Get to know Kamra. An artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Upon a glimpse of their work on instagram this past winter, I was immediately struck and spellbound. I had to know more about everything, from the design aesthetics for Activation Residency, an inclusive artist residency located in the Southern Catskill mountains, to the intentions behind their latest book Care Manual, and their blossoming music. In 2021, Kamra released Verdant Banks, a spacious and ethereal EP that offers “opulent vocals and vine-like yet unforgettable melodies”. On a cool and sunny spring morning in Brooklyn, I spoke to Kamra about what building community means, becoming the best version of ourselves through active learning, the status of their many projects, and where music has made its way in their life as of late.
“I’ve had a relationship with music all my life, but within the past few years, I’ve really solidified that relationship and decided to continue pouring into that space for myself.”
Attia: Activation Residency is such a beautiful initiative that I can see has evolved so much over the last few years.
Kamra: I think the thing I love most about the project is that it’s iterative. I started the project off from an experimental lens, so every year, we do something new, and that's invited all of these different ecosystems of content and collaboration. We did Activation TV in 2020, inviting folks who had gone to the residency onto a TV set to talk about their work, their life, their love. In 2021, we were able to keep the feeling of Activation Residency alive through digital media. Right now, I'm super focused on finding ways to scale income. We still rely on grants to pay our two employees and cover all of our operational costs.
I'm also putting my best foot forward to find land upstate so that we can start a farm, which will serve as a permaculture site and land stewardship opportunity. A big thing for me with the project is reminding marginalized folks that it is possible for us to control the means of production.
Attia: What avenues are you exploring in terms of expanding your income?
Kamra: The residency is expanding into a forest farm economically supported by the sale of luxury short-term cabin rentals and CSA (community support agriculture) memberships.
Attia: Your book, Care Manual, is set to come out soon. What led you to create this work?
Kamra: So many things. When I was 28, I had broken up with someone, and they told me that they felt pressured into a romantic dynamic with me. That really struck me because I didn't think I was someone that could pressure someone into something. That was a moment of personal transformation where I realized, “whoa, this does not align with my values,” and from there, I decided to deepen my education on consent boundaries and relationships. I started taking online consent classes and practicing saying no and practicing receiving people's no. This is a rhetoric that was not available to me before. My parents were not taught communication, so growing up I inherited defensiveness, blaming, and manipulation. And all of these things that are not it. It really transformed everything.
After I had undergone top surgery in December of 2020, I started taking these pop psychology buzzwords and redefining them. At the end of the book, there's a 10 page glossary, and the themes in the book are built off the glossary.
Attia: Where has community come into play in your life and how has that impacted who you are?
Kamra: There's a lot to say about community. My community isn't the work that I do, it's the people that bring me chicken noodle soup when I'm sick, the people that watch my dog and cook for me, all that stuff. I think when you have a business that is centered around people, it automatically gets put in this category of community, but I'm providing a service. I don't expect the people who receive my service to be in community with me. I don't want that expectation to be placed on me either. I feel like I've had to get very clear about that definition. The word community can be abused. Like when [large] corporations use the word community in their pitch decks, that doesn't even make sense.
Attia: It's certainly exploited. To generate a real authentic sense of community in your life and in your work are two different things.
Kamra: Absolutely. Even as a musician, there's something that happens when you're onstage where people connect with you through your work and feel this affinity for you. They form this projected bond that doesn't really exist. Obviously, you want to connect with people and be open to them; but at my last show, one of the fans was sharing how the music impacted them, and they kissed me without my consent. That’s not what I want to experience after I just sang all these songs, but that happens to artists, where you’re someone's fantasy rather than your own human. It goes back to educating myself on consent and boundaries, because I've had to learn how to tell people no. And before, I didn't have the language to do that.
Attia: I want to talk about your music. What was that first spark where you decided this is what you want to do?
Kamra: My favorite song when I was three years old was “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan; I remember being on the couch dancing as a baby. When I was in fifth grade, I got my first instrument, the violin. I felt so connected to it. Even after band rehearsal at school I would go home, sit in the grass, and just play with my violin. Maybe six or seven years after that, I started getting really into writing. I was writing a lot of poetry, and then that transitioned into writing song lyrics and coming up with melodic riffs in my head. Five or six years after that, my friend gifted me a guitar, and I wrote my first record, Verdant Banks. I've had a relationship with music all my life, but within the past few years, I've really solidified that relationship and decided to continue pouring into that space for myself.
Attia: How has music been a part of your personal journey in healing?
Illustration by Yamileth Garcia
Kamra: I feel very healed by my friends' music. Laetitia (whose moniker is Vagabon), Tough Gossamër, and Julie Byrne have been super instrumental in not only my appreciation for certain kinds of music but also of music as an extension of one's body. I always want to make music that feels true to who I am. So much that you can feel the emotion of every part of the song.
My first record was mostly acoustic, and that felt really true to what I was experiencing at that moment. This past winter, I've been finding small samples and loops that really resonate with me. Songs I've been working on now feel more like a collage, and that's been really fun. I feel like the world of the song that I'm able to build is growing in a way that I didn't even know I had access to because I'm not classically trained. So all of this is very intuitive for me.
Attia: I would love to hear more about Dreaming Care into Being, your upcoming residency with Dia in Chelsea.
Kamra: We started talking about doing something last fall. I have this book coming out, and I thought it might be cool to do some intentional programming around the book, because it's very much on how we transform theory into practice. I'm working with Dia now to take sections of the book and create workshops around each of those sections. Participants can come and hear more about the book and also experience the book live in action. The second session is called #MakeLoveGoViral, and the second chapter of the book is Love Is The Answer. We're going to have everyone collectively come up with a shared definition of what love is, based on everybody's individual session, individual definitions, and then we're going to take all of those definitions, generate them through a computer, and the computer is going to spit out a collective of definitions based on everyone's ideas.
Attia: That’s so cool and inspiring! Whose work and what movements are inspiring you right now?
Kamra: Mandy Harris Williams, is forever challenging me and saying all the things that need to be said especially around capitalism, fascism, and our beauty standards. I’m forever looking to Tricia Hersey at The Nap Ministry and her work to feel a sense of permission in my own rest. I feel like in my late 20s I've rested more than I ever have in my life and in a lot of ways have been able to rid myself of the guilt because of [her] work specifically.
I'm looking a lot at my family right now. My dad and his cousins and siblings started a business with a mission to build generational wealth for our family. Every week I meet with them to talk about finances and stocks and it's so nice to receive that kind of bond with family. I never even thought that that was going to be something accessible to me.
I also feel like I'm a part of this generation of up and coming QTBIPOC artists. I feel really proud to be in this generation of people. We're kind of all rising together instead of looking to a few people to lead the way.
Attia: How are you taking care of yourself right now?
Kamra: I think lately my care has been about making space for all the things instead of just one thing. I'm forcing myself to do the things that I have to do, even if I don't feel like doing them, like getting up early to take my dog out and making sure I stretch in the morning and doing my vocal warm ups. I’m also giving myself the patience to decide, for example, when I have the capacity to go to the grocery store instead of beating myself up for not going out the second I run out of groceries. Reminding myself that it's okay that I got takeout these past two days, and finding smaller opportunities to show myself that everything's good.
Learn more about Kamra’s work and see them live TONIGHT at the Sultan Room for our Womanly Sounds showcase. Tickets are available here.
