Colored Girls Hustle Blog

“On Her Hustle” is a monthly series of interviews with women of color artists, entrepreneurs, healers and activists who hustle hard for our communities. Colored Girls Hustle uses this series to amplify the work, talent, and passions of other women and girls of color. Click here to read more about our series and to nominate someone to be interviewed.

This month we’re featuring Tanya Fields, fierce mama of four and the founder and Executive Director of the BLK Projek. Read her full interview below to learn how she hustles hard for food access, economic justice, and herself.

Colored Girls Hustle: Tell us a about The BLK Projek. When and why did you start this organization? Why the name “The BLK Projek”?

Tanya Fields: The BLK Projek is an organization that looks to harness the power of the local, good food movement to create economic development opportunities for marginalized women and youth while simultaneously supporting local growers and creating an alternative food system in low-income communities.

In layman’s terms that means we get poor women and youth the tools to create food business that will create income for their families and better food options for the community. I started this organization as a low-income mother who started doing environmental work and found myself frustrated by my community’s tendency to stay stuck in reactive mode. I wanted to fight FOR something not always against something. I also had a child who was asthmatic developing food allergies and watched my own waistline expand and I couldn’t find decent food for either of us. Combine these things with an abundance of undeveloped land — food and urban agriculture seemed like right direction. I decided in 2009 that I wanted to concentrate my efforts on creating alternatives that could empower people as well as solve a relevant issue. I left my day job. It was the right time, it was a toxic environment and I could only concentrate on innovation, creation and justice from a place of love. It seemed like the perfect time. I started the incorporation process shortly after.

Colored Girls Hustle: What is the current programming of the The BLK Projek? What communities participate and benefit from this work?

Tanya Fields: The BLK ProjeK has two overarching programs: “Holistic Hood” which concentrates on base building, safe spaces where folks can come to engage and heal. I realized awhile ago that no matter how many hard skills you teach low-income, marginalized folks if you don’t take the time and care to address the trauma they have faced on a daily basis (and, mostly likely, generationally) then folks won’t be able to move on from the place they are in or even acknowledge that moving on is a possibility. Programs under that umbrella were Mommy and Me Yoga, Bronx Grub Meals, Free Acupuncture and community meetings.

“Healthy Hoods” is the economic development piece where we concentrate on incubating initiatives that will provide healthy food, support local growers and construct alternative food systems that put the people and the planet over profit and greed. Our two current campaigns are our South Bronx Mobile Market and the Libertad Urban Farm Proposal. The Libertad Urban Farm Proposal is a campaign to get an urban farm in the Longwood/Hunts Point section of the Bronx. The urban farm would serve as a safe, green, community space; a workforce development platform; and as an alternative way for community members to receive fresh, organic produce. We are working with another community group and the local councilwoman to negotiate a piece of city owned property in the community.  Our other campaign and by far our biggest is our South Bronx Mobile Market.

Guerrilla farming in the South Bronx

Colored Girls Hustle: You just launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise money for a Veggie Mobile Market. How exciting! Tell us more about the Veggie Mobile and why this is important for the communities you serve.

Tanya Fields: I am so geeked for this mobile market. We have a beautifully painted former school bus that already has a great history. It was a tour bus for Climbing Poetree before it was donated to the VROOM Bus Collective. It is tricked out to run on used veggie oil. We are raising funds to take this bus and put solar panels on her, get her a transmission “transplant,” shelving and storage, appliances and additional equipment. Shoot, if we have enough we might put some rims on that joint! We will procure almost all of our produce from local growers both urban and rural. We will then sell in South Bronx communities accepting EBT and WIC as well. We will then work with folks like Wholeshare to create an online platform and procure nutritious value-added food not available in the hood. The first phase is to hustle up this money to do the bus retrofits and we are running an Indiegogo campaign for that. http://igg.me/at/southbronxmobilemarket/x/2793004

Colored Girls Hustle: In your video for your Indiegogo campaign you talk about the connection between community development and economic development. Your programming for the BLK ProjeK also exists at this intersection. Tell us more about why you believe these things are connected and can transform our communities.

Tanya Fields: I am not doing work with affluent folks, or ivy league folks or folks with tons of education. Many of the folks I am working with are like me: they are survivors and they are constantly overwhelmed with dueling and contradictory messages of excessive consumption and scarcity. “You don’t have enough that’s why your streets aren’t safe; BUY NEW JORDANS AND DR. JAYS!” Folks ain’t about to start spending time on things that they feel are not of priority. And in the minds of many of the folks here: as long as you have food you are good. Many of my folks are also on SNAP/food stamps so if folks are struggling, and if they are overwhelmed, then when we are organize, advocate and activate we also better be thinking about how to create initiatives or hook folks into initiatives that are going to help them thrive financially. If you working with low-income folks and you are not developing long-term economic strategies then you are just doing charity. I’m not about that life. The life I am about is empowerment and self-sufficiency.

Colored Girls Hustle: Tell us a bit about your hustle philosophy: What does the word “hustle” mean to you and how does it apply to your life and professional practice?

Tanya Fields: Hustle is about understanding that if opportunity doesn’t knock, fuck it and build your own house, walk through your own damned door. Hustle is resiliency and grinding. Understanding  that success is many times defined by who is wiling to take the most calculated risk the longest. For me my hustle is to be bold and courageous, to push others to be bold and courageous, and to work smart and hard. I also understand the hustle doesn’t mean I have to know everything and that I can’t do it alone. A successful hustle has a good network and a team of resourceful, supportive folks. When it comes to me personally, I constantly push myself outside of my comfort zones and try to be introspective. I want to remind myself even when I “fail” that there was a lesson to be learned and that tomorrow, if I am so blessed, is another opportunity for me to be a better version of who I was the day before.

Colored Girls Hustle: Describe yourself in 3 words.

Tanya Fields: Assertive. Resilient.Compassionate.

Colored Girls Hustle: You were recently disinvited from a TEDx Manhattan’s Changing the Way We Eat conference. We were absolutely INSPIRED by how you chose to handle that situation publicly and transparently; and used that as an opportunity to create your own space. Tell us about how the situation transpired and about your independent event “Not Just Talk: Food in the South Bronx.”

Tanya Fields: Wow, that situation was BA-NEE-NEES! I have a link her to the EBONY.com article that covered what my friends are now calling “TanyaGate.” For more information about how the situation went down, folks can read my open letter. We have pictures up on our Facebook page documenting the Not Just Talk event.

Colored Girls Hustle: A lot of us on the grind and doing work on the ground in our communities often feel left out of larger, “mainstream” conversations and movement building work. What are some key lessons that you learned from the TEDx experience that you can share with others about how to handle rejection and marginalization?

Tanya Fields: That’s tough. I don’t know if I am still able to really “handle” it and I am not sure I want to. When I become desensitized to it is when I think it might be time for me to do something else because I don’t have it in me to fight anymore.

I think for me, it’s more about how not to operate from that place of pain and triggers and rage. I often seek to understand why I am being rejected and why I am being marginalized and to speak on it every time I see it. That doesn’t mean I have to have the process publicly but it means I acknowledge it, call out the oppression and then tap into my love for myself, for my children and their generation; acknowledge the sacrifices of the elders and fight from a place of love. It is also about knowing when to “surrender”, like when to say “fuck this” and realize every space don’t have to be for me. I have talents and gifts that can help me create a new space. That’s what the mobile market is about, that is what my event “Not Just Talk” was about. It was about me saying “fuck it” I can create an alternative for my folks that will feed us and pay us and celebrate us and allow us to flourish. 

Colored Girls Hustle: You’re a mother, an Executive Director, and active on social media, among other things. What are the ways you successfully manage your time and how do you prioritize self-care?

Tanya Fields: For me, getting through the day and doing one important thing is a successful use of my time. If I can feed my kids before 10pm, I have successfully used my time. And if I can take 30 minutes to have a meal and not answer an email or phone call, then I have successfully used my time. I made a choice to have 4 babies, shit is tough most days. When I made that decision I also decided I wouldn’t use them as the reason for me not to be as ambitious as I have always been. I want more kids believe it or not lol. I’m loco, I love being a mother and I reconciled with the fact I am living the life I want.

I like the craziness, I like the grind, I like deadlines and the constant ripping and running but I do get weary. I have days where I eat emotionally and where I give my kids cereal for dinner because I am too damn tired to make the nutritious meals I fight for. I used to get really stressed and then crash and burn. It was a vicious cycle. I started learning to forgive myself, realizing I didn’t have to do everything all the time. I am a human being. I may be ideologically a super woman but not literally. Black women think they have to take care of the whole world and we receive those messages everyday from our own folks and others. We have accepted martyrdom as part of our DNA. Shit, not me. That’s not my narrative. I have forgiven myself for being vulnerable and learned to ask for help and understanding. I don’t have to take on other people “stuff”. Therapy has helped tremendously, taking time to love my body has helped. Freeing myself from the shackles of a patriarchal and sexist view of sex and seeing motherhood as radical has liberated me. I make sugar scrubs and I tell my children that they have to take care of their own needs when I am in the bathroom scrubbing myself down. I explain to my older girls what it means for me to have this time and that our household is one of cooperation and that we all can take turns being the “leader”.

I also learned the power of “no”: saying no to opportunities that will stress me out, keep me from my kids and aren’t a priority. I also learned that when I felt like the walls were closing in on me because the kids were fighting or the house was a mess or I got a rejection letter for a proposal or a relationship wasn’t working out, to just STOP. To breathe, to put my hand over my heart and listen to my heartbeat. I started a shrine to my great-great-grandparents and offer them water and light. I talk to them. I learned the power of ritual.  Once, I liberated myself from this idea that I needed to be everything all the time and that I needed to “win” everyday, self-care got easy.

Tanya Fields is a food justice activist, public speaker, educator, food enthusiast, sometimes blogger, fierce mama bear of four precocious children and the founder and executive director of the BLK Projek. She is currently raising funds to start a mobile market in the South Bronx. In her spare time she updates a food blog called Mama’s Kitchen From Scratch and does a cooking demo workshop called Fab Food on a Food Stamp Budget. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.

We’re embarking on new journeys: filming our first official video from our forthcoming mixtape… and we’re looking for extras! We need people for our rooftop party scene. Come dressed as your best afrofuturistic self! Colorful attire is encouraged!

Tuesday April 9th
Call time: 8:40pm (please, be punctual)
End time: 11:00pm
Location: Brooklyn, NY. Exact address confirmed upon RSVP.

Send a profile picture or headshot and your full name to RSVP@ColoredGirlsHustle.com

Spread the word!

“On Her Hustle” is a monthly series of interviews with women of color artists, entrepreneurs, healers and activists who hustle hard for our communities. Colored Girls Hustle uses this series to amplify the work, talent, and passions of other women and girls of color. Click here to read more about our series and to nominate someone to be interviewed.

For women’s history month we are featuring Kathleen Adams, the co-founder of an amazing women-centered and empowering space: Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen. Read her full interview below to learn about how she uses hip-hop and reproductive justice to hustle hard for women and girls.

Colored Girls Hustle: Tell us about Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen: How and why did you co-create MHHK? And what does MHHK do the rest of the year?

Kathleen: Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen came about through my business partner’s (Lah Tere) as well as my own love of hip hop and women’s issues. I love going to concerts and shows and I felt like women were always singing the hook for songs or were background singers. I wanted to create a platform for women to perform and take center stage. I also wanted this environment to be a place where we could shine a light on HIV/AIDS and reproductive justice issues. This year with MHHK we are hoping to encourage the community to get involved to lower the achievement gaps in our schools and also to advocate for comprehensive sex education in all schools! Besides our annual event, MHHK participates in workshops within the community and also does college tours. This year, we are hoping to put on smaller events within the community!

Lah Tere and Kathleen at the MHHK 2013  

Colored Girls Hustle: Why the name “Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen”?

Kathleen: It’s called Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen because women congregate in the kitchen to talk about ideas, thoughts, etc… We create a metaphorical kitchen with our events so women can feel comfortable speaking their minds through their performances.

Colored Girls Hustle: Tell us a bit about this year’s event: why “Knowledge is Power” as the theme? How did it all turn out?

Kathleen: This year’s theme is “Knowledge is Power” because we want to honor Hostos Community College’s 45^th anniversary of excellence in higher education and cultural preservation. The theme is also “Knowledge is Power” because we are advocating for smaller class sizes, the closing of the achievement gap between the rich and the poor, and a more comprehensive sexual education curriculum.

MHHK 2013 performers

Colored Girls Hustle: Lets talk about the artists you featured this year and in the past: how have their individual art forms contributed to the MHHK mission and vision?

Kathleen: Over the past 6 years, we have featured hundreds of artists in our events. One artist in particular, NeNe Ali is a 15-year-old spoken-word poet who is the only artist who has been with us since Vol. 1. NeNe Ali’s spoken word poetry has contributed to the mission and vision of MHHK by inspiring other women, young and old to be fearless and showcase their art to the public. 

DJ Jasmine Solano is an inspiration to our audience. She has been able to gain the attention of mainstream media by going on tour with Wiz Khalifa and through her hit song “That’s Not It” featured on MTVU.

DJ Jasmine Solano at MHHK 2013

Colored Girls Hustle: How does MHHK view the current status of hip hop in general, its relationship to women and its impact (potential and actual) on issues concerning women?

Kathleen: To this day, Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen still views women, especially women of color in hip hop as in a state of emergency! Through our events we aim to educate, include, and empower women on issues surrounding their life. All of our events, not matter what the specific focus is of the year, incorporates a reproductive justice framework—the right to be a parent, the right not to be a parent, and the right to parenting your child. I know for a fact that we’ve had a major impact on the communities we work with because women have come up to us after our events and talked about how they have changed their lives in terms of eating habits (the year we spoke about healthy eating), and how some have left abusive relationships because they got the courage from attending our events!

Colored Girls Hustle: What is MHHK’s definition of hip-hop feminism?

Kathleen: MHHK’s definition of hip-hop feminism is pretty broad and holistic. We believe that once women are in complete control of their bodies, then they will be able to healthy decisions for their families and their communities. To be a feminist in the world of hip hop, you must be in control of yourself and in control of your music.

Colored Girls Hustle: MHHK always has lots of community support. How do the tablers and vendors add to the overall MHHK experience?

Kathleen: The tablers and vendors add an extra dimension to our event! Our attendees are able to purchase goods from local vendors and also obtain free confidential HIV and STI testing from our tablers. The tablers and vendors are like our family. We always look forward to seeing familiar faces at our event, year after year from the tablers.

Colored Girls Hustle: How do you define “hustle” and how do you “hustle hard” for women and girls?

Kathleen: My definition of “hustle” is TCBing (Taking Care of Business). If you TCB, that means you are always on your grind and will be successful! I “hustle hard” for women and girls because I always make sure my actions positively influence my community.

Colored Girls Hustle: Describe yourself in three words.

Kathleen: Explore Creative, hard-working, ambitious

Colored Girls Hustle: You wear a lot of hats and are involved in a lot of different organizations. How do you prioritize self-care and effectively manage your time?

Kathleen: I feel like I don’t sleep! For me, staying busy helps me stay focused. I make sure that in whatever I am doing, that I am happy. As long as I am happy I don’t mind being busy! I make sure to take long vacations and explore the world—that is how I stay sane! I also am good a delegating tasks to others so that I am not in charge of projects completely on my own. This method allows me to be involved in multiple projects at once, but also allows me to share project responsibilities with others!

Kathleen Adams is the co-founder of Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen, a multifaceted hip hop event designed to showcase women artists, especially women of color. Kathleen’s passion in life is with organizing around reproductive justice and HIV/AIDS issues. To learn more about Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen you can visit their website, Facebook or twitter.

Last week was busy for Colored Girls Hustle! Here’s what we’ve been up to…

On Sunday we kicked off our week with our winter Self-Love Party at the Museum of Women’s Resistance. Special thanks to our instructor A. Dusky Magdalene for showing us how to make and shake tassel-twirling pasties! And a huge thank-you to Eve’s Garden for sponsoring a OhMiBod 2.OH vibrator raffle. Check out photos on our Facebook page and Flickr. Stay tuned for the spring Self-Love Party! Sign up for our newsletter to hear about it first. (P.S. did you see the write up about the Self-Love Party in the Brooklyn Paper?)

On Wednesday we released our All Gold Everything parody, the latest song from the forthcoming Colored Girls Hustle mixtape. In less than a week we’ve received over 1,000 views! Have you seen it yet?! Be sure to watch and share it with your people (friends, family, lovers, students, coworkers, etc). Colored girls who hustle hard is a movement.

On Friday, our radical sisters at the Crunk Feminist Collective published an insightful article about the sexual politics of hip hop. They gave us shout out for our All Gold Everything video as an example of the creative and feminist ways we engage with hip hop.

Later than night our founder, Taja Lindley, was interviewed in WBAI’s Rise Up Radio show in NYC, a collective radio show by and for youth activists. Taja spoke about the founding of Colored Girls Hustle, the importance of collaborative economics and why women and girls of color are her priority. You can listen to the archived show online, dated March 1st 2013. Her interview begins at 32:48.