Lachi: Recording Artist, and Disability Rights Advocate

Today's episode of Disability Matters has been previously recorded. Please enjoy today's episode. Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, to everyone in the United States and around the world, from China to Australia. I always thank you for being such good followers of this show. And guess what? Next year, yes, it's the 20th anniversary of Disability Matters with Joyce Bender. Can you believe it? And when I say around the world, hey, I have to shout out to Richard Roberts, who I was with in South Korea and Japan, and now he's in Brazil and he's just awesome. Gang Young Cho in South Korea, I miss you. Then you mean in Kazakhstan, and Cheryl Harris, who I met in Tunisia and is now with the U.S. State Department. Love all of you. Yoshiko Dart, special shout out to you. I know you all know when you listen to the show that for years now, every show I have a special shout out to Yoshiko, and you know why? That is, she is the wife of the late, great Justin Dart Jr., and we need to remember our history in the disability rights world. So Yoshiko, I will never And don't forget, thank you, Highmark, our lead sponsor for all of these years. Highmark, $24 billion company. Can you believe how big they have become? And they hire people with disabilities. And folks, that's where the rubber meets the road. Employment, no pity, no charity. That is where It is so important. All right, get ready. Get ready. I first saw Lachi at the Disability:IN conference, and when they announced her, I thought, oh, I wonder what she will be like. Oh, my God. Like, she blew the roof off. I mean, I was not prepared for this. I was not prepared. I even said to the people at my desk, Lachi, you have to latch on to power when you hear her. So energetic and so talented, so awesome. I just love her. And now I get to share her with you. I mean, it is such an honor to have an entertainment star— wow— with us today. And I know for all of you around the world, you're going to be so excited when you hear her. Lachi, it is such an honor to have you with us.

Wow, wow, wow! What an introduction! Okay, thank you so much for having me, Joyce. I am so excited to be on this show, and I am in awe of you as well, and I'm ready to, um, you know, chow it up.

All right, now listen, all of you, I'm not kidding about her, okay? She's phenomenal. So You're going to be buying her singles. You're going to be following her. And Lachi, when you get a Grammy, you better remember me, okay? When I'm waving from the audience, I'll say, remember me when you were on my show? Now you have all this paparazzi around you. You better remember me.

So I didn't pay her to say any of this.

Lachi, um, We have listeners, as you just heard, around the world, and I want them to know about you, who you are, because that's such a great part of you. So I thought we could start by telling everyone your story as a person with a disability, like me, with epilepsy, and I'm hard of hearing. How did you feel about yourself when you found out you had a disability? What made you decide to pursue a career in music? And oh my God, what gave you the confidence not only to follow your dream, but like powerhouse? It's the only way I can describe you. So, Lachi, how about if we start by you sharing with our listeners about you?

Sure. Yeah, one of the things I love to talk about is myself, so let's go ahead and go dive right in. No, I'm just kidding. But my name is Lachi, she/her, Black woman, cornrows. I am a recording artist and a songwriter in the EDM space, which is what I primarily do. And in that role, I have had the pleasure of traveling the world for my art, working with household name recording artists, DJs, and labels. And really being able to get in the room where it happens in the music industry. I identify as blind. I was born legally blind, and my sight is getting worse by the minute, but what I will say is as my sight gets worse, my checks get higher, so I can't be that mad about it. And I've always loved music, but I think my passion really now is advocating for disability culture, especially in the music industry. So that's another thing I do. I'm a disability inclusion advocate. In that vein, I am the founder and president of RAMPED, Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities, dot org, and we're out here trying to forge a new type of diverse celebrity as it pertains to music and disability. And then I'm also on the Grammy board, and I serve as their DEI liaison. And through my position there, as well as my position as a disability inclusion advocate, I've had the pleasure of being able to speak to folks like Joyce Bender here and to speak at the United Nations, to traverse the White House, to perform at the Kennedy Center and the Lincoln Center, just really spreading this message of diversity and disability culture and just self-pride, self-love, and really just jumping and getting yourself out there. So I— oh, and of course, I am an actress and a writer and pretty much anything you want and more, I do it as long as it propels this message of embracing disability culture. So that's me in a nutshell. I don't know if that answers your question, but it answers somebody's question. So—

I know this, and I told Arthur when I talked to him, your manager, and he told me, uh, about you. And he's saying, now, Lachi, you know, she's proud of having a disability, and you know, she's not like about— I said, oh my God, I already love her and I don't know her. I already love her because she's Miss Disability Rights. That is so awesome. I'm going to be telling you this all of you listeners throughout the show, Lachi, L-A-C-H-I, for National Disability Employment Awareness Month. What an honor it is to have her. Lachi, when you were growing up, how did you feel about the fact that you were legally blind? I mean, you know, like with your family, friends, kids you grew up with, how did you feel about this?

Yeah. So, that's an interesting sort of multifaceted question. At the end of the day, I'm not just blind. I'm not just disabled. I am intersectioned with being a female. I'm intersectioned with being a Black person in America, but then I'm also intersectioned with being the daughter of an immigrant, the daughter of an immigrant family. And all of those verticals, especially growing up in sort of the '90s and the early 2000s, there is this stigma of, you know, we are other. So, I had a lot of otherness to sort of deal with. And as I was growing up, you know, I was constantly told, you know, "You gotta try to do what you can to fit in, even though you are the daughter of immigrants. Try not to seem that way. You have to do what you can to not be so Black. Don't be so woman." Don't be so disabled. And I was trying so hard to not be those things that when I laid my head on the pillow at night, I was dreaming someone else's dreams. I was living someone else's life. And I had no clue who I was and what I was supposed to do until someone took my shoulders and told me. And what kind of life is that when you're not the one behind the wheel driving your own perspective? When you're sitting in the backseat of your own life. And that's pretty much what I was doing, not just, again, as a person with a disability, but as a person intersectionalized with all of these things. One of the things a lot of people don't recognize in the disability space is that disability intersects with race, with gender, with preference, with so many other things. And those intersections are totally different life experiences and barriers that need to be overcome. When I was 8— and I don't know what the age is, I just keep using the number 8 because it's easy and convenient and I remember it— but when I was 8, I would watch TV and listen to the radio and go online and say, I want to do music, I want to be an entertainer, I just want to be famous. I don't even care what I'm doing because I just know I'm talented. But not only did my parents And my friends, my teachers, no one else saw anyone like me to be able to pursue that and go, "Yeah, you know, you could totally do that. Let's put it on the vision board. Let's get you going." I didn't see it either. So, I didn't even think of myself that I could do it because it just wasn't out there. And so, as I went through middle school and everybody's talking about what they want to be when they grow up, I just didn't have anything that I could say. Because the thing I wanted to be didn't exist and who was I going to be the first? And that same sort of mindset came through college and when I started working. And as a Black woman, there's so much stigma of that fear of being aggressive if you speak out, and then let alone adding on disability to that. So, there was so much gaslighting of how dare you be proud of yourself? How dare you try to be the first? How dare you try to stand out and step up? What you really ought to do is you really try to keep your head down and fit in so that people aren't afraid or scared of you. And that was the life I was living until I realized, you know what? As an artist, as a person who wants to create, I have to jump outside this box. I have to tap into the parts of me that people haven't seen yet. I have to be that black swan Or, who wants to hear a story they've already heard? That's not art. That's a rehash. And so, it was through music and through art that I really started embracing myself just as a human being. And it was that embracing of myself as a human that I started to realize— as I started seeing success in music— that I started to go, "Holy S, I really should embrace all parts of myself, tell my full story, and have my full self." be the art. And that's where Embracing My Disability came. That's where walking the path of highlighting disability culture came from. And then that's where all the opportunity started raining in. And honestly, right now I'm in the process of really documenting all of this in a book with a really amazing guy named Tim Bendahy, New York Times selling— bestselling author or whatever. And we've got together, we're documenting all this. Because I think it's really important for people to recognize this walk, this struggle of otherness, that not only does it strengthen you and give you substance, but it also gives you this perspective outside of the norm, outside of the box, that people really actually want to see. And that's pretty much my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Well, you know what, I— a book? I see this as a movie. I see a movie in your future, Lachi. I mean, it's such an incredible story. And I wanted to tell you, the State Department— I couldn't go because of COVID so I had to do it through Zoom, but I also did a program on people with disabilities count for Nigeria? Hmm.

You know, it's interesting that you're— that you mentioned the sort of Nigeria contingent because— sorry, it's interesting you mentioned the Nigeria contingent because there it's a lot more recent that there's a lot of talk and discussion about accessibility and disability and the contributions of folks with disabilities. I remember when I was coming up, somebody had said to my mother, "Good thing you folks went to America early because your daughter would have sort of been tossed to the wayside in terms of getting any kind of accommodation." because at the end of the day, it just wasn't seen as something that could thrive, something that could produce. And even in that vein, my mother, who is one of my biggest supporters, she named me Ulaachi, U-L-A-A-C-H-I, which means in Igbo, where I'm from, "ring of God," because she was under the impression that I would be wrapped around her finger like a ring because of my disability. Little did she know that I would actually be one of the most independent and successful of a lot of folks coming out here trying to do this from our little small corner in Igboland. And so, you know, I do say kudos to Nigeria. I know there are folks— I wish I remembered her name right now. But I know there's a woman, a wheelchair user, who's running for a seat at the federal level in Nigeria, and that's not something we would have seen back in the '90s, back in the '80s. And so, there is some movement there, so I'm really excited about that.

Yes. Not just Nigeria, but many of the countries I've been to. For example, in Asia, there is pervasive shame in families if they have a child with a disability. Yesterday I talked to other people that are working in parts of Africa, but you know what? It's one person. It starts with one person. That's what it takes. It starts with one person, and you certainly are a great role model and example, and now you're a recording star. How about those people that told you you wouldn't be able to do it? Wow, where are they now?

Yeah, I mean, I hear you there. It's one of my mottos is, you're either going to help me or you're going to watch me because it's going to get done.

Um, I love that.

Yeah, it's going to get done.

And I love barriers. Yeah, that's you. That is you. Well, I, I am one of your absolute biggest fans, just so you know that. Oh, I am one of your biggest fans. I mean, I was just so blown away when I saw you. Then we know a lot of Judy Heumann, a lot of similar people, and I have been so impressed. Not only are you so talented, but you're fighting the fight for people with disabilities. And that's why I say to everyone listening to me, you know, we have to support each other. One, be hard. It won't be hard for you to support her because wait till you hear her sing. Won't be hard for you. She is phenomenal. One thing I did want to ask you is, you know, what was the one thing? Was there a trigger or something? What happened to give you the confidence to go forward in the music industry? You know what I mean? What made you say, I know I can do this?

You know, well, first I want to say big shout out to Judy. Judy Heumann is my girl. I call her Auntie Judy. So, what gave me the sort of— music has always been a big part of my life and has always contributed to my confidence. So, as I— when I was really young, I didn't really have many friends, and so I would turn to music to express myself, learn about myself. I really just hung out with my piano a lot. When I was in college, I would play the piano in my dorm and people would go, "Wow, you're actually pretty good," which helped boost my confidence. Music brought me to New York, which was a great place for someone who is blind to be able to feel more confident, get around, not have to depend on driving. So music has always been sort of a confidence booster for me. And so as I got better at music, I was able to accept myself more. So it was just a natural progression to go, "You know what? It has to be music. Music all the way down. Music or bust," because music has always allowed me to be more confident. And as people with disabilities, when we find something that gives us our confidence, that gives us that drive, that sort of catalyst that springs us forward, we have to totally embrace it. So that's what I did with music. And I think the one thing that made me realize, "You know what, dude? I got to come out about my disability in the industry." was as I got more successful and started getting into bigger and better rooms, I started noticing that I was sort of shooting myself in the foot not being open about my disability. So I, you know, let's say for instance about 5 years ago, I was legally blind, and now I'm much more blind than I was about 5 years ago, but I was quote-unquote sighted passing. And so I would do all that I could to not have to talk about my blindness or not let people know, but of course they sensed my awkwardness, or maybe I would trip on the way into the vocal booth, or maybe I wouldn't be able to see what the engineer is doing on his computer, and he'd ask me a question and I would just kind of nod and smile and act like I knew what he was pointing at. And these kind of things would cause tension, or people would notice something was weird and think the wrong thing, think maybe I didn't know what I was doing, as opposed to not— that I just couldn't see. And so I had to actually come out about my disability— so that I could help my own self. It was actually going to be more beneficial. And it allowed me to be more confident. I'm not trying to wiggle around in a space that— being in clothes that aren't mine, right? In a suit, in a human suit that's not me. And so, being able to come out about my disability in the music industry was a boon for me. You know, music industry is all about networking, and so I found myself I was finally having people come to me instead of being offended that I wasn't waving back. And so, that was one of the reasons I came out about my disability, and it's really been a beautiful thing. And of course, it's a scary thing, right? You think like, "Oh my God, if I come out about my disability, no one's going to work with me anymore. People are going to be afraid, think I'm not competitive enough, or think it's weird." Honestly, it was a beautiful thing. To stand in front of my Blackness, my womanness, my blindness, and say, yo, what up? I am really freaking talented and I'm all these things. Hire me or not. And it's been the best thing I've done for myself. And I encourage others to do it.

Hire me or watch me.

Yep, yep. Watch me.

You know what? I could see at a concert, I could see t-shirts right now. Loving, loving Lachi. I can already see the maid.

Ah, yes, girl.

Yep, I can see the maid. I could see the maid. Um, well, Lachi, you really did— wow, you encountered so many things. But for those of you listening to this show, two things. One, if you have a disability and you're ashamed, don't be ashamed. Look, Look at, look at Lachi. Now she's an entertainment star. And you know what? Instead of her saying, "Okay, I'm getting famous, I'm gonna hide it," she said, "I'm getting famous, I'm gonna tell people." So if you're a young person listening, you can follow her on Instagram and everywhere else that she is, but she's not ashamed. She is a beautiful woman, so talented, And as I said, a fireball. That's the only way I could describe it.

Fire—

she's a fireball. She is a fireball. Uh, then the second thing I wanted to say is, if you're listening to this show right now, you know, if you go to Spotify, you can, uh, hear my show. Or if you go to Amazon or Apple, if you go to Apple. So I wanted to mention to you that If you're listening, you're thinking, oh wow, I wish I could save this, or I wish I could share this with other people. You can, you can. It's on demand. You go on demand, you can get this podcast and share it with everyone. And that is what I hope that you do. So Lachi, tell us, tell all of us, when did you get that first big break? You know, the first thing you thought, this is it. I'm moving now. I'm really moving. What was it?

Huh, that's a really good question. I think it was a series of things, but I think the first major step was when I quit my job. And I know everyone's going like, well, that's not a big break. That's not like someone knocking on your hotel room door and giving you a record deal.— but honestly, it was the mindset switch of leaving— I was working at a federal government job, which is really cushy and, you know, good pay. There's benefits up the wazoo, but I was just being two different people. I was like, "I really want to do music. I'm miserable at my day job. How do I— I just— but I have to make sure that I have money to pay my rent, and I have a disability. Nobody's going to hire me. This is an artistic field. I'm never going to make it." And I had to tell myself, you know what, I'm just gonna jump in headfirst. So it started with me leaving my job, and that opened up my brain space to figuring out how to make this work, being able to put the plan together. I ended up getting signed to this amazing management company called Big Management, who specialize in electronic dance music, and through that signing. I started working with some pretty known names in the electronic dance music industry, and that's how that really started. We got to go to the Amsterdam Dance Event, which is like the largest dance music event in DJ and vocalist culture in the dance music space. And I worked with Gary Salzman, who was a pretty big name in the dance music industry at that time. And so that was really one of the big stepping stones, but it would never have happened if I didn't leave my day job to really pursue music full-time, to really believe in myself. And Joyce, so my parents and my friends and everyone who knew me at the time, they were heavily encouraging me to stay at my job. You know, "Yo, you're legally blind. You have a disability and you've got this great job. You have a day— you know how hard it is? There's 70% unemployment in the blindness community." "there's really high unemployment in the disability community. You have this great job. You need to pursue it. Da-da-da-da-da." You know, "You're not going to be the next big rock star, so just stay at your job." And I said, "But what I want to do is be the next big rock star. And just because I'm blind doesn't mean I can't be that. It just means I have to close my eyes and really figure out how. And yes, I know that there are no role models out there already that look like me and are doing this." So guess I just got to be it. And that's pretty much what happened.

Oh, that is a great story. See that? Wow. I cannot see you in that job. You know, that federal job. Oh, I cannot see you because, as I said, you're such a powerhouse. But see, you believed in yourself. You were confident, independent, and you made that decision. And yeah, that was your first big break because you broke away. You, you said, that's it, I'm gonna go for it. And thank goodness for all of us that you did do that. And by the way, I know you sang once behind my idol. You know who that is? Patti LaBelle. Oh my gosh, I love Patti LaBelle. And so You know, wow, anyone that could even be singing anywhere near around her, I, I know how good they are. And that is how— oh my God, that you got to work with the Grammys! And that is great, but we want you to have a Grammy. That's what we want.

Yeah, I know.

Remember, I'm going to stand there, I'm going to say, remember me, remember me, now that you're a star. Uh, but tell us What exactly do you do with the Grammys? I know you were elected to the board, and I know, as you said, you're that DEI ambassador for the New York chapter, which all of this is such a wonderful honor. You are really zooming it, man. You don't mess around. What is that? Tell us what that is. What do you do?

Right. And, you know, so a lot of people, when they think of the Grammys, they think of the one big night. Right? Then you have Grammy night. That is so amazing. But it turns out that the Recording Academy is a 365 days a year endeavor, and the other 364 days are really just as important. There's advocacy work for musicians. There is work for advocating for producers and engineers. There's Music Cares, which is actually the sort of foundational arm that helps musicians who need help. And things of that nature. There's so much going on that no one really talks about enough. And so those are the aspects that I wanted to start digging into. And I started out in the advocacy committee, which works talking to Congress and things of that nature. And the way I started was, uh, every year they have this thing called District Advocate Day, and I went in and I spoke with my district person— who was it at that time? We spoke with Caroline Maloney and we spoke with Schumer's office. And, you know, a bunch of suits from the Grammys went in there, and then me, and I'm just this new artist. This is like 2 years ago, 2019, so 3 years ago. And I go in there and I was super researched. I was like, I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna be a superstar. I'm gonna know everything that's going on. And then we get in there and everyone's kind of talking, you know, like, hey, here are my bills, blah, blah, blah. Please support it. And it's like, yay, thank you. And I go in there, I have my notepad, and I'm like, actually, I want to talk about Section 3 of Part 2. So, and I know that you have a history of voting for XYZ. And everyone was just standing there like jaw-dropped of all the research I did. And that was my day one at, you know, really climbing the ranks of the Recording Academy. That led me to eventually become the co-chair of the advocacy committee. And in that role, I put together a panel advocating for disability culture at the Grammys. I was like, I want to put together a panel where we celebrate disability. And at that panel, I made sure we had ASL, we had captioning. It was the first-ever panel with ASL, with captioning, and it had all disabled musicians. I got Galen Lee on there. I got Ryan Googinelson on there. I got Saida Garrett, who is the backup singer for Michael Jackson and worked with Quincy Jones and things of that nature. And we got Valicia Butterfield-Jones, who eventually became the president of the Grammys at that panel, and it was one of the widest and largest watched panels in the New York chapter. So of course, when I ran for election at the Grammy board, everyone was like, "That's that woman that put together that panel and moderated it, isn't it?" And while that was happening, we put together Ramped, which I'm sure we'll get into, but Ramped was in the background dealing with the Grammys, trying to get the 64th Grammys, which happened in April of this year, to have a visible ramp, to have ASL on the red carpet, to have captioning and audio description, and we got all of that done right before elections. And so while everybody was— everybody at the Grammys was getting tired of me running around telling everybody what to do, meanwhile, the Grammy constituency was voting for me to be on the board. And so it was such a beautiful, like, organic situation. And now I'm here at the board. It was just only natural that Ryan Butler, who is the chief of DEI, who I worked very closely with to get all of those things done at the Grammys, would have me be the DEI liaison for New York, passing the torch on from Torrey Carr, who was also a very great DEI ambassador who's now the president of the New York chapter. And I actually now oversee the Black Music Collective, the Women in the Mix initiative that they have going on for the Grammys. So I'm not only dealing with the women's side of things, with the LGBTQ side of things, with the Black side of things. All of those are now under my umbrella as the DEI ambassador. And I am the mouthpiece not only locally but nationally for disabilities at the Grammys. Girl, I got to tell you, it is probably one of the biggest honors. I mean, being in the Grammy board, that's it. There ain't nothing higher than that in the music industry. And I get to be sitting in that seat advocating for disability at the national level. So I can't— I am very honored, very honored.

I mean, wow. Yeah, I can see why you're honored. As I said, you really are a fireball. I mean, that is though such an honor. Joyce Bender. Can't get better than that. So prestigious. And when you're— the other people on that board, how do they react to you when you talk about this intersectionality and disability and captioning and, you know, all of this? All of this, how do they react to that?

Well, I am very quickly gaining, at least in the music industry, I'm gaining really the reputation of being the disability culture advocate of the music industry. So there isn't much confusion the minute I open my mouth and say, "By the way, is there going to be ASL at your event?" Or when I say, "Hello, my name is Lachi SheHer Black Woman Cornrows, and I am here to tell you that disability needs to be included in your blah, blah, blah, XYZ." A lot of folks are, you know, notice that that's who I am walking in. So I do start to have that reputation. And it's not in an, "Oh geez, here comes Lachi," way because my team and I, and big shout out to my team, everyone, most folks on my team, I think we're about 70% of the folks on my team have some sort of disability or neurodiversity and we love it and we're keeping it that way. But my team has worked really hard to make sure that we have that clout behind us, to make sure that we're getting in the room and sitting down and speaking with the leadership and letting them know, "Hey, give us an invite, and you know that when you give us an invite, we're going to come in and talk about disability, but we have the clout to talk about music too." So we're here coming from an angle of peers. Not an angle of, hey, you know, help out. You know, we— it's not like we're not coming here picketing. You know, I'm not coming here protesting. I'm coming speaking to my colleagues eye to eye. And while they're advocating for what they need to advocate for, I'm advocating for what I need to advocate for.

Well, you have to be, though, one of the first people doing this. I mean, I— there's not like a plethora of people doing this at the Grammys. That's why That's why it's so awesome that you are doing it and how the people are reacting. And I guess that leads into this great organization, RAMPD, R-A-M-P-D. Could you share with our listeners in the US and around the world what it is, what it's doing, and, and why you started it?

For sure, for sure. So RAMPT is— okay, I'll put it like this. RAMPT is a coalition of established recording artists, musicians, composers, producers, and the like, music professionals, whether it's agents or managers or administrators or executives in the music industry who identify as disabled, who identify as neurodiverse, having a chronic illness. Having deafness, having a rare disease, having a non-visible disability, having immunocompromised situation. If you're in the music industry and you are a working person, a professional in the music industry, you are welcomed at Ramped. What Ramped does is it amplifies disability culture. Our mission is to promote inclusion, to promote equitable inclusion in a competitive manner, and to advocate for accessibility in the music industry. And right now we have about 60 professional members, but over 600 community members in our community in general. Some of the things that we've already done, like I said, we helped ramp— what we call RAMP with a capital R-A-M-P— the Grammys, meaning we got a visible ramp to the stage, meaning we got ASL on the red carpet, etc., etc. We've done that at other award shows, including the American Association of Independent Music Awards, called the Libera Awards, at the New York City WAVEY Awards. We have linked up with major organizations, from firms to labels to production houses, trying to get paid opportunities for our professional members, trying to partner with folks to have, uh, just awareness campaigns. Whether it be panels, whether it be online activations where we celebrate everything from Black musicians with disabilities to female musicians with disabilities to, you know, international musicians with disabilities, composers with disabilities, and that is what we do. But I think at our heart, and one of the reasons that so many people are excited about Ramped, is that we are really at our heart trying to amplify disability culture. And people go, "Well, what is disability culture? I don't understand what that is. Please explain." Yes. I love it when people say, "Lachi, what is disability culture?" So, for us, disability culture is a celebration of people with disabilities, and it acknowledges the vast diversity of people with disabilities. It is a celebration of our music, of our art, of our worldviews, of our perspectives, of our written word, of our poetry, of the way we carry ourselves, of the way we purport. And it is rooted in problem-solving. It is adaptable. It is innovative. It is intentional. And it is a result of the oppression that we have faced historically and the oppression that we face today. It is intersectional. It is loud. It is proud. And it deserves Well, there you go. And it deserves to be celebrated. That's what disability culture is, whether it's our fashion because of the fact we have to use accessible and adaptable fashion, whether it is our music and the lyrics that we write based on our stories and our histories and our livelihoods that we've had to overcome, whether it is the way we play our instruments due to the different bodies that we have, whether it is the way we have to just traverse through life due to the different minds that we have. It is the outside-the-boxness of disability. And we have found, I have found, that music is one of the best and easiest ways to introduce society to a new culture, whether it be the way hip-hop introduced Black culture, whether it be the way country music introduced rural culture. We at Ramped are trying to introduce disability culture and infiltrate pop culture using disability culture. That is what Ramped is all about, and that is why I'm so jazzed and excited to tell people about Ramped, because that is our mission. Our mission is to amplify disability culture and change the way disability is viewed.

And if someone wants to get more information about that, is that ramped.org? What is the website?

Yes, the website for Ramped is ramped.org. And we're also on Instagram @RAMPD_UP, and we're also on Twitter @RAMPDUP. So, we are everywhere you want us to be. Honestly, just Google RAMPD and we'll show up.

And how do you, how do you get funding for this?

Yeah, so we welcome First of all, we welcome any donations, which you can give straight to our website at ramp.org. We also welcome any sponsorships and partnerships. We also are here to consult with folks on accessibility, and we also welcome and we work to raise— fundraise through grants, again, through personal donations, and through collaborating with other music industry firms and consultancies in order for us to, to make our ends meet, to keep our lights on, and to keep the folks that, you know, work to make things happen and the ends and odds reign true happy and work at their best ability. And we also look— another really huge part of what we do is to stay on par. To make sure that our website and to make sure that our presence is on par with other music industry organizations and global networks. So we do try to stay fancy. I mean, you see, we're in the New York Times, we're in Billboard, we're in Ford— Forbes, and we're in the Hollywood Reporter. And it, it takes a lot to keep those wheels greased and to keep up with a world not necessarily built for this for us, for folks with disabilities, and we're running as fast as we can to remain arm in arm with those who the world was built for. And so, anything is welcome. And honestly, even if you don't have monetary support, we would always welcome folks following our network and joining our network and simply just supporting us by signing up to our mailing list and signing up to our newsletter, passing us along to a friend, and following us on social media.

Okay, so I have to say, here we are, we in the disability community, we have a star, we have a recording artist, we have a big shot, we have someone famous, but you've got to support this. You've got to support this organization that she started, ramp.org, and I assume you go to the website and there's a donate button.

Yep. Yeah, head over to the website. You can click on Collaborate with Us, or you can just scroll to the bottom of the website where our donation button is nice and loud and proud for you to click on. And we are here, and we're ready for you to hang out with us and join, link arms with us. I think you made a good point. Like, we're here for the disability community. And we're here to serve the music industry. We're not looking for a handout from the music industry. We are the opportunity for the music industry. So we're telling the non-disabled folks, look at this opportunity. So we want you in the disability community to join us in showing the music industry this opportunity that they have to embrace disability culture.

Yeah, I, I am telling you, I mean, telling you all, my listeners, you know, this is what we want. We want actors, actresses, and, you know, recording artists. We want people with disabilities seen. We don't want someone playing the part of a person with a disability. We want people with disabilities. Now here we are. We have this recording artist who took time to start this organization, RAMPD, R-A-M-P-D dot O-R-G. This holiday, when you are setting aside money that you give before the end of the year, you've got to remember this organization. Because someday, someday, you'll want to talk to this Lachi, and it'll be hard to get to her. So, RAMP.org. That's where you go, RAMP.org. And I got to tell you something, Lachi, I'm so glad you're a disability rights advocate because may I say, I want people without disabilities to stop changing our name. Okay? We have a culture. As Judy Heumann says, we're not differently abled, we're not handicappable, we're not all these millions of words you come up with. We're people with disabilities. We have our own culture. We are people with disabilities. It's not called the Americans with Differently Abled Act. And stop saying take the "dis" out of disability. You know what? Or the little "dis" and then big capitals. You're saying there's something wrong with us. Just remember that. We are people with disabilities.

Joyce, can I add something to that? Yes. You know, listen, when people do that, when people say, "Oh, the ability," or "Let's focus on the ability part," or all that crap— pardon my French— I just feel like disability is part of my identity, and ability is not part of my identity. Disability is part of my identity. So, when you take the "dis" out of disability, you're just taking away part of my identity. It's like saying— taking the African out of African American or taking the wo out of woman. It's like disability is one full word. It is my identity. Don't disrespect my identity by cutting it in half. I am telling you that I identify as disabled. Respect it.

Amen. And you know, I'm going to tell you, Lachi. I am the CEO of a national for-profit company that focuses on the employment of people with disabilities and a not-for-profit for high school students with disabilities to prepare them for the world of work and dealing with bullying. And you'll be very happy to know we are partnering with the CLO used to be known as the Civic Light Opera, uh, known nationally, musicals. And we're going to partner with them so that these students that graduate from the Bender Leadership Academy can take classes on singing or dancing or acting. And I'm, I'm so excited about all of that. I am really excited about it. But when you say When someone in the business industry says to me, oh, we don't call it, we don't call it our ERG group, we don't call it disability, we call it abilities. I say, who told you we wanted that? Who did that? You did. We didn't. You did. So you know what? Stop doing that. I love Lachi because she's all about no pity. And seeing us as people proud to say, "I am living with a disability." So what advice would you give young people with disabilities who are ashamed or who are hearing, you know, "You're weird, you're strange," or are being made fun of on cyberspace? What advice do you have for them?

You know, I think a lot of it is there's a lack of community a lot of the time, and there is real strength in community. And, you know, sometimes when someone, you know, makes fun of you or you get into this awkward situation, you want to be able to go back home and have someone to talk to. So there's a lot of strength in looking around for your community. The first thing I did, honestly, when I wanted to start walking in this light was I literally just Googled. I Googled, "Where are some events? Where are some listservs? Where can I find community?" I mean, honestly, that's why I started Ramped, because it was difficult to find that in the music space, but I was able to find some things in other spaces. I say start with finding other people in your community. That's number one. Now, I know that there is sort of a different beat when we talk about art and when we talk about you know, opera, music, culture, all of those kind of things. In that vein, I say also get really, really good. You know, get as good as you can at the thing that you love, at the thing that you want to pursue. Love it. Do it for the love of it, so that if someone denies you of something, it's not because of you not being good enough. It's because of their own ignorance. And that's something that we can— we're all working to change. So if let's say for instance someone denies you the ability to get a gig, well if you go home and you say, "They denied me because I had a disability, but I'm awesome and really good at it," then we can all as a community work with you. So you would have to be able to be really good at what you're doing. So definitely never forget to love what you want to do and do it. But I think really honestly, community is one of the biggest actionable ways. I know a lot of people say like, oh, don't worry about it, you know, believe in yourself, follow your dreams, do this, do that. And it's like, well, how do I do that? I think step one, a real good actionable item, is to find community. And that can just start with a Google search. So that's number one.

Wow, such Great advice. I agree with you. So here's what we have to know, Lachi, before the show ends today. When will your first signal— single be out, and how do our listeners get it?

Okay, so I am so excited about my upcoming single. Right now I'm working on a song, a track, and as you know, I'm an EDM vocalist, so I'm working on a dance track called Black Girl Cornrows, and what it is, is it's celebrating visual description, self-description, and I mean, I'm a Black girl with cornrows. In the blind community, we really embrace folks doing visual descriptions, but at the same time, we can't stand it when people just take forever doing them, and we can't stand it when people are so afraid to actually self-describe because they have no idea how to do it, and so that's what Black Girl Chormos does. We're here to celebrate self-description and do it in a fun-as-heck way. And so that's what's coming out. That's gonna probably be coming out at the top of November, and I'm really excited to say that I'll be working with one of my favorite production duos, Black Caviar. They are a big hit out here in the EDM space, in house music. I'm also going to be having some really close and fun friends on the track featured with me. Question, who is a blind rapper out of Atlanta who's doing some big things down there, is going to be on the track. And Yvie Oddly, who is RuPaul's Drag Race Season 10 winner, and she's also been on a lot of the sort of comeback all-star shows, she is going to be on our track, which I'm really excited about. The track is heavily supported by the Pop Culture Collaborative., and they're all about changing narratives, and we got a lot of funding from their Becoming America Fund because of this sort of want to infiltrate pop culture with disability culture. So that's what this is all about, and then it's also just like a really fun song. So I'm really excited for this song. If you're a fan of Doja Cat, if you're a fan of Lizzo, Azealia Banks, this kind of track is what you're going to really want to check out. So keep an ear out for that. It's going to be hitting a Spotify near you. Black Girl Cornrows.

Uh, well, you know, you have to let me know so that I can tell everyone that it's out. You have to tell me when it comes out. You gotta tell me because you know we love Lachi. So you've got it. You've got to tell me. I want credit when you get those t-shirts made when you're Bigger rock star? I want to know, I want to know. Uh, well, I'm assuming we can follow you on Instagram, Twitter. Yes, yes, other social media.

Um, yeah, you can follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, YouTube, uh, whatever else there. Google TikTok. I'm everywhere. So literally Google Lachi. Lachi like Versace. I'm out there. L-A-C-H-I. I am. All right, if you— you can't miss me. I'm the— I'm the black girl walking down New York City with a cane and people are just jumping out the way. That's me.

Oh, well, you can't miss her. And wait till you hear her. Oh my God. Well, listen, Lachi, thank you for being with us, but I want to tell you, we end every show with a quote, and I couldn't wait for this quote today. Ready? Are you ready, Lachi?

Yes.

Yes. Folks with disabilities should celebrate the fact that we are the disruptors, said Lachi. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Fala lachi, and in the words of Mary Brooker, choose joy.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com. Since 1985, Bender Consulting Services has served as a national leader in advancing employment of people with disabilities including veterans with disabilities, with private sector companies and federal government agencies.

Bender assists customers with achieving their diversity and workforce inclusion initiatives by tapping into a talent pool of individuals seeking professional positions, including those in the STEM fields.

In addition, Bender services include disability employment consulting, training in technology accessibility through their HI-TEST line of service. For more information, please visit www.benderconsult.com.