2023 grant amount: $50,000 over two years
This grant will support a musical album, documentary and music visuals. INEZ says her diasporic story will be told through Black musical genres with Black vocalists, composers, musicians and documentarians.
"When Bloomberg published their 2019 report naming Pittsburgh as the worst city for Black women, this wasn’t an unfamiliar story," she says. "I live, perform and create in this city and share this experience daily. It would be an easier time for my art and life, if I left, but I choose to stay. I wish to use this project and all things that I bring to life in Pittsburgh to continue a legacy of showing the Black excellence of Black women here, despite what we’re given. I hope that all of my work helps make this city more equitable, even if I am not immediately a recipient. All of my work is for, to and in support, honor and love of Black women, girls and femmes."
INEZ hopes to write, produce and perform a 9-song, 12-track album that "allows me to sonically work through my lived experiences dealing with a 'Superwoman Syndrome,' sexism, wounds of 'living and loving-while-Black,' but mainly, how I’ve navigated my anger as a result of said experiences. This album will serve as a stage for my realizations and recovery. I will channel these into a work that serves as a navigational tool for emotional healing. One that doesn't look at Black women’s anger as a 'low vibrational' but as a human emotion that need not be vilified–Our anger as an emotion that needs to be acknowledged and released in a way that aids growth, and doesn't perpetuate continual internal harm. I hope this album can be a project that serves to dispel the harmful troupe of the 'Angry Black Woman.'"
Outside of the studio space, the entire project will be filmed for a documentary, showing the process of planning through execution. There will also be album music and promotional visuals filmed.
WEB: https://inez.us/
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/fromINEZwithlove
TWITTER: twitter.com/fromINEZwLove
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/FromINEZwithLove
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@INEZ