Unique To The Unison: An Interview Of Entrepreneur & Taboo Founder Kenny Eshinlokun

 

Photograph by Agustín Farías

 

In the fall of 2020, Kenny Eshinlokun launched her creative agency, Taboo, to create world class projects that transcend audiences and industry borders. After working for a decade in the marketing and music industries, she saw the need for artists to build meaningful, long-term partnerships with brands that truly care about their creative endeavors. Through Taboo, she has built a global cohort of creatives and brands that are committed to giving back to their communities and building relationships that are rooted in genuinely shared visions. Autre caught up with the Eshinlokun to talk about the inspiration for starting her own agency, the meaning of true inclusivity, and the future of Taboo.

AUTRE: What was the creative scene like for you growing up in London—how did you connect to the subculture? 

KENNY ESHINLOKUN: My background in London lay heavily in the music industry. The industry is really hard to break into but once you’re in, you’re pretty much in, and I quickly found the industry super small. My connection to subculture and my career had always been separate when I was young, I had a lot of friends who studied fashion and knew a few people working at Supreme and Lazy Oaf during their rise, which was really interesting to watch. 

Generally, street style was always extremely special in London and encompassed influences from all over the world, which also meant influences from many subcultures, like grime, the rave kids, skaters, punks, b-boys. I myself used to dance, which was a scene that had so many layers, and I loved being a part of this bubble the most. Dancers are the funniest, most energetic and craziest people you'll ever meet. It's a scene that really made me understand what community and second family was and really drove my connection to music through movement.

AUTRE: What kind of music did you listen to growing up? 

ESHINLOKUN: As a kid I listened to a lot of R&B, hip hop, and pop music sprinkled with the tiniest bit of emo, punk rock, and as I got into my teenage years I discovered classical, house, and techno music. Mainly because singing along to Destiny’s Child whilst studying for my exams was too distracting, so I needed music without too many lyrics.

AUTRE: What made you want to start your own agency? 

ESHINLOKUN: I mainly started because I couldn't find a job in the role that I wanted and a good friend of mine, Peter, who had started several companies himself, encouraged me to go for it. I wanted to create a space for people in the industry who looked like me and cater for an audience that was more inclusive.

AUTRE: What is Taboo? Can you describe the agency and what its core objectives are? 

ESHINLOKUN: Taboo is a brand-partnerships company that has a soul, I guess. We try to add meaning to everything we do and pride ourselves on the relationships we keep with not only our artists, but also the individual's who work for each of the brands with which we partner. We want to create bespoke, authentic partnerships that go a little further and give back to the community in some way, small or big. We want to provide opportunities for musicians to express themselves and share who they are. We want to encourage brands to see artists as more than just a face, and for musicians to see the brand as more than just a dollar sign. We want to create long-lasting partnerships that turn into strong relationships.

AUTRE: What does true inclusivity mean to you—is there something the media or people are missing in their message of bringing disparate communities together? 

ESHINLOKUN: Inclusivity means making things accessible for everyone, regardless of whether they’re in the audience or not. You never know who might be a part of your audience, so accounting for everyone is true inclusivity to me.

AUTRE: In an age of multiple virus variants and lockdowns, can you talk a little bit about the challenges of bringing a community together during a time of social distancing? 

ESHINLOKUN: It’s been very hard, since at Taboo we love a good party ,and have tried to bring together many parts of our community to celebrate and enjoy each other's company, but lockdown really hinders this.

AUTRE: What does subculture mean in a time when everything is on Instagram and TikTok—can a subculture thrive in a digitized, globalized world? 

ESHINLOKUN: Subcultures to me can not truly exist in a digital sphere and thus the most amazing thing is to experience them in real life…

AUTRE: What does the word ally mean to you—how do we develop meaningful allyships in an age of wild division? 

ESHINLOKUN: An Ally is someone who has your back when no one is looking.

AUTRE: What kind of brands or partnerships are you looking for—is there a magic word that they usually say where you know that they are the right partner? 

ESHINLOKUN: Partnerships that leave an imprint of unison, something that really feels like both parties sprinkled some of themselves and it couldn't be replicated by anyone else as it's completely unique to the unison.

AUTRE: Where do we go from here—what are your grand plans for Taboo? 

ESHINLOKUN: I want to do more clothing/fashion collaborations. In general, those are the most interesting for me and hopefully Taboo as a brand can also develop some collab rotations of its own.

AUTRE: As a leader in the community, do you have advice for those who want to take charge and help amplify voices? 

ESHINLOKUN: Make sure you know why you are speaking up, as when people try to put you down, you'll be able to brush it off because you know, at the very least, you truly believe in what you are saying.

Follow Taboo on Instagram to learn more.

The Tao of Maceo: An Interview Of Multi-Disciplinary Artist & Behavioral Economist Maceo Paisley

interview by Summer Bowie

photographs by Dan Johnson

What does it mean to be a twenty-first century renaissance man? For Maceo Paisley, a wide range of disciplines comes together in a positive feedback loop that supports his indefatigable exploration of human behavior. Using embodied inquiry, he investigates his own identity and presents his findings in performance and film. A prolific writer of prose, he just released his first book Tao of Maceo, which takes inventory of his personal beliefs and aims to define his perspective more acutely. Stepping off the stage, he cultivates community through his Chinatown gallery, Nous Tous and a multi-pronged community practice/social innovation agency called Citizens of Culture. When he’s not writing, choreographing, curating, advising, and organizing, you might find him modeling or dancing for the likes of AirBnb or Justin Timberlake, respectively. Or you might find him enjoying a day to himself with a great book in hand. In the following interview, we learned about Maceo’s ever-expanding artistic practice, his time in the Army, and his unique approach to community organizing.

SUMMER BOWIE: Your short film, Dynamite investigates gender and identity, specifically the black, male experience through embodied inquiry. Can you talk a bit about the concept of embodied inquiry and any discoveries you made about your identity through this process?

MACEO PAISLEY: Yes, embodied inquiry, as I see it is a practice that deepens the thinking process by approaching ideas through the body. From the neurological perspective, we tap into kinetic intelligence, and somatics. From the more spiritual or philosophical perspective we tap into the bodies natural, sensual wisdom, as a reference point for our conceptual understanding.  

The most interesting discoveries have been around relationships, in partner dancing, where trust, communication, vulnerability, and boundaries aren’t just metaphorically applied, but fully actualized in the bodies of two dancers.

BOWIE: Speaking of masculine expression, I understand that before your career as an entrepreneurial creative, you earned a Bronze Star for your service with the Army in Iraq. Can you describe your tour in Iraq and do you feel this is a testament to your masculinity, or something else completely?

PAISLEY: I think that my time in the Army, was challenging, but it gave me access to a kind of masculinity that, when untempered appears as violent aggression, but when honed, can actually be useful as clarity and assertion.  It took me going to the extreme to know what limits I was comfortable with, but through that expression and exploration I was able to find a balance point and operate from there.

Iraq was a mixed bag, everyday was different, some days were almost boring, and other days there were mortar rounds blasting over our heads.

BOWIE: Aside from being a multi-disciplinary artist, you’re also a model, behavioral economist, an entrepreneur, a writer/magazine publisher, the president and director of Nous Tous Gallery in Chinatown and you oversee strategy and vision for a nonprofit called Citizens of Culture. That’s a lot to unpack and we’ll come back to these projects in detail, but have you always been such a polymathic person, and how do you manage to wear so many hats?

PAISLEY: It seems to me that my work is actually quite dynamic in practice but almost singular in focus. At core, I am deeply interested in the humanities as a field, so that might be the qualitative measurement of human behavior, or it could be the observational study of a couple arguing in a coffee shop, or the of publishing of works across whichever medium is most suitable for the audience.  

Art & science are often posed as opposites, but I believe that they are like twins separated at birth, who are both often misunderstood, yet each necessary to gain as robust a picture of humanity and it’s surroundings as possible.

BOWIE: You just had your first book published, Tao of Maceo, a personal inventory of your beliefs in writing. You say that by putting your views on paper, you gain a better understanding of your fallacies and limiting beliefs. What’s the most important thing you learned about yourself through the writing process?

PAISLEY: The most important thing I learned about myself has to be that for as much as I am open and perceived as vulnerable in my work, I am a very private person, who isn’t nearly as open in my relationships as I am in the controlled context of sharing art.

BOWIE: You’re an avid reader and you publish a biannual print magazine called Correspondence. Who are some of the authors and magazines that inspire your writing and publishing, respectively? 

PAISLEY: Well, in 2016 I read about 115 books, both fiction and non-fiction. I really have to say that Oliver Sacks is one of my favorite non-fiction writers because of his range of experience dealing with the human mind. In the fiction realm, Octavia Butler is really a titan, that I keep wanting to go back to. As far as periodicals, I really love the Copenhagen Institute for Cultural Studies magazine SCENARIO, it has the most fabulous images, and deep insights about culture and identity from the individual and macro perspective.

BOWIE: You seem to be on a highly proactive odyssey toward excellence. Are you seeking an arrival point, or are you simply trying to see how much you can accomplish within your lifespan?

PAISLEY: The latter, I don’t know that “excellence” is the goal, it certainly was at one point. Now, I am more focused on finding peace and living in an urban environment, and contemporary society makes that a worthy challenge. My biggest goal at the moment is to understand what “enough” means to me, and how that idea changes accordingly with changes in my environment, and at various stages of life.

BOWIE: I want to talk about Nous Tous (French for all of us). What made you decide to open a gallery/community space and what does the decision process look like when curating artists and hosting events?

PAISLEY: Well, to be frank, we’ve never really said “No.” to anyone who wanted to show at Nous Tous. It would be contradictory to the name if we were to be exclusionary. Instead, I see my role as gallerist to be more of an editor, highlighting the best elements of whatever work is brought my way, and to coach the artist to trust in a shared vision, or in some cases, simply submit to the artist’s vision, and work to support it as best we can within our parameters and resources.

We have a manifesto that we reference, and works that fit naturally within it are usually what we attract, and other times we offer rental agreements to allow works to be shown with more autonomy. We then use that financial support to uplift other programs.

BOWIE: Can you talk a bit about Citizens of Culture? How it came about and what you guys do.

PAISLEY: Citizens Of Culture is really about creating a place to have all the conversations we find difficulty having otherwise. Whether it be race, sex, politics, death, money, or morality, we support individuals and businesses as they approach cultural challenges in the hopes of providing the kind of clarity that can inform values-based actions. Practically, we are consultants for innovation, diversity and belonging, in companies, and that work supports, free or low-cost programs that are art-based, therapeutic, or support economic empowerment.

We have weekly meetings on Wednesdays, 7pm at Nous Tous in Chinatown if anyone wants to pop in and check it out.

BOWIE: Through Citizens of Culture you conducted a dating social experiment called, No Pressure, No Shame. What do you think are some of the current challenges that single people face in our current dating culture, and do you have any wisdom to impart for those who are currently trying to navigate the dating scene?

PAISLEY: The biggest challenge is that we have only been trying to marry for love for a short while in human history, and we don’t really have stale or universal definitions for what “love” is. So there is this mythology around it that we are trying to live up to, all while the ground shifts beneath us as to how we are supposed to go about achieving a loving relationship.

We first try to encourage people to clarify their intentions in the dating world, and that might mean having a flexible, working definition of what love looks like, and how a romantic partner might fit in to an ideal life. The next thing would be to set up some goals and boundaries that feel appropriate for our stage in life, and realizing that the work is never really done, so having compassion for ourselves and others along the way.

BOWIE: Is this an ongoing project or was it more of a one-time thing?

PAISLEY: No Pressure No Shame, started in 2015 with a 150-person queer, sex-positive, consent-based dating event, and we have been activating different iterations of the program as talks, art events, and parties ever since then. We activate something larger each October.

BOWIE: I’m really interested in a video series you feature on Citizens of Culture called Talking in Circles. Can you talk a bit about the concept of this series and any future topics you plan to cover?

PAISLEY: We believe that every great movement in humanity starts with people coming together to make collective decisions. Every one of our programs has some element of this, in the past we have covered technology, religion, police brutality, gentrification, and other issues, and moving forward I think we should be speaking more to addiction, sex-work, ideas of normalcy, economy, and mental health. As we move forward, we would like to be a go-to place for all of the most important conversations of our time.

Maceo Paisley will be officially releasing Tao of Maceo and signing books Thursday March 14 from 7:30-9:30pm @ NAVEL 1611 South Hope Street. Please join us for a screening and performance of DYNAMITE, as well as a short Q&A with Maceo Paisley & Summer Bowie.