Sometimes listening to music takes you back to a moment in your life that you can taste, touch and even smell. What three songs would definitely be in the soundtrack to your life?
Eric B. Is President takes me back to Bergtraum High School talent shows. I was a funny freshman chubette. Never had gear or was the cute, but on stage I redeemed all the chubby broke chicks by dancing my ass off! Everyone screamed my name and that was like crack for me. Now you can’t keep me off stage or the dance floor. Georgia Ann Muldrow’s Worthnothings EP is some of the richest, most honest music I’ve heard. If Bjork was southern fried, raised on hip-hop & soul, that would be Georgia. She’s the modern Stevie Wonder. Her song “Demise” is my life right now, “Dying would be easier than stepping up to the plate.”

If you could have a dinner date with one person who has transcended this life who would it be? What would you talk about?
I’d talk about biscuits and catfish with Madame Zora Neal Hurston. Her vision was so grand, and her work so ballsy that it inspired the greats: Hansbury, Morrison, and Walker. I’d say, “Zora, how’d you do it all and not go nuts? Did you have to forsake love for your art?” She loved hard too. I’d also apologize for us letting her die broke. Then I’d butter some biscuits for her.

Jeans, pants or skirts? T-shirts, tanks or blouses?
Good fitting jeans are like crack. But I love my energy in flirty circle skirts, with Converses or flip-flops. I feel femme power in them joints…throw on some big earrings and I’m good. Oh, and tanks baby! Provided I’ve hit the gym and I ain’t jiggling like Ethel Merman.

Greatest hip-hop quotable?
“You’re like a hip-hop song, ya know,” Q-Tip, Bonita Applebaum. What a great fucking compliment!

Radha Blank is a writer, teacher, comedian and actress from New York City.

Which superhero would you date?
Daredevil, because I would know that he thought I was beautiful based on who I was and not what I physically represented.

Sneakers or stillettos?
Sneakers. I fall in love too easily, so I need the right foot support to keep me levelled. Plus, I don’t have the right walk for stillettos.

Can you give hip-hop’s next generation one word of wisdom?
Rebel. Don’t let the definition hip-hop be determined FOR you.

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