IT'S ALL JUST STORY | RODNEY BARNES

This year when the NBA unveiled their 75th Anniversary Team of retired and active players, it included 17 members who played for the Lakers which includes the Showtime era of the 70/80s with players Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. To understand the importance of this era and what it did to how we enjoy the game, and how it moved the game forward in terms of commerce and making players brand, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty illustrates the dynamics at play.

We talked with Rodney Barnes, who has written for STARZ Heels, STARZ American Gods, Everybody Hates Chris and more. He shares how he got into the industry, the positions he has held, his approach to his work, being the Executive Producer and writer for Winning Time, Zombie Love Studios and his passion for comic books and graphic novels.

ATHLEISURE MAG: You’ve worked in various positions in the entertainment industry as a Production Assistant, showrunner, Executive Producer and an award-winning screenwriter. With all of these roles, what was the moment that you realized that you wanted to work in this industry?

RODNEY BARNES: I was going to Howard University and I was in the School of C (Howard University Cathy Hughs School of Communication) and I was working at Georgetown Law Center as a campus cop at night and I found out that the movie The Pelican Brief was coming to my job to film some scenes. So I was really excited because it’s one thing to go to school for this and it’s another thing to actually be able to see it up close. So I signed up for all of the overtime details and I got them all. I started watching the movie being put together and it was so exciting! So I met a guy and he was the PA, he was a Key Set PA. So I asked him how I could get a job doing what he did. He said that that weekend, they had some big scenes that were taking place at the Washington Monument and that if I wanted to come and do it for a day, they'd be happy to have me.

So I did it and it was the most exciting, fun and best $100 that I ever made in my entire life! It was something about it that felt right. I felt more purpose in doing that and being close to this thing that I wanted to be close to then I did doing anything else that paid a lot better. I quit my job at Georgetown and started working as a PA full time.

AM: What a story, we always tell people that we embrace the multi-hyphenate. As someone who has worked in a number of roles and continues to do so from writing and producing, when did you know that you wanted to take on these areas and what the specific area was that you wanted to start in first? Or was there just a confluence that took place to make all of this come together?

RB: I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I knew what I didn’t know. I knew that I didn’t understand how any of this worked and I had a very fundamental understanding of what writing was and telling stories. Quite frankly, emotionally and psychologically, I wasn’t mature enough or evolved enough to be able to take on the big job. So, working as a PA, I look at it as being an apprentice. I had an opportunity to meet people, to sort of find my tribe, to figure out the psychology of how it would work and to just get my legs under me which was a bit like bootcamp. It was always writing, but I had to build up to the idea of being able to take my shot at it because it just felt too big.

AM: What do you think was the biggest thing that you learned from being a PA that has helped you with your career or was it just being able to see all the parts that were moving and to be able to understand how they connect?

RB: There was that. I think that the thing for me was that I always had this idea that everybody in Hollywood must be a genius and I haven’t met a genius yet. But, what I have met are some folks that have worked really really hard at their craft. It sort of demystified the entire process for me in being able to see it up close and to be able to observe. I wouldn’t say that I was a vital part although I know that some people would disagree. It was sort of the type of thing where getting to know people as friends and mentors even though that’s a problematic word as no one put their arm around me and said, “son this is what you do.” But they allowed me to be in their circle and to be able to see how the sausage is made. I got an opportunity to be able to just see things up close and to decide whether or not I could do it, if I wanted to do it and the closer I got to the thing that I wanted, the better that things got for me, but I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it if I hadn’t been a PA.

AM: From a screenwriting aspect, you have written a number of things. I loved your work in American Gods which I loved that show and obviously Winning Time and then you look at shows like Everybody Hates Chris. How do you get inspiration to write and then where do you start from when you’re trying to put words to paper to create these worlds for us?

RB: I never looked at it from a place of inspiration because if I need the emotional investment to do it, then I’m not going to be inspired some of those days and I’m still going to have to do it. For me, the difference was, approaching every day like I’m at work which was no different then when I was at Walmart or Target or any of those places that I worked at along the way. I had to get up, I had to work, I didn’t feel like it and then somewhere midday or so, it got a little bit better and then a little bit better. I sort of approach writing in the same way. I have a lot of resistance on the days that I don’t feel like doing it, but it needs to be done because I have a deadline. 78% of the time, I’m able to be disciplined and I’m able to get it done and the other times, I might go to the movies, sit and watch a game or do something else when I’m supposed to be writing. But I think it’s more of a discipline of doing the thing than an emotional component to it. There are days where I feel it and if I'm writing something like a horror driven thing like in my graphic novels, I'm enjoying it a great deal so it’s easier to do, but whether I feel it or I don’t feel it or am some place in between, I still do it.

AM: Just to circle back to American Gods, one of my minors in college was Classical Civilization so it covered mythologies of the world in addition to Greece and Rome and included African and Asian nations. So when I watched it, I loved seeing all of these stories that came to life. What was it like writing for that?

RB: It was great! The best thing that came out of it was my relationship with Orlando Jones (Sleepy Hollow, American Gods, The Good Lord Bird) who played Anansi/Mr. Nancy on our show. I had a similar thing as you, I didn’t do it in college but I studied a lot of different types of mythology and some of these characters like Anansi and Bilquis and others, you don’t really get to hear a lot about them. Because of comic books, you get Thor and Zeus, Odin and Hercules and those guys but oftentimes, Gods of color don’t get a lot of love. Even when they do, it’s in secondary roles. Working for American Gods and I’m a huge Neil Gaiman fan. So to be able to play in that sort of world and get some genre credits under my name was great as I have a comic book company and I also tell a lot of genre driven stories so being able to legitimize that beyond wanting to do it was always something that I wanted to do.

AM: It was such a phenomenal series. I remember seeing the episodes and being able to see some of these characters that I had read about being brought to life so fully, it kept me glued and it was truly incredible.

So as a screenwriter, what is that process like in terms of getting attached to a project and how does one pitch themselves to get into this work?

RB: Well my agents do a lot of my pitching. They typically open doors, but I’d say that about 75% of the work that I get, outside of the things that I create, really comes from via word of mouth. Right now it’s a good time because of Winning Time and people seemingly are enjoying it and you get a lot of offers to do things because they like it which I am grateful for and it is a blessing. More often than not, it’s about putting yourself in the right position you know? People know that I write graphic books and comic books so whenever a project like that comes around and it seems like they can use a writer like me, oftentimes, they’ll call or not so much now because I have been doing it for awhile but maybe 7 or 8 years ago, if it was something that I had heard about that was coming down the pike, I would tell my agents to keep an eye out on it and then see if maybe they could get me up there to be considered.

AM: Is it a different flow for you when you’re writing for the BET Awards or the Oscars – is there a different approach because it’s a live audience or a different format then just a show or even the comic books?

RB: Not really, I look at all of it like it’s story whether it’s writing a joke, Chris Rock or one of his specials or whoever I’m working for for the Oscars or an awards show. Even a joke is a story. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. Whether I’m telling a funny story or a horrifying story or a dramatic story, at the end of the day, it’s all a story. So, I approach it all the same way. The biggest thing for me is really understanding who’s going to be interpreting the words. Like, I work a lot with Chris Rock, and I know him really, really well so if I’m going to pitch something to him, I incorporate that knowledge into the pitch. Like, I can sort of filter myself and know that he wouldn’t like this or he would really like that part. In writing the shows, I have built a great relationship with a lot of our cast and so, I try to write to their strengths as well as to the story that I am trying to tell. When I am saying that I’m writing to their strengths, I'm talking dialogue. There is a cadence to how people talk and if you can make it easier for them to interpret the words, I think that they become more comfortable with it so it's really more so about having familiarity with it for the task at hand.

AM: Also in your body of work, you have been a co-producer and a producer in shows like Heels, Winning Time and Wu-Tang: An American Saga. We’ve had a number of WWE wrestlers as our cover and shared their stories so seeing Heels was another show that we enjoyed. When did you realize that you wanted to add these roles into your body of work and how does that change your perspective especially when you're also writing the show as well?

RB: Well it’s funny, those titles of producing can mean a lot of different things. Earlier in my career, say on My Wife and Kids, when I was a producer, it wasn’t really a lot more to do than sitting in a room and writing. It’s sort of like the government, government jobs they have G-1, G-2 as you work up and it’s sort of like that in television in writing as well. If you do it long enough, you start out as a staff writer and then you move up to a story editor and then an executive story editor and then you go up through the WGA (Writers Guild of America) classifications that go with moving up. But then, in certain gigs like in Everybody Hates Chris, I was in the writer’s room and wrote a number of episodes, but I also produced the voiceover that you would hear in every show. So I would write the lines and go with Chris Rock and go record the lines together and then I would place them in the show in editing. So, to me that was actually the beginning of actually producing and so on different shows, that idea of what a producer means is something different.

On Winning Time, I actually work with the actors whether it’s working on set with their lines, working with the director to see whether or not a shot is sort of lining up with how we saw it when we were writing the show – it can mean a lot of different things. There are some shows where I have been an EP and it didn't mean anything more than just writing a show and putting it together or on some shows I'm actually tangibly doing something different. On American Gods, I wrote and also worked on the set with the actors and the director as well and putting it all together. On Heels, not so much. Marvel's Runaways – not so much. But it’s different with each one, so it’s a classification that comes with being a TV writer and as the responsibilities go, it has more to do with what that show requires.

AM: When I first heard about Winning Time last fall, I knew I was going to love it, I remember as a kid in 1986 loving this team even though I grew up in Indiana and it continues even though I live in NY now. So seeing this story, hearing about this story and getting this inside scoop of what was going on has made it really enjoyable to watch. How did you get attached to this project and what made you want to be involved?

RB: Max Borenstein (Kong: Skull Island, Worth, Godzilla vs Kong) who is our showrunner and the other Executive Producer as well, he and I have been writing together for about 10 years and when Jim Hecht (Fairly OddParents, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild) first optioned the book, he got the book to Adam McKay (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Vice, Don’t Look Up), and he got it to HBO and they said they would do a pilot I believe, I don’t know if the project was picked up then. They hired Max, Max called me and I said yes that I would want to be a part of it. That’s how it started.

AM: It’s an incredible cast and I love McKay films and the people that are in it. In terms of writing this where you had Jeff Pearlman’s book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, how much source material did you have as I know players of that time as well as the franchise didn’t reach out to you on this. How did you coalesce these things all together to create this story and to provide that insider feel?

RB: Well we were really fortunate that book. So we studied a lot of books and Rick Fox, former Laker was our technical advisor, we talked to a lot of folks who were around the team at that time who worked for the organization, YouTube – we did a lot of research everywhere – articles anything that we could find. We sort of incorporated into the narrative and some stuff we had to tie in together for dramatization purposes.

AM: Obviously with the people that were involved, John C Reilly (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, Anchorman II: The Legend Continues), Jason Clarke (Brotherhood, Chappaquiddick, Silk Road), Rob Morgan (Stranger Things, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Don’t Look Up), Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother, Dispatches from Elsewhere, Hotel Artemis) and Adrien Brody (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Peaky Blinders, Succession) etc, there are actors in there where there is a lot of secret sauce. You have actors who were athletic but didn’t play basketball and having to do so for this role, having Quincy Isaiah play such a key and iconic person who was new to this platform, how did all of this come together to get that energy, to make an audience believe that these people who be playing this game even though they didn’t necessarily have this background?

RB: Francine Maisler (Uncut Gems, Being the Ricardos, Dune) is our casting director and she did a great job finding folks. Sometimes you get lucky like in the case of Quincy who is from Michigan and was an athlete – a football player. He had to lose 80lbs or so to come down to being able to have a Magic Johnson-like look. Solomon Hughes who plays, Kareem Adbul-Jabbar is an educator, is 7-feet tall, plays jazz and he played basketball on a professional level before. You just get lucky sometimes. I think that that’s across the board in finding people that not only have the talent but also the emotional stuff.

If you think about our players, they have to learn how to play the game because some had never played the game before, they had to be convincing to learn how to play a particular way that their character played, they had to go through physical training everyday and then they had to learn their lines and then they had to act. So there would be times when they would have to come from training, be on set, leave their work, leave set and go and play basketball everyday for however long – for a year or so. Then there is the training that went into it before hand and always having a good attitude about it as they were going. We got really really fortunate to find the folks that we found.

AM: When did you realize that you were going to be Maurice?

RB: I’ll tell you when I was working, Max was working on a movie called Worth in NY that’s on Netflix now. I was working on the first season of Wu-Tang: An American Saga. I was in Staten Island, he was in Manhattan. We would meet on the weekends and we would go over it with Jim Hecht and Rebecca Bertuch (Worth) and we would work on putting the show together. Every now and then, this name would pop up, Maurice, Maurice, Maurice – like who the hell is Maurice? Oh, you’re going to see and it was like an inside joke. They knew that I didn’t know. When we were officially on board and we started in the writer’s room in LA, we had all the pictures up of the actors on the wall and then there was a picture of me. I was like, “why is my picture on the wall?” They said, you’re going to play Maurice and I was like, “oh, ok – haha Maurice.” So Max actually wrote Maurice’s lines and the only scene that I had at one time was the scene with Pat Reily where I don’t let him in The Forum. I thought, “ok, I can do that, I’ve been a security guard my whole damn life!” I know how to say you can’t come in. You don’t even need to even write out the lines just let me stand there and I know how to not let you in some place. Then, all of a sudden, I started seeing Maurice pop up in other scripts! He's like a leprechaun where he sort of shows up in different places and I'm like, "why am I popping up?” and then I had a walk and talk which is very difficult as an actor because you have to walk, you have to think and you have to move which was in episode 5 where I had that scene. I was nervous about that scene. Actually, I messed up the scene that is on. I messed up a line but Gabby Hoffman (High Maintenance, Girls, Transparent) who plays Claire Rothman is so great, you would never know because she kept going and I kept going and so that was it and they cut and we went on with the day – but I messed up.

It's cool, the network likes it, everyone likes him and I think that Maurice is going to come back and probably say more words.

AM: We always like when he pops up!

RB: Well, thank you! As long as I stay big and relatively menacing and intimidating, Maurice will probably be around.

AM: What has been your biggest takeaway of being part of this particular project, seeing it come together and the reception of people loving this?

RB: Anytime you work hard at a thing for a long time that is intended to entertain people, you always want that to land the way it is intended so that people are entertained. I think that we’ve got a great reception and that people really seem to like it and it’s sort of gratifying because I and a lot of people give a lot when you do these sort of things and it’s not easily assembled. For me certainly being able to talk about African American culture as it pertains to sports in a way that is sort of elevated is always an honor. It’s a good thing.

AM: Well, you guys have been greenlit for a second season. What does that look like, what do you want to tackle – will it continue with these same players or will it be another part of Laker history or even another time in NBA history for a Winning Time situation?

RB: As of the moment, the plan is to continue on in the same narrative and to just keep telling the story as we have been. Even now, when we first started the process before, we were going in the third or fourth iteration of what you see on screen now – we were going to go a lot faster. Then, the decision was made during COVID to slow down the process of storytelling and we had to go back to the drawing board a couple of times to slow it down. I say all of that to say that you never know. We could speed up a couple of seasons, we can keep going the way that it is, but I think that the plan for now is to continue going in the direction that it is.

AM: One of the things that I enjoy especially with a lot of the HBO shows is that there is a companion podcast and literally, I can’t wait until Mon to listen to the show which drops right after the episode airs on Sun. I listen to JB Smoove and then I listen to your podcast. It’s great to get your insights, what’s going on – the Rob Morgan episode was really great to hear. Every episode is great as there are so many tidbits that can be enjoyed. How did you get attached to hosting this podcast and how much input do you have over who ends up being on the episode with you?

RB: Very similar to how I became Maurice. Somebody thought that it would be a good idea to have me do it and my first reaction was, I have never done a podcast before and they were like, “oh you can do it.” I think that I tried to back out a couple of times and they were like no just give it a shot. I think that I got better as time went on which is sort of the course of life, the more you do it, the better you get at the thing that you do. But, it also helps that I know everybody. Everybody that I have had on so far whether it was Snoop Dogg, Rob Morgan or Quincy, or Max or whoever, I know them. It’s like having a conversation with someone who is a friend and not so much like talking to someone who is a stranger.

They always ask me who I would like to have on and I try to spread it around between the cast members, but also the people behind the scenes. I had Todd Banhazl (Janelle Monae: Dirty Computer, They Call Me Magic, Hustlers), I had Max, I had Jim Hecht, Rebecca, I had Sarah Scott (Pam & Tommy, The Offer, The Flight Attendant) our intimacy coordinator. I had Idan Ravin whose the basketball coordinator. I had our director Salli Richardson (The Chi, Altered Carbon, The Wheel of Time) and Tanya Hamilton (Big Sky, The Deuce, Snowfall). I try to mix it up where you have one of the cast members and then someone who is a technical part of the team so that for people who are interested in being part of the business as one time I was, you can actually hear some of what they do and realize that there are a number of jobs besides the big 4 or 5 at producer, director, writer. There are a lot of other things to be done and some things may spark to someone and hopefully that podcast can help a little bit.

AM: We love seeing the birth of the NBA as we know it today as this entertainment platform with next level dancers, club lounges and had this came together with Dr. Buss. This has become the standard for what it means to go to a NBA game. Being able to hear more about Jack McKinney and his time with the Lakers. I knew he was a coach for the Pacers, but I didn’t know about his backstory. What is it that you want audiences to walk away with after watching this season or subsequent seasons?

RB: Always with our show, we have what you know and the thing that you can Google and find out. Who won the game, who lost the game and those types of things. But there’s also those things that you didn’t know. Like in the case of Jack McKinney, a lot of people had forgotten not just him, but the accident that he was in – the basketball accident and how that changed the course of the Lakers coaching dynamic. So, being able to tell some of those stories and show the Shakespearean dynamic of the coaching system with Paul West head and Pat Riley, most people know Pat Riley being the Lakers coach and they sort of identify with just him, but there were other guys too.

I think that the other side of that coin is Spencer Haywood who was a big part of NBA free agency and a lot of how we look at basketball today in the fact that we can look at James Harden and see him go from team to team to team or LeBron just being able to go to the Heat and all of that – a lot of that has to do with Spencer Haywood and going to court to battle for free agency rights for players. When I was growing up watching the NBA, I’m from Maryland so we had the Bullets, now the Wizards. Usually if a player got drafted, he played with one team for his entire career. It was big news when a player would move from one team to another.

Now, when you look at the change and the evolution both in the style of play when you look at the Showtime offense of Jack McKinney that evolved and to Spencer Haywood’s contribution, that you see in these 2 gentleman, it has a lot to do with the way that the game is played and it’s rarely recognized over the course of history. Anytime we can incorporate things that folks don’t know, it’s always a treat!

AM: Usually, when an episode concludes, we’re usually Googling about 4 things! It becomes a great way to understand how far the game has come in really such a short period of time and how things are so different and the shoulders that people stood on to get to where we are now.

RB: Exactly.

AM: Where did your love for comic books come from. You have Killadelphia that you’re writing, Marvel, Star Wars universes and Lucas Film Studios – where did this come from?

RB: The only inciting influence that I can find in my mind and my heart was that my mother was a school teacher. Before computers and all of that stuff, she would go to the public library to do her lesson plans and she would bring me. There was always this area where you would have kids like in a pen, your Cat in the Hat, Curious George books etc. I had no interest in any of those books because under those books was a box and in that box was comic books. I knew exactly where it was and I don’t think that they ever changed them in all the years that I went. I would just sit in the corner and read them for hours. It sort of became a thing where it was infectious you know? The moral throughline and some of the stories were more evolved than what my 5 or 6 year old mind could handle but I was intrigued by that idea. Then later, people would give them to me and my grandfather would call them funny books back then. They would give me a stack of them and it was a way to keep me quiet. Later on, when I would have odd jobs, I would buy them. This was during a period of time where you could get comic books anywhere – the convenience store, liquor store, virtually any place that had a spinner rack full of comics. Now, you have to go to a comic shop on Wed to get them. But back then, they were readily available and they were only 20 cents or a quarter. Now they’re $4 if not more.

It was just a love that just evolved along with my life. In the beginning, it was mostly about the art and the story. Then in my teen and later years, there were guys like Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing) and Grant Morrison (Doom Patrol, New X-Men, Fantastic Four 1234) and Frank Miller (Daredevil, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City), they sort of made it like literature and evolved into something that was more serious and that kept me involved and then later television and film like most people. So there has always been this relationship.

When I was younger, I tried to write comics professionally, but couldn’t find a way in. Like a lot of things that I’m sure people feel with television and film, it’s a tough nut to crack. But even more so back then, there weren’t a whole lot of African American characters and there wasn’t a big indie space when I was coming up. It was just Marvel and DC and every once in a while there’d be a new company that would pop in. They didn’t have the same distribution chain as DC so you were relegated to those 10 characters maybe if there were 10. I think that a lot of times, companies back then felt like unless you were writing for a character of color, what’s the point of hiring this person? So for me, I wanted to take a shot at writing a comic so when I was on the show Runaways which was a Marvel show, they liked my work and I sort of leveraged the appreciation of my work to say, “hey if you guys have any relationship with Marvel Publishing, I’d love to write a comic book.” They gave me Falcon. I quickly realized that I had no idea what the hell I was doing or how to write a comic book. I just took my shot. It was received ok-ish. Then again like the podcast, I kept doing it again and again and again and I got better and better and better at it and then I had the idea for Killadelphia and started a whole new thing. Now I write 10 books a month and I have my own company and it’s taken on a life all of it’s own.

AM: Which is amazing and I know in looking at your IG, you were talking about The Mandalorian which I’m a fan of. You have a project coming out in June – can you tell us more?

RB: Yes, it’s June the 22nd, The Mandalorian adaptation of the TV show and it’s the first adaptation that Marvel and Lucas Film have done with a project. It’s basically straight adaptation of that story. They don’t let you deviate too far from the story because it’s Star Wars cannon and you can’t really interfere or add new things because it’s connected to the television show. So I basically do my version of the television show would be.

AM: It’s still very cool though!

RB: Yes, it’s an honor to play in that space.

I just finished IG-88 Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters and I did Lando Double or Nothing earlier. I love to play in the space. I have a Luke Cage short that’s coming up and maybe a Luke Cage miniseries coming up for Marvel. So anytime you get to play in that space, it’s always fun because it’s such a big fan base that you get to connect with that many people is always an honor.

AM: You created Zombie Love Studio which deals with creating original graphic novels and things of that nature, what are some things coming out of there that you want to highlight?

RB: The first book is Blacula, a reboot of the Blacula character from Blaxploitation era in Oct/Nov which should be dropping then. I also have another book, Florence and Normandie and alien attack story that takes place on the corner of Florence and Normandie famous because of the Rodney King riots that started from there. I’m writing that with Xzibit. I have Tales from the Crip with Snoop Dogg which is the Crip Keeper. I have a book called Crownsville which is set in one of the first black mental asylums in America that’s a ghost story.

There's a bunch of other things that we’re developing that are moving along. There aren’t enough hours in the day, but I’m really excited about it all and it’s coming together slowly but surely.

AM: The depth of what you’ve done is truly phenomenal. What are things on your bucket list that you have yet to do or areas that you want to put into that body of work that you haven’t but that you’re still interested in tackling.

RB: Well certainly, developing the Zombie Love books and Killadelphia and things like that into my Substack page where I do 4 of the books. 3 that are connected to the Killadelphia world which is the book that I do at Image. There are 3 books that I do at Image, Killadelphia, Nita Hawes’ Nightmare Blog and Monarch an alien attack miniseries that I am doing. My Substack page has 3 other series, Johnny Gatlin who is a gun slinger in hell and hell is like the Wild West. 20 Degrees Past Rigor which is a zombie story set in Flint, Michigan where zombies are connected to the polluted waters of Flint. The Butcher of Black Bottom which is a serial killer story set in 1920’s Black Bottom section of Detroit. Then there’s Elysium Gardens which is in the back of Killadelphia which has an ongoing story on a Substack page. So, there are those books as well. There’s a lot of stuff and next, I hope to adopt a lot of those things into other forms of media whether it’s animated, live action or television or those kinds of things.

AM: Because you have so many projects that are just in constant rotation, how do you deal with the overlap? Do you have to be at a certain point before you take other things on – do you slice it up like a pizza and mix it the best that you can?

RB: Ha! That’s basically it. I try to tackle each thing as the day comes at me. I usually get up at 4 in the morning and then I start writing and I get the comic book stuff done in the morning. Then I tackle my day jobs like Winning Time or anything else that I have in front of me and I take it as the day comes. Whoever is yelling the most that is owed the thing to them – so yeah! Whoever’s voice is the loudest at the moment!

AM: I think that the time that we’re living in right now, although there is still a need for a lot more representation, to think of myself now versus the younger me who wouldn’t have thought to know that there would be an Ava Du Vernay (A Wrinkle in Time, Queen Sugar, Girls Trip), yourself, Shonda Rhimes (Bridgerton, Inventing Anna, Grey’s Anatomy) all these people that are moving storytelling forward. How important is it for you to reflect that in your work and to have POC be able to see themselves as well as for others to understand why they need to be an ally and to make these spaces more open?

RB: Well I think it’s important because the world doesn’t connect in the same way anymore like physically. We don’t talk to each other the way that we used to and it wasn’t perfect back then either. It’s more important than ever to be able to tell stories that have a ring of truth or some semblance of honesty. That way you get to see people as they are good, bad and indifferent more so than as a caricature or something that feels contrived in some way. I think that a lot of the biases that we hold with each other comes from those depictions. I know since 1619, a concerted effort was made speaking directly to African American culture to make us less than human. There’s one idea of being less than human, but you have to reinforce that on a regular basis. So you either make them caricatures or villains – one extreme or the other. If that idea has the ability to sort of ferment for 400 years or more then you’re at a place where it almost becomes truth because you’re so used to seeing that be the case.

So when you have this culture that is fighting for a slice of the pie or some semblance for respect and dignity, living in a culture and you’re sort of burdened by living with that depiction. It's really a hard thing to overcome because then even the culture itself starts to believe it – is this who I am and some people do. That can be problematic in its own way because you start to devalue yourself and people who look like you.

So I think that the more folks that can get in for various gender, sexual orientation, race or whatever it may be – to be able to speak to your truth in an honest way cannot only help you and the group that you’re in but also people outside of that group so that they have a better understanding of who you are and the struggle that you navigate just to be a human being and to have a human experience.

AM: Who are 3 people that you feel were profound, instrumental or helpful to be in your career?

RB: Damon Wayans (My Wife and Kids, Lethal Weapon, Major Payne) is always first! He was the first person that gave me an opportunity to work on a television show. Were it not for him, I wouldn’t be here. Don Reo (Everybody Hates Chris, Two and a Half Men, The Ranch) who was the showrunner and creator with Damon on My Wife and Kids. He helped take whatever raw ability I had and allowed me into a space in a way that pushed me to a space where I was able to see for myself what I had to do. I’m eternally grateful to him as well. I have to say that there is a tie for number 3 Allen Hughes (Dead Presidents, Menace II Society, The Book of Eli) of the Hughes Brothers, a director. He helped me to bridge art and commerce. He gave me an opportunity to write in a different type of way and helped me find my way of doing art. He was very supportive in that. Then, Max Borenstein who is our showrunner on Winning Time who sort of did the same thing but in a different way. There’s a push sometimes that you need to get out of where you have been to where you want to be and Max was very helpful in being able to push me. Beyond him pushing me, was me pushing me as well. There are a lot of other people and if you had given me 10 or 20, I could have continued on with other people who have helped me even if it was just survival – that’s important as well. So when it comes to writing and being a professional writer, those people come to mind.

IG @therodneybarnes

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | PG 78 Warrick Page/HBO MAX | PG 81 - 85 STARZ/American Gods | PG 87 + 88 STARZ/Heels | PG 91 -102 HBO MAX/Winning Time |

Read the APR ISSUE #77 of Athleisure Mag and see IT’S ALL JUST STORY | Rodney Barnes in mag.

MANIFESTING THIS LIFE | CANDIACE DILLARD-BASSETT

One of our favorite reality franchises is BRAVO's The Real Housewives. It gives you a glimpse of a city with a group of women that are friends who open up their lives. You find that they are ambitious driven women who navigate their communities. The Real Housewives of Potomac is one of our favorites in this city specific series and when Candiace Dillard-Bassett arrived starting in the 3rd season, we met a woman on a mission who had an array of accolades under her belt while being focused on building her legacy. We talk with her about pageantry, her career prior to being on RHOP, the show, what the platform has provided, her music career and how she continues to give back to others!

ATHLEISURE MAG: In prep for this inter-view, I really liked learning about your background. You grew up with parents who both worked in the Air Force as physicians, graduated from Howard University and you worked in public service at the White House Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs for President Barack Obama as well as serving as a staffer during his 2012 reelection campaign. Why was it important for you to begin your career in this way in public service?

CANDIACE DILLARD-BASSETT: I know that I grew up in a household that de- manded excellence. I grew up in a household where everyone was a professional. My parents were physicans, they have a military background and they raised me as well as my siblings to model that. They taught us the truth of being people of color in this country, how the world might not always see us in the way that we see ourselves when we’re surrounded by like-minded people who look like us and think like us.

I always tell this story, it’s funny. I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a physician, I started out wanting to be a dermatologist, and I wanted to be an OBGYN. I think I must have gotten to the 9th grade and chemistry, algebra and calculus were kind of kicking my butt and I discovered that these were not my friends, so it let me pivot to something else that I am really good at which is communications. I love publc speaking – I love writing and I love aspects of journalism. I ended up being co-editor of my yearbook and co-editor of my newspaper in high school. I love to read. So, thank God, that I found something else because that math got me!

I want to encourage women who are going out in those fields for STEM because it’s so important and it’s something that we need to have more faces there that look like us there and showcase that representation. I’m a cheerleader and I’m in the back in the hallways saying, “go my STEM sisters!” But it’s just not my ministry. You have to know your strengths.

AM: That’s totally true. I thought about med school and then law school, but then you think about those years and the kinds of studies involved and I just kept continuing to code and work in fashion. But I love seeing those who are deeply involved in STEM and STEAM – all of that! So, you were Miss United States 2013. I never did pageants personally, but I have styled projects with Virginia Limongi Miss Ecuador 2018 ahead of her competing for Miss Universe as well as Nia Franklin Miss America 2019. I love this element of the pageant world as it’s more than looking beautiful as there are these other facets to it. Why was it so important to you that you wanted to do that and how important is that for character building?

CDB: I’m a pageant girl for life. I started competing since I was 5 years old and it was just ingrained in me. I will always speak up and speak about that part of my life because I always want to serve as an example of what it truly looks like to be a product of the pageant industry and of the pageant world as a whole, because there is this stigma – this neg- ative idea attached to women who compete in pageants that we’re dumb, we’re self-absorbed that we are mean – cutting each other’s dresses backstage, cutting lipsticks -

AM: Breaking zippers!

CDB: Yeah all of that stuff!

AM: I was a cheerleader – so yup!

CDB: Same! So you understand! So there’s that Toddlers and Tiaras sort of trope that people always ask me when I say that I have competed in pageants, “oh is it like Toddlers and Tiaras?” I mean, yes there are some aspects of the pageant world that can be superficial and that can be seen in a negative light, but my experience in all my years competing and I have competed a lot, I have always felt uplifted and empowered, seen and heard and loved. It’s where I learned to identify who I was. Where I learned how to brand myself, where I learned how to speak up for my- self and be an advocate – not just for me, but for causes that I believe in. I learned how to communicate those things in a way that was palatable and respectful and made sense to different audiences. I credit my mom and pageantry for all of those things. Some of the most brilliant women that I know – doctors, lawyers, scientists, inventors, dancers – you could not imagine the pedigree that you find in pageantry, and it goes far beyond just smiling, waving and being a robot. That’s only one aspect of the game of the sport because I do feel that it is one. I’m so proud to be part of it!

AM: You also have an agency where you help other people in the pageant system. Can you talk more about that?

CDB: I founded my consulting firm Candiace Dillard Pageant Consulting for the very reasons that I explained. After I won Miss United States, I found myself being a coach on accident – being someone that is empowering women around their pageant journey. It was my director at the time, Laura Clark who is now the director of The Miss Earth United States Organization – she’s a bad B! She’s a bad woman, I love her! My makeup artist at the time, Melissa, we were sitting in the hotel room and I was helping to co-produce a pageant for them one weekend. We were talking about me helping the girls and we were talking and they said, “this is a business – why don’t you start a business?” I was like, “no, why would I do that? I could just help them.” They explained that I could do it for free but when it could be framed as a structured enterprise that has tiers and everything that these women need to truly get the most of this experience by someone that has been through it.

I was like, ok and it was born! I have coached over 500 women to different titles and different places. Obviously have not been as active lately because I can barely keep an eyebrow on!

AM: You’re just a bit busy!

CDB: It’s always something that I go back to. My girls – they’re my friends, my sisters – I call them my pageant sisters. They’ll call me and let me know what’s happening. Even the little girls that I have coached, I have watched them grow up and compete as junior teens and now they’re in the Miss category. They’re like my little babies and they have just flourished. It’s rewarding to see and it’s work that I would do for free.

AM: I think that that’s amazing when you’re able to give back and infuse peo- ple in that way. You’re always going to remember who shined a light on you and to do that across all the people that you have mentored – it’s phenomenal.

CDB: Of yeah, it’s so rewarding and I would do it for nothing – just for fun. You get to play dress up, help women decide who they want to be and you’re doing it with them! It’s like having your own children helping them out and I love opening doors or women who are al- ready so special, intelligent and wise. It’s just giving them that polish and tweak that they need to accomplish their goals in the same way that I was fable to use pageantry to accomplish mine.

AM: I don’t know how you sleep because you also have a successful hairline, Prima Hair Collection by Candiace Dillard. Why did you want to be involved in the hair industry and why are you so passionate about it?

CDB: Prima Hair Collection was really a spin-off of pageantry so I love that you put those questions together. When I was competing coming up in the 90s, it was hard to find hair extensions that worked, were human hair, that came in different lengths, different textures and different colors that worked for me and worked with women that looked like me. We were stuck with synthetic hair or bad weaves or very expensive extensions because there was a monopoly on the market. There are a lot of different hair extension companies that you can choose from now, but I still had a passion for sector of the beauty history. It was my mom who said, “this should be a business.” There’s that theme where it’s always a woman empowering me to see something great for myself. It was my mom this time and she said that we were going to do it. I was like, “really we are, yay!” She helped me do the re-search and she gave me the investment. She purchased my first large order of hair. My sister got involved and 7+ years later, we are a full-service company that does business across the world. We have international clients that will clamor to get Prima hair. We are looking to move into other products soon. I have always seen myself move into other hair care products. I see myself at some point moving into skincare – I love it so much!

AM: I could see that!

CDB: Yes, but that’s really something that I would want to take my time with and find the right people, the right chemist that will ensure I’m putting out the products that I would use myself. But that’s down the road. Right now, Prima Hair is still kicking and we’re moving into other hair products.

AM: I think it’s amazing to hear this. I graduated from college in 2001 and the first 6 to 7 years, I was modeling and what it was like then to model as a Black woman – some people didn’t know how to do my makeup, you brought your own items! When we launched this magazine, 6 years ago I said that it was unacceptable for a hair or makeup person to come to set saying that they couldn’t work with various skin tones and poking around.

CDB: Yeah! We have had to learn to bring our own makeup for ourselves and to do our own hair. Right now, if it’s not one of my own makeup artists, I’m like, “I’m ok, I can do it myself.” You just come conditioned not to feel seen and not to be represented in those spaces.

AM: It’s so sad. We had someone come to set, is super accomplished and she brought 3 bags of her own makeup and it broke my heart. To know that she was known and she still felt the need to do that, I told her that she didn’t have to do that and we had great talent on set. Of course, our MUA killed it but seeing that the feeling still exists even after all of this time – it broke my heart. I always enjoy hearing that people like you and others are doing the good work!

You joined the cast of RHOP in the 3rd season. I already loved it when it first came out and then you stepped on the stage and I was excited as your personality is like my own. What made you see this and want to be part of it?

CDB: So, I can remember – I’m originally from Georgia – when The Real Housewives of Atlanta started, I thought, “oh my God, a show about Atlanta.” I watched with my mom and we were all engrossed in the show and then of course, I went off to college in Howard and then I was living in the DMV which we call the DC, Maryland, Virginia area and my best friend called me and asked I had heard about this new Black Housewives show. I hadn’t, but then I started watching. It was exciting that on a network like BRAVO that is very popular and well known and very much engrossed in pop culture – Atlanta was the premier show for women of color and here we are now with the second iteration of women of color in this franchise. This was exciting. I wanted to know who the girls were and at that time, I had been here for 14 years – a long time. I came to Howard in 2005 and I never left. I wanted to know who was on the show, what they were wearing and where they were going. I was interested and I was watching it with my boyfriend at the time, Chris and I thought, why am I not on the show? I knew I should be on this show and I remember praying about an opportunity to be on the show. I said, “listen God, if You give me the opportunity to be on this show, I promise that I will glorify You and I will use it as a vehicle to be a catalyst to accomplish all the things that You said that I would have.” Literally, the next year I was getting a call from the casting director – the Power of the Tongue. I live by it – I manifest with the Power of the Tongue. Speak what you want – that’s the message of today.

AM: Are there things that you had to consider when you knew that you would be putting your life out there and did you think about aspects involving bringing friends, family and your relationship on there?

CDB: Yes, so obviously, I had to talk to Chris. At the time, we were not engaged. We had talked about it and he had explicit instructions on what that ring would be.

AM: Check!

CDB: My mom – I didn’t worry about her because if you watch the show, you know that that woman was made for TV! She created me – my mom named me after Candice Bergen from Murphy Brown and Dominique Deveraux played by Diahann Carroll from Dynasty. So she knew what she was doing. So that lady knew what she was doing. That lady was ready! I didn't have to tell her anything except what time and where she had to be!

AM: She might have outrun you to get there!

CDB: EXACTLY! She was getting in there. Chris and I sat down and we said that we wanted to do it and we wanted to use the show, like I said, as a catalyst and a vehicle to accomplish our goals. We agreed upfront that it would be us against everybody and that we would never allow anything to infiltrate our relationship and that we would do it until it wasn’t fun anymore. Those were solid conversations that we had. So far, we have stuck to that and we have been able to use the platform in a way that has been beneficial in our careers. I’m so grateful to BRAVO and to our production company because they have allowed me to get married on the show, truly start my music journey on the show, my acting on the show and my hair business on the show. You should come in and want to use this platform to advance yourself. Being a career housewife is wonderful, but I know that there is more to do beyond the platform and so I’m here as long as it serves me and then it’s on to the next.

AM: So, how long do you guys film for?

CDB: We shoot for about 4 months.

AM: That’s a chunk of time.

CDB: Yes and it’s a stressful chunk of time because it’s a job. You are with the pro- duction company for that entire period of time and you have to tailor your life to that time. Luckily, the show is a docuseries so they’re following our lives. Most of what we’re doing, they’re following. The more you have going on the better and I have too much going on this year! It’s making my edges fall out! The plus and the minus is that having a lot going on is great, but it is an ensemble cast, so a lot of things that are happening in your life, may not make it and may stay on the cutting room floor. They have to get equal amounts of everyone's story. So they pick and choose what makes it and we have no control over what makes it. So that’s always an interesting journey to go on to find out that right before it airs, they cut that whole story out and it’s like they shot 5 scenes for that and it won’t air.

AM: My favorite scenes are the confessionals because you’re glammed up and you’re talking about what you thought about something that is taking place on the episode. How do you come up with the outfits that you’re going to wear?

CDB: That’s always really fun! Shout out to my style team - my hair and my make-up glam team and my stylist. We come together and we decide together what we are going to do. So, one of them – sometimes it won’t be my hairstylist, my wardrobe stylist will send a hair look that she thinks would be amazing. My hairstylist, Stephanie will say that she loves it and my makeup artist Kendell will say that this is a great look to go with it. We then piece it together. One thing that people may not know is that we shoot the same look, multiple times. It’s always a challenge to find a look that is intricate and unique, but can be recreated. I’ve had braids twice now and braids are tricky because you shoot with them when they’re new and then you come back and shoot with you again in the same look in a month or month and a half and you’ve been running around in the world living with those braids and you need a touchup. But what I do, is that I have a headwrap when I have braids and you can’t tell when my roots start to show. I love confessionals, it’s like playing dress-up and you’re talking and chatting with your producer, saying what’s happening, being funny and being shady while having some champagne.

AM: It’s safe to assume that you will be back for the 7th season?

CDB: Well I think I saw somewhere that someone at BRAVO had to make an announcement that everyone was asked back because I made a little bit of a cryptic tweet and it had the Internet in an uproar.

There are just days where trolling is my ministry!

AM: It is what it is!

CDB: So yes, that was a funny day because my publicist told me that everyone was calling and E! wanted a statement and I said that they would be fine! So, I think that everybody is coming back.

AM: Like you said, you’re always using the platform to share your body of work and interests. We have seen your music career on the show and now DEEP SPACE, your debut album is out! How was that, you released it fall of last year – you’ve had over 2M streams – it’s amazing!

CDB: It’s crazy! It’s surreal because I had always seen something with music happening in my head and it really started when Chris and I got married and I knew I wanted to perform a song for him at our wedding.

AM: It was a beautiful song.

CDB: Thank you. I See You was my first recorded song. Originally I wasn’t going to do an original piece. I wanted to do a Toni Braxton song – she’s perfect at love songs. My wedding was being filmed for the show and my producer said, if you want us to capture you singing, you can’t do someone else’s song. For those that may not know about television is that there are so many rules and one of them is that you have to keep in mind the licensing. Toni Braxton is gong to demand the fees of herself, the producers, the writers and her label. That could be $40K or $100K for the show to play her song on the show and they said they weren’t going to pay that.

So I thought I would write the song and I worked with Veda Whisnant and my good friend Cliff as well as the gentleman who is now my music director, Aaron Hardin. They created I See You and that was the snowball effect and people were looking to work with me including Chucky Thompson, may he rest in peace. He did a disgustingly amazing job on the I See You the Go-go Remix – Go-go music has been a huge part of my life since I have lived in DC. It kind of snowballed from there and got bigger than what I thought it would. I knew I would put out a few songs, but then as I continued to move through the music industry, it went to doing an EP, to doing an album to performing live – it just materialized before my eyes. It’s still going!

AM: What’s it like to have Anita Baker, Nicki Minaj and Toni Braxton to bless your work? I’ve been a huge fan of Anita Baker’s work and have such a respect for her and obviously, Toni Braxton and Nicki Minaj are amazing as well. What has that been like?

CDB: I don’t even know! I have no words. When you grow up listening to these voices. For me who has a lower register, I never felt confident about my voice. Every- one celebrates Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston that has these soaring Soprano voices and I never felt like I heard anything like my voice until I heard Anita Baker, Toni Braxton and Brandy who I love. They liberated me and helped me to be proud of my voice and showed me what I could do with my voice and I studied their voices to really feel like I could sing and that I could use my voice to emote and be an artist. I owe them everything. What do you mean that Anita Baker knows who I am?

AM: I read that twice and was like, oh – Anita.

CDB: It’s still crazy to me. It’s like shut up, I can’t believe that.

AM: And yet, it happened!

You came off the Femme it Forward Tour – how was that? SWV, Faith Evans and Mya? That’s some legit superstar magic right there!

CDB: Not me – them! I’m still processing.

It's just unbelievable because again, these are Black women in R&B that wrote the soundtrack to so much of my life in the 90s and on. They wanted me to be with them on their stages, on their platforms and they respect me and they see me. That is heavy, but it’s also light in a way because I’m doing all day – that’s where I am with it. I wouldn’t be there if I wasn’t worthy and I’m just trying to live in the worthiness of it if that makes sense.

AM: It totally does! Once again, you’re manifesting up a storm. You’ve been on Netflix’s Family Reunion and being on BET’s The Christmas Lottery. The level of creativity that you have embraced and do, what does it feel like to know that it’s ok to embrace on all of these activities and to nibble on them, try them and to make it their own way. There are so many people that shy away from taking on so many things especially when they are not in the same area and I always encourage people to lean into it.

CDB: I feel like if I didn’t do all of the things that are inside of me, I would explode. It just has to come out. Some- times it doesn’t make sense and some- times I’m exhausted and sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing and I feel that sometimes.

AM: And that’s ok.

CDB: Yes, it’s ok to not know what you’re doing. If you’re following your heart, you’re following your dream, just follow it. You don’t have to ask questions – you just need to follow it and be led by it. That’s what’s calling you and you have to trust that if you’re spiritual or not but that which is leading you is coming from a higher place. That’s literally it. Some- times I’m like, “girl what are you doing and I’m like I don’t know.” But I trust and I continue and then I see the fruits and then I know why it makes sense. That’s why there is a DEEP SPACE, that’s why there is a Family Reunion, that’s why there is a Water in a Broken Glass – whatever projects I’ve worked on and there's more - so much more that I want to do in the acting realm episodically and on the big screen. I want to continue to tour and collaborate musically with new people.

AM: You’re just flowing. I always say that – I say it, I pray it, I step out on it and I just pray that God catches me.

CDB: Yasss! That’s all you can do.

AM: The rest will be figured out and if it gets messy, we’ll figure it out and make it to something else.

CDB: Exactly.

AM: Tell me about My Sister’s Keeper and why you wanted to create this organization?

CDB: So this goes back to pageantry. It was competing in pageants that led me to feel like I could create an organization that truly empowered women that were not in a position to receive resources in the same way that I was. I was a student at Howard University and it’s located in NW Washington DC. There are no gates, you are in the city. You are a part of the fabric in DC and that’s not always attractive. There’s homelessness, there’s crime – it’s a lot of pieces to that puzzle. The school directly across the street from Howard was Banneker Senior High School. I used to tudor there and I noticed that there was a lack of guidance for a lot of the young women who attended school there and just in general as I maneuvered through DC, I experienced the youth in the area – particularly in lower income areas in SE DC. I felt like I could help and part of it was ignorance. I grew up in a way that I hadn’t seen that with my own two eyes. So when I’m out in the world and I’m now doing my own thing, I realized that I had all these resources and I had someone who reared me, taught me and showed me – I said I could do that and help with that. That’s how we started. We go into schools that are mostly in the DC area and just have conversations with these young women.

We do these things called a Girl Talk Circle where we sit in a circle and put questions and thoughts into a bowl and pull them out and talk about what they’re feeling or thinking. Sometimes a girl will own it and sometimes she won’t but that’s the point. You can have an issue and not be judged. I have integrated My Sister’s Keeper into Candiace Pageant Consulting because everyone is not cut out for pageants, but you can tell when a young woman has that spark or that je ne sai quoi piece that she could rock a stage or that she could be good in this space. It’s a great way again to iron you out and give a woman poise and purpose. You have to know who you are in order to compete and it forces you to figure out who you are and I want it for all women but especially Black women because we’re not first. No one is giving us the right – it’s not a privilege – the right to feel empowered and to feel that we can have whatever we what.

AM: And to understand what the game- board is and to navigate that! And to do it one way versus the other way. Although, you might have to dig in that bag every now and then again too.

CDB: That’s part of it too. It’s knowing how and when to code switch and when to use what resources where and how – yeah!

AM: Are there any other up and coming projects that we should keep an eye out for because I feel like you’re this till that keeps on springing forth.

CDB: YES! Part of the reason why I am so tired is because I was finishing up one of my final classes for my MBA program at Howard. You’ll be seeing graduation very soon and at the same time, I made this 14 slide pitch deck that I had to do for this class, I was in the studio recording new music. I am really excited because we are going to be doing a deluxe version of the DEEP SPACE album and that will be set to come out some- time this summer! I haven’t talked about that, that’s an exclusive to you guys!

AM: I mean, you just dropped your album - last fall!

CDB: It hasn’t even been a year – I know we dropped it in Sept. But you know, I didn’t want to get stale and there’s so much left to sing about and there are so many good tracks, such good music and so much to write and I have such a cool writing team. I’m newer to writing music. My team is really patient with me and lets me make changes whether I don’t like something or I want it to feel more like this or that. We make it work. So I have been in the studio for the last 3 days so I’m finishing that. That’s done and I’ll be listening to the songs ad nauseum so I’ll be sick of that ha! But we’ll be piecing them together. It’s in the works – but a TV series that I can’t say a lot about but it’s in the works. I would be playing someone that is not a whole lot like me which is exciting and it will be shooting right here, so I wouldn’t have to leave the area which I’m excited about that! So look out for that coming out soon! I think that’s it – music, TV, the show – you’ll get all the entertainment from RHOP.

AM: Every time you hit the screen on RHOP, I’m like ok, what’s happening now ha!

CDB: It’s a mess, my God. Me enjoying life, married life and I’m still decorating my house – just living!

IG @candeegal09

PHOTOS COURTESY | PG 34 - 38 Paul Morigi | PG 41 -49 +9LIST STORI3S PG 154 Candiace Dillard-Bassett |

Read the MAR ISSUE #75 of Athleisure Mag and see MANIFESTING THIS LIFE | Candiace Dillard-Bassett in mag.

IN STEP WITH BREA STINSON

We're about putting our best foot forward no matter what we're doing or going to. So when we had the chance to talk with Celebrity Celebrity Costume Designer, Brea Stinson whose work has been on Beyonce, TLC, Rita Ora, Willow Smith, Justin Beiber, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes and more. 

In addition to having a great eye, she has recently partnered with The Tampax and Always Radiant Collection and the HBCU Dance Corporation during Homecoming season to host the #RadiantDanceOff, a national online dance competition that officially launched earlier this month, and is exclusively open to majorette teams at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The winning HBCU dance team will receive custom uniforms designed by Brea as well as a donation of $25,000 to cover team expenses.

We took some time to find out about how she got into the business, the importance of confidence for women in the entertainment business and why she has partnered with Tampax and Always Radiant Collection during Homecoming season at HBCUs.

ATHLEISURE MAG: How did you get into designing and tell us who some of your celeb clients have been as well as what is the memory of the first piece that you created for a celebrity?

BREA STINSON: I've been designing as long as I can remember. From drawing cartoon characters and bubble letters on jeans in the 6th grade for $5-25 dollars a pop, to designing prom dresses for my high school friends.....I've been putting in work for some time now!

I've had the honor of working with Will Smith, Usher, Beyonce, Zayn, Missy Elliott, Justin Bieber, Rita Ora and more. 

The first celebrity piece that stands out for me is the jacket I conceptualized for Jay-Z for his "Fade to Black" ("retirement") concert at Madison Square Garden. I had been a fan of his for so long by that point. I felt like I knew all his lyrics and certain principles that were valuable to him. I was working as an assistant stylist at the time and I suggested that we use vintage tattoo art to convey a message on a cashmere blazer that we pulled for him. I selected the dagger going through the heart and it read, "death before dishonor". The look on his face when my boss revealed the jacket was priceless. He loved it! It was at that moment, I realized there was something special in these little ideas of mine. To have him embrace my concept at such a huge moment in his career was an overwhelming feeling. I'm forever grateful for that moment. 

AM: You have dressed the world's most stunning and confident women, how impactful is that on you to be around such bold women who represent the entertainment industry?

BS: It's insane!!! It fuels me. I've been blessed to work with the most talented female creative directors, dancers, producers and artists!!! Having such women of influence choose me, wear my designs and support my dream, is more than flattering. It's inspiring to be in the presence of such power and positivity. I just try to soak up all the knowledge and good energy I can. I only hope to leave them with as much as they give. 

AM: Why did you decide to partner with Tampax and Always Radiant Collection in their initiative with HBCUs? 

BS: Tampax and Always have always been my brands of choice. I come from a family of female go getters and to be honest, Tampax was the only brand I recall seeing as a child. Our relationship goes all the way back to when I was a dancer in my younger years and from then until now, Tampax has never failed me. Comfort and leak-free protection equals confidence and those qualities are things the Tampax and Always Radiant Collection embody. Also I know from personal experience and from working with my clients that it's important to feel your best in order to perform at the highest level. All these things are the reason this partnership and initiative geared towards HBCUs really spoke to me, especially given that I graduated from an HBCU, Clark Atlanta University, myself. I'd like to think, this is indeed a way to give back.

AM:  You went to Clark Atlanta University, a HBCU - how meaningful is this partnership as the competition with Tampax highlights these elite schools?

BS: Yes, I did! Our school motto is, "find a way or make one". This has stuck with me through my education and career. HBCU's have produced some of this nation’s most RADIANT achievers. So it's not only meaningful, it’s a perfect fit! 

While we won't be able to visit all the schools during this campaign, the great thing is that everyone can participate in the competition in some way. Each qualifying HBCU majorette team can enter for a chance to win $25,000 and costumes designed by me!! And, the general public can participate by casting their vote November 2 -November 15th on who they think the winning team should be. 

AM: Beyond your involvement with this contest, how important is it to bring the awareness of this study to the African American community?

BS: It's crucial. Studies have shown 4 out of 5 women avoid wearing certain clothing and or doing certain activities during that time of the month, that could be up to a week when they don’t feel like their best selves!

Tampax and Always have been steadfast in creating products with premium protection over the years. It's time to let the girls know, that they can live their best lives any day of the month and completely show up for the task at hand, feeling comfortable and confident. There's so much to be unsure about these days, so this is one less thing to stress about. This Radiant campaign celebrates that personal freedom and fearlessness. 
 
AM: How excited are you for the Radiant Tailgate taking place at Howard University? 

BS: I'm totally excited! Howard University was one of my top 3 choices. Although, I chose CAU....I've always had a love for this school. Being a part of this campaign allows me participate in the Howard University festivities and deliver a message of style and confidence that is very dear to me. 

Read more from the Oct Issue and see In Step with Brea Stinson in mag.