Makinde Adedapo and Mosi Ifatunji

00:01 All the only other thing he didn't say was trying not to touch the depth a lot cuz it'll pick up on the mic.

00:08 All right. So my name is Mo. See if iTunes E. I am 43 years old December 26th 2019. We are in Chicago McKinney. Adedapo is my interview partner and he's my brother and I am liking day I die Po and I am 2938 on Sundays on 37 right now. Today's date is 12 26 2019 the we are in Chicago, Illinois at Chicago Cultural Center most see if I told you my older brother is my interview part. I'm getting right on into it. Thanks for coming man. As you kind of heard some of the other stories. I think that I've done with I don't know. Did you ever get a chance to hear the ones I did with Mom and Dad wasn't so we just been kind of compiling just general ideas of like what our family is like nothing super crazy, right but to get a context like so you are the oldest of our fathers five children.

01:08 Your mother and he were married first. What year how long goes it like 7776 somewhere in there and I was born in 76. I think they were married somewhere around seventy three or four and then they got married. My mom is Mom 2 years later, right? So when you think I can ask my images Now isn't something that spawned a lot of this me wanting to do this project is recognizing that how we grew up. Wow. You know what I don't think anybody's upbringing is static or the same. We all have very different experiences, even from coming from the same kind of space. So, you know, I guess a little bit more context for you is like you live in California primarily during your childhood. Whereas we were

02:08 Brawl in Maywood, right? Just if you would just describe a little bit of kind of like what it was like to grow up in Cali nothing being a super specific but just like what what do you remember about those early years in California?

02:21 Yeah, so I'm what five years older than you. So by the time you came along my parents were living in two different home. So our father jungle. Do you need for a 2 mg in? My mother of Lena Williams were living in different Homes at the time. I was living in Oak Park. Mostly you were living in Maywood at the age of 10. I moved to Oakland California with my mother living out. There was interesting my mother spent a highly valued living in Fairly Posh mostly white environment. So she basically put up all the money on the rent. And so I lived in a fairly upper-middle-class mostly white neighborhood that left me with very few options for friends. I was also pretty

03:20 Exploratory and we lived in a really safe neighborhood that had some nature going on and also kind of a small town. So a lot of my memories living there had to do with exploring the local environments. I think pagers had come out sometime around me turning 11 or 12 and so my mom in but by that at that point people didn't route can really afford to have them for their own self. So my mom gave me her work pager and she would just send me out and she would page me and I would come home to a lot of a lot of introspection a lot of roaming when I was maybe about 9 ish you might have been closer to Fourteen and fifteen, but you came for it summer for two weeks or something like that and I do remember at that point, remembering like man at that age. I would forget that I had

04:20 All the brother in some way cuz we just were so far apart and we weren't we definitely wanted the ages where we were going to talk to each other like on the phone naturally and there's no cell phone and none of this other stuff that you can do now. But so there was always that kind of reintroduction. I remember every time you visited right but the house that you revisit primarily Maywood, right? We've established. These other interviews was the jungle temple of Chicago where my mom and dad and both of our dad had established themselves as a part of a Yoruba priest community and had met the house of space for that Community meat and and becoming ball now for me and Naima and I shall be particularly. We were like forest for the most part they really was no option of waves on that and you know, cuz we had it we were there since birth right? It was something that they told us his Birthright as we got older everybody made their own choices, but I always wondered what that was like for you to come to that house at that age.

05:21 And not have what I would say now am I don't like to not have been immersed in the African culture in the same way like that. It was that experience. Like I don't know if it was weird or not. But what was it like like what was that experience like to come and to be kind of like, hey, we doing African clothes stuff today cuz it's not that you hadn't done it before you definitely when we were kids. I see pictures of us all already in that but I wonder what that was like as a young teen coming into that where you where hasn't been a part of your everyday I guess.

05:50 I think it was probably much like how you might have experienced going to school every day. So it's cool. It's a totally different vibe going on and then at home, there's this totally different vibe going on, but for me, I lived in a house with my mother who was more or less at that those stages. She was it working in Corporate America. She was pretty color blind. She you know, I didn't we didn't talk much about what it meant to be black. We didn't talk about any kind of African cultural form. We didn't talk about racism or anything like that. So and then I would come to Maywood and we wouldn't talk about racism and I really talked about what it meant to be black per se but I most remember is just the sort of cultural forms. I don't you know, it just it was

06:50 It was it wasn't I didn't experience any angst about the thing. I think all of us at different points in X would complain about wearing African clothes out in public or some of the some of the structures around rituals and stuff. If only later in life become a fan of rituals. So any kind of for me as a person, I'm generally a little Melancholy anytime somebody tries to bite make me do something. So any kind of thing like that special at that age. I'd be a little bit kind of you know, but yeah, it wasn't anything it's just was what it was. It just always was it was so they have some fast forward few more years you you and I both get initiated together into the Yoruba culture and we know we got us it's funny cuz I remember that year. I remember particularly that initial initiate

07:50 . Where there was like four hundred stories that I thought I would never forget and I asked me a struggle to go back to pull a full story together from that experience just cuz it's been so long I get so there was I just remember you and I have a kind of like man. We're the only two people that know this and now struggling to remember what those things were but I don't know for me and I can't express it to Baba and ye that that. That initiation year I still look back on as a foundational kind of year for me learning about myself. I was twelve you were 17, I believe right so I can see we're at different even completely different stages in our identities, right? But I just want to like what was how when you refer back to that particular. Of time that particular initiation year, how do you think that factors in the what you do now are or how much of your personality does is still represented from from experiences then?

08:50 Yeah, so when I was a C-17 or something like that, I was in high school. I had tried to play sports and stuff like that. I wasn't great. I wasn't wonderful at any of them in particular. I was actually starting to find social Social Circle of some cats who are not doing great stuff and I remember actually we one of the guys name was Marcellus and his uncle moved crack. And so we were going to his house to talk about getting some cocaine his uncle's house that is it on the way to go get the cocaine. We saw a car with the keys in the door of the car. And so we saw all set all shit, you know, we bout to come back around and get that mug and so it was

09:50 Send that milieu of things occurring High School puberty trying to find a place that I got a call from Bob basically asking me if I wanted to be initiated and you know, I don't know that I had any particular. I mean, I wasn't calling him for example to be like hey, can I get initiated? So it wasn't really something was on my mind, but I do remember having a couple of immediate thoughts cuz one of these he said he said, you know, we're going to do this weekend if she ate your brother this summer, so if you want to get initiated, this is the time to do it and so I was probably not immediately responsive, but I've been remember him saying something like oh and just so you know, if we initiate your brother if we don't initiate you technically he'll be older than you and I was like off like that. So at that point and then

10:50 Other thing that kind of motivated me, I mean that was a strong motivation. I was like not you know, but also I remember being around and Maywood and being a certain around certain rituals and I couldn't go to never get the secret handshake handshake stuff almost. None of it was spiritual almost none of it a little bit of it was just feeling closer to the family in the Mets in Maywood. So how does it relate to kind of what I do today? A lot of what I do requires is abstract, right? So it's thinking through the thoughts of other people so it's pretty abstract in that sense. And so one of the things I remember being told by a friend and colleague Mugabe some years ago that some of the best social theorist had had a strong background in metaphysics or different types of religious for

11:50 Call Sophie's the ologies and so I think that ability that practice of thinking metaphysically helps me think theoretically in the academy. I'm also you know, I also study comparisons between Africans and black immigrants to the extent that the cultural practices that we engage in are also black nationalist, which is not always true. But our line it tends to be a little bit more black nationalists and so my interest in being close with black folks across from wherever they're from kind of comes from that and so the my research comparing Africans and black Americans African-Americans Negroes Harvey want to call us is kind of loosely connected to that experience.

12:50 Story, but I guess for free psychic on sex. Once again. I'll put it here but part of my initiation year was like we had to wear like all white for a year. We had to go outside and Bales which was dramatically different for me at 12. But we were fast forward pass and and you were at UIC and I was coming out of high school and I had no for real like desire to do any particular thing. In fact, I distinctly remember going to the College counseling her gone. So what do you want to study me to get the college and I was like, I don't know and she was like, well, here's a list of what should be the top paying jobs when you graduate and I was like cool. Let me get up at 3. Never took one course in and probably should have but in any case so around a time and I was having to make my decision or college like you I was like, you know athlete I was not tell her I was deathly not particularly wonderful nor being recruited by anybody to continue to do it in college, right, but I was a huge sports fan. He was athlete

13:49 I was dreaming of going to University of Michigan at where I want to go then have any idea how College tuition another that's tough work cuz I expected to get a scholarship for basketball or something right in any case at that time. I started getting at a decent GPA. I wasn't a stellar student but enough to get a couple small grants here and they are right. So I remember we were I was kind of at the critical point of having to decide where I want to go to school. I was looking at that time like Michigan was an option only because I have family in Ann Arbor so I can get the state residency, you know, see if I were if I move there but did I leave that type of thing champagne was another option U-verse Illinois just because it was a state school, bye-bye is a professor at Chicago State got a discounted to State schools, or was you I see you I see had no particular like

14:41 Allure to me right like because of no I haven't talked about you. I see they didn't have a football team that was never on TV. None of that was so I was like what champagne at least I'll get that type of you know exposure. Anyway, I was somewhere in this Crux and me and you were living at you will live in Chicago at this point. Obviously, we were living in the basement at the house on Maywood Inn Maywood, and we went for a walk to the gas station sell The Weeknd partaken certain and you were talking to me and you were like y'all telling you if you go to UIC is going to be wild and then you didn't mean Y El Dany party Santa everything you were talking about was like, you know, you going to get there. So we going to be able to do this. We don't like this. I like you are super serious mover-and-shaker thinker at that time at least from my perspective. That was what I saw and it was that night that the that I decided. I'm going to go to UIC. I'm going to go, you know, it's where my older brother's at. And of course at you, I see me and you were running like 12.

15:41 Organizations all at the same time like you were supposed to poetry set 3 days a week you will organize and push reset. So I just I've watched you.

15:52 Everyday have a design specific Mission and then watch to carry them out like just day after day after day after that mean, we didn't really kick it actually in college like party style. There was none of that really was more like right we linked to and and only time we really physically saw each other was at the meetings at the BSU meeting or at this time. We still meeting or at the you know, the larger than it would have. But anyway, I'll send all that to say so that kind of became from me this the second round of our relationship that didn't that still didn't seem like we were like brothers in the sense that other people talk about being Brothers right? Where is like me and my brother were everywhere together me and my brother always around each other like we had decidedly different interest in activities, but never felt like we weren't Brothers anyway, so when you came out at you I see you ended up going to several other various universities. I want to go in the

16:52 Those but what do you think LED you cuz I feel like you started out in African American studies, right? That was your initial study at you. I see what was yesterday USA. I thought it was a yes or no for me coming out of high school was interesting because I was still living in the Bay Area where my mother lived where her three sisters lived and we're about that time or three sisters and they are Partners live there some cousins out there. Also, my grandmother my mother's mother was out there and to make a long story short all of these people were upper middle-class people who had an advanced degree or another at least a master's in something and so it was interesting because of the relationships in the family. I didn't really get a lot of you know, this is what you do after high school advising and so I did I'm going to five different community.

17:51 AJ's trying to figure out what I wanted to do along the way I ended up transferring when I move to Chicago at age 20. I ended up transferring to I think the name of it is Triton College and I was there for I think a semester maybe a year and that gave me the entree to be able to transfer to UIC along the way a right before I went to Triton. I was going to another place and they just called Chabot College in Hayward, California. And when I was there I bounced around to a lot of different classes. I got the class that hooked me was an introduction to psychology class. So I was really interested in human behavior. I tried journalism. I tried acting I tried business I tried.

18:46 Something at all yet. I tried business for awhile from it a couple different angles in any case the psychology thing hit for me. And then I remember seeing this really cute girl. We kind of made friends and I asked her, you know that one day she was talking about she wanted to be at Anthropologist and I was like what the hell is an anthropology and then she went on to describe this whole process of getting a PhD and stuff like that. Now that cool that sounds interesting. So that's when I first got you know, the behavioral sciences and getting a doctorate. That's the first I heard of it. Then I moved and transferred ended up at UIC in Psychology was my major. I ended up taking a lot of classes and a half ham and African studies and basically by the time I finished up there I got a call from the registrar's office cuz I had all my credits transfer from different junior colleges.

19:43 And they said listen, you know, you have enough credits to either get to be ace or a double major and I was like, it's going to cost me anything to get to be as or like not you just flip the credits differently. I was like cool so they were like, well you have enough credits in several different potential Majors, but you know, if you want we can give you a ba and after American studies and since you have a formal minor in African studies in a BA in psychology, I said great I'll take it for a ride up with to be a yes one of them in African studies cuz I basically took all the classes about back black people that I can take. I forgot about that actually got my ba the same way. I went to the to the visor was like when I get to but I had transferred all of my junior college of Secrets of Chicago State and they would like it if you want to do graduate this semester. I was like, yes, whatever whatever that's called. Let's do the graduation thing instead of just two more years of school. But how would you describe?

20:43 Sterling group in general like the five of us

20:50 I mean, it's interesting. I think that we're all very different people I think.

21:08 Maybe what holds us together is

21:13 I think a product of being part of a mixed family. So I think the fact that you know, we don't have all the same mother and father it creates a context. So I would describe myself growing up is partially only child parsley reibling right and so I would say that I have a particular value for siblings because I didn't always have them around right so siblings usually have stages where they're arguing about everything because they don't want to share stuff to space is crowded except for that. I did have some of those experiences in particular with the long I was moving the Oakland. So we had a little bit of time in there in any case

22:09 So I think that part of Wood Drive the love between the siblings is the kind of non take it for granted Miss of it. So, even you stayed stayed back in Chicago when Naima and I shall be went to Milwaukee. So even you had this absence / come back together thing, of course, I agreed and I had it and of course Naima and I shall be had it because right so I think this into something about this app since mixed up with something about like the also that the lower frequency of all the sibling rivalries Whittaker. I don't know if you guys have talked about this but we recently gotten even more close thanks to technology. And so now we all kind of talk everyday and more or less each other on video everyday and I was joking that with the buy bike silly this morning saying that you know, I think one of the reasons why we get along

23:09 The wells because we don't spend a lot of time together, but with this new technological invention and we might start arguing. Hey, man, you know, you can stop doing that when you want to pull out. All right? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I told a colleague was at a conference meeting today and I told a colleague that I did check my polos or whatever that there were like a hundred of them and I need to catch up on you while you was like, yeah, and she looked at me and she said well that must be because you set the tone is like what you talkin about. She was like cuz you're the oldest so you could either you know, take your position to like pick favorites and pit people against each other and fight interests or as a kind of more Central try to hold a balance and I said, I don't know if that's true or not, but I guess it helps that I'm not an asshole.

24:09 But I just think we're all very different. I think I also think growing up in a recent culture. One of the beautiful things of about it is that it teaches you that there are differences without there being negative. So I think when you're raised in that kind of family setting it's easier to love people who are different from you. So I think I don't you know, I don't have the answer to that. I think it's just a range of different. Of course. I think I might just cause a different now Definitely describe it as a I see that that specifically that unique individuality piece of it. Right? Like when I look at you particularly, I'm always like I said before like a college thing is like this is a mission mission driven individual who has not only done the research for what steps need to happen in the in the mission, but it's also trying to figure out the most direct line to take right and I feel like that's always something that

25:00 I try and pull from you know him and then that inspiration that I get from you in that way in certain moments when I'm trying to do certain stuff right name has always represented just the willpower person to me and the responsibility Parts at 9 with all you've been somebody who takes responsibility very serious, whether she's you know, acting responsible, you're not obviously we're all human but she's her with her passion than her decisions come from some form of responsibility as she feels she has right I shall be is always represented kind of the outside of the box maker to me. He's always represented somebody who will buy camping it at it. Like I think some people who think outside of the box are are not very confident about these thoughts or this process. Where's I think I shall be goes in straight up like no, I'm very confident that this type of thinking is useful and effective and Irene, you know as the youngest and kind of the new adult in the game like she's now 2203

26:00 1996 yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah, so but now she got full-time jobs in her own adult world, but she's always represent it to me. Cuz when she was a baby she was like that she has she's always been insistent about finding out what she wants to know so is wild story. I'll tell her when she calls but I've heard this like taking a trip up and just getting all these people's business. Anyway, I think we probably getting towards the end of this. What what do you feel like is you know, cuz we all do come from the same father protect me today is his birthday and call doing Baba. What do you feel like one of them, you know his legacy that he's he's left out of the last of his own work. Like what do you think? You know that would that will be

26:58 I think he's left behind at least two different things. He's left behind a corpus of theatrical work that he's put together over the time in particular translating ancient African stories also known as o do we file into children's plays and so I think that will be a legacy of his I think he's more widely celebrated for his contribution to Yoruba culture in the US but also more specifically in the in the Chicago Metro. I think that

27:44 You know, he's he's just he's touched a lot of people in terms of an influence lot of people or helped a lot of people learn Yoruba culture. And so I think that that will probably be his his most widely celebrated Legacy in part because a lot of his theatrical work ended up being held at the University where he had a lot of students that were transient didn't stay with theater didn't become directors Etc and so forth and whereas in the cultural Community those people that became students of his excetra, they went on it had students and so his name carries in that in that realm a little bit more. So I think about bye-byes as a as a

28:44 As an artist a humanist who also has a very which is rare for artist has a very pragmatic twist to it. So I think that he yeah, I think it'll largely be cultural but I think that a lot of people who celebrate him for his cultural contributions are fully aware of his contributions to what you might call African American culture on what you like, but the these these children play children's plays that are written with a focus on young black children and teaching them traditional ancient African worldviews. I think is also a powerful Legacy not your mother's side of the family who is like one of your favorite relatives coming up to take me on that side of the family. Now, you know that you can't say that without paying without it being your mom.

29:44 No, it wasn't my mom. But I'm just documenting people are fighting why didn't say that have to be the favorite. I say one of obviously I have multiple like I had bought Lindsay was my favorite cousin for a long time. Cuz we were the same age who would be one that you really do. You know. Remember I guess South Pond and I'll say that a different point in my life. I've been more or less close to my different aunts. So when I was really young and I was interested in science and Building Things and I was always tinkering with things my aunt Allison Was An Architect and so I really was interested in her stuff her and her husband. He's always buy me science oriented gifts when I was a kid, and so I kind of

30:44 That was close their then along the way of that became a young adult and things my Aunt Kim who's the youngest of the four sisters on that side and just has this exceedingly energetic jovial in your face loving like vibe that I resonated with me because she was so forth such a fortunate person but also very grounded and I really like that about her and then most recently I got pretty close to my aunt Jennifer who helped during my mom's transition. So my mother passed in 2018, and I went out there to Oakland to help with the transition Staffing in my Aunt Jennifer was really close to me at that time, and I got really really grew fond of her that and really at that point in time the three of them together.

31:44 It was a special opportunity I think for us to get to know each other being the oldest cousin child on the on that side, you know the next cousin. I don't think that thing was 10 years younger than me. So I never really got super close to my cousin's on that side. So I can't I don't really have inside on like the Pooh favorite cousin and then I guess we'll get to the last the last member who is our common ancestor in this way is the infamous Grandma Dorothy. We we have all shared multiple stories on multiple different occasions about Grandma Dorothy and I think we've all learned that we all kind of had our own different relationship with her to in that way that we all pull different stuff from her but just describe Grandma a little bit like for you from a young man's perspective to even an adult, you know perspective by what was that relationship like for you

32:43 I was a tough relationship on the one hand it as I said, you know, my mom spent all the money on the rent. So we were in a nice neighborhood we were poor. So on the one hand was nice being around Grandma Dorothy because she was the one of the people that I knew that actually spent time with that has any kind of real resources. So the ability to go do stuff to go shopping and pick through her old junk drawers for what I consider to be Treasures. A lot of that was fun. She was also so she could also be very critical almost mean spirited at times and so that made it complicated and also, you know, I just I think none of us will forget. I mean she was a chain smoker and I didn't know it at the time but also an alcoholic and I just remember always going to get this big

33:43 Dog for her so she could drink it. I didn't really know and I remember, you know, there was all these chairs in the living room space and I just always remember I could never sit in the chair because the smoke there's like a thick Cloud. I mean that my relationship with her just always brought me so much joy, the things that I loved about her is she had situated herself in such a way that she didn't have to give a damn what anybody else thought and she made sure they knew that and she because of that she had a lot of freedom with how she expressed herself and how she behaved and what she did and that I always thought was you know, something to shoot after I will sit as what what what's the standing to me is how she did go to cuz at one point she told me flat-out she smoke two.

34:43 The Winston the day when I was 13 14, I didn't really have any reference or what that meant. Right, but when I became an adult and realize what smoking is and I was like man, you smoked two packs a day for like 20 some years and she quit like so for somebody to do that for 20 some odd years and then actually be at you know, why she wasn't like her sixties or something when she quit I think I never smoked again and live to be what 94 was to be somewhere in the morning for when she passed record format for each other for for our future generations to come have some fun with about to get up out of here and go celebrate I do.

35:43 Thank you for inviting me man will chat.