had no problem when the third world was being exploited, and
they got good wages. Now that the social meanness which
was invested upon the third world has now been invested on
the indigenousness Detroit population, the tables have turned. So
you have to take this with a grain of salt, the benefit of the industrial
working class was partially based on the exploitation of the rest of
the world, and now that that world has returned, one has to have
some kind of analytical ability to know what is going on. Detroit
was vibrant because it was the center of the consolidation of the
industrial revolution into an industry which became the dominant
industry - which consumed more than anything else and then
created fundamental wealth.
Just curious, when you think of the North End, what’s your best
memory?
Actually from 25 years ago or so, there were a couple rib
places; there was also a former grey economy. People would set
up a big barrel and start barbequing. I don’t want to call it a central
network; but it was an energy that is no longer here and that was
one main thing I took pleasure from.
What about in Detroit as a whole?
In general in Detroit and not the North End - going to the ballpark
and sitting in the bleachers. It didn’t cost anything. You could go
outside a locker room and get a ball player’s signature. When you
went to a hockey game they would sign a piece of paper and give
you an autograph. They were normal people. In my neighborhood
there were professional football players who lived there. Now it was
a middle class area, but it wasn’t huge income, it was a different
world. My doctor used to come to my house to care for me. Doctors
carried a little black bag and they lived in the area they worked in.
It was a different world.
What’s needed is more of that. What’s needed is enough business
and commercial activity that is rooted in the local area to
provides more than entry level employment. That helps become
part of the glue or key stitches in a fabric that is a neighborhood
and community. We have almost none of that now. There is a new
work movement, and hopefully some of old work and old tradition,
will become new work. We will be able to weave elements into the
fabric and also apply some of the stitches that caused the fabric
to be knit together to create the strength that is a community. You
also have to have institutional bases that center a community and
make it a village. The only thing I see that does that in the North
End, is during the good season when it becomes the center for a lot
of people, at least for some free time. So we need to create, or be
involved in the creation, or the reinforcement of brick and mortar
or intellectually spiritual pieces of our geography that are owned by
everybody. That then creates the self-policing strength that builds
community, and builds safety, and builds sustainability.
Detroit now is rich because there is a culture which is driven from
the African American community. The musical energy, the forms
come from there. This political geography has value even though
we’re working against the forces of fundamental abandoned and
only have taken little pieces back because they can get it for .10
on a dollar. And its good. Detroit will not be the same gentrified
pattern or investment pattern or bonus of most cities based on the
assumptions of transit-oriented investment and development. The
dope man can’t make a living in most areas of Detroit anymore.
There isn’t enough wealth when you intervene with transit and other
things to sustain what it costs to elect new facilities, and all of these
figures and groups that are speculating are going to get their asses
kicked. In long hall there will be incremental improvements and
benefits that people will think will make a short term financial killing
based on historical development transit oriented development.
116

121
It’s not just what you’re eating, it’s how you’re
eating it - and for biker-baker DEE CASTELOW
eating sweet potato cakes is sometimes just a
vehicle to talk about love, life, and everything
else. We had a chat with Castelow, head of
Ava’s World Famous Sweet Potato Cakes,
about riding through the city and bringing
piping hot deliciousness to everyone’s table.
He’s infectiously optimistic, and will have you
eating cake and pedalling in no time. As host
of the North End’s biggest annual party in
Bennet Park, Castelow has a vision for the
neighborhood, which he contributes to
one cake at a time.
interview
MATTHEW STORY
photography
JL
Visit Ava’s Sweet Potato Cakes on sweetpotatoavas.weebly.com, and remember
to like Ava’s on Facebook. Archival image courtesy of Dee Castelow.

122
I originally started riding a bike eleven years ago for therapy. I
would just ride and do my physical therapy for maybe two hours a
day, but I was getting stopped because I keep really unique bikes,
so people kept wondering where I got the bike since I’m always on
three wheelers --
So would people stop you and ask,“where did you get your bike?”
Yes, they would ask where I got my bike - and I had a snake at the
time. So between the bike and the snake, me being out, you know,
two hours a day would sometimes become five or six hours. I had
a Burmese Python and I would keep it on my neck or sometimes I
would put him in a basket and Jake and I would ride...
Jake the Snake?
Yeah, Jake the snake [laughs]. So, one day I was out and I used to
see several groups and different individuals riding and I met “Bike
Mike”. His name was Mike, but they all called him “Bike Mike,” and
he asked me to ride with him...so I did. He was riding with a group
called “East Side Riders” and they would ride with “Group G Mob”
Over the years it had just grown so it was “Hood to Hood,” that’s
another bike group, and it was all surrounded by what you would
call “bike life”.
Can you explain “bike life”?
“Bike life” is just the joy of being out free, riding your bike, just
being a cyclist. Bike life is basically just having fun. Old, young,
and people from the community riding together and enjoying each
other’s company. And you know how people always say so much
bad stuff is going on in Detroit? When I first started riding with the
guys, I didn’t really know any of them and I would leave my iPod
on my bike, along with my speakers and sometimes other valuable
stuff. But you could go to the store and come back an hour later
and be like “Oh, I left my phone” and all your stuff would still be
there because you know everybody looks out for each other, not
just when we were riding. We got people who block traffic to make
sure everyone is riding accordingly - sharing the road with the
cars, cause when we start out early in the day everyone’s out there
honking their horns and waving, you know, but as it gets later in the
day, the crowd gets bigger and the day grows longer.
How many riders are there in your bike club?
Well, currently, in my group, there’s about fifteen to twenty riders.
Now the subset of the group that I’m in is the “North End Bike
Club,” and there are thirty riders in that group. But when we get
together and do a slow roll, there’s maybe about twenty-five
hundred riders.
Twenty-five hundred?!
Between twenty-five hundred to four thousand riders. And it started
off with a group of maybe thirty or forty people. Over the years,
it’s like a magnet. Everybody is drawn to it. There are some people
who might think they are too big, but there are so many people
that you can’t get lost from the pack. Everyone is making sure
that everybody is alright. If you catch a flat, you’ve got people out
there who will help you patch your tire up, or change an inner tube.
Everybody is helping each other. No matter where you came from or
what you’re doing, we are a collective group.
So, what is the North End Bike Club?
That’s the group of bike riders that live on the North End. They
would like me to be in a group, but I started with the D-Town riders.
I am currently the president. The North End Bike Club, they’re my
friends, and I’ve known them through the North End and I grew
up with them. But, I am already a part of something, everything is
going pretty good with who I am with, and you don’t just give up on
somebody just because.
Tell us about the D-Town Riders?
D-Town Riders...Bike Mike started riding because he had health
issues. He was diabetic. He was overweight. It started with him just
trying to get his body back in order. It started becoming part of his
life.

123
And he’s from the North End?
Yes, he’s from the North End as well. I believe he’s originally from the
East Side, but he has been over here, and I’ve been on him about
8 or 10 years. He’s a good guy and he is the reason I ride with that
group. If I had not been injured...you know, I was shot three times...
so if I hadn’t have gotten shot, maybe I wouldn’t have even thought
about riding as an adult.
That was why you were doing cycling for physical therapy?
Yes, to rehabilitate myself. I was going to the hospital for therapy,
and in the beginning they were really hands-on. Yet, by the fifth or
sixth month, they would just say, “Go over there and do this, go over
here and do that,” and I’m still paying them. They are not doing
anything, they are just giving me instructions. So I would just go ride
the stationary bike for an hour and half at the hospital. One day I
was looking out the window and I saw a couple of cyclists. I said, “I
can’t really put my foot on the ground, but I can get me a threewheel
bike and get the same exercise and benefits, get out, and not
pay anything.” One low cost of a bicycle and my own ambition and
I can get the same results.
I don’t know about the snake. Is there a story about the snake?
Where did the snake come from?
Well, he was my pet.
So you have a pet that’s a snake and he is in the box. He looking
around…
I’d take him around so that he could stretch his arms, at least that’s
what I would tell folks.
What about the bike? Did you start to customize the bike for the
snake?
I had a friend who knew that I was hurt and was looking to sell
a bike, and he knew that I was looking for something special. He
thought one particular bike would be beneficial for me. It had all
rubber tires on it. I could ride it through a mile of glass and not
get a flat. He got the bike from a guy who worked at the factory.
The factories were so big that the foremen would ride these bike
through the plants. I happened to get a hold of one of these bike. I
had it for awhile and I loved that bike. I’d keep it on the side of my
house and everyone knew it was mine. Every now and then I would
let somebody ride it. People would say, “Hey, where’d you get that
bike from!” “DR said I could ride it!” People thought I was crazy,
but they knew I was trying to rehab myself and I’m friends with
everyone around here. I have several businesses around here. I have
the candy store on Brush. My mom and I had a restaurant on Clay
and Oakland, Ava’s Kitchen and Catering where we did full service
dine in, carry-out, and delivery. We had another restaurant, Ava’s
Kitchen between Josephine and Owen on Oakland.
So your mom is from the North End?
She moved here from the West Side, and I still have a lot of family
over there. But my mom, when she first moved to the North End, she
was trying to get a house on Boston. The lady was giving her the run
around and she happened to come by here and the previous owner
had a piano sitting in the window. The lady happened to invite her
in and she liked it and it became her residence.
So let’s keep talking about the bikes.
Well, I had that bike for a few years and I even had it stolen. I let a
friend ride it and someone stole it. The bike shop recovered it and
I got it back. And then several months later someone else stole it. I
miss that bike. I used to call it Big Orange.
I’ve ridden alot with the D-Town Riders. We’ve ridden in parades
like the annual parade on Mack Street. We do different community
events for the neighborhood. We rode for Richard Bernstein’s
reelection campaign. We have Fourth of July events where we have
bike riders come out to Delores Bennett Park.
I’m getting more enthused about riding because all the bikes now
are so magnificent. They are lit up, they have all these lights and
music. Someone rides by you and just blows you out the water.
And my bike, it sits so low that you can’t see me so I have to do
something to enhance it so that I will be noticed. I am noticed once
you are going to the right and you look down and you’re about to
ride over me. I have to show it to you. It looks like wagon or some
type of odd wheelchair.
Did the bikes always start out so magnificent or has there been an
escalation?
When I met Bike Mike, he already had the lights and the music.
Some of the other guys from the East Side or bike crews already
had lights. I just recently started to get my cousin to ride over the
last year or so, and now he rides almost more than I do. I would
close early on Mondays so I could ride in the Monday Slow Roll.
They meet every Monday at different bars in Midtown. We’ll ride
maybe 13-16 miles and then hang out for a while downtown. While
I’m just riding with the little bluetooth speaker, he’s got the boombox
stereo that’s car battery operated on his bike.
Do you have discussions about who’s bikes are best?
They have annual bike shows and, in the beginning of May, we meet
at Harmony Park and everybody brings their bikes out and they
hand out trophies and ribbons to the prettiest girl bike, the fanciest
guy’s bike, the best overall bike, best paint job, stuff like that.
Who organizes it?
This year, King Wayne from the East Side Riders.
Have you ever gotten a prize?
I have a unique bike, so I got a prize for most unique. I got a little
ribbon with a medal. There is an annual bike show at COBO hall
that they wanted me to enter, but I told them, “My bike is just

“
We are a changing community, and biking
means you have the freedom to enjoy and
embrace the hidden jewels of the city.”
unique, your bikes are fancy.” Some of them have strobe lights
with their names across it, engraved seats, spectacular paint jobs,
hydraulics, all of this enhanced work. I just ride. I just started caring
about my bike and not leaving it out in the rain so I wouldn’t have
to wipe the water off of my seat. I am starting to appreciate my bike
more.
When I first started riding, they would say “Dee, you riding for two
hours, you’re going to be gone for too long.” But it’s summer time,
there’s nothing to do, might as well ride for a while. Now, I think I’m
the least active rider around.
The slow roll has grown so much. Every route is different, sometimes
they roll through the neighborhoods and people see that you
don’t have to be in the best shape. So what if my bike is not in
the best condition. There’s enough people where I still fit in and I
enjoy myself. So what if I’m not lean and trim. I can weigh 340 lb
and still get the benefits. You see all type of riders. It’s a type of
encouragement to everybody. I see guys eighty-five, ninety years
old, the bike is falling apart, and he looks better than the bike does.
Everybody is just having a ball. You see little kids, people have got
their dogs in baskets and strange little contraptions. It’s a lot of
fun. It’s a real diverse crowd. You’ve got doctors and lawyers. It’s
kinda like a reunion because in a crowd of twenty-five hundred
people, there’s no telling who you are going to run into. There’s been
connections, love connections, business connections. It’s a good
thing. There’s this guy who they call the Light Man. He sees people
who don’t have any lights and he’ll come on over. He’s got tail lights,
spoke lights, whistles, bells. So there’s always somebody out there
trying to push a product. There’s a gal with a souped-up bike with
an ice cream cart on it. You’d never imagine the different kinds of
bikes you can see. I’ve even seen one guy who has one of those
bikes with the really big wheel and the really small wheel. People
come up to me and say they really like my bike, but I really like
everybody else’s bikes! There’s a guy who has barbeque grill on the
back of his bike.
To be a biker in the Motor City, what does it mean?
It means being able to just ride free. You have to share the road
and you have to love the bike. We are a changing community, and
biking means you have the freedom to enjoy and embrace the
hidden jewels of the city. Most people in cars know exactly where
they are going and aren’t going to cut through the byways and the
back streets. Bicyclists have the freedom to go anywhere. You just
make your own path. Being a bike rider, you get to enjoy, embrace,
and see all that the city has to offer. Sometimes I would ride without
a specific destination, and I will see a group of people standing out,
and I’d turn down that specific street. Since you’ve been here, the
population isn’t what it used to be. So whenever I see some life in
the neighborhood, I’ll go check it out. And sometimes it’s someone I
know and sometimes it is someone who wants to ride. And I just tell
them, just meet here and let’s ride!
126

131
In the alleys of the North End, with a group of
volunteer and residents, we experimented with
the possibility of redesigning a city through its
landscape by using the assets that are already
there. To understand the latent possibilities of
this exceptional vegetal scenario, our garden
is evolving. We assess, organize and maintain
the landscape in order to arrive at an urbane
ecological experience. Step 1: remove debris.
Step 2: identify the important trees. Step 3:
weed, open things up, clarify. Step 4: cut, prune,
form, render the human hand apparent. Step 5:
choose, find, plant. Step 6: follow up, observe,
manage, and care. To borrow the words of Gilles
Clément, “do the most that you can WITH, and
the least AGAINST nature.”
photography
JL
words
CHRISTOPHE PONCEAU
Christophe Ponceau is a landscape architect and curator based in Paris and Lausanne. He joined the O.N.E.
Mile Project in Fall 2014. During his stay in Detroit, Ponceau ran a series of workshops introducing the team and
a broad network of volunteers to the concept of the Garden in Motion. Fin more about Ponceau at
christophe-ponceau.com

143
The North End is crucial to Detroit’s musical story. Both
Smokey Robinson and Aretha Franklin spent formative years
here. Marvin Gaye played the Phelp’s Lounge. Ruth Ellis
threw house parties above her print shop on Oakland. John
Lee Hooker had one of his earliest gigs at the Apex Bar. A
Mothership currently sits in a warehouse on Oakland.
Musical traditions like the ones that began in neighborhoods
like Detroit’s North End have resonated throughout the
world. And yet, Detroiters continue to lose our legacies,
whether through floods, scraping, or just plain neglect.
Through oral histories that go beyond the usual suspects,
archival digitization of hidden collections, and academic
diligence outside the Ivory Tower, the Detroit Sound
Conservancy (DSC) has begun to establish a track record for
asking the right questions when it comes to music history
preservation. Now we are trying to find the answers.
We were founded in 2012 in order to preserve Detroit
music history from the bottom up. Two summers ago,
the DETROIT SOUND CONSERVANCY ran a successful
crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter to found an
online oral history archive dedicated to Detroit music.
The next year we celebrated our momentum with a free
and open to the public academic conference dedicated to
Detroit music history at the Detroit Public Library. We will
hold another conference this year on May 22 on the role
of Michigan and Detroit in the emergence of the modern
soundscape. Our long-term goal for all of this high-minded
organizing is to use the stories and sounds to propel us into
a more sustainable future for Detroit’s sonic heritage.
You can read more here: detroitsoundconservancy.org
Carleton Gholz (PhD, Communication Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2011) is the President and Executive
Director of the Detroit Sound Conservancy, a lecturer in Communication at Oakland University in Rochester,
Michigan, President of the Friends of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection at the Detroit Public Library, and a
member of the Detroit Public Library Friends Foundation.

145
It was clear that whatever we did would be
public. Lifting the doors to the garage slowed
traffic and the forty-five foot tall boom lift inside
was an invitation to recall changed tires twenty
years back and how there used to be an auto
parts shop next door, but it closed and was torn
down a long time ago. The same was true for the
O.K. Barbershop. When the inside gleamed out
to the street from the fresh paint on fresh plaster
and the old facade was removed, the shop was
already a public space with building as its
program, regardless of completion.
photography
JL
words
MATTHEW STORY
Since its launch in the summer of 2014, O.N.E. Mile has renovated and repurposed two
space on Oakland Avenue: the OK Barbershop was transformed into the Bureau Emergent Urbanity
and a garage become the Garage, an experimental venue for music and performance.

When construction machines, pick-up trucks, hammer thwacks,
and saw brrraps sound in the North End, it has recently meant
that another house is being torn down. It is devastatingly efficient
in speed and opaqueness. Neither who, nor where, nor when are
known when the dump trucks drive down Oakland Ave. While
working up on the roof of the garage, a truck pulled up to the
building with the caved in roof across the street. The men from
inside the truck fixed a small, yellow demolition notice to the jam
of the missing door, behind some branches of a tree growing out of
a gap between the sidewalk and the foundation. I came down off
of the roof and cut the tree back with the branch cutters that we
had from the times we were working on the landscape design. This
did more for my personal feelings than make a bold demand for
transparency with the gravitas of work implement in hand and tool
belt buckled around waist. Yet, what I saw was that a visible act is
not inherently a public act.
If this is case, that building is not in and of itself a public act, how
can it be made to be one? Or rather, how can the ability to change
the city be made explicit? What does it look like to change the city,
and what does it look like when it is changed? These questions
center on who has the right to the city. I appreciate how David
Harvey puts it when he says that, “The right to the city is far more
than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to
change ourselves by changing the city.”
A simple way to relate this O.N.E. Mile’s practice is in how we
position building as a public program to cultivate participatory
relationships with the people. There are, perhaps two ways to think
about building as public program. Firstly, building architecture with
people does practical things. It can repair things that are broken
and strengthen affinities between people. It necessitates clear
communication and common language, teaches skills, create jobs,
broadcasts successes, organizes community, and spread
And yet it is this very practicality that normalizes a potent
and radical practice with the language of job training. skills
development, and remediation. Building draws out a person’s
right to the city, the right to produce space. A right that is not
solely funneled into the ability to work for a wage and participate
in dominant building practices. A framer, for example, has the
capacity to create space for a radical cultural and architectural
project in the North End while at the same time building a suburban
housing development. The right exists and the ability exists, yet the
building can be a social practice must be made explicit in order to
be actualized.
If action is the marker of a social practice, public building, or even
more generically, producing new space, maximizes intervention
and engagement. Producing space with openness of purpose and
process initiates that radical transference of the rights to space,
rights to the city. This is not to say that there is some exchange by
which right are acquired by through work, but rather that rights to
space are not made clear, nor rendered visible or representable
without signification from the collective spatial transformation and
from novel visual/aesthetic representation. Simply put, it come from
from building and doing that building together.
It isn’t always clear that space is up for grabs and constitutes social
practice. Without seeing the space changed, it remains infallible,
complete, un-transformable, and unremarkable. The question
becomes how the production of space is represented to broadcast
a maximum liberating effect?
The obvious question then is what does these rights look like? If
we are changing the city through changing ourselves, what does
this change look like? And not just in an epistemological sense of
what is is, but actually what are its aesthetics? The aesthetics of
emergent culture are chalked up to just that, emergence. With this
logic, aesthetics are not prototype-able, deployable, designable,
nor leverage-able. But don’t be mistaken, along with the right to
change space comes the right to represent it.
146

157
DR. MAKEEBA ELLINGTON can sense the
interconnectedness of the Universe. As a healing
artist and mystic movement leader, Dr. Ellington
believes that the spiritual nature of community
flows from being together and moving together
in space. Her training in metaphysics allows
her to channel and connect to the whole-ness of
being and help guide others to self-fulfillment
and happiness.
photography
JL
words
Dr. Makeeba Ellington
Along side her spiritual work, Dr. Makeeba Ellington is also a visual artists, and a O.N.E. Mile fellow.

light fixture designed by Dr. Makeeba Ellington
following pages: the artist’s hand painted chairs

“
If you ever find yourself at a cross roads,
I am one of the people who is here to assist
you in healing... ”
I have my Doctorate Degree in Metaphysical Sciences. When I
say that to most people have absolutely no idea what that means
or how I can make a living in that field. I generally get a nonunderstanding
nod with a glazed over look. One way that I explain
to people exactly what I do is to break down what metaphysics is.
Meta means whole, implying that this is a whole work body, mind,
and spirit. Physics means medical art/natural science, saying that
this is natural for all people.
I specifically work within the spiritual aspect of this kind of work.
I provide a service using spiritual tools and strategies to assist
people who want to work to empower themselves. If you’ve ever
found yourself at a cross roads, I am one of the people who is here
to assist you in healing. I’ve been doing this type of work ever since
I can remember, but I finally took my act on the road seriously after
years and years of encouragement from family and friends.
I went back to school to finish my degree, but this time it was in
something that I loved which made it so much easier to achieve
because I wanted for myself. Not long after finishing school I
started what I was calling Empathic Mystic Movement...this was a
movement class that combined meditation and music. I was just
getting my feet wet with the idea that I should facilitate a class and
build the confidence to do so. With life happening the way that it
does, I had to stop the classes temporarily with the knowing that I
would resume them as soon as I saw a way to do so. Moving back
to the North End and meeting folks from O.A.A.C and O.N.E. Mile,
the opportunity to restart what I had begun a few years back was
there with a small twist.
I recognized how many of the programs that we have in the city are
geared toward the youth or elders. My thought was “What about
us in-betweeners? “We don’t have anything for us to do that is just
good fun, where you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to go,
and you can meet cool people, bring the children, and get home
early enough to get ready for work the next day.” I decided that I
wanted to create a space where the in-betweeners could come and
remember how good it is to dance and listen to House Music in a
safe and non-judgmental environment. This idea was the birthing of
what I call SAVE YOUR SOUL SUNDAYS.
I, The Abstract Oracle, facilitate the meditation and spiritual
aspects of the event while my partner Music Medium, Alvina
Renfrow, provides the music. Save Your Soul Sundays are held once
a month (for the time being; we hope to do them more often) from
2p-5p at Red Door Digital on Oakland Blvd. The next one will be
April 19th, and you can check Facebook Events for future dates.
Come out and get your life with us, share in the love.
Be like water.
159

Mosiah Sims Bey

163
ILLUMINATE LITERACY ENTREPRENEURS brings together
young people in the North End to write and do other things.
They write and write and write and write. Illuminate Literacy
Entrepreneurs is a black power driven program dedicated to the
education of literacy and its importance to black people.
Jamii Tata, the founder of the now three year program says,
“Illuminate exists to combat illiteracy by giving the ability to
decipher language and to elevate it through this broken society.”
I asked a member of the Illuminate Crew, Khafre Sims-Bey a.k.a
YAKUZAmoon what he thought the purpose of the program was and
he told me that it “ empowers young melinated people to get the
opportunity to take control of their own destinies.”
The collective is currently composed of ten youth, all with beautifully
unique talents, views, personalities, and contributions not only to the
program but to the North End community it serves. I myself being
one of those ten youth members can’t help but to scream out loud
how awesome and truly amazing this program is! This program is
giving youth the opportunity to truly get an understanding of just
what their voices can do through written and spoken word. Mosiah
Sims Bey, or Moszs Infinite, said it best, when he shrugged his
shoulders and said “[we’re] going into the community and showing
people who aren’t ever in the spotlight that they have a voice.” He
says this so casually as if everyone is involved with a program that
constantly empowers and uplifts the community while combating the
ever increasing illiteracy rate in the city of Detroit. This program,
though small in student population, is mighty. It’s “more than just
poetry or literacy entrepreneurship, its community oriented; its
activism,” Khafre concluded.
Illuminate: Literacy Entrepreneur classes are Mondays &
Wednesdays from 6-8PM at 222 Marston and the Open Mics are
every 4th Saturday from 6-9:30PM at the Bureau of Emergent
Urbanity located at 8326 Oakland in Detroit’s North End. For more
information please visit knowallegiance.net or
call 313-986-1907.
Za’Nyia Kelly is a happy, eccentric 16 year old student who is currently a junior at Benjamin Oliver Davis
Aerospace High School where she is training in aviation mechanics and piloting. She enjoys gardening, poetry,
and arts of many forms. Above all else she enjoys laying in the grass and devouring a book or two. A new
addition to the Illuminate family and its newest intern, she brings much potential and always wears a grand
smile. She plans to go into the culinary arts and hopes to one day own a small bakery.

164
Where I'm From
By Athenia Harris Muhammad
I am from DETROIT, From the D and rising up
I am the queen
I am from the rising flowers and trees
I am from my hometown of spiritual ways of life
I am from the family dinners
From
Standing on right and being respectful
I am from bunny ears and shoe laces
I’m From
“Hard heads makes soft Behinds”
I am from a religion and praying in the pews
Somewhere down town
Poet/Visual Artist Athenia Harris-Muhammad has been a part of the Illuminate Youth Group for 3 years and
counting. She has grown poetically through Jamii Tata’s influence and patience in helping to develop her writing
skills. She has performed poetry at many events in the city of Detroit including: J Dilla Youth day, Noel Night, The
Red Door, Redford Branch Library and more. Also a visual artist, Harris-Muhammad works in a variety of media
including painting, stained glass, and jewelry. She has show her work around the city.

DELICIOUS JAM ORGANICALLY MADE FROM DETROIT’S NORTH END

Ava’s World Famous Sweet Potato Cake & more!
tastes good. always fresh. exceptional quality.
sweet potato cakes * cupcakes * bundt cakes
to order contact
sweetpotatofamous@gmail.com or call 313-721-7057

A
NORTH END
EATING GUIDE
Parks Old Style Barbeque
7444 Beaubien St,
Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 483-0325
parksoldstylebar-b-q.com
Tue-Thu11:00 am - 08:00 pm
Fri-Sat 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Sun 2:00pm-8:00pm
Famous for: Old-fashioned, Southern-style tangy bbq sauce
+ being in the North End since 1964
The Turkey Grill
8290 Woodward Ave
Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 872-4624
turkeygrilldetroit.com
Mon-Thu 7:00am-11:30pm
Fri-Sat 7:00am- 12:30am
Sun 11:00am- 8:00pm
Famous for: Cajun fried turkey
unique Southern favorites made with turkey.
New Center Eatery
3100 W Grand Blvd,
Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 875-0088
newcentereatery.com
Sun-Thu 8:00am-10:00pm
Fri-Sat 8:00am- 4:00am
Famous for: Chicken and waffles
City Wings
2896 W Grand Blvd,
Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 871-2489
citywingsinc.com
Mon-Sat 11:00am – 8:00pm
Famous for: 17 flavors of wings + dedication to being
eco-friendly + hosting weekly hustle lessons
Peaches & Greens Market
8838 3rd St,
Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 870-9210
peachesandgreens.org
Tue - Fri 10:00am – 6:00pm
Saturday: 10:00am – 2:00pm
Famous for: Fresh produce + free delivery to 5 mile radius
surrounding market + mobile fruit truck
Oakland Ave. Farm & Market
9654 Oakland Ave.
facebook.com/OAFMDetroit
Market opens June 17th
Sat 11:00am- 3:30pm

I
C <3 MMUNITY
YOU!
HIP N ZEN
IN THE NORTH END
facebook.com/hipnzennorthend
(c) HOWRANI STUDIOS

D E T R O I T R E C O R D I N G S . C O M

The O.N.E. Mile project is made possible through the exceptional collaborative effort
of a broad network of people from different fields and walks of life.
Thanks to everyone who has taken part in this unprecedented project.
allen gillers, alix eoche-duval, alvina renfrow, amp fiddler, andrea daniel, andrew kremers,
annelise heeringa, anthony hatinger, billy hebron, carl ‘butch’ small, carleton gholz, caroline petersen,
christophe ponceau, dames brown, danielle weitzman, dave boggon, david philpot, dee castelow,
dj g-smooth, dj los, duminie deporres, eiji jimbo, eric harmon, eric howard, gabe gonzalez,
gregory sirota, ian donaldson, incite focus, ingrid lafleur, jaffer kolb, james folden, james lesko,
jamii tata, jasmine harris, jason lindy, jayne choi, jennifer kee, jerry hebron, jide aje, joe johnson,
kalia keith, karen harris, katheryn carethers, kirk donaldson, kristen collins, lee azus,
makeeba ellington, marsha music, michael monford, mike clark “agent x”, missy ablin,
monica ponce de leon, n’neka jackson, omar bruce, patrick bouchain, peter halquist, peter sepassi,
piper carter, rachel mulder, reshounn foster, rich richardson, roger robinson, rosey o’brien,
ryan mason, ryan moritz, san street catering, sarah pavelko, sharon haar, shae king, stephen gliatto,
steve patton, tfo horns, tom bray, tony “t-money” green, ulysses newkirk, walter “hazmat” howard,
ya suo, young-tack oh,
and so many more people to whom we are infinitely grateful.
***
O.N.E. Mile is made possible through the generous support of
the Knight Arts Foundation, ArtPlace America,
the University of Michigan, and Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning