PHG UNLOCKED: Lisane Basquiat on Legacy, Healing, and Her Brother Jean-Michel Basquiat

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome one and all to the Professional Homegirl Podcast. Before
we begin today's episode, we want to remind you that
the views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those
of the host and guests and are intended for educational
and entertaining purposes. In this safe space, no question is
off limits because you never know how someone's storyline can
be your lifeline. The Professional Homegirl Podcast is here to

(00:22):
celebrate the diverse voices, stories and experiences of women of color,
providing a platform for authentic and empowering conversations. There will
be some key king, some tears, but most importantly a
reminder that tough times don't last, but professional Homegirls do
enjoy the show.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hey, Professional Homegirls, esheger Ebine here and I hope all
is cute listen. I cannot believe that we are finally
here at this season two finale. I mean, this, hands
down has been one of my favorite seasons. And y'all
know I talk to a lot of different people from
different walks of life, but I don't know, I just

(01:09):
feel like with this season it has definitely been filled
with truth, transformation, and just a powerful reminder that there
is beauty and brokenness, but to close it out. I
am honored and excited to share such an expiring conversation
with none other than Lesan Byskiat. Leisan is an entrepreneur

(01:32):
and advocate dedicated to helping people reconnect with who they are,
why they're here, and what becomes possible when they nurture
a healthy relationship with themselves. She's the founder and CEO
of Shape and Freedom, a personal growth company focused on
inner alignment, spiritual wellness, and legacy building. She also leads

(01:53):
Shaping Sanctuary and hair a Hub, cars Bag and co
administers the estate of her brother, the legendary artists John
Michelle boskiat ensuring his legacy lives on and his art
reaches new audiences. In this intimate conversation, Lisan and I
open up about her family history, the way of grief,
and the sacred responsibility of carrying legacy. She shares how

(02:16):
she continues to host space for transformation, both her own
and others, and why the path to wholeness begins from within.
Plus she answered a few of our professional homegirl questions. Y'all,
hands down, it was such an honor to speak to
Lisan byskiyach. She was such a birth of fresh air,
and I cannot wait for you all to hear. I

(02:37):
feel like everything that I had worked so hard for
led me up to this moment. So I am just
incredibly thankful to Lisan and her team for making this happen.
So I really do hope that you all enjoyed this
conversation as much as I did. And thank you so
much for rocking with me for season two. So get
ready because our season finale with Lisan Skiach starts now.

(03:03):
All right, y'all, I am super excited to have today's
guests on the show. It's not every day I have
rority on the Professional Homegirl podcast. Lisan, how are you?
Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
I'm doing so well, Ebane, thank you so much. I'm
doing good. I'm doing okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, first off, we have to start the show off
by saying, congratulations on your day.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
February twenty fifth, Black History Month, Lesan Basquiat Day.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yes? How does that feel for you? You know, it
feels surreal. I was shocked at the recognition and at
the acknowledgment, and also felt very humbled and honored that
I'd be recognized in that way. And I'm still It's

(03:55):
a month later and I'm still feeling feeling very humbled
by to be honest, and how cool.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Is that you have a day in Black History Month.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Oh no, I just have a day period rather than
my birthday. I'm just yeah, yeah, so now you have
two days, yes, ma'am, I actually have three hundred and
sixty five days. Come right, you know I have three
hundred and sixty five and two of them are more
public days, my birthday and the Proclamation Day. But yeah,

(04:27):
it feels pretty good. I'm very excited about it.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Now, when you reflect on all of your work, both
in the spotlight and behind the scenes, what do you
think that recognition truly represents?

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Oh, you're coming right out with the great questions. I
have to get my oprah on with you.

Speaker 5 (04:42):
Okay. I worked hard to get to this moment.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
I think it represents. It represents all of the work
that I've done and the all of the work that
I've done over the years to really be very serious
about my life and about my time on this planet.
And by serious, I don't mean serious without the smile.

(05:12):
I mean to be very honored and to take the
assignment of this lifetime seriously.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, you know, when you think about your parents, your
father's discipline and your mother's creativity, how do you see
them reflected in the woman you become, Because I feel
like this could be kind of like a full circle
moment for you.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, it is. What I got from my parents was
the best that they had to give, and I've been
able to take the good, you know, take the wonderful
things that I want to bring forward, like my father's strong,
strong work ethic, his confidence, his problem solving ability and

(05:58):
ability to take the things that he was confronted with
and the things that came to him and to find
a way out of no way. And for my mother,
I was able to get just the softness of her spirit.
My mother was a very kind woman. She was a
very heart centered human being who loved art, who loved creativity,

(06:26):
who loved theater and museums and culture. And I think
that between what I've been able to get from both
of them was really a beautiful, beautiful mix that I
didn't fully appreciate until much later in my life. But
a very blessed and happy to have had.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, in what ways it be in first generation create
both pressure and pride in your household.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Oh wow, girl, I don't know if you know what
the first generation.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
Thing is, like, I already know. My friends tell me
all the time.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Let me tell you, it's a lot of pressure. Yeah,
it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of what
I heard A lot was you know, in my country,
we did it this way. And I also heard a
lot I heard. I also heard a lot of my
father's uh story about his the resilience that he had

(07:24):
in coming to this country as a very young man
from another country, speaking a completely different language, with a
different climate and a different culture, and what it took
for him to acclimate to this country and also to
forge his own path here in this country. And so
as a first generation for me, it was really living

(07:47):
a parallel life and culture in many ways, because at
home that was kind of the thing. And then I
was born in Brooklyn. I grew up in Brooklyn. No,
come on now, and you know, so I grew up
in Brooklyn, and you know, Brooklyn has a culture of
its own. And so I always felt in some way
which I think has helped me in the work that

(08:09):
I do today and in the sensibility that I have
about the world. It helped to give me a really
well rounded, forgiving and inclusive lens through which to view
the world and to view people.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, okay, so you know, I have a lot of
listeners from New York, so we gotta do a New
York conversation right quick.

Speaker 5 (08:32):
What part of Brooklyn is you grew in?

Speaker 3 (08:35):
So initially in Flatbush on thirty fifth Street, right off
of Beverly Road, right between Beverly and Cotilia. East thirty
fifth between Beverly and Katilia is where you know where
we were at first, and then later on Borham Hill.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
And then what high school?

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Did you go to? Brooklyn Tech? Okay? Okay?

Speaker 5 (08:52):
And did you go to college in New York?

Speaker 3 (08:55):
I went to City College. I went to NYU for
part of it, and I did it as an adult,
and I was paying for college by myself, and it
was explusive because at the time I didn't work, I
didn't work somewhere where it was covered, and so I
paid for it out of pocket as a single mother
for a while, and then did the second half of

(09:16):
it through City College of New York. An amazing, amazing
academic experience.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, you miss New York.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I'm in New York all the time. I do not
miss New York. Let me tell you, Okay, I love
New York. I love New York. Okay, And I live
on the West Coast now, and so I'm by coastal
I go back and forth. What I love about the
West Coast is that it is things aren't that serious.
You know. I can kind of go outside of my

(09:44):
pajamas and nobody cares, right, you know, right, And I
love that. I love the softness of that. I also
love the fact that I can be around nature, which
is very important to me. But I get back to
New York and there's nothing. It is like no other city.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
In no place like New York.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, yeah, no place.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
My grandma used to always say, the city's so nice.
They named it twice.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
That's right, that's right. I don't miss New York because
I'm there so often. But during the pandemic, I was
gone for thirteen months, and when I got back to
New York, I got to tell you, the first person
that yelled at me and cursed me out in the streets,
I was like, yeah, I missed y'all, and back to you.

(10:28):
You know, it's good to be able to kind of
like pull that grit out because the thing about it,
the thing about New York is that you fall, and
you can fall on the street and they will tell
someone will walk up, a stranger on the street to
walk up and start picking you up. They'll tell you
that you're stupid for not paying attention to the crack

(10:49):
of the street. While they're picking you up. I will
pick you up, dust you off, put your purse back
on your shoulder, and send you on your way. So
shout out to New York.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
I like, I know, I know.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
So next time you come come back home me, I
gotta take you out.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Oh I'm there all the time. Girl, don't tell me.
Don't listen. They'll teach you at a good time. They'll
tease me, what a good time? Because I did it.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Now before the new before the world. Knew your brother,
John Michelle, you knew him as your brother. So what
was he like growing up? Because when the research I did,
I feel like he was like a little prankster.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Oh totally, Oh yeah, one hundred percent, hundred percent. He
was a prankster. He was super curious and love knowledge
and also loved to h He was a scientist of sorts,
and so he really loved to put things together and
see what could work and what wouldn't work, and what
he could you know, what trouble he can get into.

(11:42):
I mean that was the result of it. But I
think his uh, what was informing him was the desire
to learn and just and to try things out and experiment.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
So how did you and your siblings support each other
and shaping your identities and ambitions? Like, did y'all ever
have conversations of which y'all wanted to be or who
you want to be when you was growing up?

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Nope, sorry, now just giving you a hard time. No, No,
we didn't talk specifically about that, but we always knew
who we were and we always supported each other in
whatever it was that was going on. I mean, for us,
the conversation wasn't like we didn't sit around as children saying,

(12:24):
you know, you are going to become the most prolific
painter in the world, right, and you are going to
do this other thing and you're gonna, you know, have
an interest in human behavior and express it through shaping freedom.
But we were always who we were, so the conversations

(12:48):
that we had were always around creativity. For my sister
and my brother, you know the way my sister saw
the world and the experiences and thought that I had
about the ways that people interact with each other.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
You know, I love when you and your sister do
interviews together because I can just tell that when she's
telling the story, it's like for you, it's like paint
a picture and it's like, oh, like I didn't know that,
And then you chime in and then she'll give you
the same look of admiration and stuff, and I'm like,
that is so cool.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
My sister and I vibe off each other.

Speaker 5 (13:23):
Yeah, yeah, I can tell.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Now, you always talk about how your father played such
a central role in your upbringing. So how did being
raised primarily by him shape how you saw the world
at such a young age.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
You know. For when I was younger, it bothered me
because I didn't see I didn't see my life anywhere
outside of my home. I didn't know a lot of
There are a couple of things that were very different
about our lives. So we grew up in a brownstone
in Brooklyn and Burham Hill. Our father was an immigrant
from another country. That was not the case for a

(13:59):
lot of people people that I was around. We were
raised by him and not with our mother in the household,
which was very different and was very challenging as a
young girl growing up to not have your mother in
the house. But what it did was it helped me
as a young person and then later as an adult,

(14:23):
to have had that experience of not just having my
father in the home, but having him be the central figure,
central parenting figure in my home. And so that was
very different, I think than the experience that a lot

(14:43):
of my friends had. So I got to know my
father very closely. I got to really experience him as
a parent, as a father, as a man, as a
black man, and as a as someone who's acclementing, acclimating

(15:04):
excuse me, to a new culture. So I think it
really shaped me. It also shaped my confidence in myself. Yeah,
it shaped yeah. And it also shaped my unwavering determination
to and belief in myself that whatever it is what
I set my mind to do, I can actually do

(15:27):
and without worrying about or think overthinking how that might
fit into the reality that someone else has for me.

Speaker 5 (15:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
You know, when I was doing research or your family,
I really grew a soft spot for your dad. And
the reason why I did is because I think one
of the biggest misconceptions about your family is the nature
of his relationship with your brother. And you know, when
I was doing my research, I realized it's your father.
He experienced a lot of lass because, if I'm not mistaken,

(16:02):
his father and his brother were killed or they died
or something. It's like when they was in Haiti.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
In Haiti right before my father got here, which was
part of the reason, a big part of the reason
why my grandmother allowed him to come here at you know,
at eighteen.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Years old, right, And I feel like he was on
his journey of pursuing his threat and shaping his own freedom.
Which is so funny because the name of your podcast
is called Shaping Freedom.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, So, knowing everything that you know about what your
father carried with him when it comes to the grief
and the sacrifice and the resilience, how do you think
that shaped the way he fathered all of y'all.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
I think my father, like any other parent, you wind
up learning how to You wind up learning how to
parent yourself in parallel with the experience of parenting your
children and what you wind up doing whether you choose

(17:01):
to show up for the opportunity or not is having
this opportunity to reconcile your childhood and so from my
father specifically Gerard Bosque is his name for my father. Specifically,
he came to this country at a relatively young age,

(17:22):
and so that meant that he was here in this country,
in a foreign country by himself.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
Yeah, but no blueprints and.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
With no blueprints, so he had to create the blueprint
himself and decide how he was going to move forward.
And then you have children, and unfortunately, fortunately or fortunately
you don't really recognize that you are walking a journey
in parallel with another human being that you bring into

(17:51):
the world while you're still trying to figure out yourself.

Speaker 5 (17:56):
That's a lot.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, and I'm a parent, I'm a grand mother today.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
I am okayd ama, Yes, I am.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, And so I mean that's one of the things
that I recognize and didn't recognize as fully until I
became a parent myself. You know. So while you're thinking about, well,
I wanted to do this and now I'm in court,
you know, I really always wanted to be a teacher
and social work and for me at the time, social

(18:29):
work meant something different than what it really means for me.
It was. I care about the world. I care about
our society, and why do people why are women put
into this box? Like why for a woman who chooses
to be at home or to be a housewife or
to do that, that's a wonderful thing and she has

(18:49):
the right to do that. And for a woman who
chooses to do that and also live her own dreams,
why is that so challenging? And why what is it
that a person has to do to unlock within themselves
the ability to be able to stand with a foot

(19:10):
in two different worlds in order to in order to
be to be whole for herself and in order to
have a positive relationship with herself. And we do all
of that work while we're showing up for children.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
That's a lot.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
It is a lot, and I think that sometimes we
underestimate how a lot it truly truly is. And so
for me sitting here, I look at my ancestors that
include at this point, my father, my brother, and my
mother Matilda Bosquah, my grandparents, and I look at how

(19:48):
at the decisions that they made and some of the
decisions that they believed that they had to make, all
while taking care of other people. It is a lot.
It's a huge journey, and I think that we humans
can give ourselves a little bit of grace and a break.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah. You know, you have such a beautiful voice.

Speaker 5 (20:10):
Anybody told you that?

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Thank you?

Speaker 2 (20:13):
I feel like it is like, so I'm like trying
to pay attention.

Speaker 5 (20:17):
I'm like, oh my god, her voice.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Thank you, thank you. I was just going to say,
I think the whole thing is, you know, we're I
think that we believe that we're supposed to do things
in a certain way, and then life steps in. And
so you did make mention of my father's grief and
going back to that for a moment, and I appreciate

(20:40):
the fact that you brought that up because what happened
is and what happened with him happens with anyone who
any parent that loses their child, and losing a child
and having any aspect of that very person and intimate

(21:01):
pain in a public way just exacerbates the entire situation.
So what my father and my mother wound up doing
is experiencing the loss of their son, their oldest child,
while also stepping in to make sure that my son,

(21:23):
that my brother's interests were taken care of because he
was the artist that he was, while also having two
other children that he had to you know, parent and
continue to go through life with. And so that is
grief while living. That's incredible pain while living. And it's

(21:46):
also the challenge of doing all of that while having
people the public have opinions about it and also genuinely
love and respect and your your child. So that is
not an easy journey to walk, and it wasn't easy
for him, nor was it easy for my mom, and

(22:09):
it certainly is challenging for my sister.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
And I Yeah, you know, I'm jumping ahead, but that
was definitely one of my questions when I was doing
my research on you. And I'm not gonna say no names,
but y'all was on a particular show and this person
was being very insensitive with the questions and I can
tell you gave a look, and so did your sister,
and I'm like, oh, they hold it back. But I
feel like a lot of times people forget the family

(22:35):
or the human behind the legacy.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, they do. I think people forget the family behind
the legacy. And I think that people also forget that
this is my brother right who passed, who passed away,
And it's very easy sometimes to or let me let me,
let me restate that I think people do forget. Most

(23:02):
people are so excited about the profound impact that Seam
Michelle has had on their lives that they just want
to get that out. And for me, what has helped
is to gently remind people, you know, is the space
that they're actually stepping into. Now. My sister and I
are not the only siblings to have lost a sibling.

(23:25):
We're not the only women to have lost a sibling.
It is a very unique experience and it changes the
course of the way that you interact, even with your parents,
because your parents become very delicate because they're going through
incredible reasons for obvious reasons. And so you know, as

(23:47):
a child in that, even if you're an adult, because
I was twenty four years old when Jeff Michelle passed
away and my sister was twenty one, you step differently,
you do. And I think that there are times that
people are a little insensitive and I remind them with love,

(24:08):
with love, respectfully, respectfully and with love, and most people
most people get that and they are apologetic or you know,
they hear it, and some people don't. And then you know,
I'm from Brooklyn, I can get my point across.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, oh I saw you gave the first thing. Look
I said, there she go. So that's a long time
about bigxus No.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Diane, that that helped me though, I see something positive
in every single experience when I got it. When when
that was over, I know, I'm yeah, of course I do.
I was like, oh, we did that. Okay, that was
it's done. So it happened once and and it helped
Shinning and I both I think to know what we're

(24:55):
made of. Yea, And it was okay.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
I can't stop laughing because I was literally just watching this,
watching that interview, and I was talking to my cousin
because he loved everything about your family's legacy, and he
was like, yeah, I don't know why he did that,
and he started using colorful language, and I'm like, calm damn,
calm down. I was like, they handle it with grace,
like they did their thing.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
No, he was cutting up. That was unnecessary. Yeah, definitely,
but it's okay. But it's okay. M h it happens. Now.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Did your brother ever have a moment where he felt
like he made it, especially in your in your father's eyes, Like,
did they ever have that moment when your father was
able to see like, Okay, I see it now.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Yeah, I mean I think it happened along the way.
Things don't always happen in that kind of like boys
in the hood moment, right, Like sometimes it's just like
you know, going to an opening or seeing the look
on someone's face or seeing something beautiful that they created.
I think that Jeamishah has left a legacy boat during
his lifetime and after that creates this feeling of awe

(26:06):
and respect in the people who view what he's created.
So I know they had their moments where they had
their moments where my father was really afraid. He's like,
what do you mean You're gonna be walking around with
your red locks and your hair and you're gonna be
a painter. Like my father's like, you better go and
become an accountant or a lawyer, right, get your white

(26:28):
picket fence and get it together. You want to do
what you wonder, what you know. But that's and that
is the situation that confronts a lot of fathers and
sons and sons with their fathers where it's like my
father had this diligence and this determination and the strength,
and what he got confronted with was the mirror of

(26:51):
the diligence, the work, ethic, the strength. But they were
headed in two different directions. But the behavior and the
things that drove my brother were the very same things
that drove my father. So in terms of success and
the realization of a dream, they both had a recipe

(27:12):
for doing that and then had their unique spin on it. So, yes,
they had lots of moments where my father had to
admit or acknowledge that my brother's path, that my brother
knew was his path, was indeed the path for him.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Oh that is so, that's exactly what I have in
my notes. I feel like your father was his blueprint,
but just in a different form.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
Absolutely, But people don't always recognize that, right, Like you
look at a lot of you know, parents, when there's
a parent and a child adult or otherwise that is
running into conflict. I think that if we can take
a step beneath the story, a step beneath the thing
that people are arguing back and forth about, and go

(27:57):
a couple of layers underneath, we can almost always find
there's a common there's a commonality there, there's a common
intention there, and what we fight with our parents or
our children about is mostly about the how, the way
they choose to do the thing. It's not the what.
But we focus on the what exactly, and we stay

(28:19):
at the what, and then we walk away never getting
to the place where we can really acknowledge. We focus
on the what, and we don't versus.

Speaker 5 (28:30):
The how exactly.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And I always say when I'm praying for certain things,
I focus on what. I let God worry.

Speaker 5 (28:35):
About the how.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Exactly, because we get so.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Caught up in the how, and then next thing, you know,
nothing's moving. Like just focus on what you suposed to
focus on and keep That's right.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
That's right. And both my brother chem Mischalle Boscat and
my father Gerard Boscatt, I don't know if you went
to the exhibition, the King Pleasure Exhibition or not.

Speaker 5 (28:54):
I know I missed it.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Oh I know, I know, but I'm not missing the
next one.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
And I got a direct so.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
We're not doing that one again. But I will say
something else that right always. But what I will say
is that there's a page from my father's address book
when he was very very young, and it says, I'm
going to be I'm going to be a successful American businessman, right,
And that was his proclamation, and that's what he went

(29:24):
to go do. And my brother did the same thing
about becoming a prolific and incredible artist. And so I
think the lesson in that for all of us is
get clear about what it is that you want, get
clear about the what, and then figure out the how.
So you can't they have to work with each other.

(29:47):
Be clear about why you want it first of all.
Then get clear about what it is that you want,
and then work through the how. And if you do that,
the things we want actually can happen and manifest.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
That's a fact. That is a fact. And I'm not
missing the next one. She gave me a side eye,
y'all for the listeners. You know what side I I'm
not missing the next exhibit.

Speaker 5 (30:09):
When it I was beating myself up.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
We're not doing that exhibition anymore. We did it, we
did LA, we did we did New York, we did LA.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Okay, Well, whenever a new exhibit comes, I'm not missing it.
I'm gonna be right there, okay, okay, between you and
your sister hugging y'all like.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
That's okay.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Now, I feel like another misconception of John Michelle is
that he would have had a problem with the Tiffany
exhibit or the add with Beyonce and jay Z. But
I don't feel like he would have had a problem
with that because your brother loved luxury.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
My brother loved luxury. Yes, So that's how I was
going to ask, from what perspective do you think that
people believe that he would have a problem with it.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
I just feel like it was a lot of noise
that people were always talking about how they didn't agree
with that, with his artwork being associated with Tiffany and
jay Z and beyonceing things so that nature I'm like, wow,
like this is the man that used to wear Aremani suits.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Like, I don't know, you mean the man the man
who wore Amani suits, who drank sake, who wrote limousines,
had a Leke crousette before. I mean, come on, now,
I think that there are people do say that there
are those comments, and I and my sister try to
focus on the eighty five or ninety percent of the

(31:29):
other comments, and there were always people who step in
and say, you know, his you know, he wouldn't agree
with this, so he wouldn't agree with that. And the
truth of the matter is is that if you understand
the that things take money. Yeah, that and that che
Michelle loved buying things, and he had a really good

(31:51):
time and he enjoyed his time on this planet. And
he did with his money what he chose to do
with his money as he should, as he should And
just like there's a tiffany thing. And maybe there's some
people who disagree with that that it's okay because it's
not their decision to make, but there were also just
you know, we also have you know, we've also done

(32:15):
deals and licensing deals with other companies. Our goal is
to make sell Michell's art work accessible and so we
have done that.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Now, if both your father and John Michelle were here today,
what kind of conversations do you think they're be having
with each other.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
Yeah, I think they'd be having the same conversations Ebana,
that that any father and son would have. You know,
I think they'd be talking about the world. I think
they'd be talking about what's happening in the world, what's
happening in this country, what's you know, they'd be talking
about popular culture for sure, because we talked a lot

(32:57):
about that. We grew up talk about popular culture and
you know, about film and music and art and all
of those things, and I think those conversations would have
continued and evolved into wherever they were going to evolve to.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Now as a black man in art, do you know
if people ever questioned John Michelle's greatness? And the reason
why I asked is because I feel like oftentimes when
black people aren't allowed to be great, like everything has
to be justified or it has to be a reason,
like it just can't be pure talent.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Oh yeah, I think he was. If you've seen any
of his any of the interviews that were done, he
was constantly challenged and his patience was constantly tested. Because
he was people wanted to put him into a box.
And if you know anything at all about Sea Michelle Bosquiat,
He's not going to be put into a box. And

(33:53):
so people would say things like, you know, he was
a black artist, and they wouldn't say that as a
way of honoring him. They would say it as a
way of you know, he's an artist, but he's black,
and he's black, and he was not happy about that.
And there are actually a few interviews where he pushed

(34:15):
back and said, no, I'm just an artist. You know,
I'm just an artist because when you look at the
magnificence that is Jean Michel Basquier, you forget like you
look at his art and it's like, this is an
incredible artist amongst all artists from all places and all times.

(34:36):
He's an incredible, incredible artist. So, yes, he struggled with
that quite a bit, or other people struggled. I mean,
he didn't struggle. He knew who he was, but he
did confront people who wanted to put him into a
box or people who chose to express their racism in

(34:57):
his face.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Yeah, your relationship with your mother influence how you show
up with show up in relationships today.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
My relationship with my mother was that's a good question, Ebane.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
My relationship with little Oprah.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
My relationship my relationship with my mother was a really
beautiful one. We didn't I saw my mother every weekend.
I was in contact with my mother all the time,
and it wasn't until I was in my until I
had my son Joseph, that I got to really sit
down and confront my mother with the loss and abandonment

(35:41):
at the time that I felt at the time not
having grown up in the home with my mother. Again,
like I said before, I knew of people who grew
up without their father in the house, but I didn't
know anyone who grew up without their mom. And so
I was very angry, and I was very confused, and
I felt very hurt by that. And when my mother

(36:05):
and I finally had the opportunity to sit down and
really talk about it, what I commended my mother for
and what my mother modeled for me as a mother
and as a woman today is how to stand and
to take accountability for the decisions, to take responsibility and

(36:26):
accountability for the decisions that were made. And so I
remember going to her and talking to her about all
the things that I experienced and what my mother would
say to me that I didn't fully understand at the time.
Where that frustrated me at the time was I did
that because I believed that that was the right thing
for you kids, and it was. She didn't back down

(36:48):
off her thing, off of her decision, She didn't make
excuses for her decision. She allowed me to sit in
the truth of her decision and allowed me to sit
in the truth of what her decision did to me.

(37:09):
Or how I was impacted by the truth of her
decision and to truly truly process that versus trying to
versus allowing me to try to make her make it
better for me, although it already happened, and that was
that took incredible courage on her part and incredible love

(37:34):
to allow me to sit in the truth of that.
And so that, coupled with not having grown up in
a home with my mother and having grown up under
some of the circumstances that I did, being different, feeling
different and all that, it has helped me to have

(37:56):
more grace for people. It's also helped me to see
the world outside of the mainstream kind of we can
only think these three things.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
Right.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
If we don't think these three things, if we don't
sign up for these three ideals, we're not black, we're
not people, we don't belong. You know. It really helped
me to see through the facade of that and to
be more inclusive, more welcoming, more understanding, and more forgiving

(38:27):
humans because humans just human.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, yeah, we just you know, that's so funny you
said that, because I'm in an exact situation with my father.
I never met my father, but we have been trying
to build a relationship for a thousand years now, and
finally I'm just at a place I'm like, you know what,
let me just meet this man where he's at, Like
we already hear now, there is no need to have

(38:49):
let the past.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
Be the past.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
And I believe at the I believe that since I'm
allowing him to just be a man and to be
honest about his shortcomings. Because my father has always struggled
with drugs, it has taught me compassion. Yeah, it really has.
And I didn't think that someone who has hurt me
and who was never in my life and teach me that.
So I really appreciate you sharing it. And that's something

(39:13):
that I've been sharing with my listeners. Just you got
to get people grace and you got to meet them
word they Yet.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Can I say something else about that? So my mother
struggled with mental illness and that just exacerbated the entire
thing for me, and I think that the thing that
really helped, And I will say this, by the time
my mother passed away in two thousand and eight, and

(39:40):
for a good ten to fifteen years before that, my
mother and I enjoyed the best relationship ever, Nay the
best and the reason why we were able to enjoy
the best relationship, the closest relationship, was because we lived

(40:00):
in a space of accepting life for what it was,
not for what I wanted it to be. Because sometimes
if you if you're in this situation with a parent
or with anyone, and you go into it never accepting

(40:22):
what is, that's where the pain comes. The pain comes
in when we resist the truth. When I was able
to say I grew up without my mother in my house,
when I had you know, when when when when I
got my period, I didn't have a mother. When I
you know, met my first boyfriend and had that situation,

(40:42):
I didn't have the softness of my mother to tell
me and guide me through that. I see all these
other people who had the mother with the apron, you know,
the mama who would bring him into their bus and
making I didn't have that making cookies and stuff. I
didn't have that right right. But when I was willing,
when I got to the point where I was willing

(41:03):
to truly live in the truth of what happened and
to accept it and not resist it, even though there
were parts of that story that I wished had been
different or would have wanted to have been different. It
opened up a completely different door to the ability for
my mother and I to enjoy a real, true friendship.

(41:25):
We were not going to go back to and we
had that. We had it out with that too. Where
she was. I remember one day, if I do I
have a moment to tell.

Speaker 5 (41:34):
You, work all time in the world.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
So my mother, my mother was This is after I
had Joseph. My mother had come to babysit and so
I was like, I'm gonna try this out and see,
you know whatever. And so she was babysitting, taking care
of Joseph is what she was doing, my son. And
she was at my house for the weekend. And so
I at the time, I was working at night, and
so she would come during the week and stay with

(41:59):
me so that I could go to work at night.
And you know, she was at home with Joseph during
the day, during the day while I was sleeping, and
at night while I was at work. Anyway, I remember
coming in one day and my mother was sitting on
the couch and Evan and she was sitting there with
that look that a parent has when you have done
something wrong. And I walked in and I'm like, hey,

(42:22):
you know whatever, and what's going on? And she says,
and she takes these three photos and she throws them
on the table. And I looked at the photos and
I had taken these photos. I was these are photos
I took with my boyfriend. Let me just say that,
because I'm like, what type of photos were they? And
I looked at her and I said what And she says,

(42:46):
what is that? And I said, well, they're what they
look like. The bigger question is where'd you get it? Right?
And she says, oh, I just got them there in
your room. I said, oh, yeah, they were in my room,
in my all underneath everything on the bottom, which means
you were looking through my stuff. What would be right?

(43:06):
And so, you know, we kind of went back and
forth for a couple of minutes about that, and then
I looked at her and I just said, listen, can
you not try like you don't have to make up
for the fact that you weren't there when I was younger? Right,
this feels like an old kind of thing because I

(43:29):
was at this point, I lived by myself, I'm an apartment,
I had my own kid, I was you know, grown,
you were grown and I was grown or I thought
I was grown so at that point. So then what
it helped both of us, I think to realize is
you can't go back. You can only move forward. You
can accept each other for where you are, you can
accept the situation that you're in, you can forgive each other,

(43:51):
and you can only move forward. And so us being
able to do that, me not trying to get her
to be my mommy when I was six again, and
her not trying to get me to be six years
old so she could be my mommy really helped us
to get to know each other as humans, to get
to know each other as women, and then later to

(44:12):
get to know each other as in our roles as parents,
even though they were so unconventional.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
You know, I'm gonna have a real honest moment because
I want to ask you a question.

Speaker 5 (44:23):
Is hard?

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Was it hard for you to tell your mother you
love her? And the reason why I'm asking you that
is because my father, I think he's trying to live
and have those moments with me, and I'm like, we
passed that, Like I'm pushing forty now, Like there's I
think right now, you just need to meet me where
we at and list build a relationship, and I feel
like he's always telling me which I understand and which

(44:45):
I because I am his child and I'm his only child,
so he expresses his love, but it has been really
difficult for me to say I love you.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Back because you haven't forgiven him. And as long as
you haven't forgiven him, if I can, yeah, as long
as you haven't forgiven him, you're holding that tension within
your own mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual body. And so

(45:14):
the reason so it could be that you believe that,
or let me ask you this question, why not tell
him you love them? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
I just can't say it, like and sometimes I want
to say it, like it's like it just won't come out.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Do you not want to let him off the hook?
I feel like I.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Did already, Like we talk every day, Like I feel
like I'm being very receptomp towards him, like even when
he has his moments or his shortcomings, like I'm okay
with it because I feel like I cannot have any
expectations if I want to have a relationship with you.
So but for some reason, I just can't say it,
and then he'll be like, I love you or he'll
call me my Mila named Tierra. I love you Tierra

(45:58):
like I miss you this net and I just like, okay,
that's nice to know, and I be I feel so horrible,
but I just can't say it.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
Have you forgiven him? Yeah? I have?

Speaker 2 (46:13):
I have, I promise I really have. Like I feel
like we've been trying.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
Have you forgiven him in here? Like? Have you forgiven
him enough that you can look at this man, that
you can take the glasses off the lens through which
you see him, and just as Ebene look at this
person as another human being? Have you forgiven him that much?

Speaker 2 (46:42):
I think so?

Speaker 3 (46:43):
Okay, I think so okay, I think all right, okay.
I think sometimes when we've been hurt, we don't want
to be vulnerable toward the person because we kind of
build up a wall. Or maybe the truth is that

(47:05):
you don't.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
M hmm, well, I guess I'll keep y'all posted.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
I think keep us posted on that. But I do
think I think that if if you because you didn't
say I really have it here and I'm holding it back,
it's like you have made a decision that you don't
want to do that right now. And I think that
giving yourself grace because you've experienced something here too. Yeah, right,

(47:35):
you experienced something, and you experienced something both because he
wasn't there and both because of the challenges that he
was going through. H And it takes time, you know,
And and I think that that's not something that you
can force upon your child.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Exactly, and.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Cannot force that. Yeah, yeah, you have to come to
a place when you get to the point where it's like, Okay,
those things happen. We can't go back in time. We
have to build a relationship from here. And so for him,
it's not living through the guilt. Maybe I don't know him,
maybe not living through the guilt or the regret of

(48:19):
what happened in the past, and being able to just
be here with you today and for you to be
able to do your own work, whatever that is, and
to just be with the relationship, because if you two
can just be with each other, then you'll truly get
to know who you both are, versus him seeing you

(48:40):
as the daughter that he disappointed and hurt and you
possibly seeing him as the father who disappointed you and
I hurt you.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Well, guys, that's the end of the show.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
You can cut all the satisfy. You said, cut it
all out now we have we really, we really have
to accept people for who they are, not for not
for who we want them to be. And I think
that that's true in every relationship, not the you know,
the sensitivity of the two relationships that you and I
are sharing, but I think in all relationships except people

(49:18):
for who they are, not for who you want them
to be. Some people you can close the door on them,
but you know they're coming back. That's parents, you know,
and children like those familiar relationships are for the rest
of our lives. And I think that forgiveness and not
holding people forever accountable while while also honoring the way

(49:44):
that we've been hurt in the experience. It was not
easy to live without my mother as a child, or
to to to have to parent myself in that way.
It was not easy. It wasn't easy to step into
relationships later on as a woman, not having witnessed a
relationship between my father and my mother. You know, those

(50:06):
things were not easy. And I think that it was
once I was able to really see and console and
acknowledge the little girl, the littly son, the six year old,
the seven, the ten, and really just kind of give
her a nod of acknowledgment. It wasn't as I was

(50:27):
able and willing to do that that those feelings kind
of dissipated and allowed me to step more fully into
my present moment.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yeah, that was good. Well, I know who to call
when I'm having some daddy problems.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Girl, Please call me, Please call me. I would be honored.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Do you think we would ever get your family story
in full or is it even possible? Because I feel
like your family story is so rich and it's so layered.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
I mean, I think if you if you went to
the exhibition that was our family story from the perspective
of Jem Michelle. Uh, if you read the catalog that
Shannine and I authored, King Pleasure Catalog, it was less
an art catalog, although it had all of the art

(51:25):
from the show in there, but it was also a
walk through our life and our history. And I think
that it's in pieces, just like everybody else's life. You know,
it's it's it's not you can't imagine telling an entire
the story of an entire line of ancestors through one

(51:49):
thing that's just one lens, one moment. I think it's pieces. Yeah,
it's pieces.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, grief doesn't have a timeline. So how has your reallylationship,
well loss shifted over the years.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
I think you have the initial shock and grief and
then over time it evolves because we evolve as human beings.
So when my sister and I, when Jenny and I
were working on the King Pleasure exhibition, we got down
to coming up with the details for this book and

(52:28):
also putting the exhibition together, opened up another layer of
the grief. But it felt different, it was deeper, and
it also felt different because I had changed, I had evolved,
I was sitting in a different seat at that time.
And it also that particular exhibition really opened up the

(52:52):
door to my ability to process my own loss because
I kind of bowed to the loss that my parents
experienced because I felt like my loss can never be
what theirs is because this is their trial. Yeah, So
in a lot of ways, I kind of repressed allowing

(53:13):
myself to fully experience that grief and it came up.
It came up during the creation of that exhibition and
it was it felt good. It was deep, and it
was painful, you know, emotionally painful, but it was an
incredible release because I was able to release something that

(53:33):
I didn't even know fully was there. Yeah, and so
it just helped me to see. I think grief is
an interesting thing and it evolves over time.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Yeah, one minute you crying, next minute you laugh.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
And next minute you're talking to yourself like grief, what
have you?

Speaker 5 (53:54):
On a roller coast?

Speaker 3 (53:55):
How do you do it? Yes? But but showing up
for it, showing up for it and being willing to
process is the best way in my opinion, of going
of processing grief. I think what hurts is, like I
said before, resistance of things, and as it relates to grief,
what hurts is when we try to hold it back,

(54:18):
act like it's not there, act like it's not there,
or try to shove it down. It's not always the
appropriate moment, you know, to fully express it. But today,
what I've learned how to do, and there are a
lot of different kinds of grief, but what I've learned
how to do with regard to grief about anything, not
just my brother or is if I can't express it

(54:42):
or allow it to be released in that moment, I
make sure that I give honor to that grief that
wants to come out, so it happened. It happened a
couple of weeks ago. And it wasn't like a big,
big grief. It wasn't death or anything like that. It
was just about some other things. And I could feel
it coming up, and there was a moment where I
couldn't really express it. But I'll tell you this. I

(55:04):
got myself a bathtub running that epsince salves up in
that thing. I lit myself a shaping freedom candle, small
plug plug for my shaping fom candles. I lit myself
a soothed candle, shaping freedom candle. I turned the lights
off in my bathroom, and I went to town and

(55:27):
cried my behind off. I cried, and I got out
and it was like okay, and really and I needed
that release and and and don't let the world and
the circumstances of the world convince you that you don't
have time to address yourself, to address what you need.

(55:48):
And by doing that, the next day, you know, I
went to sleep. I slept like a baby that night.
But the next day, I'm telling you it's some magnesium.
Those episodes, all of that perfect perfect. But I'll tell
you this, you walk lighter when you're willing to receive

(56:09):
it when you're willing to process your grief, when you're
willing to process the things that are bothering you, when
you're willing to give stage and give space to those things,
you travel lighter. That's what freedom is truly about. From
my perspective. You know that a mental and emotional freedom
comes when you cleanse those emotions. You cleanse those things

(56:33):
out the same way that you would take a broom
and sweep your bathroom floor, Like you've got to keep
things clean, and we clean all the external things, you know,
we brush our teeth every morning, we take a shower hopefully, right,
but but but we need to spend more time and

(56:56):
energy on cleansing the parts of us that people don't see. Yeah, yeah, right,
because we're feeling it. We're feeling it and it's bogging
us down, and you are showing up with all of that.
So other people are experiencing it, the bad breadth of
your bad emotions, even if they they're experiencing it because

(57:19):
we're not cleansing ourselves of it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
You know, I feel like you are a very spiritual
person throughout this entire process, because now we're going to
touch on you and your sister managing the estate. Did
you ever feel John Michelle's energy or spirit or did
you ever feel your parents' spirit around you?

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Yes? Yeah, absolutely absolutely, I can call upon that.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
So what were some of the early lessons you learned
when you began managing the estate and was it hard
for you to step out from your private life.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
Challenge? Yeah, it was. I don't know if I'm in
the spotlight, but it was challenging. It was challenging at first.
It was challenging at first. I think that the heart,
the the my father did a really good job of
protecting us and allowing us to create the lives that

(58:15):
we want to live. I went and I you know,
I started in corporate, which is I worked in corporate
for a long time, and I was in executive leadership,
and I had the ability to go out and you know,
build my own career. I became a coach after my
corporate life or in parallel my corporate life in the beginning,

(58:39):
and I was able to build a career, build a life,
prove myself to me and I'm very grateful to have
had that opportunity. I wasn't focused on my brothers, you know,
I was focused on my brother as a part of
my family. But it wasn't like Ama b askiaf Je
Michelle's sister, because I've always been a bust gap like. It

(59:01):
wasn't that and stepping into the role that my sister
and I stepped into when my father passed away was
it was challenging, It was big, It was it was
there was a lot that I did not know and
was not prepared for. But what I did realize is

(59:22):
that my father, who talked a lot and shared a lot,
he never sat down, which is what I wanted, right.
This kind of goes back to the conversation we had before.
In my mind, I wanted my father to sit me
down like Laurence Fishburne and boys in the hood and
be like, daughter, let me tell you about life that

(59:45):
did not happen, because you're thinking, know, right, that did
not happen. But what I realized when I gave up
on that, right when I stopped playing that narrative like
I wish he would have and why didn't he? And
when I gave up that was just like, Okay, let
me just look at life for what it is. Let
me look at the situation for what it was. I

(01:00:09):
started to realize that he had. But it was a
conversation over dinner, a remark that he made, something he
said about a person, something he shared with me about,
you know, someone who had reached out to him, and
so I realized that I really had everything that I needed.

(01:00:32):
But it was challenging because managing the estate of chem
Mischel Basquia means protecting his legacy as an artist, and
it also means that it has put me and my
sister and our family into this kind of place where

(01:00:53):
people believe that they have the right to give big, huge,
sweeping opinions about what you're doing with this treasure, this
you know, cultural treasure that is Yea Michelle. I learned
a lot. I learned a lot about myself. A couple
of things. One is to always remember that this is

(01:01:18):
about Jea Michelle. This is for Michelle, and talking specifically
about managing his estate, it's about Jea Michelle. It's for
che Michelle. And one of the things that Jannine and
I try to do is to do what we believe
che Michelle would want us to do. That has kept
us really in a place where we feel congruent with
our decisions and in integrity with our brother's legacy. I

(01:01:44):
also learned the importance of building my own life and
not getting lost in che Michelle's legacy. So there's she
Michelle's legacy. It has to be. There's che michelle legacy,
and there's the work that we're doing on his behalf,

(01:02:05):
and then there's Lisan And it was very important to
me that I still did the things that were important
to me, and that I still lived up to and
work and hone my assignment on this planet.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
And that's why I respect your story so much, because
I feel like to be able to do what you
do on top of managing this enormous legacy, Like that's
a lot, and then you have these businesses and then you're.

Speaker 5 (01:02:33):
Telling me you a grandma.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
It's just like, how are you navigating all this stuff?
You got your own day? Like it's like who are you?

Speaker 5 (01:02:44):
Are you super one?

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
No? No, I there's a through line m h. Right.
And so in the beginning, I did feel very scattered.
I don't want to pretend. I think sometimes we want
people to show up on the other side of the
journey and we look at that as like, Okay, she
did it super simple. It's not it wasn't It wasn't easy.

(01:03:09):
It was simple, but it wasn't easy. And in the
beginning I realized I have herout Carlsbad, which is a
female focused, very inclusive and welcoming business accelerator and co
working space and member community for entrepreneurs helping people grow
and scale their business. They're Shaping Freedom, which is a
personal growth company. I have products and all of that.

(01:03:30):
There's my brother's estate, and then there was the production
that Jenny and I pulled together for in support of
Jean Michelle. The through line of all of that is
family legacy. You know, Shaping Freedom is about the work
that you do within yourself to heal yourself up, to
resolve and bring to completion those things that stand in

(01:03:53):
your way so that you can show up in a
more positive way and contribute to your family legacy. A
lot of the reasons why people don't move forward, or
the reasons why our families and by our I mean
anyone's family don't move forward, has a lot has more
to do with emotional and mental stuff, burnout, not setting boundaries,

(01:04:15):
not being able to clearly communicate, not being able to
express the ways that we truly truly feel because we
are put into these environments where we can't tell the
truth or where we allow ourselves to not tell the truth.
That shaping freedom Harrah hub Carlsbad is about the legacy

(01:04:37):
of being able to live your dreams and having community
and support to help you to live your dream and
curate your professional and entrepreneurial dream. And then there's the
work that you already know about with my brother's estate.
So that is the that's how I'm able to do

(01:04:59):
the number were of things that I do because it's
not this kind of disjointed thing. It is all about
the reason that I was put on this planet, and
I truly believe that my assignment is to help human
beings to be in a better relationship with themselves so
that they can help their families. And we talk a

(01:05:20):
lot about generational wealth, but you can have all of
the financial wealth in the world if you do not
have within your family unit, even if your family is
just you, if you do not have emotional and mental strength, resilience,
and wealth, none of that matters because you're not going

(01:05:42):
to be able to enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
Yeah, that was a bar.

Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
That was a bar.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
So what has entrepreneurship taught you about trusting your own
voice everything.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
Everything. Everyone has an opinion about things and there's nothing
wrong with it. There are a lot of experts out there.
There are a lot of folks who know what they're doing.
You can't do it all by yourself. You have to
have a team. You have to have a team of
people that you trust, who believe in the product, the person,
whatever the thing that you're building that team around. If

(01:06:29):
you have people around you that don't believe in you,
they have to leave. They cannot be there. It doesn't
mean they're horrible people. You can do it with kindness.
But the boundary is you have to have support. You
have to have a support system, and you have to
have a team of people around you. Some are friends,
some are families, some are you know, people who are

(01:06:50):
working with you. Have that team of people around you,
but at the end of the day, you own that situation.
So while you have a name of experts, you have
to trust yourself enough to be able to state what
you want and what you need because at the end
of the day, it all comes down to you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Yeah, you know what do you think your parents and
John Michelle was said about how you and your sister
is carrying the family name.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
Oh. I think they would be thrilled.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Yeah, I know, because you'll not playing well.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
I mean, you know, I will share this.

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
And I don't talk about this very much, but my brother,
you are, they are. I'm enjoying this conversation with you.
Jem Michelle was the last male Bosqual and he didn't
have children, so his name, I mean, I'm a bosquea too,
but he his name was the last in the lineage,

(01:07:50):
in our lineage. M yeah, wow, he feels I know.
He took the bosqueals out with a bang. It come on,
we're going to do this. Well. Yeah, I think they'd
be proud. I think they'd all be very happy and proud.

(01:08:12):
I think that the other part of it, and I
would be remiss if I didn't say also that you
cannot when you want to be up to big things,
when you want to do huge things, and when you
want to make huge impact, the need it is critical
that you also have self care, that you take care

(01:08:34):
of yourself, and that you balance things out. So I go,
I go, I go hard, and most of the time
I don't always do it, but most of the time
I make sure that I have that the pendulum is
swinging both ways to keep my life in harmony. So
if I need, if I need a minute, I take

(01:08:55):
a minute. If people are because there's a party every day,
if someone's reaching out and I'll have friends who were like, girl,
come out, let's party, I'm like, no, I need a minute,
and I take that minute. So I think you have
to listen to yourself and use your self as the
barometer for how you're going to show up in the world.
And also staying focused. If you want something done, it's

(01:09:18):
not an Instagram selfie. I'm so sorry to say it.
That's not it. It's hard work. It's learning work. Yeah,
it's hard work, and you got to stay at it,
and you have to be focused. You have to be focused.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
That's a fact. We're almost finished. But I just want
to touch on the hard work because I think a
lot of times when people see you know yourself, or
even with me, when I when I join my network,
like it was it's blood, sweat and a lot of tears,
a lot of glasses of wine.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
That's right, like.

Speaker 5 (01:09:48):
To live out that only you can see.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
That's right, and other people don't always. That's why you
have to have only people. Let me tell you something.
The people in my world, my friends, my family members,
definitely my kids. They are like my biggest cheerleaders, my team.
We all care about each other. Our hearts are in
it right. And what people see is eban a with

(01:10:17):
a mic. They don't see everything it took for you
to get to the space that you're in, all the
moments where maybe you wanted to go and party and
do whatever or quit or quit or just be like,
you know what later for all of y'all and all
of this, I'm gonna go and we're at a bank
or whatever. The thing is, right, people don't see that,

(01:10:37):
not that they necessarily have to see it, but I
think that. But it's important to understand that there is
a journey and if you are going to be we
have to set ourselves up for success. And people don't
see the things that we're doing behind the scenes to
make sure that we can show up in these ways

(01:10:57):
that you're showing up. So it's hard work. Yeah, it's
hard work.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
It really is, because I'd be feeling like a two
dollars street walker at times.

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
Listen, I feel plucked. I cannot tell you I can
and I'm like what right, I never have to stop
and I'm like, Okay, this is my dream, right, I
want this, Like this is nobody coming for me. I
have not ad this is what you want? This is yeah,
Like I forget that it's like me right, Like it's

(01:11:32):
not it's me. And I'm very blessed and feel great
that i have the ability to to say that it's me, right,
Like this is the life that I've wanted to live
in terms of doing this work and being an entrepreneur
and all of that. And uh, for me, it's been
finding amazing people that understand that I don't have to

(01:11:54):
defend myself to I don't have to have those conversations yeah,
where people are just like you're fine, look at you,
you know. I remember once I post I was on vacation.
I was in Costa Rica with a friend of mine, Nicole,
and we had gone to Costa Rica and it was
during a week where it rained all week long and
we were making we were having fun anyway, So we
had like wine and we were like dancing in the

(01:12:16):
rain and I was like doing some dances or whatever
we put it online. I was turking or something right
whatever it was. Technically I was moving and somebody and
people were like girl almost like so much fun or whatever.
And then someone said, must be nice, and I had

(01:12:38):
a moment, must be nice. Most of us can't afford
to something like that. And I had a moment like
it was it was like thirty seconds and I was like, wow, Wow,
what is Why can't you don't know anything about this trip,

(01:12:59):
how I god on it, how much it costs. It's
just nice, Like what is that? Like what does that mean?
You know? And so I think that it's important, and
that again was a random kind of thing online, but
I think it's important to for me, it has been
very important to surround myself with people who see me,

(01:13:21):
people who see me the human being that I am,
a mother, a leader, a friend, a grandparent, and what
you do see me, not what I do, not what
they believe they think my life is about. You know,
I'm sitting here in my office on angle because I

(01:13:42):
got these two things because I couldn't drag him out
and I didn't think that you were even going to
see it. So now it's a bit of a mess,
but that's okay. And so those it's a bit mess.
Well you know this is in videos. I forgot that
it wasn't video until later on. But I will say this,
the two works that I have behind me. One is

(01:14:04):
by Ainsley Burrow, an amazing artist, amazing Ainslee Burrows, and
the other one is Ronnie rob who is in That
couch is beautiful. I know. I love that cat, love it.

Speaker 5 (01:14:20):
No, that couch is That's what I've been looking at.
I'm like, what is that?

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
I'll tell you offline because I don't want I don't
know hate it is coming out, But it's a it's
a It's the most comfortable in the middle of the
day when I'm just trying to get my thoughts together,
or where I'm like, who who can I talk to?
I just you know, who do I know? Or who
do I know who might know someone who can help
me to solve this business problem? You know that's laying

(01:14:48):
on that couch right there.

Speaker 5 (01:14:49):
Yeah, I can tell And a twenty.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Minute nap in the middle of the day doesn't wind
right right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
You know, throughout your journey managing the estate, you building
these business, you preserving your legacy, you doing so much.
What is the one thing that you learned about yourself
that has surprised you?

Speaker 3 (01:15:11):
Okay, what I've learned about myself that has surprised me
is that I've done a lot of work. I've done
a lot of internal work. And the thing about doing
your internal work is that you the more work you do,
the less tolerant you can be about your own nonsense

(01:15:35):
or bs. And so I what that has done for
me is I've become and am very selective about my time,
about my energy, about who I'm going to be around.
I'm single, about who I'm going to do. I'm inside,

(01:15:55):
I'm outside. Kind of that a gonna make me blushed.
That's funny about the bout of russion. So what I
have learned is what I has surprised me in a
nice way, in a great way, is my how congruent
I am and how how in integrity with myself I am.

(01:16:18):
And so what that means is I may not, you know,
I may not. I'm very careful and selective about what
I do, where I put my time and my energy,
including the amount of time that I'm going to be
you know, out in the streets. Right, I'm not wasting
a lot of time because I have because I'm up

(01:16:40):
to something. And so if people are in my world,
it's because we trust each other. Yah, and you know,
and we don't have to perform, you know, my friends circle.
You know, there's no performance. It's just showing up and
being who we are. And I think that that surprised

(01:17:00):
me is that I can be as clear about my
boundaries as I am.

Speaker 5 (01:17:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
Okay, So we have a few listeners questions because I
was just bragging because I'm like, listen, I have a
legacy on my show.

Speaker 3 (01:17:13):
Okay, but you got questions.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Oh yes, so Keen from Brooklyn. It's curious to know
how you feel and how would John Michelle feel about
his work becoming so commercialized? His work always evolved involved
black social commentary at the route, and now Sheen has
his work on a twelve dollar hoodie. I say, girl,
do not get me cursed out on my show.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
But what are you who, I'm sorry, who has their
work on a twelve hour hoody? John Michelle? Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
On Sheen?

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Sheen is using Oh she is using his work on
a twelve dollar hoodie?

Speaker 5 (01:17:48):
Or you didn't know about that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
I'll ask you about that later. But so here's what
I here's what I think about the to answer that question.
And I've had that question asked my sister has it,
asked the Lottel So, and this is what I'm going
to say. A state of Cheam Michelle Bosquiare exists to
preserve the legacy of Jea Michelle. Okay, And for those

(01:18:19):
folks who are troubled by or who claimed that my
brother wasn't that he would be upset at the commercialization
of his works, I will say this. Number one, it
takes money to run in a state. It takes money,
and I think people don't connect those dots. The second

(01:18:42):
thing is that there are so many people who respect
chem Michelle, who are inspired by him, who really see
him as a cultural role model, who do not have
the ability to go out and buy a painting by

(01:19:04):
Jea Michelle Basquillea. So the what's referred to and I'm
putting this up in your quotes as the commercialization of
Chea Michelle's artwork is actually an opportunity to own an
image of Cheam Michelle's, to own his art in a
way that is accessible to people who may not otherwise

(01:19:28):
be able to afford it. So for the person, for
the person who is able to go and get a
T shirt and wear that T shirt and spend whatever
they spend on that T shirt. It gives them the
ability to have that connection to Jea Michelle. It gives
the person who chooses to buy you a coach bag

(01:19:51):
when we were running that one. You know, I know
many many people who who have walked up to me
and said, look at what I have. I have this bag.
I love this purse because it's your brother's part on it.
So I don't know about the specifics of what you
just said, but yeah, I think I'm okay. He Actually

(01:20:22):
I think that I think that best case scenario, Jamachell
would be here himself. But this is where we are.
And the ability to license his work means that as
a family, we can preserve his artwork and not go

(01:20:43):
into the streets and sell his artwork, and we're able
to hold onto it and and and help to leverage
his artwork while still retaining it. You look at the
long list of stories of people who were in the
public eye who pass away and then the next thing

(01:21:07):
you know, the family has no control over what has
happened with what that person left behind. This is what
we chose to do, and this is what we chose
to do. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
Anifa from New York would like to know what would
you say to him if he was here today, Like,
what's the conversation you would love to have with him
right now?

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
Oh, my gosh, don't get me started. What I would say?
What we would talk? We would talk about what's happening
in the world. Honestly, we would talk about what's happening
in the world. We would riff on. We would riff
on social media and what you know, some of what's

(01:21:49):
happening there. Although I think Joseph Jemishell is like the
first poster ever, he was the person his work is
like these social posts, right, I think we would just
talk about what's happening in the world and what's happening
in each other's lives. We would laugh, We laughed a lot.
We would we just hang out, just like anyone else
would with their brother.

Speaker 5 (01:22:09):
I miss him, Yeah, no, I already know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
I cannot retell Azja from Memphis said, what's a funny
childhood memory with John Michelle that lives rent free in
your mind?

Speaker 3 (01:22:22):
My father had a girlfriend that and my brother decided
that for Halloween he was going to take a Venttrolocus
stummy and put it at the top of the stairs
and Jea Michelle didn't just do like a regular old prank.
You know, his pranks were elaborate, very dramatic. There were
there were productions and he he took this Controlau's dummy.

(01:22:44):
I don't know how he did it, but he like
backlit it and then he turned off all the lights
and he waited until this my father's girlfriend was walking
up the stairs. Nah, and she walked up the stairs
and this pntrol Cus dummy is like go on a
chair at the top of the stairs and it's backlit

(01:23:04):
and then he does something so that the mouth is
moving and it's saying you know whatever it was that
it was saying to her, and it freaked her.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
She could have heard herself.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
Well, I know he didn't think about any of that stuff,
but no, that I mean he he was. He just
like did things and they were elaborate. They were like
production like things. So that's one of many. I mean,
there's so many things that John Michelle, Uh yeah, so many.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
Okay, two more than we are done. Charlotte from Chicago
wants to know, do you do you ever feel like
it's a blessing and a burden having a Bosquiocht name.

Speaker 3 (01:23:49):
Yes it's a blessing. No, it's not a burden. I
think there are things that happen in life that we
have to do, and I don't always, Like I was
saying before, there are times a day where maybe I
don't feel like doing something. But I have always been very,
very proud of being Leisan Bosquia. And I mean from
the time I was a little girl, before che Michelle

(01:24:11):
did what he did. Our name and the importance of
a name was instilled in us when we were very
very young, and so we all always, like I always
walked with proud, with pride about the fact that I
am Luisan Bosquia. That's who I am. My name means

(01:24:31):
a lot to me. But the burden, I don't see
it as a burden. I see it as this is
the assignment that God has for me, this life, this
life right here. To be a first generation daughter of
a Haitian father, a Puerto Rican mother, a black Puerto

(01:24:52):
Rican mother from Brooklyn, to grow up in Brooklyn, to
experience the things that I experienced being the daughter of
a single parent who happened to be a man, to
living in Puerto Rico as a child for a few

(01:25:13):
years and having my brother be who he was and
do what he did. This is all of this is
my assignment, and so you can't part with some of
it because then the whole story changes. And it's a
story that I'm very interested in, and I know that
I have agency in and how I walk this story.

(01:25:39):
Some aspects of the story, like my brother passing away
and all this happening weren't expected and weren't planned. But
so I can't control that. But what I can control
and what I do have, what I do control and
pay attention to, is how I'm going to walk. So no,
I don't see it as a burden. I don't see
life as a burden. See, life is a set of challenges,

(01:26:02):
lots and lots of challenges, and lots of opportunity. Yeah,
and lots of opportunity because most of the things that
we see as burden or you know, are really there
to teach us something if we're only willing to open
ourselves up to the ability to learn.

Speaker 2 (01:26:20):
Yeah, you know how many times when people when you're
paying for something with your credit card, people look at
you and then look at the credit card, and they
look look at you and they'd be like.

Speaker 3 (01:26:28):
All the time, right, all the time, all the time.
I'll give you a really quick quick story. One time
I was at a supermarket in New Jersey. I was
at a super market in New Jersey. This is like
eighteen years ago, and I was in the store with
someone and I walked over to the counter and it
was the counter, the deli counter. And I walked over

(01:26:48):
and I guess I gave the person my credit card
and the person says to me, oh, are you related
to that to the famous artists? And I said yes,
and he said, oh, how are your related? I said
my brother and he said, oh yeah, my, what do

(01:27:09):
you say. My roommate said that he was just hanging
out with him last week or something last week, So
I said what he said, Yeah, I was just hanging
out with him. Yeah, you know, he's hanging out with
him last week they went party or whatever. And I
looked at him souse. I was like, this person has
to be joking or trying to be funny. And I said,

(01:27:31):
are you serious? And he says yeah, And I said
your roommate He said yeah. I said, are you pulling
my leg? And he said no really, And I said,
so you how have you heard about this artist? And
he said no, I just hear about him here and there.
And I said, okay, I think you should go look

(01:27:52):
the artists up. I think before you throw it around,
I think you should go where I please let me know.
I think you should go. I think you should go
look look him up because it's like Tupac right, I'm like,
go look this up. His storia because you got the
story isn't making sense to me? So yeah, people do

(01:28:12):
all the time.

Speaker 5 (01:28:12):
People are bug out.

Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
I'm telling you they are.

Speaker 2 (01:28:16):
Only in the Tri State area.

Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
I don't know. I think it's all over the world.
I think it's all but the Tri State area is
very quite special.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
And last, but not least, mel Queens wants to know,
how do you think your brother would have been on
social media? I feel like he would have been flexing.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
Oh well, what I was the first thing that came up.
The first thing that came up was Jem Michelle would
blow up anything that he decided to get involved in,
anything that was of interest to him. Joe Jeum Michelle
was going to do it, and he was going to
do it so on social media. I think that he
if he chose to be participating. He would absolutely blot

(01:28:59):
it because people, yes, he's an artist, but people really
wanted to know what he had to say, you know,
and he had a lot to say. So I think
he'd I think he'd be he'd be having a good
time on social media.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
Yeah, he'd be on a shave so many times.

Speaker 3 (01:29:16):
He would, he would, he would.

Speaker 2 (01:29:20):
Oh my god, this has been a treat. I can't
express to you and your team how much this really
means to me. And just seeing a reflection on myself
and you and just seeing how you are able to
navigate so many different worlds have been beyond inspiring. So
I really appreciate you taking the time to have this
conversation with me.

Speaker 3 (01:29:38):
Seriously, thank you. Thank you so much, Ebanie. This was
this was like talking to a friend. I really appreciate
how welcoming you've been and how kind you've been. So
this is fulco to me. I appreciate it very very much.

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
Thank you. And I guess I tell my daddy I
talked about him on a shell to you.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
I should tell you Daddy you talked about you know,
and just you know, you will give yourself some time,
you know, get some time.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
Yeah, So tell the people where we can follow you
at how can we support you? Let us know you
about your info?

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
Thank you. So I have the Shaping Freedom podcast, the
Shaping Freedom with Lisanboss Gap podcast that's available on all platforms.
You can buy some products from the shop dot Shapingfreedom
dot com website. I have candles, beautifully curated candles. I'm
gonna send you some ebene yoga mats. I have journals coming,

(01:30:34):
and I'm doing a capsule collection of T shirts coming,
and I also have some meditation pillows with that in mind.
This I'm pointing to the couch behind me I'm doing.
I don't know when this is going to air, but
I have programs and workshops running all the time, and
there is one coming up called the Best Ever Workshop,

(01:30:56):
Best Year Ever excuse me workshop running it on a
twenty sixth online and also on May first, so we
have two dates for that. It's online, it's two hours.
It's for those folks who set out with an intention
at the beginning of the year and here we are
in April and they're like, I don't even know right
where that So it's a it's a workshop geared toward

(01:31:20):
helping helping you to get back on track and to
course correct if that's what you need to do. And
you can support me by following me on all the
platforms shaping freedom. I'm on all the social media platforms,
and you know, just tell somebody if you know of
folks who could use some help with the things that

(01:31:40):
we just talked about, send them, send them over.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
Yes, yes, And this is the epitome of what my
model is all about. Please make sure you share your
storylines because you never know how it can be somebody
else lifelines. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
And ladies and gentlemen, Lisa.

Speaker 5 (01:31:57):
Basia, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):
Until next time, everyone, later do you gonna say bye bye?

Speaker 3 (01:32:09):
Sorry?

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
The Professional Homegirl podcast is a production of the Black
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Eboné Almon

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