Tremaine Emory is a visionary fashion designer. Once the creative director at the streetwear brand Supreme, he co-founded his own brand, Denim Tears, which aims to tell the stories of the African Diaspora through fashion. His work has been recognized widely for its bold originality and counter-cultural drive. In this episode, Emory talks about the psychology of how we validate ourselves in consumer culture; the layers of history held in terms of Black self-identification; and what it means to reshape the world into a place visibly different and more aware than it was before.

Scroll below to learn more about all the artists, authors, and references that came up in conversation:  

Supreme: An American clothing and skateboarding lifestyle brand established in New York City in April 1994. Supreme is recognized for its influence on streetwear culture, with products that cater to skateboarding and urban fashion trends.

Denim Tears: Founded in 2019 by designer and aesthete Tremaine Emory, each collection tells a story, revealing what the brand’s founder calls the African Diaspora. Denim Tears’ approach to heritage and design has earned its place in The Met Costume Institute in New York’s permanent collection.

Harlem, Georgia: A small town Tremaine visited every summer as a kid to visit is grandmother and cousins. His father and mother were raised on land they owned there.

Flushing, Queens: Tremaine grew up in Flushing for 9 years before moving to Jamaica Queens. His father struggled to get residence in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens due to racial profiling.

Jamaica, Queens: The second neighborhood Tremaine’s family moved to within New York before moving to St. Albans, Queens. Tremaine details the danger and fun of navigating the crack epidemic as a youth during the late 80s and 90s.

St. Albans, Queens: Tremaine’s father was able to purchase a family home in St. Albans, a residential neighborhood in the southeastern portion of the New York City borough of Queens.

Tracy Emory: Tremaine’s father who served in the military and worked as a news cameraman for CBS for 38 years.

Jim Crow: Name of the racial caste system that operated primarily, but not exclusively, in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. It was a series of rigid anti-black laws that relegated African Americans to the status of second-class citizens by legitimizing anti-black racism.

James Jebbia: An American-British businessman, fashion designer, and former child actor. He is the founder of Supreme ad UNION.

UNION LA:  Jebbia (along with his then-partner Mary Ann Fusco) opened up UNION in 1989. It was far from the purveyor of sub-rosa Japanese brands, Marni, with influences from hip-hop.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: American lawyer and politician who served as mayor of New York City (1994–2001).

Grady's Liquor Store: The biggest liquor store in Queens. Tremaine worked there as a youth.

Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School: A public secondary school in Jamaica, Queens. It is one of the few public high schools in New York City to offer vocational training programs and traditional college preparatory tracks. Tremaine attended the largely male school.

The Sandlot: A 1993 American coming-of-age sports comedy film co-written, directed, and narrated by David Mickey Evans. It tells the story of a group of young baseball players during the summer of 1962.

Boyz n the Hood: A 1991 American coming-of-age hood crime drama film written and directed by John Singleton in his feature directorial debut. Follows the lives of three young males living in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles, dissecting questions of race, relationships, violence, and future prospects.

The Wire: An American crime drama television series created and primarily written by former police reporter David Simon. The show explores Baltimore, MD’s drug scene, as seen through the eyes of drug dealers and law enforcement.

Jam Master Jay: An American rap musician and producer who was a member of Run-DMC, the first rap group to attract a worldwide audience. The group is credited with bringing hip-hop into the cultural mainstream.

George Floyd: A black man whose videotaped death under the knee of a white police officer sparked protests in 2020, including some of the largest street demonstrations in U.S. history. 

bell hooks: An American scholar, author, poet, feminist, cultural critic, and activist whose work examined the connections between race, gender, class, sexuality and geographic place.

LaGuardia Community College: A public community college in Long Island City, Queens that offers associate degrees in the arts, sciences, and applied sciences. It is part of the City University of New York and named after former congressman and New York City mayor, Fiorello H. LaGuardia.  

Brexit: The withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws. 

Black Panthers: Founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans, the exemption of African Americans from the draft and from all sanctions of so-called white America, the release of all African Americans from jail, and the payment of compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation by white Americans.

James Baldwin: An essayist, novelist, and playwright whose work distinguished him as a voice of human equality. Baldwin was a well-known public figure and orator, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States.

Warner Music Group: An American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "big three" recording companies and the third-largest in the global music industry, after Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME).

Comtel Pro: Sells recording and film tools to film makers, music creators, data content technicians, and engineers of every imaginable media.

RICO Laws: The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a federal law passed in 1970 (codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-68) targeting organized criminal activity and racketeering. RICO enhances existing criminal punishments and creates new causes of action for acts done as a part of an organized criminal enterprise. 

Gordon Gekko: Gordon Gekko is a fictional character who appears as the villain in the popular 1987 Oliver Stone movie "Wall Street" and its 2010 sequel "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." The character, a ruthless and wildly wealthy investor and corporate raider, has become a cultural symbol for greed,

Ku Klux Klan(KKK): Two distinct U.S. American white supremacists, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups that weaponized terror. One group was founded immediately after the Civil War and lasted until the 1870s. The other began in 1915 and has continued to the present.

Francis Ford Coppola: An Italian American film director, producer and screenwriter.  He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood film movement of the 1960s and 1970s and is widely considered one of the greatest directors of all time.

Biggie Smalls (The Notorious B.I.G.): Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie, is a revered hip-hop artist and face of East Coast gangsta rap. He was shot and killed on March 9, 1997. 

Virgil Abloh: An American designer, architect, and entrepreneur. Abloh founded Pyrex Vision and later became the chief executive officer of the Milan-based label Off-White, a fashion house he founded in 2013. In 2018, Abloh became the creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear. 

Spike Lee: Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work explores race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983.

Julie Dash: An American filmmaker, music video and commercial director, author, and website producer. Dash broke racial and gender boundaries with her Sundance award-winning film (Best Cinematography) Daughters of the Dust. She became the first African American woman to have a wide theatrical release of her feature film. 

Mario Van Peebles: An American film director and actor best known for appearing in ‘Heartbreak Ridge’ in 1986 and known for directing and starring in ‘New Jack City’ in 1991 and ‘USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage’ in 2016.

Lower Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm: An enlarged area in the lower part of the body's main artery, called the aorta. An abdominal aortic aneurysm that ruptures can cause life-threatening bleeding.

Michael Jordan: A​​n American collegiate and professional basketball player widely considered to be one of the greatest all-around players in the history of the game. He played fifteen seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) between 1984 and 2003, winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls.

Muhammad Ali: An American professional boxer and social activist. Ali was the first fighter to win the world heavyweight championship on three occasions; he successfully defended this title 19 times.Supreme: An American clothing and skateboarding lifestyle brand established in New York City in April 1994. Supreme is recognized for its influence on streetwear culture, with products that cater to skateboarding and urban fashion trends.

Denim Tears: Founded in 2019 by designer and aesthete Tremaine Emory, each collection tells a story, revealing what the brand’s founder calls the African Diaspora. Denim Tears’ approach to heritage and design has earned its place in The Met Costume Institute in New York’s permanent collection.

Harlem, Georgia: A small town Tremaine visited every summer as a kid to visit is grandmother and cousins. His father and mother were raised on land they owned there.

Flushing, Queens: Tremaine grew up in Flushing for 9 years before moving to Jamaica Queens. His father struggled to get residence in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens due to racial profiling.

Jamaica, Queens: The second neighborhood Tremaine’s family moved to within New York before moving to St. Albans, Queens. Tremaine details the danger and fun of navigating the crack epidemic as a youth during the late 80s and 90s.

St. Albans, Queens: Tremaine’s father was able to purchase a family home in St. Albans, a residential neighborhood in the southeastern portion of the New York City borough of Queens.

Tracy Emory: Tremaine’s father who served in the military and worked as a news cameraman for CBS for 38 years.

Jim Crow: Name of the racial caste system that operated primarily, but not exclusively, in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. It was a series of rigid anti-black laws that relegated African Americans to the status of second-class citizens by legitimizing anti-black racism.

James Jebbia: An American-British businessman, fashion designer, and former child actor. He is the founder of Supreme ad UNION.

UNION LA:  Jebbia (along with his then-partner Mary Ann Fusco) opened up UNION in 1989. It was far from the purveyor of sub-rosa Japanese brands, Marni, with influences from hip-hop.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: American lawyer and politician who served as mayor of New York City (1994–2001).

Grady's Liquor Store: The biggest liquor store in Queens. Tremaine worked there as a youth.

Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School: A public secondary school in Jamaica, Queens. It is one of the few public high schools in New York City to offer vocational training programs and traditional college preparatory tracks. Tremaine attended the largely male school.

The Sandlot: A 1993 American coming-of-age sports comedy film co-written, directed, and narrated by David Mickey Evans. It tells the story of a group of young baseball players during the summer of 1962.

Boyz n the Hood: A 1991 American coming-of-age hood crime drama film written and directed by John Singleton in his feature directorial debut. Follows the lives of three young males living in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles, dissecting questions of race, relationships, violence, and future prospects.

The Wire: An American crime drama television series created and primarily written by former police reporter David Simon. The show explores Baltimore, MD’s drug scene, as seen through the eyes of drug dealers and law enforcement.

Jam Master Jay: An American rap musician and producer who was a member of Run-DMC, the first rap group to attract a worldwide audience. The group is credited with bringing hip-hop into the cultural mainstream.

George Floyd: A black man whose videotaped death under the knee of a white police officer sparked protests in 2020, including some of the largest street demonstrations in U.S. history. 

bell hooks: An American scholar, author, poet, feminist, cultural critic, and activist whose work examined the connections between race, gender, class, sexuality and geographic place.

LaGuardia Community College: A public community college in Long Island City, Queens that offers associate degrees in the arts, sciences, and applied sciences. It is part of the City University of New York and named after former congressman and New York City mayor, Fiorello H. LaGuardia.  

Brexit: The withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws. 

Black Panthers: Founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans, the exemption of African Americans from the draft and from all sanctions of so-called white America, the release of all African Americans from jail, and the payment of compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation by white Americans.

James Baldwin: An essayist, novelist, and playwright whose work distinguished him as a voice of human equality. Baldwin was a well-known public figure and orator, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States.

Warner Music Group: An American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "big three" recording companies and the third-largest in the global music industry, after Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME).

Comtel Pro: Sells recording and film tools to film makers, music creators, data content technicians, and engineers of every imaginable media.

RICO Laws: The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a federal law passed in 1970 (codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-68) targeting organized criminal activity and racketeering. RICO enhances existing criminal punishments and creates new causes of action for acts done as a part of an organized criminal enterprise. 

Gordon Gekko: Gordon Gekko is a fictional character who appears as the villain in the popular 1987 Oliver Stone movie "Wall Street" and its 2010 sequel "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." The character, a ruthless and wildly wealthy investor and corporate raider, has become a cultural symbol for greed,

Ku Klux Klan(KKK): Two distinct U.S. American white supremacists, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups that weaponized terror. One group was founded immediately after the Civil War and lasted until the 1870s. The other began in 1915 and has continued to the present.

Francis Ford Coppola: An Italian American film director, producer and screenwriter.  He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood film movement of the 1960s and 1970s and is widely considered one of the greatest directors of all time.

Biggie Smalls (The Notorious B.I.G.): Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie, is a revered hip-hop artist and face of East Coast gangsta rap. He was shot and killed on March 9, 1997. 

Virgil Abloh: An American designer, architect, and entrepreneur. Abloh founded Pyrex Vision and later became the chief executive officer of the Milan-based label Off-White, a fashion house he founded in 2013. In 2018, Abloh became the creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear. 

Spike Lee: Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work explores race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983.

Julie Dash: An American filmmaker, music video and commercial director, author, and website producer. Dash broke racial and gender boundaries with her Sundance award-winning film (Best Cinematography) Daughters of the Dust. She became the first African American woman to have a wide theatrical release of her feature film. 

Mario Van Peebles: An American film director and actor best known for appearing in ‘Heartbreak Ridge’ in 1986 and known for directing and starring in ‘New Jack City’ in 1991 and ‘USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage’ in 2016.

Lower Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm: An enlarged area in the lower part of the body's main artery, called the aorta. An abdominal aortic aneurysm that ruptures can cause life-threatening bleeding.

Michael Jordan: A​​n American collegiate and professional basketball player widely considered to be one of the greatest all-around players in the history of the game. He played fifteen seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) between 1984 and 2003, winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls.

Muhammad Ali: An American professional boxer and social activist. Ali was the first fighter to win the world heavyweight championship on three occasions; he successfully defended this title 19 times.

Whitney White is an actor, singer, Obie Award winner, and winner of the Lilly Award, which recognizes extraordinary women in theater. White has directed productions of James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner; Aleshea Harris’ What to Send Up When It Goes Down, a work about the victims of racialized violence; and Jocelyn Bioh’s Broadway play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. She also directed productions of Shakespeare’s Richard III and Othello. In this episode, White shares how powerful moments on stage often originate in the body, not the mind. She also talks about how she preserves her inner self amidst the demands of large-scale productions, and what it means to embrace and live in her full self.

Singer-songwriter Brittany Howard, former lead singer and guitarist of the Grammy Award-winning Alabama Shakes, is now a spectacular and charismatic solo artist. Brittany joins Helga in the studio following the release of her second solo album, What Now, to offer a deep-dive into her personal and artistic life. She discusses her early experiences with grief and its impact on her creative awakening; her stages of self-discovery and the importance of therapy as a critical aspect of mental health; and how she balances her many musical forms with her understanding of authenticity, spirituality and passion. 

Get ready for a new season of fearless conversations that reveal the extraordinary in all of us.

Critically acclaimed actress, singer, writer and composer Helga Davis returns for a new season of soulful conversations with artists and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, including Brittany Howard, Whitney White, Tremaine Emory, Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, Suzan-Lori Parks, Noliwe Rooks and Sampha. 

In each episode, Davis and her guest share stories of struggle and resilience, challenges and victories along their creative journeys, providing inspiration and hope to listeners. Unique in the audio landscape for the depth of inquiry and emotional vulnerability, HELGA’s thought-provoking conversations offer to expand our collective perspective on the human condition and the daily stressors of the world today. And each episode leaves listeners with something practical and practice-able: an idea for something they can do everyday to help them stay in touch with their own humanity and creativity, whatever form it may take. 

Season six is the second season co-produced by WNYC Studios, WQXR and the Brown Arts Institute at Brown University.

Black people know this: There’s a difference between what you say and what you mean. It’s been a matter of survival for us.

For over 30 years, American visual artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa has captured the histories and experiences of Black Americans with projects that exemplify both the universal and particular facets of Black life.

In the second part of this masterclass in Black thought, Jafa continues his free-from improvisation through his breadth of knowledge and understanding of visual culture — embedded with all the references, rhetorics, and personal reflections of someone who has spent a lifetime dedicated to centralizing the varied experiences of Black Being. 

I don't want to be the prisoner in a box, even if it's a box I made.

For over 30 years, American visual artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa has captured the histories and experiences of Black Americans with projects that exemplify both the universal and particular facets of Black life.

In this masterclass in Black thought — the first episode in a two-part series — Jafa shares a free-from improvisation through his breadth of knowledge and understanding of visual culture — embedded with all the references, rhetorics, and personal reflections of someone who has spent a lifetime dedicated to centralizing the varied experiences of Black Being.

Charlie Parker

John Coltrane

Ornette Coleman

Culture Strike

Laura Raicovich

Christina Sharpe

Hortense Spillers

Ultralight Beam - Kanye West 

Love is the Message, The Message is Death - Arthur Jafa

John Henrik Clark

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jimi Hendrix

Cecil Taylor

AGHDRA

Women in Love

Burnt Sugar

Butch Morris

Muddy Waters

Carl Hancock Rux

Virgil Abloh

LMVH

Off-White

This [term] 'femme' becomes more possible to me as a figure for not just embodiment, but for thought, action, engagement, connection.

Macarena Goméz-Barris is Professor and Chair of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, founder of the Global South Center at Pratt Institute, an organization which supports artists, activists, and scholars in their efforts to decolonialize local and global communities.

In this episode, Goméz-Barris talks about how one can and must find beauty in the most ambiguous of places, how she uses the word “femme” to escape the embattled histories of the word “female," and how she has—and hasn’t—moved on from a traumatic early swimming lesson with her father.

Constantine Petrou Cavafy

Waiting for the Barbarians

Audre Lorde

Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic is Power

Saidiya Hartman

Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Talents

There are whole histories of African American artists wrestling with stereotypical depictions and minstrelsy - and it seemed worthy anyway to me as an artist to consider them as some kind of artwork.

American painter and silhouettist Kara Walker rose to international acclaim at the age of 28 as one of the youngest-ever recipients of a MacArthur Genius grant. Appearing in exhibitions, museums, and public collections worldwide, Walker’s work wrestles with the ongoing psychological injury caused by the legacy of slavery. 

In this episode, Walker shares how she navigates her own inner conflicts, how a curiosity for history led her to the silhouette, and what happens when making use of symbols of Black servitude brings one acclaim. 

Buster Browns

RISD - Rhode Island School of Design

My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love

University of the Pacific

Robert Wilson

Einstein on the Beach

Stanley Whitney

Glen Ligon

Kehinde Wiley

I like to say we're living in a precedent time, not an unprecedented one. How do we understand that? Being at the museum or writing histories both in poetry and in non-fiction are ways of trying to understand that. 

“Gatekeepers” hold an essential role in our culture as those in positions of power who determine what we see and hear — and therefore how we understand our world. The poet Kevin Young holds dual gatekeeping roles as both director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture as well as the poetry editor for The New Yorker magazine. 

In this episode, Young talks about how he holds these responsibilities and likens reading a poem to entering into a museum. He also shares his belief in the power of unexpected transformations, which songs have brought him comfort, and how it’s always easiest to write about the place you’ve just left. 

Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

Public Enemy

Chuck D

Parliament Funkadelic

African American Vernacular English

Sister Sonya Sanchez

Langston Hughes

Gwendolyn Brooks

Harriet Tubman's shawl

David Hammonds’ African American Flag

Willie Nelson

Earth, Wind and Fire

John Coltrane's Love Supreme

I Want You - Marvin Gay

Mary Lou Williams

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Make Good the Promises

Ida B. Wells

Book of Hours - Kevin Young

Stones - Kevin Young

It’s hard when you try to talk across racial groups about race ... I do believe that there's a better chance of them getting further if we can create spaces of both accountability and connection. 

Tricia Rose is a pioneering scholar in the field of hip-hop, Chancellor's Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, co-host with Cornel West of “The Tight Rope” podcast, and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. 

In this episode, Rose discusses how she balances her love of the early days of hip-hop with the global profit powerhouse it has become, the beauty of chaos, and how essential it is to build safe, stable communities at a time when everything is being done to isolate and separate. 

Fannie Lou Hamer

Clarence Thomas

Tightrope with Cornell West

Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America

Within seriousness, there's little room for play, but within play there's tremendous room for seriousness. It's through the act of serious play that wonderful ideas are born. 

Carrie Mae Weems is one of today’s most influential and generous contemporary American artists, as devoted to her own craft as she is to introducing other artists into the world. Her photography and diverse visual media has won her numerous awards including the Rome Prize, a MacArthur genius grant, and four honorary doctorates, and she was even named one of the 100 most influential women of all time by Ebony magazine. 

In this episode, Weems explores the struggles artists must maintain to find balance and reach an audience, how the field cannot advance without the deep and profound inclusion of Black artists, and what the concept of “grace” means to her and her mother.

Dawoud Bey

The Black Photographers Annual

Joe Crawford

Roy DeCarava

Anthony Barboza

Ming Smith

Langston Hughes's ‘Black Nativity’

Cassandra Myth