Femdot & Liz Flores Team Up for Young Artists of Color in New Collab

Written by Vocalo Radio on September 24, 2020

Chicago activist, emcee and musician Femdot and muralist Liz Flores are teaming up with nonprofit organization Play Together in support of Delacreme Scholars, which aims to benefit young Chicago artists of color.

Flores will design a mural inspired by Femdot’s two forthcoming singles, “Lifetime” and “Back Home,” and the duo plans to release exclusive prints and merchandise items for sale as a part of the collaboration.

Bekoe: It’s your boy Bekoe, the illest on middays, and on the line I got a dope artist, emcee, social activist known as Femdot. How you doing?

Femdot: I’m doing well. How are you?

B: I’m doing pretty good. And I also got Liz Flores, a muralist-slash-TEDx speaker, does a lot. How are you doing Miss Liz?

Liz Flores: I’m doing really good.

B: Now, you know, you two came together to partner up and collab on a special play together, partnership. Would you care to break things down?

F: With the nonprofit Delacreme Scholars, we have a scholarship that we use to help Black and Brown students in the city. And this year, we were looking at how to expand and, just right on time, Play Together reached out like, ‘Oh, we would love to help what you guys have going on.’ And they’re like, ‘We want to combine you with another artist to create something new that we can then use that to help with the scholarship.’ And they brought a bunch of artists out there. We chose Liz.

B: How does that feel, Liz, for, you know, for them to choose you to come on board and make things happen with this partnership?

LF: It was honestly an honor. When I got the call about the collab, working with Femdot, supporting the Delacreme Scholars. Yeah, honestly, I was just honored, you know, to be chosen and that they, you know, really liked my artwork and stuff.

B: Now Liz, you know, I’m getting introduced to you. How long have you been, you know, doing murals?

LF: I’ve been doing murals for five – no, I’ve been doing murals for two years. I’ve been doing paintings and illustrations for five years.

B: Okay, so it, I mean, it was the right decision then, Fem! You made the right choice, then!

F: Well, her work is super dope. I love just how she views the world through her art. It’s super fire. So it was a pretty easy choice, honestly.

B: I got to ask you two, you know, what is it like working together?

F: She’s super cool. Liz is super cool. And super easy to work with. And it’s just kind of cool to see how our mediums kind of overlap.

LF: Yeah. And it’s, it’s honestly been really inspiring. I’ve never done, you know, a collab with a musical artist. And so, like Fem said, it’s been really cool to talk about our creative processes and see how the visual and the music overlap, and how a lot of things that, you know, you might struggle with, like with a painting, it can be really similar to, you know, creating an album or creating a new song. So it’s been really cool.

B: The mural that your painting is going to be based off Fem’s music. Can you break that down for our audience, Liz? Like, how are you gonna put that together?

LF: Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of, like, the challenge, right? Of a collaboration like this. So, I’ll first be taking the two new singles that Femdot will be releasing, and so I’ll be creating a painting first. And then that painting will be made into prints, as well as, like, some merchandise, like limited edition denim jackets that we’re going to be doing. And then from there, I’m going to, depending on the wall size that we get, I’ll be expanding the painting to also be, you know, representing those two songs. And, I mean, basically, you know, I’ve been talking to Fem a lot about the two songs, about what they mean to him. And then taking my own kind of interpretation of what they mean, too. And we’ve, you know, been talking about the designs a lot. But that’s kind of, you know, what I like to do with my art. I like to take things like emotions and, you know, human experiences and stuff and try to put it into a visual landscape.

B: Okay, now speaking on the songs, Fem, we gotta chat about the songs you have. You have two songs coming out from this collaboration. Can you break them down?

F: I mean, I like people to kind of, you know, hear them when they come. But, in the simplest terms, a lot of it’s rooted in me just being home and trying to make something happen at home. That’s the biggest focus, I guess, kind of just making things happen at home, and in the simplest terms.

B: What’s the title of the two records that we can expect?

F: The title of the two records is “Lifetime” and “Back Home.”

B: I gotta ask you two as well – out of this collaboration, what type of change would you like to see come?

F: Well, immediately just to be able to, you know, bring awareness to what’s going on in the city and be able to help, you know, more students and more artists in the city and then that maybe being a catalyst for other people to do the same. And also just to bring attention to business work as well. You know, so if you have a mural, you know, so people can see that, people can walk past it, take photos. I think the biggest thing is just wanting to bring awareness and trying to motivate people to continue to try to help the communities around them while also giving exposure to artists that we work with.

B: Liz, would you care to chime in?

LF: Yeah, I mean, I agree with, you know, what Fem mentioned. And just, you know, we want to support, you know, the next generation of artists, of artists of color, in Chicago. That’s super important. We need artists. And so for us to be able to use our art, you know, to help the community and stuff, I think that that’s, you know, that’s our main goal.