Building Memphis' arts infrastructure one brick at a time | Opinion

On any given day, Memphis is a beautiful arts town. Specifically, Memphis is music.

We have the Blues Hall of Fame, the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum and Stax Museum of American Soul Music; and we should have Nashville’s National Museum of African American Music, but that is a discussion for another day.

I love Memphis. We are known for our creativity; but when it comes to supporting local artists in the community, there is very little infrastructure to help them thrive.

As the founder of Memphis Artists for Change, I recognize how detrimental this can be, and in response, I have opened Art House Café in the Soulsville community near Mississippi and Walker streets. A social enterprise concept, it is a space of our own that serves our own.

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Infrastructure comes with a cost

My uncle was Freddie Butler, an entrepreneur in the Soulsville area since the 1980s. He initially owned the space that is now the Art House Café. It was originally a barbecue shop. His son and my cousin, Montana Trax (Kevin Butler), was a producer with certified Gold 1990s hip-hop duo, 8Ball and MJG. They are Memphis pioneers; for my community, they were our Isaac Hayes, Al Green and Johnny Cash and put their neighborhood, Orange Mound, on the map. Music is in my blood.

Art House Café offers infrastructure our artists need. At the café, we hang the art of local painters; we offer book signings and showcase homemade jewelry. What’s made a huge impact in our 1,200 square-foot home is our performance space in the back where we hold pop-up performances in the style of NPRs “Tiny Desk” intimate concerts. After these concerts, we provide edited video and photos for artist electronic promotional kits – at no cost to the artists. This type of support can be everything for musicians who are just getting started. Like Isaac or Al, our artists can go from dreamers to doers.

As a poet and artist myself, I know how important it is to have help. But providing help shouldn’t be so hard.

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Funding takes imagination and dedication

Art is my outlet. I use it for activism; it is my love language. While the idea for this space came in 2018, my team and I began working on it in 2019 and it launched this year. A mecca of cultural expression, at its core, it is a safe space for Black folks. From voter registration to discussing mayoral candidates, Art House Café is the ground zero spot where community and activism meet. We have a partnership with LeMoyne-Owen College, the only Historically Black College and University in Memphis. We work together symbiotically to fill and provide employment for a multidiscipline of graduates from marketing to education to social services. We’re creating contractual and community service-based civic engagement.

To do all of that takes two things: funding and imagination.

Music is an outlet; it is an escape for so many – even for me. When I’m in a mood or trying to figure something out, I put on some good music to hold me until I can get through. Who hasn’t done that? Yet, how can we dance like no one is watching without the music?

I’m constantly in a position with funders who just don’t understand that providing infrastructure takes more than $5,000. It takes $50,000, $500,000, $5 million. We need grant organizations, investors and others to prioritize music arts in smaller communities like ours so that we can make a lasting impact that nourishes generations of artists and feeds their livelihood – and not with a two-piece chicken snack dinner.

I’ve put my money where my mouth is. I want others to do the same.

Build where you are

We must continue to protect and provide a sacred, safe space for artists. I’m doing my part, and I ask others to follow. I’m reminded of the HGTV renovation show, “Home Town,” where the story is about a couple who’s saving and rehabbing homes in their small town of Laurel, Mississippi, to keep and bring back folks to the town.

Soulsville, Memphis and towns like us are no different. With intentionality, my husband and I moved back to our home neighborhood of South Memphis. While we want to be the change we want to see, we’re also careful not to act like oppressors – we are not the type of folks who simply want to replace the colonizer. And there is a fine line to that, right? We want to be a different type of landlord in our hometown, and we know we can be examples for others to do the same. I think it is upon us, as Black folks specifically, to be the individuals who go back and buy our grandmother’s vacant home and revitalize the area with our own dollars and our own faces – recolonize, if you will. This uprooting won’t be for everyone, and some of us might feel like a sacrificial lamb going into the unknown – but imagine being the convoy who is willing to go first. Imagine.

We need to make space for our community, for our youth and for our artists. Without them, we have no life blood, no pulse on the pain and power that surrounds local citizens looking to make a difference, and ultimately create their own hall of fame. Let’s do all that we can to support them.

Tameka Greer is the executive director of the Memphis Artists for Change and a member of the Black Southern Women’s Collaborative.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Opinion: How to create a reliable infrastructure for Memphis' artists