00:00:00.000Everything goes back to nature and the universe, and that's where we come from, and that's what we should be serving, and that's where the answers are.1.00
00:00:10.560big sissy is a witch is a slut is a bitch from a planet called black star just left a month1.00
00:00:33.300you know the way right big sissy wants to play wants to fuck wants to lay1.00
00:12:04.540and they wouldn't call themselves witches but that is what humans on earth how they call what
00:12:11.760they call them and uh with her i also like to sort of highlight parts of quote-unquote femininity0.95
00:12:19.720that people have associated with witches um or you know women aren't supposed to talk about like
00:12:27.780you know menstruation whereas big sissy bleeds freely on stage calls it her life force is all0.69
00:12:34.480about it um and it's like body hair so she she has a beard sometimes um and also you know really0.99
00:12:43.760hypersexual in a way that uh is just across the line from what society deems um appropriate or
00:12:53.100what i ideal you know acceptable even yes please like be feminine exert your femininity be sexy
00:13:01.020we want to see your body but not that much so yeah i just try to try to go in deeper in those0.97
00:13:08.000areas with her and i mean obviously 100 all of that is like witchcraft and like
00:13:15.160boiled down to its purest essence and then made human in the form of is she human0.99
00:13:21.480is big sissy human she's a half earthling and half a black star but she doesn't know that she0.94
00:13:28.740thinks she's just black star right yes this is a secret she's about to as a biracial person yeah0.95
00:13:34.760i'm not sure i'm i'm always working backwards yeah you know with my art i'm i'll create the
00:13:40.300thing and then i'll figure out later what the inspiration was or like why i really made that
00:13:46.420or you know sure like again i guess it's a bit of like the channeling where i i get the message and
00:13:53.080i i deliver it and and then i'll think about it later there's not a lot of premeditated thought
00:13:59.700or cognitive thought that goes into these uh ideas these songs these shows like the spirit
00:14:06.940creates the art and then the human comes and does the editing exactly yeah yeah that's how
00:14:11.640you got it because at a certain point you know the spirit might get a little awful little half
00:14:18.380cocked i'd like to i'd like to incorporate more actual magic and like spell work into the live
00:14:29.980performances but and i've done a little bit but i just want to be careful because you have you
00:14:36.820must be there's a lot of people in that room and there's a lot of energy and the venues themselves
00:14:41.000have a lot of energy and it's uh you have to be very careful big sissy came out of uh0.98
00:14:52.220the desire to be ugly um to not have to make hit the right notes sound nice always play the right
00:15:05.020thing uh say the right thing um be who i thought the audience wanted me to be on stage1.00
00:15:12.620and to give myself permission to just say fuck it um again hella witchy hella witchy giving1.00
00:15:21.320yourself permission to say fuck it is like the witchiest thing you can do carry on yeah that's1.00
00:15:25.600it because i you know i would see people on stage doing things that made me really uncomfortable1.00
00:15:29.920in a good way or in a bad way well i was just uncomfortable i don't even know i would be like
00:15:38.300oh they're going on too long or uh you know that wasn't i shouldn't have ended it like that or why
00:15:44.540are they still go talking or oh my god what are they performing oh my god they're naked now like
00:15:51.480ah all these lots of different things that people were doing that made me uncomfortable
00:15:55.780and i was thinking that's not the right way to do this so then i had to say to ask myself like
00:16:02.600what is your problem why do you have a problem with this why is this making you uncomfortable
00:16:07.160maybe you should try you know if they're giving themselves permission to do something like this
00:16:13.460maybe you should give yourself permission to do something that you think is not the right thing
00:16:18.440to be doing on stage okay so i have two things to say about this number one is that the first
00:16:23.420thing you did when you reacted to something that someone else was doing was check in with yourself
00:16:27.860and you were like why am i experiencing these feelings a lot of people skip that i think
00:16:32.660and don't take the time to even ask themselves why it made them uncomfortable now the second
00:16:36.840thing is that you said it made me uncomfortable and i was like big sissy is like the most
00:16:42.140disquieting like one of you know freaky in the best way possible you know um i'll describe the
00:16:48.920the last big sissy show that i saw where it was like um i assume it was fake but you know there
00:16:55.200was fake menstrual blood involved you know again nudity the kinds of things that you were talking0.96
00:17:00.640about were making you uncomfortable food yeah like a weird like food and sex and blood it was like
00:17:07.520all like so compelling and amazing because you know we're punk we're punks at heart well me and
00:17:13.240big sissy anyway we're punts at heart and i was like this so it it's incredible to me that that0.98
00:17:21.560came out of your like discomfort at seeing someone else because you took you next level that shit0.98
00:17:27.560right oh thanks i think i have so much further to take it actually well yeah there are many levels0.98
00:17:32.520after next right yeah so can you describe like big sissy's aesthetic for our listeners0.59
00:17:40.860um do you mean uh what just what she looks like um well you kind of already talked about what she0.61
00:17:48.000sounds like but like maybe about the lyrical differences oh yeah and also yeah the physical
00:17:54.220aesthetic and why you i mean you there's so many ways to be ugly ugly was the word that you used
00:18:01.800so i'll use that word um you know upsetting to society sure so you could have gone anyway you0.67
00:18:08.800could have been gg allen you could yeah you know oh god please no i mean i'm not suggesting it
00:18:15.460but instead you went to this like very hyper feminine but also like hella witchy hella dark
00:18:22.200hella powerful but also ultra feminine in that kind of drag way yeah so can you talk a bit about
00:18:28.440how that yeah well another way that sort of i mean i had that discomfort right and i wanted
00:18:35.700to check in with that. But I also just started writing songs. Well, I had started producing
00:18:40.980electronic music and I didn't have a way to perform those songs because it didn't fit with
00:18:45.740my other project. So I sort of created Big Sissy. And at first I wasn't exploring those
00:18:54.620ugly things or discomfort. I was just doing the songs. But as the songs started to get
00:18:59.860more interesting, like singing about menstruation and singing about, uh, uh, you know, sexual0.99
00:19:07.020favors or singing about anal sex and, and things that you want. Um, um, then that started to create0.99
00:19:15.760more of a narrative and being, uh, somebody who was assigned female at birth, but never felt
00:19:24.640comfortable in that role um i think with big sissy i'm sort of going oh you want me to be
00:19:32.360feminine uh you know because i'm i'm pretty you think i'm pretty i'm i'm i'm thin you want me to
00:19:38.760exaggerate these parts of myself that you claim are a value of worth especially in the music
00:19:46.160business in this industry yeah there you go so sure i'll do that but i'm gonna do it at a level
00:19:52.360that's gonna make you uncomfortable where you're like that's that's not quite what we had in mind
00:19:57.980oh you want me to like have long hair and lipstick okay okay the long hair is gonna be green and the
00:20:04.400lipstick's gonna be black yeah yeah everything just kind of came piece by piece honestly it
00:20:09.780wasn't super premeditated i had a gig last minute and i didn't have the hair for it so they were
00:20:15.240paying me well i went out got a wig it happened to be green um but green is like it's like an
00:20:23.300upsetting hair color right like it's like you know it's not again i'm using air quotes it's
00:20:29.660not pretty it's not if you're gonna dye your hair crazy my hair is lavender it's very pretty
00:20:34.960yeah you know so you can be crazy and still pretty but like sissy is like but it just happened like
00:20:40.840it just happened like that you chose a wig you like to happen to be green yeah i don't remember
00:20:45.040that i i didn't necessarily want a green wig i just it called to me
00:20:48.760and you've run with it oh yeah now it's her signature color yeah never going back yeah and
00:20:56.520it's gender neutral you know it's not pink sure true also yeah and also it's like of the earth
00:21:02.120like big sissy is so fake in terms of like plastic hair and like yeah yeah yeah but now
00:21:08.180we like have this anyway we could go on and on about the poetry of big sissy's look and we can
00:21:14.480if you want but um i saw i think i think it was a youtube clip of a big sissy show where you were
00:21:22.060going around the crowd trying to get them to chant reparations oh yeah that was a good show0.99
00:21:27.620do you want to talk about like because you talked a lot about um big sissy fucking with gender but1.00
00:21:33.060how does big sissy fuck with everything else yeah um well i mean i just love to have a performance0.99
00:21:40.700art element of the show and a way of making people uncomfortable making them think making0.98
00:21:46.320myself uncomfortable talking about things that are on my mind things that are maybe bothering me0.85
00:21:51.260um big sissy has now developed this element where she's you know a black supremacist
00:21:57.080And so we did this show where I had a white person come on stage and I gave them a hat and I asked them to take this hat to their people and ask them to give as generously as black people have always given to them.0.61
00:22:14.880and so they did that and uh yeah i walked around the whole space and had everyone saying reparations
00:22:23.500as a big chant and it was very powerful it was powerful um and you know i got money i need i
00:22:33.280needed i needed cab fare that night and i got it it works it does work when you scream reparation
00:22:40.780in people's faces they tend to give you a couple extra coins yeah and i think it's important that
00:22:45.620you know it's this is a white person who is going around with the hat you know making making that
00:22:53.240happen and also because white people just don't do enough they're just not doing enough um you
00:23:02.000know always asking what can i do you know it's been laid out we we talk about it daily all the
00:23:08.320information is out there so if you really want to know you really want to do something i'm giving
00:23:13.720you an opportunity at this show to to create a positive action and um you know be the ally that
00:23:22.940you claim to be even just for this one night and and i'm really curious as to like what kind of an
00:23:27.980effect that has on people and especially like say on the person who who had to pass the hat that
00:23:33.760night like how did they feel when they went home what did they think about it how are they checking
00:23:38.880in with the discomfort that they had in that evening because she was uncomfortable oh this
00:23:43.860is somebody you yanked out of the audience this wasn't like someone yes no wasn't performance
00:23:49.180not at all no i really got somebody to come out of the audience good and uh and uh yeah and have
00:23:56.440to contend with that yeah exactly yeah yeah because when you go to a big sissy show you know
00:24:01.600we were talking about this earlier like my personal motto i'm in my 40s now and my personal
00:24:06.460motto is if you don't like my apples don't shake my tree so if you're going to be upset by having0.92
00:24:11.300to confront your own racism as a white person like skip big sissy show or maybe like double go0.97
00:24:18.020double go and get as comfortable as uncomfortable as you can and really like i think putting your0.80
00:24:25.580money where your mouth is is a big one yeah in this world where there really is no excuse anymore
00:24:31.060you were saying like people like how do i help google how do i help it's really and don't take
00:24:36.500a woman of color's time to explain what you could have done with a google search
00:24:40.340books like catrice jackson um leila sad yeah just did her project and these are all
00:24:48.260um super accessible yeah and already written and free and leila's project is free um or leila's
00:24:56.300project is by donation you can choose to donate so you have to buy but buy them send her your
00:25:02.240money i mean leila like the fact that she took this on and is still taking it on and is doing
00:25:09.120like live instagram like all the time and really taking it on i mean she's putting her money where
00:25:14.580her mouth is for sure because she's just wanting to get the message out like giving up money is
00:25:20.060the same as paying in a sense right you know i think that one of the things that is amazing i
00:25:26.220think that what leila façade is doing is the same thing she must have had a feeling inside
00:25:31.180a calling inside was afraid to do it maybe was too afraid for many years and then just decided
00:25:36.740i'm going to make this investment and it's paying off big time yeah it's paying off it's having a
00:25:42.400it's having a global impact um how do you navigate because you're you're racially charged as a
00:25:50.980performer as a as a person i mean we're facebook friends you are a racialized and and do you find
00:25:59.940that that's polarizing for people because again like on facebook you know you're you're very loud
00:26:04.660and proud about black excellence and reparations and do you find that hard to navigate do you get
00:26:10.300a lot of well facebook is made in such a way that it will promote posts that um are uh controversial
00:26:19.680that's the way that the algorithms work getting a lot of reactions whether yeah yeah you you'll
00:26:26.260notice that uh i mean even sometimes you if you post something that might upset somebody
00:26:30.880they'll see that but they won't see any of your other posts so social media is its its own thing
00:26:37.900um but i don't know it's been a whole journey for me because my my mom is white and i was raised by
00:26:44.540her and her family um and always being the only person of color oh really in the room in the family
00:26:52.580and you know so and always being told that you know you're not different and we love you
00:26:59.380but knowing that i am different um you go to school in elementary school and you get called
00:27:05.580the n-word and you're like well mom like what's you told me i wasn't different exactly um so i've
00:27:13.340been on a whole journey i've been on a whole journey uh the past couple of years learning
00:27:18.520about uh learning about race learning about blackness learning about white supremacy um
00:27:25.180and what was your question my question was like because you're you're pretty vocal about your
00:27:32.980politics let's say um like do you get backlash if you do how do you deal with it do you care
00:27:38.800um i mean i assume it's the same feeling inside you that causes you to do your projects that
00:27:45.980causes you to say what you're gonna say so do you care how people react um i'm affected by people
00:27:54.460how people react it doesn't necessarily mean that i'm going to it's going to change the way
00:28:03.300i'm going to speak about things or uh do i i don't know it it affects me for sure because
00:28:11.480people get really mad or people can be really indifferent or people can just lie to your face
00:28:16.780And that's, as a Scorpio, probably the thing that I have the least tolerance for.
00:28:23.000So I've been learning a lot about, I've been learning about picking my battles.
00:28:29.020And that's, that's something that I'll probably be learning for a long time.
00:28:34.840Because there are so many battles yet to be fought.
00:28:56.620Well, definitely, I think being from BC, like I'm from Victoria, being around nature, I always felt the power of nature.
00:29:06.220And Victoria has a lot of spirits, probably because of, you know, the genocide of the indigenous people,
00:29:12.580as well as just other elements in terms of its its geography that that leads it to having a very0.97
00:29:18.880charged feeling um so you know that was always around me and there was there's a lot of wicca
00:29:28.600practices practitioners i think yeah in victoria as well so um there was like a curiosity of course
00:29:38.920uh i think i'm sure that watching the craft was one of the main things all people of a certain age
00:29:47.280that got me inspired especially because they had one black girl in it so you're like wow okay
00:29:52.040can we shout out rachel true right now because like she was basically left out of the reunion
00:29:58.060and then people were like what and there was like a essentially like an online campaign
00:30:03.500and it makes no sense it makes no sense at all was she left out or she chose to no no she0.99
00:30:08.260they like didn't invite her and so of course we're like that's garbage 100 garbage she's0.87
00:30:15.340there's only four people in the movie right why there was a big stink and she's like been invited0.93
00:30:22.180now to like whatever con well i hope they're paying her twice as much i hope they're paying0.98
00:30:26.800her three times as much because that is some baloney yeah that's bullshit yeah and so okay0.97
00:30:31.920thank you rachel true for inspiring all of us always and continuing to inspire us0.98
00:30:38.620and for giving so many of us like a jumping off point like a pop culture reference that
00:30:43.700we could relate to as young people right you know there was like witches of eastwick but
00:30:48.880that's like share like yeah we'll never be share and then you just i mean nature again like you
00:30:58.320say living in bc like if you're not odd by nature in bc then you're definitely not a witch
00:31:05.180just feeling this connection i guess to nature and the power and feeling a lot of energy around
00:31:11.460there um and um also just needing it needing it going through hard times like as a young person
00:31:18.360and uh having nature be there to really comfort you and and give you things that you're not getting
00:31:26.500in in society or in in life from people um can you get into that a little bit more how does how
00:31:34.020does nature speak to you and what does it what does it give you well i mean it's really our mother
00:31:40.760you know um it just it's comforting it's creative uh she listens to you
00:31:52.420um i'm i just even get emotional because i'm just so grateful for having had
00:32:01.080access to nature in that way um when i was younger and have and because uh
00:32:11.840i don't know i just i i don't even know if i would be here if i didn't have that access
00:32:19.100when i was younger so in the midst of you not belonging you there was a place where you
00:32:27.480belonged like come tell you belonged with your mother being nature yeah yeah because when we're
00:32:35.660around people we're like noticing our differences and when you're in nature it's just the oneness
00:32:40.540really she held you in her arms she really held me yeah and she listened and she had things to
00:32:47.480share and, um, so much inspiration and just always being, you could just, I was nice that
00:32:54.760I could always go there. I always had somewhere I could go and feel safe and feel, see beauty
00:33:01.860and see diversity, you know, and, um, and just the vibrations like being near the water,
00:33:08.960um, just very healing and comforting. And the city can be very alienating and isolating
00:33:16.760the skyscrapers and the concrete and the yeah i mean victoria doesn't really have
00:33:23.820i mean now now there's so much development but yeah no there's also there's just like
00:33:28.800this really strange kind of um undercurrent of violence in victoria there's a lot of violence
00:33:34.740and um and yeah i definitely experienced a lot of violence as a as a young person in victoria
00:33:45.620Yeah. And then also, you know, the violence of just having to conform in terms of your gender and having to sort of try to conform or not stand out as much as you try not to stand out as a person of color in these white spaces.
00:34:02.500and then also to be performing your gender in this particular way it was it was just a hard
00:34:08.460time so having access to nature like i said it's like really just helped me survive so how do you
00:34:16.840do that in the city uh well i'm in a much different place now in my life um but i'm definitely nature
00:34:24.900deprived so you need held yeah i really do i really do yeah in the city um uh no it's you
00:34:35.300can't i mean i guess in my own home in my own space sort of um when i do spells i have a way
00:34:43.220of of being able to connect to uh the the greater vibrations of the universe and nature and that's
00:34:53.640probably the most grounding and connecting that i can do you feel comfortable expanding on your
00:34:58.500spell work a little bit like how like what do you do what spell work i mean it's so vast anything
00:35:05.320so what's your modality um mostly candle magic is what i do we live for candle magic yeah so many of
00:35:14.480us are like either because we like like to burn things or you know yeah let's go on go on uh yeah
00:35:21.420i don't know that's candle magic like do you do color correspondence color correspondence yeah
00:35:26.820and then um uh well i'll integrate uh different herbs and um crystals and uh i also like the
00:35:39.000recently i've been using my bath like connecting it with the spells so i'll either like cleanse
00:35:47.540myself before i perform the ritual as a as a part of the ritual or after to sort of um i guess
00:35:55.920absorb other elements that are a part of the ritual uh yeah very powerful i like that a lot
00:36:04.720we live for a ritual bath and do you do you think that um these spells like help you to
00:36:10.800conjure the bravery that your work requires? Yeah, I'm sure that they do. I think I've been
00:36:17.480using them more in like lately as a way of cleansing, like spiritual cleansing, because I
00:36:24.740feel that have not being connected to nature and being so much in the city has been very toxic and
00:36:30.800been having like a very, uh, sort of like feeling like the metallic sensation, like all over my,
00:36:37.820my, my being. So I've been using it as a way of cleansing and, and rebalancing myself. Um,
00:36:46.100and yeah, so if I'm bad, if I'm balanced and cleansed, then, uh, I can access my bravery.
00:36:51.820That's for sure. Did everybody hear that? If you're balanced and cleansed, you can access
00:36:57.000your bravery. I love the, the idea of accessing bravery, that it's not something where the,
00:37:01.880that you have or you don't, but that you definitely have it. And it's just a matter
00:37:06.540of gaining access to it inside of yourself i love that because you are we you know we are
00:37:15.580like from of the universe we are divine beings um it's not about the individual you it's just
00:37:23.120about accessing that deeper um that deeper unity connection and and ancient knowledge
00:37:31.820right other ways i'm actually going to be doing my first drag king performance later this month
00:37:40.500which is i'm feeling anxious about it yeah do you have your number in your head already you know
00:37:48.480what you're gonna do yeah that's one of the reasons i'm nervous is because with big sissy
00:37:53.200or any performance i do i always sing live but for this number i'm gonna be lip syncing oh so
00:37:58.600your moves have to be on point if you're not singing live then you have to bring it in other
00:38:02.640ways right yeah yeah uh it's a funny song though because there's also a lot of dialogue with just
00:38:08.480a little bit of singing um so i yeah it's a whole nother character to be accessing
00:38:14.600gonna be working more in like a clown kind of way um but it's also i realize that i'm
00:38:22.360nervous about it because of doing quote-unquote boy drag um and uh it's just sort of a dysmorphic
00:38:32.880kind of situation like what if i you know this is me and my you know masculine sort of what you
00:38:39.920think you would look like as a man i guess um or like a cis man or whatever uh and then what if you
00:38:46.980don't look man enough uh i don't know it's a it's a whole thing that i realize is playing into the
00:38:54.760anxiety about the performance that i thought was just performance anxiety but it's another level
00:39:01.140like identity stuff right yeah yeah yeah you're navigating your own gender yeah in a way that
00:39:07.860most people don't bother to even consider let alone you know uh contend with yeah or acknowledge
00:39:14.680maybe they're maybe they're doing it internally without checking yeah so um again what what made
00:39:22.260you choose how you identify yourself just in terms of the vocabulary that you use obviously
00:39:30.560you don't choose who you are but you choose the vocabulary well actually our vocabulary is
00:39:35.720incredibly limited when it comes to gender so i'm just going i'm just trying things on
00:39:42.240with what i have to work with to be honest with you yeah yeah i mean i was uh like i for lack of
00:39:50.140a better term i identified as male until i was 13 and then uh went through puberty and had to
00:39:58.340or you know didn't really have an option it was like you can okay now you have to be a girl because
00:40:05.780you're a girl or whatever uh that's when they start really separating yeah the bleeders from
00:40:13.000the non-bleeders there you go yeah and uh also you know you want to fit in and you want to
00:40:18.380have friends and not be a weirdo more of a weirdo so then i performed like that for a while
00:40:26.000and then uh you know just just that all forever internal uh uh like nagging feeling that like
00:40:37.220this is a lie uh this is a performance something's not right like i'm not being my true self
00:40:44.960and then it's it's performative in your daily life as opposed to when you're on stage which is
00:40:50.860exhausting i assume uh like the difference of being performative when you're walking down the
00:40:56.580street versus when you're doing an actual performance on a stage yes which i imagine
00:41:00.820is exhausting yes yeah yeah so then you know i just there's not a lot of language but i just
00:41:06.720learned things about you know gender and and i just chose they as a pronoun because that's what
00:41:14.860i have to work with that's pretty much it yeah i don't think i was hoping z was gonna catch on
00:41:21.320yeah it's like yeah and it just rolls off the tongue so it's like i feel that like being able
00:41:26.340to move between genders in the way that you're preparing to do with your other side of the
00:41:34.720binary of the drag king performance i feel this is witchcraft it's like shape-shifting really
00:41:39.700honestly like even as big sissy the thing that well maybe maybe it will cease to amaze me one
00:41:46.440day but has still surprises me all the time is that people don't know that it's me i invited
00:41:54.240somebody to the play um they came they saw the play uh after the play i went upstairs and i said
00:42:01.440oh you made it i'm so glad you came that's great and in that moment they realized it was me
00:42:07.360and they told me that they watched the whole play thinking that oh maybe athena was directing or
00:42:13.460maybe athena was doing lighting athena's apparently not performing in this show and mind you there's
00:42:18.900only two people on stage they watched the entire show this person this was not a coincidence that
00:42:24.960they were there and uh they uh they didn't know it was me and um i guess you know to some people
00:42:32.300who maybe really think within the binary and they would think that you know someone who was
00:42:39.620assigned female and then is dressing in femme drag it wouldn't be hard to distinguish them
00:42:45.340but people don't they don't realize it really is shape-shifting and so actually this conversation
00:42:51.680that we're having has me thinking that i i should perform a ritual to help me access uh this other
00:42:59.140part of myself or this other character that i'm about to move into for this king performance
00:43:04.880because another thing about the king drag that has been um i've been hesitant to do is that
00:43:13.060a lot of the time the represent the male representation that i see in king drag is
00:43:17.140really like this um this really sexy guy and that's not i don't want to bring this pompous
00:43:26.000masculine bro to the stage and even with this performance it's initially i had decided i was
00:43:34.860going to be like a janitor a creepy janitor that would be the again like you your aim is to disquiet
00:43:41.640instead of to comfort and i love that about you and i always will carry on so this guy's not a
00:43:47.980this guy's a garbage man and he's uh he's he's actually kind of quite charming he's kind of um
00:43:53.120he's dirty but but he has a heart of gold in terms of like femme drag i've only really felt0.99
00:44:00.200like i wanted to be big sissy but when it comes to this king drag i feel like there's a lot of
00:44:06.700different characters that i want to explore so that's interesting so you think that this is
00:44:12.860gonna be something you'll keep doing maybe yeah probably i'm sure thank you so much it's been
00:44:20.080It's been an amazing pleasure talking to you.