Southern storytelling to me is the cornerstone of southern culture.

I think every southern person is a great storyteller.

It's handed down from our parents, our grandparents, it just makes me feel so much closer to home.

To me, it's culture, sharing It's highlighting America and it's kind of multi fabric that seems to weave together, but also every now and then break.

And so maybe it's even a glue.

I like a storyteller just in general is, way that, history is kind of preserved.

It could be done in many ways.

music movies, Photography.

it's a way to kind of, pass along information, ideas.

Preserve the times.

Okay, I got my start doing digital content when I got laid off from my funeral home job.

people ask me often, like, how did you start work in the funeral home?

There was a career day when I was in middle school, and the local funeral home brought the hearse, and I was the first goth kid in line and asked the guy if I could lay in the casket.

I made this video called Conway Twitty is Cause of Death, for the pathology for mortuary science class.

I think just because I was listening to a lot of Conway at the time, it was meant for the 12 people who were in that class.

the funeral home that I worked for pretty much everybody got laid off.

It was somewhere during that transition where I went back to YouTube and I was like, hope this video has 300,000 views.

Maybe I'm on to something here.

Let's let's try some more.

Even before I created online, I think I always attempted to connect in some way.

I always like sharing, what I was learning.

I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

And I think a lot of what I do is obviously share Louisiana culture.

But also I like to put a spotlight on the African presence.

In the Americas.

I've always been a doubting Thomas.

Somebody who needed proof.

I'd heard a lot of, kind of, oral history.

And I need to find out if that were true.

So I was able to kind of verify what my family was saying.

For the most part.

And I wanted just to kind of strengthen that oral history with, visual proof.

I always look at photos as a way of, like, time traveling.

You can take a slice of time, and it's.

There there's, like, fascinated to me.

I feel is like, in artist duty, just as Nina Simone said, for us as creatives and artists to document the times, I'm from Memphis, Tennessee.

I consider myself, a multi-hyphenate creative.

you can create the things that you want to see, create your own space to, to, to put your work out I think my first time being cognitive of.

black people not being represented in a creative space.

I used to go to these, art crawls in Nashville and you'd walk around and I didn't really see a lot of us represented, in the work or as the artist presenting the work.

and then I remember, when I first started doing photography And I was a big fan of, magazines like complex, Double Exhale, And I remember, like, I almost submit some work, and, of course, I never heard anything back.

and just what kind of, feel, me stepping into, the light of, of create my own spaces Appalachia is the perfect setting for storytelling.

because most of our stories come from sheer survival so many local characters that had these just far out lives that a Hollywood writer could never come up with.

my uncle He goes and pans for gold in the rivers and creeks and streams of Appalachia.

And I find that he's steeped in Civil War history and these handed down stories as a child.

These these tales that would incite me to want to go explore and go adventure into the woods and find things that have been lost.

treasures or loot or gold So most of my content is built around growing up with my grandparents, my meemaw, my nanny, my granny's.

I was bounced around between all of them, I've discovered that there were more people that grew up like me than I realized.

And we can all meet on a common ground hens will be walking in the There's certainly a lot of misconceptions about Appalachia, because of the way we talk, we're uneducated or, what has been portrayed in the media even like the original Mountain Dew commercial, Yeah.

Mountain dew.

There's been a lot of, jokes made at the expense of southern Appalachian people, one of my goals is to discredit a lot of those stereotypes.

and we can we can laugh at ourselves.

But when it comes to other people pointing the finger is not allowed on my watch.

There's a lot of people moving to Appalachia from rude places in the United States, so just be sure to set that attitude out on the street before you come here.

Louisiana is more than red beans and rice in jazz.

It's deeper than that.

culinary enjoyments, music, the culture, the culture is defined by the struggle and survival.

I try to approach things, especially delicate subjects, with reference, but also it can't just be a dark, somber day, right?

if you just dwell on them, you're it's going to the Illuminati.

This helps.

Sorry for the microphone.

by the telling you like, why is this guy wearing a top hat?

You've hopefully invested a little bit of time to where you're interested in seeing what I'm talking about.

Let me show you something you're not going to see in a museum I found a painting of my ancestor and he was languishing in a basement in California.

A free man of color, born in 1760, New Orleans.

And, it was in a basement in California with cousins who had had only just recently discovered their past.

The fruit.

People of color were a force to be reckoned with.

People just believe or think of just slaves arriving unskilled workers.

But that's actually not the case.

We had people who of course knew mathematics and mean look at the architecture.

also a lot of these large plantations, you see, were built by freedmen of color.

The refinement, of sugar production is made by a man named Norbert.

Reu.

They accounted for a fifth of the population.

They, a third of the buildings in the French Quarter.

I mean, so they affected every aspect of this culture.

Because of historians and past and because of archivist of the past, a lot of the truth, I think, was never preserved.

So that's not put into something where it would be safeguarded and protected and then shared.

I have been posting this image of this little boy for years.

the New Orleans Museum for.

They had decided to do session the work which is common in museums.

They look around, they say, look, these pieces are no longer relevant.

I was able to find a crucial clue of where the painting was from.

Instagram.

in a person I met once at the antique fair said, oh, I remember when that painting was.

So you remember where it was split.

So he gave me the name of the dealer.

Well, you know, I kept calling.

Eventually he Put me in contact with the owner.

in Washington, D.C.. She always said that she was holding that paying for something that's not.

Hey, That's something.

so she agreed, to allow me to purchase the painting.

So I placed it with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Now, I think 4 million people have access to it a year or so.

I think it's a remarkable, New world we have where we can now safeguard this by sharing it.

And so where this won't happen again.

Everything in our past kind of defines our future, and I think a lot of that that causes us to heal is add, to the bad things.

The not so great things, the scratches, the scars, and we all have.

I think we're all after the same thing.

Largely.

And people call it different things, but I think it's healing.

I think it's unique unity.

I think it's a community.

All right.

History is a full time job.

All right, guys, welcome to the very first installment.

Conversations with creatives.

I'm here with Miss Jayla Slater.

My inspiration for creating these spaces is more so.

from a regional standpoint, I think we have a lot of talented people here.

And everyone doesn't get their sign on a major platform.

So I figure, can still share these stories We want people to, to realize like that, you can create from a space authenticity You can.

Create in your pocket that you won.

Creating.

So these are my babies.

my magazine issues.

the latest piece features the work of various photographers around Memphis.

Just documenting, like, the culture, the music scene, the work that I've put out online has somewhat shaped people's narrative of Memphis.

when people think of Memphis, especially when you talk to people outside of Memphis, Elvis Beale Street.

they think about the legacy aspects of Memphis, my content has kind of shared a side of Memphis that people didn't know existed here.

and just to South in general.

Alright.

Today we're here is Stax Museum.

tell stories about Memphis.

when you think about traditional media, only so many people can get it.

But I think digital space has opened it up you're able to create, from your perspective, from your voice, It's important to me to keep the stories of Appalachia alive, because a lot of the older generation, where the stories come from are passing away.

When I look at collectors of the past a lot of what was acquired was for a novelty and also for showmanship.

And I don't think you can come into this world with that attitude The history is bigger than me.

It's a responsibility.

The South remains a force to be reckoned with.

Good and bad.

I don't think the digital age has necessarily changed.

South per se.

I think it's, made it more accessible It's just not one sided.

get to hear, voices that you probably wouldn't have heard, been, a goal to just preserve, as many of these stories in the digital realm as I possibly can,